Ira Glass on Storytelling

I think my story suffers the most from having what Ira Glass describes as lots of exciting details, but not any deeper meaning or moments of reflection. I am having trouble coming up with ways to fit that in. I feel like forcing a kind of moral into the story would be awkward, but I am considering adding breaks in the action to build a sort of suspense. Since my story is very musically based, I thought about expressing things in the pauses in action with music rather than words. I liked how Ira Glass brought up doing bad work over and over again until you eventually get good. I've been writing new versions of my story every few days, comparing them and showing them to new people to see if the story is clear and entertaining. My main intention is to tell the story, and then let people know about me through my method of storytelling, rather than inserting my thoughts into the story, which I feel would be too blunt. I think music would be the best way to go about adding depth without trying to fit in deep things that don't flow smoothly into a short time period.

Ira Glass On Storytelling

I really enjoyed listening to Ira Glass's advice. He is such a prominent radio storyteller making his advice and tips even more valuable. Something that I think I do well in my piece that Glass talks about is the use of posing questions for my listener. While I do not directly answer the questions I pose, these questions are bait for the listener. A piece of his advice that I need to incorporate into my piece more is making my voice sound more natural. Often during my piece, my voice is very strict and does not flow like a conversation.

Ira Glass on Storytelling

I appreciate Ira using audio examples of his earlier days. He confesses that they weren’t all that great but he eventually got there. This shows the significance of experience, taking what you learn and actually applying it to better yourself as a writer.

He talks about the two most important parts of a radio story. The anecdote, which he explains is like taking your listener on train that, most definitely has a destination.  Then he expresses the importance of the bait, which means to constantly be raising questions and answering them. This can also be seen as the suspense of a story. I did feel like my story was lacking in both these areas so I completely re-did it to better meet these aspects of good storytelling.

I altered my story to be more figurative with a sense of suspense. It’s telling a story but not so direct, yet there’s a destination that the listener anticipates. I hope to be able to play more with visuals now that I have completely re-done my audio story.

Ira Glass

The thing that hit me about Ira Glass's piece was when she talked about how stories constantly needed to be propped up. The story wants to be off topic, it wants to be boring, but we need to use good language to keep our stories "afloat" so to speak. A story an be about multiple different things, just as my story is about my ancestors in my time in New York. But there should never be a moment in a story where a reader or listener goes, "man, where is he going with this?" I think I tied my story together pretty well. When I started talking about my great-grandfather, and how he immigrated from Poland, it added a good human interest element to my piece. But perhaps the part about him coming over, then going straight back to Poland, was too long and drawn out. Perhaps I should just focus more on the ideals of freedom, liberty, etc and less on the specifics about immigration. People, especially Americans, want to hear about these values, for they are what the country is founded on. It will be another way of propping my story up. So, perhaps I will shorten the part where I talk about my great-grandfather. Dropping "bait" to your readers throughout the story is another thing Glass talked about. Maybe just talking about New York City has enough allure for readers. But I should probably include more of my own thoughts throughout the story about what liberty, freedom, and other values mean.

On Storytelling

One of the things that most resonated with me was when Ira talked about setting up bait for your audience. They should constantly be asking questions so that they stay engaged with the story. After hearing everyone's opinions on Monday, and listening to my story again, I realized that I want to stick with the serious and philosophical tone. I ask "why?" many times in the story, and hopefully my audience will also want to know the deeper significance of what I'm saying.

That being said, I also realized that the insertion of humor in my story made it weaker. Ira talks about how it can be hard to admit that something isn't working. Much as I wanted to make it work, I just don't think that the Louis CK clip works. Hopefully, by eliminating the clip, something in my own words can take its place and make the story better.

Finally, Ira talked about how one's recorded voice should sound like they are just talking. I still feel that my voice sounds a little stiff, and the insertion of the recording did not help. I want to re-record my story, keeping a serious tone while still being conversational.

Ira Glass

Some concepts that Ira Glass discusses have already been incorporated into or used in my story while other ideas still need to be used.

Ira Glass explains that broadcast stories should be a fluid anecdote with a sequence of events and should not be as rigid as a topic sentence and facts. I believe that my poem follows this format, a series of actions or feelings that create suspense, so I do not have to change that aspect.  Glass articulates that a vital feature of a story is that it raises questions. My poem raises several questions; I strategically placed the name of my home country towards the end of the story in order to heighten suspense. Furthermore, he explains that there must be a moment of reflection. I believe I clearly stated my moment of reflection when I finally accepted the new culture at the very end of the poem. I included a pause before the last sentence of the poem to make the realization more clear.

As Glass elucidates, finding the perfect story to tell takes longer than writing the story itself. I struggled with this decision for a long time. I had many stories and poems I wanted to share but I believed this one was a good way to begin the class because it was a new beginning for me in my life. Moreover, I related to what Glass said about being slightly disappointed by the resulting work. I feel that my piece does not come even close to making the audience feel the intensity of emotions I felt during that experience. However, by improving the inflection of my voice while reading the poem I can make it feel more intense. I will take Ira’s advice into account and tell the poem more naturally rather than reading it from a written document. I plan to make it sound more passionate by memorizing the poem and reciting it from memory. By doing so, I am not inclined to sound robotic while telling my story.

Ira Glass

Ira Glass emphasizes the importance of storytelling anecdotally, with a sequence of actions intermittently paired with a moment of reflection.  You are supposed bait the reader with your actions, constantly raising questions and then answering them, thus manipulating your listener into being engaged.  In my final revisions I want to really maintain this flow throughout the story.

Another important aspect is to speak conversationally, like I’m talking to a person sitting in front of me rather than reciting words off of a piece of paper.  My current version of the audio story is okay, but I definitely need to work on it and re-record it.  Pauses are important in my audio story, because I naturally think and speak with a lot of pauses.  I need to add more pauses to give the reader time to process what I’m saying.