Diegetic Data Stories for Climate Communication

We present seven strategies adapting dramatic-writing craft for cases where both data and character actions motivate the story, and two practice cases of climate data comics co-created by a cross-disciplinary group with climate scientists. From these cases, we contribute two things: 1) the framing of diegetic data stories, in which empirically grounded data, visualizations, and scientific arguments are told from within a storyworld; 2) a two-axis design vocabulary of seven named strategies. Structural strategies shape a story's plot, conflict, and characters; explanation strategies anchor a single scientific concept in a concrete in-world event. On the structural axis, we suggest Misconception-as-Conflict, Detection-as-Plot and Instrument-as-Character. On the explanation axis, we name Real-Event Grounding, In-world Experiment as Demonstration, In-world Visualization Production, and Felt-Phenomenon Anchor. We offer them as transferable design strategies for climate data communicators.