I like this flowchart. It helps you to reflect on your audiovisual forms for your story. Forms you might not have considered otherwise. And the chart displays links to online tools for each of the audiovisual forms.

In my view, this decision making support should be used to kickstart your process in choosing the right form of your multimedia story. But the story subject often cannot be isolated into one of the physical forms presented in the chart. Here I recommend to go a step further, by asking: Which forms support best my story arc?

In short, the story arc describes the change of your subject throughout the story. The story takes your subject (person, event, location) through low and high points, and your audience through moments of astonishment, suspense, relief, joy… How are these moments best conveyed audiovisually?

Then there is the rhythm of a story. There are moments when you want the audience to take time to reflect. This effect can be achieved by inserting an audio recording or a video clip instead of a photo. Yes the audience might still flip to the next story element, but it might as well take the time to listen or watch your intermezzo.

Such reflection on how to convey your story might finally lead you to insert a video clip of barren landscape into your story instead of a photograph. Maybe the video where nothing changes in the image might convey better the emotions you are looking for.

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