Over the decades, I’ve worked on a range of strategy and story projects, with clients across creative and commercial industries — a few of which are below. Over time, my work has evolved into what I now call an applied narratology: the practical craft of communication and storytelling, a mode of critical thinking, and ultimately, a conscious form of worlding — how stories shape relations, decisions, and actions.
It turns out we really are Homo narrans after all.
— Steve Seager, Founder, The House of Narratology
"It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.”
A cosmic tango…
The stories we’re born into, our perception, our social environment, these things do not exist in isolation. They are entangled in a kind of cosmic tango—perpetually acting, reacting, interacting. 1,2,3
Stories are not static artefacts. They are shadows of our cognition—emergent, morphing over time, coalescing into narratives, then dissipating, reconfiguring over time. 3,4
The stories we encounter each day focus our attention, rippling through our sense of what’s relevant and real. 5
Stories scaffold and afford the creation of reality. 6
“How do we think our way through the messes we’re in when the way we think is part of the mess?”
Weirdly North Atlantic
The cultural context we’re born into rewires our brains, biology, and psychology — entraining us into particular ways of seeing and sense-making. It shapes how we understand identity, leadership, strategy, and our relationship with the planet.7,8
If you were raised in a WEIRD (Western, educated, industrialised, rich and democratic) society, you’re likely strong in analytical thinking and weaker in relational thinking. You’ll default to North Atlantic myths and metaphors, with the Hero’s Journey as your go-to story structure.”7, 11, 12
We help you recognise these inherited patterns — and explore alternatives better suited to our complex reality. 9, 10
"As a species, we don’t just use stories to communicate with, we use them to think and adapt with."
A very applied narratology
As homo narrans, we’re deeply shaped by the stories baked into our upbringing, education, media, organisations, and systems. They condition how we make sense of the world—and limit what we can see.13,14
Practical and pluralistic, our form of applied narratology helps reveal what today’s dominant narratives conceal.15
We help leaders craft alternative stories about their organisations, their worlds, and their role in it—opening new insight, creating new possibilities to shape the world around us. This is innovation, just not as you’ve experienced it before.
The classical definition of narratology is the study of narrative, its structures, and their effects on perception. Traditionally, it focuses on literary, film, and media texts.
Our applied narratology focuses on narrative in practice: the patterns stories take, how they interact with human cognition, and how they actively shape the worlds we inhabit and create — a process Donna Haraway calls worlding.
It rests on three foundations.
Practice. Over thirty years of transdisciplinary strategy and story work across EMENA, spanning cultures, industries, and sectors. A praxis forged in contexts where consequences are concrete, immediate, and often high-stakes.
Theory. Informed by narratology, management theory, cognitive science, complexity science, post-humanist ecofeminism, and related fields concerned with how humans construct, convey, and transform meaning.
Nous. An embodied perceptual capacity to sense narrative structure — the equivalent of a musician’s ear, an architect’s eye, or a dancer’s body. The ability to perceive pattern, rhythm, coherence, and possibility before the words arrive.
We work with leaders and organisations through consulting, coaching, and training, applying this craft directly to mission-critical challenges in strategy, leadership, organisations, communication, and complex decision-making — and helping others do the same.
Our practical craft offers leaders, strategists, and communicators a distinct set of benefits:
In my experience, getting to grips with the principles and practices of our applied narratology changes the way you see, think, and act in the world.
Over time, you become a savvier sense-maker, a cannier strategist, a more adaptive leader — and, naturally, a more impactful storyteller.
I hope we get the chance to work together.
Be splendid.
— Steve
Founder, Principal
Our founder, narratologist, strategist, and sense-maker in Chief. After 30 years in the field, he has an uncanny knack of finding the red thread of client challenges in a heartbeat. Innately curious, unwittingly eclectic, Steve is empathic, fast, and fun to work with. Go read his Field Notes on Substack for his unfettered thoughts on life, the universe and everything.
Partner, Practice Lead
Michiel has worked with world-renowned musicians, rebuilt iconic brands, grown a startup from scratch to acquisition, advised C-suites, and mentored senior leaders. Michiel brings clarity and focus, but also excitement, scale and momentum to our work. He loves public speaking and turning complex ideas into something others can connect with.
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Originally published in 2015 on my personal blog, Beyond the Hero’s Journey explored four alternative narrative structures to Joseph Campbell’s infamous monomyth. It attracted 100,000+… Read more
Scaling rarely fails because of effort or ambition — it fails when strategy itself cannot travel. This guide explores the growing pains a scale-up CEOs… Read more
In The Corporate Life Cycle: Business, Investment, and Management Implications, Aswath Damodaran shows that a CEO’s effectiveness can be read in how well they develop… Read more
In which we look at the WEIRD North Atlantic narrative repertoire through the lens of Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety — and offer three small… Read more
Three systemic threads of the North Atlantic knowledge practice bind discourse and thinking in this part of the world: Scientific rationalism, epistemic imperialism, and institutions… Read more
Today’s dominant discourses, both mainstream and oppositional, are direct byproducts of the North Atlantic knowledge practice that smuggles 500 years worth of premises, assumptions, and… Read more
The work of Donna Haraway feels startlingly relevant in these in-between times. She weaves disciplines into living ideas that dissolve binaries and… Read more
It is lovely to announce that I am teaming back up with my dear friend and old Storywise (my former agency) co-founder, Michiel Gaasterland. After… Read more
Fancy a chat just to feel things out? Contact Steve, our principal on steve@narratology.house, or Michiel, our practice lead, on michiel@narratology.house. You can also send Michiel a text message via +31651198091 or book a discovery call to speak face-to-face.
1. Clark, A., & Chalmers, D. J. (1998). The extended mind. Analysis, 58(1), 7–19. https://www.alice.id.tue.nl/references/clark-chalmers-1998.pdf
2. Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again. MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262531566/being-there/
3. Stewart, J., Gapenne, O., & Di Paolo, E. A. (Eds.). (2010). Enaction: Toward a new paradigm for cognitive science. MIT Press. https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/9780262014601.001.0001
4. Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1991). The embodied mind: Cognitive science and human experience. MIT Press. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262529365/the-embodied-mind/
5. Gibson, J. J. (1986). The ecological approach to visual perception. Lawrence Erlbaum. (Original work published 1979). https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203767764
6. Matuschak, A. (2024, April 15). Cognitive scaffolding. Retrieved from https://notes.andymatuschak.org/Cognitive_scaffolding
7. Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X
8. Gould, R. K. (2025). Relationality is not WEIRD: The importance of relational thinking for sustainability science. Sustainability Science, 20(1), 103–117. https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2024.2427810
9. Zak, P. J. (2015). Why inspiring stories make us react: The neuroscience of narrative. Cerebrum, 2015, cer-12-15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cortex.2014.11.009
10. Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701–721. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701
11. Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226470993.001.0001
12. Lakoff, G. (1987). Women, fire, and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. University of Chicago Press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226471013.001.0001
13. Niles, J. D. (1999). Homo narrans: The poetics and anthropology of oral literature. University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9781512803051
14. Plummer, K. (2023). We are, it seems, homo narrans: Humankind the narrators and storytellers. Sexualities, 26(5–6), 657–668. https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231171383
15. Herman, D. (2003). Narrative theory and the cognitive sciences. In D. Herman (Ed.), Narrative theory and the cognitive sciences (pp. 163–192). CSLI Publications. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232446193_Narrative_Theory_and_the_Cognitive_Sciences