The Comfort of Consistency

On the occasional days I got out of class early in high school, I would listen to The Writer’s Almanac, a minuscule daily segment that ran from 2:55 to 3 p.m. on my local public radio station. The Writer’s Almanac, narrated by Garrison Keillor, whose melodious and calming voice is better known for the menagerie that is A Prairie Home Companion, follows a very rigid structure: a song, an array of histories, a poem, and a mantra.

The familiar consistency of this format imbues each new episode with a sense of a nostalgia. Even as I learn new stories each time I listen to the Almanac, the ritualistic elements of its craft always make me feel like I am returning home. Even in the experiencing of something so brief, my understanding of the show’s unchanging structure makes me feel snugly nestled in cozy and literary microcosm.

 

Every episode opens with an elegant piano version of a Scandinavian folk song called “Ge Mig En Dag ” (Give Me a Day), over which Keillor recites the introduction, “And here is the Writer’s Almanac for Sunday, the fourth of May, two-thousand-fourteen”—or whatever the correct day may be for the given show; episodes date all the way back to 1993. The main portion of the Almanac follows, with Keillor describing the significance of the current day in history. He then reads a poem, sometimes related to the content of the main section—for example, he recently read an excerpt of Anne Frank’s diary on the anniversary of its first publishing in English—but more often than not, a piece that stands completely alone. Finally, a reprise of “Ge Mig En Dag” rises up from the moment of silence following the poem, and over this Keillor reads the brief credits for the show and closes with the incantation, “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

Most of the tiny stories that comprise the Almanac are biographies of writers whose birthdays occur on the day of the show, but other events are recognized and brought to life as well: The birthdays of Duke Ellington and Leland Stanford, the founding of the United States Post Office and the ending of the Civil War, the discovery of DNA, the first performance of Amazing Grace—basically anything that could be deemed notable in the grand scheme of the world. The Writer’s Almanac makes this variety of content accessible by marrying it with a familiar and consistent framework.

The consistencies of the show give it a personal and familiar mood; it easily becomes a sort of aural comfort food. “Ge Mig En Dag” now triggers a Pavlovian nostalgia in me whenever I hear it: I feel like I’m in my car, driving home from school and unwinding after a long day, and also like I’m sitting by a warm fireplace with good friends on a winter day; the former feeling is a product of the actual circumstances in which I’ve heard the song so many times, the latter a product of the perfectly languid and cozy composition and performance of the music itself. Moreover, Keillor’s voice has a tranquil and hypnotic tone, and he reads with an experienced patience that entices and holds the listener’s attention. Finally, the initiation and completion of each episode with exactly the same flowery, non-perfunctory language every time gives the Almanac an air of ritual and sacredness. By creating a mood of peace and respite, The Writer’s Almanac takes a very simple concept and makes it into a cathartic ritual with a unique aesthetic.

There is certainly a lot to be said for novelty—for inventive storytelling and for surprising one’s audience. And the idea of repetition, of doing something the same way every time, does not seem like it would be very engaging. Nevertheless, if you embed your narratives with consistent idiosyncrasies—a song to open, a proverb to end, a constant tempo—you will create tiny traditions for your audience to hold on to, little anchors that tie their hearts to your stories.

Article written by: Alec Glassford on 6/6/2014

 

Tell Us How You Got There

In 2010, This American Life hit their 400-episode milestone. To commemorate, TAL staff decided to take on a challenge: produce stories pitched by their parents. Ira Glass shared an awkward story about losing his suit on a train, Nancy Updike came up with a jingle about the Erie Canal, but the far-and-away winner of this challenge was Lisa Pollak, who accepted a pitch from her mother to create a piece about “funny funerals.”

In addition to being completely hilarious, “Funny Funerals” offers aspiring podcast producers, like me, a rare insight into how to tackle a difficult story. Lisa Pollak reveals that even if you lack the ingredients of a good story (protagonist, dramatic arc, etc.), all is not lost!

I used to think Lisa’s piece was about funny funerals. It wasn’t until I listened to it about half a dozen times that I realized it was not a piece about funny funerals, but a piece about Lisa Pollak’s search for funny funeral stories.

Even though Lisa’s piece is filled with funny funeral stories, you’ll notice that the central protagonist isn’t a funeral-goer, a funeral director, or even a corpse; the protagonist is none other than Lisa herself. She is the protagonist and this is her quest: to find the ultimate funny funeral story.

Take a look at this rough story arc as you listen to Lisa’s piece:

Inciting Incident: What prompts Lisa to undertake the funny funerals story challenge? A conversation with her mom, where her mom recalls a funeral so funny she “bust a gut” laughing. Lisa wants to find a funeral story of the same caliber.

Rising Action: Lisa pores over old newspapers and books, calls experts and asks people around her for leads. Along the way, Lisa shares her findings with the audience, and although many of them are funny and interesting, she doesn’t quite yet uncover at the “bust a gut” level story she’s looking for.

Climax: Lisa is “just about to give up looking,” when she receives an unlikely tip from a TAL intern, Brian Reed. Brian suggests Lisa make one more phone call to two friends of his who supposedly have the exact story Lisa is trying to find.

(If you listen closely, you’ll notice that Lisa plants doubt and suspense along the way; for instance, a funeral director tells her she will never find a funny story. Suspense raises the stakes!)

Falling Action / Resolution: Lisa interviews Brian’s friends, who share a really hilarious story (rife with unintended innuendo) about a Ukrainian funeral. Lisa calls her mother to share what she’s found.

Reflection: Was it a “bust a gut” type story? Lisa’s mom laughs, but it is unclear if this story was as funny as what Lisa’s mom witnessed at the funny funeral she attended. Oh well. Lisa ties up the loose ends by cleverly suggesting, “she didn’t bust a gut, but maybe for my mom that only happens at funerals.”

So, maybe you’ve got a lot of content, but aren’t quite sure how to present it? Consider crafting your story arc with details from your search. Make yourself the protagonist. Because honestly, who doesn’t love a story about a smart protagonist trying to tackle a tough topic? Your journey might be just as interesting as what you find.

Podcast: “Funny Funerals,” This American Life, 2010 (11 minutes)

Article written by: Victoria Muirhead on 3/5/2014

 

The Virtuoso of Multitasking

What do you get when you combine a ragtime piano performer, classical symphonies, and a neuroscientist? A feat that pushes the boundaries of the human mind. Radiolab’s “A Head Full of Symphonies” left me breathless with its lush sounds and tight reporting. I have forever been enthralled by feats of fortitude and wit and this story does not disappoint.

With its signature rich sound effects and suspenseful narrative, Radiolab is at its finest. In this blogpost, I want to point out a technique in which Radiolab anticipates the audience’s questions. When the facts are laid out before us, the results are so unbelievable, they cause spontaneous expletives from Jad. Those expletives give the audience a feeling of “Yeah! I feel that way too!”

We are introduced first to Bob Milne who quickly turns from an unassuming man from Michigan to one of best ragtime players in the world.

*SPOILER ALERT*

He is deemed a national treasure by the Library of Congress not for what his fingers can do, but for what his mind contains. He has an intimate and emotional relationship to music, and slowly, listeners are able to glimpse how his brain processes music.

At one point in the piece when the researcher attempts to explain Bob’s unique talents, Jad asks, “Did he just say he can hear TWO symphonies in his head at one time?” an exclamation that echoes the audience’s potential incredulity to which Jessica Benko, the reporter, affirms to drive the point home. Jad also acts as an ambassador on the audience’s behalf to clarify any possible points of confusion. For example, instead of just accepting Bob’s talents, Jad asks, “Can he hear the entire symphony or just the melodies?” and “all in his head?” infusing the exchange with just the right amount of skepticism and gut reactions (“Huh!” and “I can’t believe this!”) that ultimately make the story not only compelling but relatable.

These short bursts of questions and requests for clarification force the neuroscientist and the reporter to slow down and repeat the most important details of the experiment. By anticipating what the audience would ask, listeners are increasingly invested while simultaneously becoming more familiar with the experiment’s finer points. The spurts of dialogue that interweave the reporter’s explanation also add a human touch to an otherwise dry and analytical scene.

The next time you’re producing a story and need to break down a technical or complex concept, try anticipating your audience’s questions, and interweaving dialogue that will slow the action down. These strategies will help clarify the technical details for your listeners, and will increase their investment in your story’s outcome.

Podcast: “A Head Full of Symphonies“

Produced by: Jad Abumrad, Robert Krulwich, Jessica Benko, and Mark Phillips at WYNC’s Radiolab 2013

Duration: 18 minutes

Article written by: Tina Tran on 2/24/2014

Enhancing the Magic of the Interview

I recently sat with my grandfather and asked him to tell me his life story. It only took about an hour, but that hour was perhaps the most significant hour of our entire relationship.

It’s an honor to interview another person, and there are a million little things that can make the experience more powerful and effective for both interviewer and interviewee. Rob Rosenthal has actually developed a pretty canonical checklist of how to set yourself up for an excellent interview experience, and that’s a fantastic way to prepare yourself.

Here’s a selection of my personal favorite interview tips that I’ve collected over time, hopefully some of which you’ve never heard before:

1. The essentials are essential. When I was researching for this blogpost, I talked to Jeremy Helton, who facilitated the interview that became this story from StoryCorps (one of my favorites), during his stint as a StoryCorps mobile facilitator. He told me that the most important aspect of an interview experience is that you want the interviewee to feel comfortable, listened to, and respected. Everything else you do in an interview should build on these three things.

2. Practice is crucial. Get super familiar with the equipment, then get extra super familiar. This is so you can be more fully present with the interviewee, and not thinking about or fiddling with your gadgets. If you have an iPhone and you want something that won’t require too much technical experience, I recommend downloading the Griffin iTalk app (pay version or free – both are good), and sitting down with someone to just have a regular conversation. Practice keeping the microphone 4-6 inches from the speaker’s mouth and avoid popping p’s (Remember: the iPhone mic is on the bottom of the device). If you budget extra time to get familiar with the equipment, you and your interviewee will both have a much better time.

3. Sharing your own stories can be useful. The oral historian Studs Terkel was famous for being a talker; and people used to ask him, “How can you gather so many great stories, when it seems like you’re doing all the talking?” The reason is that when you share a story from your life with people, they will be more comfortable opening up and sharing their stories with you. It may seem a little manipulative, but it works, and it will actually deepen your personal connection to the interviewee.

4. Silence can be awesome. In her book, Fierce Conversations, Susan Scott says “Let silence do the heavy lifting.” Sometimes silence can be the best way to show your interviewee that you care about what they are saying, and it opens a wide door for them to express their thoughts. It’s tremendously uncomfortable for some interviewers, so I recommend spending some time familiarizing yourself with Silence. Make friends with just sitting there, waiting. Practice it here, at a website where the goal is to do nothing for two full minutes.

5. Sentence fragments can be perfect. You can’t always just be sitting there in silence, waiting for the other person to talk. So, when you talk, what are you supposed to say? Do you need to think of awesome questions to ask? Actually, some of the best ways to steer an interviewee is not to think of great questions (which often puts the spotlight on the interviewer’s skills, not what you really want to do), but just to give people little contact statements that remind them that you’re listening to what they’re saying. Try just repeating the last handful of words that your interviewee just said, and that will get them talking again – that can work wonders. In the above story from StoryCorps, notice how the one moment where the interviewer steps in – he’s essentially saying a sentence fragment: “So your father thought that the shock of meeting him…” He’s reassuring the interviewee that he’s listening and interested in hearing more. That’s all it took to get the ball rolling again.

6. Multiple endings can be spectacular. The Kitchen Sisters like to say “this is the last question” when they actually have plenty of questions left. This is because people relax when they think the interview is nearly over. They relax even more when the interview is actually over. That’s why, even after saying “thank you so much,” The Kitchen Sisters keep the tape rolling, so that when the interviewee starts talking again about the same topic (eg, “you know this is really great that we’re doing this interview, because…”), they can just pick up the microphone and keep the interview going.

7. Keep the story in mind, throughout the interview. If you’re doing a StoryCorps style interview, you can basically let the interviewee guide the experience. But when you’re the producer of a story, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to get out of the interview. This will help you frame your questions such that your interview will provide the killer tape that you need for your story. I started this post with Rob Rosenthal, and I’ll finish it with Rob Rosenthal. Rob has his own important set of guidelines on how to steer the narrative ship during an interview. It’s called “Imagining the Story.”

Did I follow all of these guidelines to a T when I interviewed my grandfather? No way. In fact, if anything, I think I followed tip #4 too much, because there were several moments of silence where my grandfather said, “I guess that’s about all I have to say.” This isn’t because he’d run out of stories (he’s ninety-five), but because he didn’t know how to keep the momentum going, how to keep thinking of stories. If I’d spoken more, there likely would have been fewer of these awkwardnesses.

But every interview is followed by those “I should have said that” moments. More important than any tip-list or to-do list is to focus on being present during the the interview, interacting with another real, actual person. In fact, the most powerful moments of connection between me and my grandfather — like hearing him talk about how he never met his father, and how has always wanted to — had nothing to do with my skill as an interviewer, and everything to do with the simple fact that we were sitting there together, just to talk.

image via flickr

Article written by: Will Rogers on 12/4/2013

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Unexpected Logic

I’ve listened to hundreds of podcasts, and I can count on one hand the ones that have brought tears to my eyes.

 

The first time I listened to This American Life’s ‘Kid Logic’ was back in February. I was walking around Stanford, streaming it on my iPhone. The first piece, called “Baby Scientists with Faulty Data,” is all about how kids use their own brands of “logic” to come to scientific conclusions. For instance, an African American woman talks about the first time she saw white people, and how she assumed they must be ghosts.

 

 

In the last four minutes of the segment (starting at 13:11), Jack Hitt recounts the time he told his four-year-old daughter about Jesus. Now, it isn’t every day that I hear about Jesus, Christianity, or any religion on the radio or on TV. And on the rare occasion I do, religion is often cast in a tentative, skeptical light. As a religious person, I’m used to bracing myself for the moment in radio pieces in which religious beliefs are undercut.

 

But that’s not what happened here. In fact, if anything, the opposite happened. By the time Hitt finished his story, I noticed tears welling up in my eyes. I was touched. I was surprised. I felt like this little short segment was a personal shout out to listeners who believe in Jesus, like me. This level of surprise is part of what made me cry, but later I realized that the surprise in this story is functioning on other levels too, namely at the level of character.

 

Here’s a quick synopsis of the story. Hitt tells his daughter the story of Jesus, and when he subsequently tells her about Martin Luther King, Jr., he explains that King’s message was “You should treat everybody the same, no matter what they look like.” His daughter replies, “Well, that’s what Jesus said.” Hitt pauses to consider what his daughter said, and (spoiler alert!) after a minute she looks up at him and asks, “Did they kill him [King], too?”

 

A few weeks later I ran into Anish, a friend of mine who is an atheist. We both love This American Life. He told me, “I heard something on This American Life recently that was one of the most moving pieces in radio that I’ve heard in a long time.” I flipped through my mental catalogue of shows in an effort to try to guess which episode he was referring to. His answer caught me off guard — the piece he found moving? “The one where the little girl talks to her dad about Jesus.”

As I chatted with Anish, I realized that the reason this piece moved me and Anish had little to do with our religious beliefs, and a lot more to do with Hitt’s narrative technique. In less than 4 minutes, Hitt had managed to tell a story that was at once believable, yet very surprising. But what gives this surprise such emotional weight?

A surprise happens when expectations are created, then inverted. The surprise in this story functions primarily at the level of character construction. There is something so innocent, and so unadulterated about a little child making this connection between Jesus and King– but there is also something so unexpected about the connection too.

One of the reasons the exchange between Hitt and his daughter is so moving is that his daughter is only four-years-old. Hitt makes sure to emphasize this fact throughout the piece – he does everything from speaking in an excited, childlike voice when he narrates her parts, to pointing out that her pre-school celebrates MLK Day. Hitt never says, “I thought she was too young to draw insightful connections,” but from the way he presents her, we, as listeners, subconsciously make that assumption. We don’t expect Hitt’s daughter to be able to make those deep connections between Jesus and King, so we are completely floored when she does.

I believe that Hitt was genuinely surprised by his daughter’s observation, but notice that he doesn’t say, “I was surprised.” Instead, he shows his surprise by painting an innocent, charming picture his young daughter, and surprising us with a few well-crafted lines of dialogue.

If you want to surprise your audience (and perhaps make them reach for a tissue), try it through characterization: create a set of expectations about your character, then turn those expectations in-side-out.

 

Podcast: This American Life, “Baby Scientists with Faulty Data”

Time: Jack Hitt piece begins at 13:11 (4 min)

 

Article written by: Victoria Muirhead on 11/19/2013

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Hanging Out at Warp Speed

When I listen to Radiolab, I feel like I’m in the studio with them while they tinker, banter, and generally have a good time, and for years I’ve been perplexed by how they can accomplish this; they take their stories to some of the biggest and smallest places in the universe, and the entire time they make it feel like they’re all just hanging out! How is it that they can possibly maintain a casual/comfortable vibe in a show that’s so densely packed with material?

I recently discovered somewhat of an answer to my perplexity, and I wrote this blogpost to share it. If you want the tl;dr version, it’s the following: they tell their stories to each other instead of telling them directly to the audience, and they do that over and over again, until it’s just right.

For the longer version, read on:

On Radiolab, producers tend to tell their stories to each other in the studio, rather than narrating directly to the audience.

There’s a brilliant blogpost by Lulu Miller, who used to be a producer at Radiolab, all about how they discovered this part of production style. It tells the story of how they struggled to finish one of their first pieces, Goat on a Cow. What happened is that the audio-produced version of the story didn’t do justice to the excitement that the story’s author and producer, Laura Starecheski, had for the piece, and so they asked Laura into the studio to just tell them the story live, without text, from the beginning. That conversational version of the story sounded immensely better than the scripted version she read into a microphone, so they used it. And now they use this technique on basically all of the stories they produce: just get the producer into the studio, and ask them to tell you the story, from the beginning.

When I read Lulu’s blogpost, it was a major “aha” moment for me. I’ve personally struggled a lot with how to tell a story in a way that sounds natural, like you’re just telling it to another person, and this innovation (…literally just telling it to another person!) seemed so simple and brilliant.

But there was something more to it. Something a little bit tricky.

I noticed it when I was listening to one of their stories from earlier this year, Adoptive Couple v Baby Girl. It’s is one of the best things I’ve heard on the radio in a long time, and I wasn’t even a little bit surprised when it won an award at the Third Coast Filmless Festival in October.

It’s about this two-year-old girl who was adopted at birth. Even though she lived with her adoptive parents for two years, the parents were forced to return her to her biological father, who is a member of the Cherokee Nation. It’s a brilliant story, and you should seriously listen to it if you haven’t already.

The thing that caught my ear, when I was listening to it, is kind of a tiny moment, and it’s not even directly related to the story itself.

The story’s producer, Tim Howard, is telling the story to Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad. Again, you can feel the dynamic style of storytelling that can only happen between two people. Jad occasionally objects, gets clarification, or laughs, and all of these little things  remind us that this is a live storytelling experience, and they help us feel as if we’re sitting right there in the room with Tim while he’s telling the story.

About twenty minutes into the piece, The moment happens. Tim says to Jad, “I was trying to get in touch with [the biological father]; I was pestering his lawyers… this went on for weeks, and they were basically like, ‘He doesn’t want to do interviews. He doesn’t want to talk.’”

Jad responds, “…so you didn’t get him.”

After an exhale and an elongated pause, Tim says, “Yeah I got him.”

Jad laughs, and the story continues; Tim travels to Oklahoma to meet the girl and her father.

Did you notice the tiny moment? Probably not — it’s ok. It’s the moment where Jad says, “…So you didn’t get him.” When I heard it, I was thinking about Lulu’s blogpost, and how it’s so important to have the story told to a person, rather than read to a microphone, and I thought, Wait a second: There’s no way that Jad could have not known that Tim got the interview in Oklahoma. After all, these people work on the same production team!

Jad *must* have already known whether Tim had gone to Oklahoma or not, and if this was true, it would mean that the producers on the Radiolab staff are playing a theater game, acting as if they’re telling/hearing these stories for the very first time, even though they have already told/heard the stories many times already.

I couldn’t be sure this was the case without asking someone who actually works there. I wanted to ask Jad, but I was scared because he’s kind of a hero of mine; so I asked Lulu Miller instead. After all, she wrote the blogpost about this thing.

…But then Lulu said that I really needed to ask Jad…

And so I did. I sent him an email with a simple question: Is it very common for Radiolab producers to tell each other stories that they’ve already told each other?

He responded within five minutes, giving me his phone number(!), and the next thing I knew, I was talking to Jad, frantically typing notes on what he said.

He said that they absolutely tell each other stories the’ve already told each other. When a producer gets toward the end of a story’s production, he’ll sit down with him or her and say, “Okay, I know you know this story, but just tell it to me chronologically, and I’m going to interrupt you a bunch of times.”

He said that after several tellings of a story, “little asides and stumbles start to come out” and the producers get a better idea of which parts of the story are the most compelling and the most relevant.

And what about that specific moment?

“I’m Tim’s editor,” he said, “so I knew exactly where that story was going.” He confirmed what I had imagined: even though what he said was “…so you didn’t get him,” he knew that Tim was going to tell him he got the interview.

So they’re acting! Right? Well, Jad actually disagrees with the word “acting” to talk about what’s going on. He emailed me to make this point extra clear. “We’re not actors,” he wrote. “The goal is not to get ‘the best performance.’ The goal is actually to get the producer to a place that’s emotionally authentic. Where they’re as genuinely engaged and energized by the story they’re telling as they were when they first encountered it.”

Some people might suggest that it’s dishonest to engage in this process of telling and re-telling stories in front of an audience, and I’ll admit that part of me felt a little tricked when I first caught on. Right now, though, I think of this process just like I think about writing, re-writing, and editing a text version a nonfiction story — these re-tellings can actually get you closer to the most honest version of the story, especially with the help of an editor.

So if you want to get a good handle on which portions of your story are the most compelling — both to you and to your listeners — tell your story again and again to your co-producer, and notice the moments where you and that person come alive. Keep those moments, and share them with your audience. No matter how complex or deep or philosophical your story is, those moments will invite your listeners to join you in the sheer delight of the storytelling experience.

Article written by: Will Rogers on 11/7/2013

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Promises, Promises

Some people have superpowers, and Ira Glass’s superpower just might be framing and introducing stories. We have been so awed by this superpower over the years that we finally decided to concatenate a bunch of Ira Glass intros, listen to all of them back-to-back, and see what kinds of lessons we could glean. We decided, in other words, to x-ray that uncanny knack he has for duct-taping us to every story This American Life presents.

This exercise is hard for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is that it’s like turning on the song of the siren and trying to not get hypnotized. While we were working on this, we had to remind ourselves, ‘No, we’re not here to listen to the stories. We’re here to listen to the introductions.’ Glass puts you right in that place where you care about what happens next… and then you have to listen to yet another introduction. The process is incredibly frustrating, and that’s because Glass is doing his job incredibly well.

Another reason the exercise is hard is there that Glass doesn’t use a formula—it’s not like the introduction to a sitcom or an NPR news show. He does, of course, use the structure of “’Act… Title of Story…” then give the name of the storyteller, as well as a couple other details—the location, maybe an important character or two, and the basic setup. But these are not the elements that get us hooked.

We noticed two elements occurring over and over in every introduction: a promise and a consistent sensibility.

Glass is a master of promising. Let’s focus on this aspect first: there’s a promise in nearly every sentence of every intro, which builds into one big promise, and the story is what ultimately delivers on that promise. Here’s one of the introductions, as an example, with our comments in bold:

Glass: “Act 1: Hasta la Vista Arnie. Scott Miller was not an experienced therapist back when everything you’re about to hear took place. (I’m about to tell you what he was.)

He was a beginner, a grad student, starting off at a local psychiatric hospital, when this patient came in. (I’m about to tell you more about the patient.)

A guy who had been doing ok, leading a more or less normal life, when one day, the guy snapped.” (Curious? Don’t worry, you’ll get details on what I mean by this.)

Scott Miller: “He would go on and on babbling about how he was the Terminator.” (Are you even more curious? Better listen to the story then…)

It’s a little like carrying a candle into a magical cave – every step shows you something that makes you want to take yet another step inside.

The other element, sensibility, is a bit more complicated to describe. It has to do with the kind of thing he promises: authentic, human-level drama. Listening to these, you get the sense that the discoveries Glass promises are the kind of things that he genuinely cares about. You see this sensibility in the foreword to Glass’ book, The New Kings of Nonfiction. Whenever he describes why a piece has been selected, these are the words that consistently appear: discovery, curiosity, empathy, transparency, human drama, and pleasure.

Here’s another example from the concatenation; this time our comments, in bold, attempt to pull out the sensibility that is inherent to the intro.

Glass: “Act 1: ‘I’m the Decider.’ You know there are all kinds of situations where we step in as reluctant proxies. (It’s good to help other people, even though sometimes it’s not convenient.)

As a favor to friends and family, taking over a chore that they don’t want to do, taking their kids or their pets off their hands for a while. (It’s good to help other people with their everyday responsibilities.)

Doing something because it’s the right thing to do and nobody else is stepping in. (Sometimes other people won’t step in to help when it’s needed, but it’s good if you do.)

That’s what happened to Davy Rothbart, more or less.” (Meet our story’s main character, who is about to do a good thing, by stepping in to help somebody.)

This story is about Davy Rothbart trying and failing to help a friend. But notice that Glass’ intro doesn’t give away the main character’s ultimate failure in the intro, but focuses instead on his sense of duty, which is the positive vein of the story, and the thing we can all relate to.

So there is no formula per se, but there is the perpetuation of promise, and more promise, and more promise. Alongside a genuine appreciation for the generous, altruistic side of human nature.

We can all mimic this, of course, in our own ways. You don’t have to be passionate about the same things Ira Glass is. Take the energy of what you love about your story, and exude that in your introduction. Your listeners will identify with your enthusiasm, disbelief, and joy. Then don’t reveal too much, just promise us that what’s coming next is worth sticking around for.

—

Host intros pulled from the following This American Life episodes:

15 Dawn
77 Pray
159 Mother’s Day
263 Desperate Measures
319 And the Call Was Coming from the Basement
327 By Proxy
480 Animal Sacrifice
495 Hot in My Backyard

Article written by: Bonnie Swift and Will Rogers on 10/23/2013

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The Most Engrossing Horrible Vacation

The infamous story of Typhoid Mary has been told and retold so many times that many people believe they understand the whole story (that she started the outbreak of a disease she didn’t even experience). However, in “The Most Horrible Seaside Vacation,” the Radiolab team paints a new picture of Typhoid Mary, one much more relatable and personal than any I’ve heard before.

How do they make it so intimate? By recreating Mary’s point of view through reenactments of her perspective and weaving in historical documents.

The piece starts in the present, on a now-abandoned island that once quarantined victims of contagious disease, including one Mary Mallon. It then transports us back to the turn of the 20th century to Oyster Bay, New York, where several cases of typhoid emerged, all leading back to Mary Mallon as the carrier. What then ensues is a harrowing battle of wits as Mary desperately tries to convince the government that she is not, in fact, contagious.

The fact that it begins in the present elevates the listener from a mere passive bystander to being a thoroughly engrossed participant — you’re there with the producers on the island. One of them has very same view that Mary Mallon experienced, while she was quarantined. “Holy Moly!” he says, “If this is where her cabin was, then one window of it looked exactly onto Manhattan… you can see the traffic on the streets.” And by reenacting Mary’s perspective, he is recreating her point of view, giving listeners a chance to stand beside her and see what she saw all those lonely years.

Seeing what Mary saw helps listeners to begin to understand what she might have been thinking, but historical documents show us exactly what she was thinking. For example, after she is first placed under quarantine, she fights for her own release, and in the piece, an actress reads Mary’s letters to her lawyers. “I have in fact been a peep show, for everybody,” Mary’s letter says. At this point, it’s as if Mary is telling the story herself. This correspondence helps us visualize the people around her, and the time period, the way they talked.

Every story happens in a specific time and place, and in this story, the historic documents take us to the time and the reenactments take us to the place.

By the end of the story, I didn’t feel like a detached spectator, but rather an involved witness and confidant to the trials of Mary Mallon. So what actually became of her in the end? It wouldn’t do much good for me to tell you – better to let you go there yourself, and get the story straight from the source.

Podcast: “The Most Horrible Seaside Vacation”
Produced by: Sean Cole, Lynn Levy, Jad Abumrad, and Robert Krulwich in 2011 for Radiolab
Duration: 15 minutes

Article written by: Tina Tran on 10/10/2013

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How to Tell a Heartbreaker

This country’s history is filled with stories that are difficult to read. I’ve been trying to finish Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee for a year and a half now, and can only get through one chapter before I have to set it down. It takes me a month or so before I have the energy to pick it up again. These kinds of stories take tremendous effort to absorb, and yet these are important stories and we should know them.

But how do we convince our listeners to listen to stories that yield an immediate jolt of sorrow and shame?

One way is to couch them in more hopeful narratives, as evidenced by pieces like this, which tells the extremely difficult story of Chief Joseph within a more buoyant, contemporary framework.

What NPR’s Alex Chadwick accomplishes in this one is amazing. His first strategy is to set the story in the present, so that it is not simply a retrospective piece, like many documentaries. The action here is ongoing, so as listeners we have an investment in how it will unfold.

It begins when a local archaeologist proposes that the government officers of the Clearwater National Forest and representatives from the Nez Perce tribe take a trailride along the historic Nez Perce Trail together, so that the tribe can explain some of what is in forest to the federal employees. This comes after many years of poor relations between the two groups, and the Forest Service is hoping that stories from the Nez Perce might provide a missing link in the broken chain of communication between them.

Chadwick tags along, and we are privy to the small steps these two groups take towards reconciliation during their four days together. We listen to their ceremonies, their discussions along the trail, reports on the weather (rain), and descriptions of the passing landscape. We hear them enjoying each other’s company around the fire, their singing, and of the periodic awkward silences between them. Through the first half of this story, we become increasingly convinced that some kind of peace will be brokered here.

It’s at this point [11:00], that our narrator Chadwick brings in the agonizing story of Chief Joseph, his flight through the mountains, and his eventual capture. And this is Chadwick’s second brilliant strategy: he withholds the central trauma of the story, and approaches the difficult material only after he’s established a positive tone for the piece. As listeners, we get our lesson in the gruesome side of American history without feeling trampled by it, because we are already feeling optimistic about the present-day part of the narrative. We can absorb the tragedy of the Nez Perce War, because we have already been given a sense that something is being done to understand and remedy its fallout.

On the fourth and final day of their journey, there is an exchange of gifts, and the tribe is eager to broach the difficult subject of maintaining the historic trail in collaboration with the Forest Service. There is an openness which neither side has experienced before. As they reach the end of their ride, there is an acknowledgment of the lingering bitterness and anger felt by the tribe, but a mild sense of transformation is also palpable.

When you are given a heartbreaker to tell, you can try these two tricks: set the retrospective action within a current, ongoing narrative, so that your listeners have a stake in the story’s outcome. Then postpone the most painful part of your story, and embed it within a chorus of brighter notes. Getting acquainted with history is crucial to the ongoing reconciliation process, and stories like this will make the learning process more accessible to a wider audience.

This story reminds us that history is not over, or as one character in the story, Ben Horace, says, ‘Even today, we’re still on a journey. We need to have courage.’

Podcast: “Nez Perce Trail: Rediscovery,” 2001
Time: Hearing Voices: Native America: Our Nation’s First Nations, starts at [2:30] Host: Alex Chadwick; producer: Carolyn Jensen Chadwick; editor: Christopher Joyce; engineer: Suraya Mohamed.
Duration: 19 min

Article written by: Bonnie Swift on 9/26/2013

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