Ira Glass is a well-known radio personality known for his work on This American Life. He has had years in the industry, and, as you might expect from a man working in an entirely audio medium, he has a lot of experience in making audio that is effective for creating narratives. Despite how you and I may think of radio as a dead medium, it is alive and well, there has even been a comeback in the popularity of ham radio, and Ira Glass’s expertise in audio storytelling can be useful in understanding new and popular forms in today’s society, such as the video essay and the podcast.
What does Ira Glass say about Storytelling?
Ira Glass says that broadcasting, or audio storytelling in a more general sense, has two main components to it: the anecdote and the moment of reflection. An anecdote is a sequence of actions linked together. Glass says that if you use anecdotes well, it can make your audio story more engaging by creating momentum in the piece, making the facts of a story more interesting, and creating suspense. The moment of reflection is used in a balance with the anecdote to tell the listener something new and the point behind the story. It is conveying the message of the story. Upholding a balance between these two components is what makes an audio story great.
As well, Ira Glass emphasizes the importance of cutting in creating audio stories.
Not every story will be a hit; a story can fall flat due to multiple reasons, including how the speaker speaks. The only way to make time to spend on a really good story is by being very ruthless in cutting out stories or audios that won’t succeed as an audio story.
The common pitfalls of the audio artist is another important focus of Ira Glass’s advice. Like any art form, learning how to make effective audio stories takes time and practice.
Creating audio stories often and consistently is important to improving your stories. There are, however, some common pitfalls.
Overemphasis
Emphasizing every word or even every third word is a way to make your audio story sound unnatural. We, as humans, do not talk like that normally, so doing so in audio makes it sound forced and unnatural
Mimicking other people
Many broadcasters or creators of audio stories try to mimic TV, radio, or even other creators. Doing this will never work because it makes people want to listen to the original creators’ of those styles instead. Instead, a creator should try to be and talk like themselves. It will sound more natural, and there is something charming about the way each person speaks.
Lack of balance
Balance is crucial in any art form, and audio storytelling is no exception. There needs to be a balance of the components, the anecdote and the moment of reflection, but more than that, there needs to be a balance of speakers and audio. There needs to be a balance between the speaker of the story and the speaker of the commentary, and there needs to be a balance between background audio and audio effects and speech.
Ira Glass attempts to share his advice in working on the radio for many years. However, his advice is simply suggestions; they are not hard and fast rules.
My thoughts on Ira Glass on Storytelling
Overall, Ira Glass’s advice on audio storytelling is great! I didn’t come into his talk knowing much on audio storytelling, so it was very easily accessible and understandable to beginners.
Glass’s thoughts on the building blocks of stories makes a lot of sense. We, as humans, are naturally oriented towards oral storytelling, which is basically what the components create. This is true in some of the oldest forms of oral storytelling, folk tales, as well as newer forms of oral storytelling like the video essay. The video essay in particular, as a form of audio and visual storytelling, is popular enough today to have jokes made about it.
As well, the pitfalls are understandable. I know that myself and many other GenZ people grew up hearing that we should be ourselves to make friends, so the advice against mimicking others follows that trend.
We don’t like people who appear fake, and because of the more conversational manner of audio stories, mimicking others feels fake to us as an audience.
As for balance within audio storytelling and needing practice to make good audio stories, this is a universal truth of storytelling that can also be applied to audio stories. I have learned from my major in creative writing that only by reading and writing a lot can you get better. The same is true for other forms of storytelling like design and visual. Balance is really the skill you are learning in making a lot of art. Each form of storytelling-written, design, visual, or audio-all require a balance of elements, even if those elements are slightly different.
I was not expecting Glass to discuss cutting, but it is another piece of advice that is widely applicable. We as artists only have so much time and creativity, so we need to cut ideas in order to find the gems to polish. Cutting can be not working on projects that you have unengaging audio for. Cutting can be editing down written works. Cutting can be not working on certain visual elements in order to perfect others. Cutting is as important as making because we only have so much time and energy as humans.
If I had one thing that I could add to Glass’s advice, however, I would add that it is important to speak with a certain flow. We don’t consciously recognize it, but as English speakers, we expect a certain rhythm to conversations.
It is most obvious when that flow is broken because the piece sounds unnatural. This is something I learned from reading written works aloud, but I think it is applicable to audio storytelling as well. People will not focus on what you are saying if the way you are saying it is off.
I think that Ira Glass’s advice is incredibly helpful, but it is also applicable outside of the world of audio storytelling. Multiple forms of storytelling all follow similar rules in creating, and audio storytelling is no different.
Do you think that Ira Glass’s advice works? What would you add on to this advice about an older art form?
Leave a Reply