Ira Glass on Storytelling

Ira Glass on Storytelling #1

• Understand the building blocks of the stories.
• Building Block One: Anecdote- sequence of actions. Helps make the feel of destination. Constantly  be raising questions.
• Building Block Two: Moment of reflection. “Heres why the hell your listening to this story, here is the point to the story.”
• Both the building blocks need to be good to make a good story.

Ira Glass on Storytelling #2

• It’s hard to find a decent story.
• Often the amount of time is takes to come up with the story is longer than the amount of time it takes to produce the story.
• You should abandon crap.
• You have to be a “killer” with getting rid of the boring parts.
• Failure is a big part of success.
• You have to record and get rid of a lot of crap before getting anything special.

Ira Glass on Storytelling #3

• Most people in creative fields go through a phase of making all crap but they have good taste (everybody goes through it, it’s totally normal).
• ”Don’t underline every third word for emphasis because it sounds very unnatural.”
• Talk the way everybody talks.
• Its normal to take awhile to get good.

Ira Glass on Storytelling #4

• Two common pitfalls:
• When people talk/act like people they see on TV (you should talk like yourself, do not imitate someone else)
• and when people only talk about themselves.