Ira Glass on Storytelling 1

Ira Glass from This American Life talking about story telling. Part 1, The Building Blocks of a Good Story.
Although this series is not geared towards photojournalism and documentary photography, the lessons are universal and can be applied to any medium.

[@venomtang]

Pls never remove this from KZbin, I beg

[@shivamtyagi5783]

Download it.

[@calumnysmyth8933]

I mean one of the things I think is really important if you’re making stories for television or radio is that you understand the building blocks of the stories & there are different ways to think about this. Thank you for your guidance! It was so captivating that I put it all in writing. This helps my memory, doing it in pencil first, then typing it all out. I hope this is accurate. God bless. One of the things you don’t want to do, is you don’t want to think about it the way that you learned in High School. Which in high school, the way that you write is that there’s a topic sentence & then there’s like the facts which fill out the argument. In broadcasting, I think you have two basic building blocks & they’re very powerful & you can use them as you will & one is the anecdote. An anecdote is literally just a sequence of actions. If you think of as just like “what is a story in its purest form.” A story in its purest form is someone saying, “This happened & that led to this next thing & that thing led to this thing & that thing led to this thing & that thing led to this thing,” like one thing following another & some of the things in the sequence can be, “& that made me think of this & then I said this like there could be thoughts & ideas as part of it,” but like one is leading to the next, leading to the next, leading to the next & the power of the anecdotes is so great that no matter how, in a way like no matter how boring the material is, if it is in a story form where there is an anecdote happening, “& then he said this to me & then I went here & then I came downstairs & I thought like ‘What the hell?’” Like it has a momentum in & of itself, that no matter how boring the facts are, like I’m trying to think like them. With, like, “okay, there’s a guy & he wakes up & he’s lying in bed & the house is very, very quiet & so, he sits up & he puts his feet on the floor & he walks to the door of his bedroom & again, it is just very, very quiet. He walks downstairs, looks around, just unusually quiet.” Now what I am telling you is a fact pattern &, yet, there’s suspense in it. It feels like something’s going to happen & the reason why is because, literally, it’s a sequence of events like this guy is doing these things. He’s moving from space to space. You can feel it through its form. That when you have one thing leading to the next leap, into the next. You can feel inherently that you are on a train that has a destination & that he is going to find something, & so one of the most powerful things that you have to figure out is like; do you just start with the action OR do you just start with the action in general. You want to start with the action, or you often do. So that’s one of your building blocks. The other thing that that little anecdote has, is that it’s raising a question from the beginning. & that’s the other thing you want is: you want bait. You want you want to constantly be raising questions. So, in that little story the bait is that the house is very quiet & so the question that’s hanging in the air is; “Why?!” & it’s implied that any question you raise, you’re going to answer. & so again, that’s another thing you want to manipulate. You want to be constantly raising questions & answering them. From the beginning of the story & that the whole shape of the story is that you are throwing out questions to keep people watching & listening & then answering for them along the way. Okay, so you have the building block. Then the OTHER BIG building block. Your other tool is that you have a moment of reflection. & by that I mean, at some point, somebody’s got to say, why the hell you are listening to this story! Like here’s the point of this story. Here’s the bigger “something” that we are driving at. Here’s why I’m wasting your time with all this & one of the things that’s very, very unfortunate for people who are launching into the kinds of jobs that all the people who are making video pods are launching into. One of the things that is so very sad & it’s like the bane of my existence & it’s the bane of anybody’s existence who does this kind of work. It’s that often you know you have the two parts of this. The two parts of the structure. You’ve got the anecdote & you’ve got the moment of reflection & often you’ll have an anecdote which just kills. It’s just so interesting. Like this thing happens & it leads to the next & it leads to the next & it’s so surprising! & so many things happen & you meet these great characters & it means absolutely NOTHING. Like it’s just, like it’s just completely unpredictable. It doesn’t tell you anything new & so, that’s one huge problem. & then, the other huge problem is: you’ve got a kind of boring set of facts or boring story, right? That they, actually, like somebody, actually have something kind of interesting to say about it. & So, actually, I think a lot of us, when we are beginning, we get caught in the problem of - we know we have SOMETHING here. We know there’s something that’s kind of compelling. But, it just doesn’t seem to be coming together. & Often, it’s your job to be kind of ruthless & to understand that either you don’t have a sequence of actions & you don’t have the story part that works! Or you don’t have a moment of reflection that works & you’re going to need both. & In a good story you’re going to flip back & forth between the two. Like there’ll be a little bit of action. & then, someone will say something about it & there’ll be a little more action. Someone will say something & that’s really out like a lot of the trick of the whole thing, you know, is to have the perseverance that you’ve got an interesting anecdote. That you can also end up with an interesting moment of reflection that will support it. & Then the two together into one. & you know, three minutes or six minutes or however long your story is, will make something that’s larger than the sum of its parts.

[@shaunhess9161]

Thanks, I couldn't understand some of his words. This was a great help.

[@lukabrnic4914]

I summarized it for me, and thought I would share it anecdote power : a momentum in itself makes it interesting -> so starts with the action directly or raise questions (MOMENT OF REFLEXION) -> so starts with description 1. he moved in this silent house and then 2. The house is silent >> good story you need both interesting anecdote and moment of reflexion wrong: awesome anecdote -> no information bad moment of reflexion -> big information

[@afterallthistime_always1069]

could you explain this please? wrong: awesome anecdote -> no information bad moment of reflexion -> big information

[@alexisgranado644]

goat

[@blackbear92201]

One of the best how-tos on storytelling I've ever heard! Ira's style reminds me a bit of Adam Savage.

[@101hamilton]

This is seriously one of the best videos I have ever watched on KZbin. Extremely helpful information. Thank you so much for posting.

[@jessgarnerlewis]

This is life changing, thank you for posting 🙏

[@da-AL]

he's the best! tx for uploading!

[@caroledrury1411]

Diction so much better here than on radio!

[@CadaVezMelhor]

Great piece of content and wisdom! Thanks a lot!

[@tbd5082]

Brilliant!

[@josieneglia]

Fantastic!

[@freddyfalso2853]

Steven from CoffeZilla showed us your wisdom.

[@ravikodiyatar4910]

this is gold

[@edgewaterz]

Pressing the space bar doesn't pause and unpause the video like normal. Clicking on the video one time doesn't work either. You have to click two times which is unusual. The normal keyboard and mouse video controls aren't working. That could by why views drop 50% on part 2 and more on the last two.

[@elenif.vlachou9126]

2009?????? WOW!!! Nothings changed since then??????

[@Dayglodaydreams]

This was on Current TV?

[@AbsElmaz]

Coffee sent me here!

[@richsackett3423]

I'd like to hear an AI combine Terri Gross and Ira Glass.

[@lekoman]

I want Ira to tell a really boring story, softly, like that for 20 or 30 minutes, please.

[@kabr5203]

hi

[@shaunhess9161]

This is interesting, but not very clear and spoken too fast and the words are mumbled. I WANT to listen, but I don't understand some of the words,

[@TerryPattersonRetired]

Heck, I’m used to Ira’s voice and inflection after years of listening. Moreover, his bpm is efficient in that his rate of words or syllables per minute doesn’t bother me. And I do not do well with fast talkers. Did you know dear commenter, that Ira Glass has, if you will, a speech impediment? At least that’s how I think of his inability to produce the “L” sound when speaking.

[@nick-sherer]

top comment!

[@fletcherbrown728]

Interesting dialogue but - why is the entire presentation out of focus? Is that on purpose to emphasize that it's the dialogue that is important? I don't get it. Probably just me but it certainly detracts from the presentation for me. I can hardly wait to click off. Maybe it is my eyes.

[@carl5667]

Top comment

[@nick-sherer]

i am top comment

[@JacopoSkydweller]

false.

[@LuisMendoza-pp9qi]

I saw about ten episodes of this boring show, I think the themes and topics that it covers are uninteresting and unimportant.... There are many shows that are FAR more interesting: "This is life" with Lisa Ling, or many others, literally any other show is more entertaining and informative!!