Story Shaping Guide.

Shape a gathered story so it moves people while showing the person as a whole human with agency, not a victim to be pitied, and confirm it with the person before it is ever used.

In Tell Your Impact Stories with Dignity, after gathering a story within your standard.

Shape it to move

Tell it as one real person and one real change, with specific, concrete detail. Specificity is what moves people; generic sympathy does not

Show a moment, not a summary. Let the reader feel it rather than be told to feel

Shape it with dignity

Show the person as capable and whole: their agency, their choices, their strengths alongside their need

Make your organization part of their story, not the hero of it. The person is the protagonist; you helped

Cut anything that exists only to provoke pity. If a detail is there to make people feel sorry rather than to tell the truth, remove it

The dignity test

Would the person be proud of how they are shown here? If not, reshape it until they would be

Show it to the person before you use it

Let the person see the shaped story, and how and where it will appear

Honor any change they ask for, and their right to withdraw. This is consent kept, not just gotten

Their approval, on record

A well-shaped story makes a stranger care about a real person shown with dignity, and the person in it would be proud to be seen that way. If moving people required stripping the person's dignity, you shaped it wrong; the honest version is always available and almost always stronger. Feeds the Story-in-Use Planner.

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