Having a clear narrative arc is key to a good story. You may have noticed the example story is told chronologically—it has a natural beginning, middle, and end. It starts with the explorers arriving in Quetzaltenango. Ready to make a difference, the explorers head up the volcano to test their gear. It finishes with the photo exhibit created for community members, bringing the narrative back to the stated mission of the explorers and providing a satisfying sense of closure to its audience.

The author describes the geologic processes of volcanoes without relying on a lot of scientific jargon. Because there aren't many technical terms, a reader who isn't familiar with earth science can still move smoothly through the narrative, focusing on the high-level ideas that make the expedition important in the first place.

This folder includes visual assets you can add to your story as well as a draft of the story you can use to fill in content.

The folder includes a list of the key messages and visuals associated with each part of the story.

As you make your outline, you should keep two things in mind: your target audience and the key takeaway.

Changing a story's structure can dramatically change the message and emotions it communicates. This story is written in the first person from the perspective of one of the explorers.

• Who — Establish who is venturing out into the world and explain why they've embarked on this journey.
• Where — Locate the place or places to which they are traveling and re-create the feeling of being there for the reader.
• When — Clearly communicate the chronological order of the events that occurred on the expedition, even if the story doesn't follow a linear timeline.
• What — Include elements that evoke tension or uncertainty in the reader's mind, keeping them invested in finding out what happens next.

• Why — Explain the key takeaways from the expedition once it has ended, helping the reader understand why these takeaways are significant.

Note:

If you are signing in using your Enterprise account you must access ArcGIS StoryMaps from the app launcher.

The app is also accessible in ArcGIS Online via the app launcher.

A blank story template appears.

Around the world, volcanoes threaten nearly half a billion people. Scientists are working to better forecast when eruptions will occur.

The ribbon updates with the new title.

You can change the title at any time. Next to the Draft badge, you'll see evidence of the autosave feature in ArcGIS StoryMaps; any time you edit your story, that text will let you know your story is saving and then confirm that your changes have been saved. 

The block palette contains options for adding content. You'll tell your story using these blocks to add sections of content to the body of your story.

There are a few types of blocks you can choose from. There are Basic elements such as text blocks—paragraph, heading, quote, and so on—and there are also a few options for adding small visual accents, such as a separator or a button. Then there are Media blocks such as an embed (for external web content), image, video, or map. And finally, there are Immersive blocks such as sidecar, slideshow and a map tour.

Immersive blocks are unique in that they become full-screen takeovers of your story, providing different, interactive reading experiences. Those familiar with the classic Story Maps Journal template, for example, may recognize the split-screen feel of sidecar, where a fixed media panel displays visual content while a smaller narrative panel scrolls by. 

In 2017, a volcanologist, a photographer, and a cartographer traveled to Guatemala on a National Geographic-funded expedition.

Their goal was three-fold: to conduct innovative research that could help shape volcanic eruption warning systems; to create educational materials that explain the risks of living in the vicinity of a volcano; and to better understand what it is about these locations that is appealing enough for communities to remain there despite the risks.

These paragraphs serve as both an introduction and a summary to your story. You'll make them stand out by italicizing them.

This text serves as your first heading. Now, you'll add the rest of the text.

The text is broken into sections, each with a few paragraphs. Once all the text is in place, you'll start adding media elements.

The image is added to the story in the smallest form. Because this is a panorama, it's meant to be shown as a large image.

Depending on the width of the image you upload, larger sizes may not be available, ensuring that your content is never stretched beyond its maximum width. Full-width media, for example, must be at least 2,001 pixels wide. 

The Image options window appears.

You'll add alternative text, or alt text, that describes the image so that anyone consuming your story with a screen reader (typically used by the visually impaired) can still experience your work in its entirety. You can specify alt text in the properties menu for each media item using the Options button. Unlike captions, which appear below an image, the alt text associated with an image can be viewed by hovering over it.

The next image also includes a caption.

Dr. Stephanie Grocke sets up and tests photogrammetry equipment before the expedition up Santa María Volcano. Photo: Gabby Salazar.

Media should break up your text and underscore the points you're trying to make in each section. 

This section contains several images with scrolling text instead of captions. These scrolling image elements are called sidecars and help emphasize certain media items.

The Select a sidecar layout window appears.

A Sidecar is added to your story.

A sidecar is an immersive block with a side-by-side reading experience composed of a narrative panel on one side and a media panel on the other. Together, these two panels constitute a slide.

The image of raw coffee beans is added to the story. You'll add explanatory text to the image.

Agriculture around volcanoes thrives in the productive soil. Coffee grows particularly well around Santa María.

Together, a media panel and narrative panel constitute a slide, and you can have multiple slides in one sidecar block.

The first sidecar slide is complete.

At the bottom of the sidecar block is the slide panel. In the slide panel, you can add or remove slides, adjust the transitions between them, or remove the sidecar block from your story entirely. You can change which side the narrative panel is on by using the double-arrow button where the media and narrative panel meet.

A blank slide is added to the pane.

Hot springs are common in this region because of the geothermal activity near volcanoes. Tourists and locals alike can relax and enjoy the beautiful landscapes.

Photo: Gabby Salazar

Volcanoes have spiritual significance to local communities. It is not uncommon to see flower offerings as you climb a volcano.

Photo: Gabby Salazar

Finally, you'll add a video to the story. Videos can be hosted on Vimeo or YouTube. Any URL parameters you add to the video link—to start the video at a specific time, for example—will be preserved. 

The video is added to your story.

Make sure you're providing a mix of different views with your visual assets. Wide shots are important for setting the scene and letting a reader fully appreciate the setting of your expedition, but tight shots of textures and little details will give them a more intimate understanding of what it was like to be there. Also keep in mind that it's okay to include silent clips to provide visual texture to your story. Atmospheric clips can catch a reader's eye and pull them into the scene, but do so in a way that is subtle and doesn't interrupt the story with a separate audio narrative.

With ArcGIS StoryMaps, there are a number of options for adding and configuring a map in your story. You can add maps from your ArcGIS Online content, your organization, or ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. You can also make a simple locator map using the express map feature.

A map of the world appears. First, you'll locate the site of the expedition, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala.

The map zooms to Quetzaltenango.

A pin is added to the map. In the Map layers pane, you can add an image and descriptive text to this point. This information will be displayed in a small pop-up window if a reader clicks it for more context.

In the Drawn features pane, you'll see your newly named feature in a Layers tab.

A legend button appears at the bottom of your map.

Since this map only has one feature, though, a reader can understand the map without a legend.

Unless your reader is familiar with the cities of Guatemala, this map still won't be very helpful. To provide more context for the location of this story, you'll zoom out.

The map is added to your story.

You can now adjust the size of the block, interact with the map itself and preview its pop-up. 

A map showing the rough location of the expedition is added to the story.

You can use express maps for many purposes in an expedition story. You can add numbered points to the map to show important places you went chronologically, draw a line that retraces a route you traveled, or even outline the boundaries of your area of study. Explore the drawing tools to see how each of them works—you can always press the undo button or delete a feature to remove something you've added.

Next, you'll add a 3D scene showing the route the explorers took. This scene was authored in ArcGIS Online. To add maps and scenes to your story, you can create them in ArcGIS Online and navigate to them in the map browser when you add a new map block.

In the Add a map window, the map browser separates content into tabs like those you see in ArcGIS Online.

The My Favorites tab shows all the ArcGIS Online content that you've marked as a favorite, including the scene you just added.

The scene opens in a map editor similar to the one you used to create your express map. The Scene layers pane lists the layers included in the scene. In this case, these layers show the path that the expedition took up the volcano as well as the names of the peaks. You can make these invisible or edit them by clicking the buttons on the Scene layers tab. Note that these edits will only be applied to the scene in the story; to make permanent changes, you need to edit the scene in Map Viewer Classic.

Continue authoring your story using the template and the final result story map.

The Design pane appears with options to choose the cover layout and theme that best suit your narrative. Finalizing your story's design—its overall look and feel—is just as important as choosing the right content for your story. You want to ensure that the story's visual cues (its colors, typography, map symbology, and so on) match the tone of the narrative. These cues are what form a reader's first impression of a story's tone: dark, muted colors paired with formal fonts will signal a more serious story lies ahead, for example. When your design aesthetic and your content tone don't align, it makes for a jarring reading experience.  

The story cover is the first thing a reader sees, so you want to make sure you start off with an interesting image. For In the Shadow of a Volcano, it was important to provide immediate context about the expedition and its location, which is why the story begins with a minimal cover followed by an express map and synopsis of the overall expedition.  

The navigation ribbon appears above showing all the headings in the story.

Navigation provides a link for readers to jump to the various sections. Next, you'll set the theme for the story.

When choosing a theme, find the one that best matches the tone of your story and the look of its visuals. 

Since In the Shadow of a Volcano is a fairly light story, with images featuring strong sky blues and rich vegetation greens, Summit was the right theme choice. This light theme's modern typography and minimalist feel let the content come forward, helping communicate the excitement the explorers felt while on the expedition. 

Story themes affect everything from color scheme to typography to the basemap and symbology of an express map, all with a single click. You can switch between themes as much as you like while trying to decide which one is most aligned with your story, watching your content transform immediately.

The Preview mode allows you to see a story as a user would.

Pay careful attention to the narrative flow, and the kinds of emotional responses it elicits.

The Publish button is only visible in the Draft view.

Sharing the story publicly allows anyone to search and view it. Choosing Organization keeps viewership limited to your ArcGIS organization. You can update these sharing settings later through the More Options menu in the story builder's header.

The story is now available to others. If you click More actions and Edit story, you see the Draft badge is replaced with a Published badge. 

After publishing, you can continue to make edits or updates without affecting the shared story. When you make a change, the Published badge in the builder header changes to Unpublished changes. This signals that you've made some revisions to your story, but they have yet to be pushed to the published version.

Once you have your adjustments finalized, click Publish again to update the shared story. Or you can discard your unpublished changes using the More actions menu in the header. This is also where you can unpublish your story entirely, which will revert it to a draft and unshare the story.