Guided tours that preoccupy themselves with describing the sequence of “points of interest” encountered along the way — what’s on the right, what’s on the left — make the fatal error of believing they are telling a story, when, in fact, they are simply announcing a route map. Dispensing facts and figures, however “interesting” those facts and figures may be deemed to be, should never be mistaken for weaving the threads of a mesmerizing plot. In the end, the information imparted is never as important as the story told. If a tour tells no story, it invariably falls flat, by virtue of its failure to entertain. The worst sin is to be boring.
Storytelling is the heart and soul of a great tour narrative. An effective guided tour has more than a beginning, a middle and an end; it has a point. Like a good story well spun, a great tour narrative forges an imaginative connection between teller and told. A great tour, with a great story as its core and context, is infused with its own particular magic and energized by its own unique electricity. One is drawn subtly and irresistibly into an experience that is inevitably “more than meets the eye,” and from which one emerges with a broader, deeper understanding, if not a more visceral sense, of place, history and character.
Deciding the story to tell is only half the story, as it were; bringing that story to life is the other half of the battle. In this, a great tour narrative uses every tool of storytelling at its imaginative disposal — historical persona, single and multiple narrators, music, sound effect, dramatic reenactment—not only to engage the attention and sustain the interest of its audience, but to immerse them within an enhanced experience whose whole is demonstrably greater than the sum of its part. A great tour is story-driven, it entertains; that’s what makes it truly memorable.
