Advocacy, Storytelling & Interviewing: Which of Ira Glass’ Secrets Will You Use Today?

Advocacy, Storytelling & Interviewing: Which of Ira Glass’ Secrets Will You Use Today?

“[T]ell us stories that help us empathize and help us feel less crazy and less separate. And just, you know, go straight to your heart.”—Ira Glass

 

This article offers big ideas based on my reading of commentary from Ira Glass, the host and executive producer of public radio’s This American Life. Glass creates powerful engagement with his audience. How does he do that? What are his secrets? What concepts is he using, and how might Glass’ big ideas help us?

My practice centers on helping people through separation and divorce, either as an advocate or a mediator. You too? In either role, we often are structuring stories. We mesh principles of persuasion and trial techniques with storytelling. We might be asking questions striving to show something powerful and meaningful. Or We might be asking questions striving to move into the heart of the conflict to open up possibilities for workable solutions.

We can learn a lot from listening to episodes of This American Life (on public radio and online) and looking for these big ideas, seeing how they work, and imagining how we might incorporate them into our advocacy. The concepts Glass uses are the same concepts we can use today, in court and in life.

Heart of the story. To get a story to work, we need to think about the heart of what it’s all about and how to make it more present. We add moments to build the central conflict, and we cut away moments that distract. We make “explicit what the story means, stating more directly what the point of the whole thing is.”

Building blocks. Storytelling has two basic building blocks: (1) the anecdote and (2) the moment of reflection. When we structure stories, we start with the “Here’s What Happened” and then move to the “Here’s What It All Means.”

Anecdote. The anecdote creates momentum, drawing us in and pulling us forward. The anecdote is “one thing following from another.” In contrast to a series of random facts, we are sequencing. With “suspense in it, it feels like something’s going to happen. . . . Like being on a train that has a destination . . . you’re going to find something.” This sequencing raises questions from the very beginning and builds suspense with each looming unanswered question. “Constantly raise questions and answer them.” As the audience, we want to know what happens next.

Moment of reflection. After sequencing some moments, the moment of reflection shows the key point: “Here’s why we’re talking about this. Here’s what it means.” The reflection adds some big statement about what the experiences mean, some lesson about how the world works, something meaningful and universal. “Say something new, have meaning, compel people to follow and engage.”

One way that Ira Glass opens reflection is to use an expectation-experience question: “What did you think this was going to be like before you started, and then what was it really like?” Ira Glass credits Noah Adams with this technique that gets him great answers, even when he is underprepared.

Pace. Using these two basic building blocks effectively requires pace and rhythm. When we are listening to a story, we expect something to change every 45 to 50 seconds. Keep that pace in mind and develop a rhythm of anecdote, reflection, anecdote, reflection. There is one sequence and then there is what that sequence means and then another sequence and another reflection.

Emotional shift. It also helps to consider the undercurrent of emotions in our story scenes. Great storytellers keep moving between different kinds of moments: emotional, thoughtful, funny. Emotional shifts help keep attention, and we do want to be surprised. “I still feel like my job is to document these real moments that surprise me and that amuse me, and that just gesture at some bigger truth.”

Character-driven stories. Most good stories are character driven. We want a story with a sympathetic character. “The story needs one character, a character that you identify with, who interacts with other characters in a very specific way, and there’s conflict, change, and resolution . . . and the characters change, and they grow, and they learn something new, and surprising.” When there is someone we can relate to, the possibility for impacting with feeling and emotion opens up. In terms of Aristotle’s three persuasion prongs, think pathos.

Interviewing. Nonfiction stories almost always require interviewing people. Before starting interviews, we can use our imagination and curiosity. What might this story end up meaning? What possibilities are there for big ideas in my story? What big ideas might flow from these particular people? What might it mean to be this person? What might the story say about people like this? How might I get my interviewees talking about big ideas?

When we start our interviewing, we follow our curiosity and our instincts. We begin with the basic plot of what happened. Then we focus on the turning points in the story and other moments that interest or amuse or confuse you. These are the turning points and impactful moments that call out for more details. We dig for more. We ask for comments on what comes up along the way (including the expectation-experience technique mentioned above). And we have a real conversation.

Tension. At the heart of every good story is some unresolved tension. At some point during interviews, storytellers hit upon something that they really care about. “You hit the issue the person hasn’t quite resolved. It’s almost like their unconscious starts to speak. And then they start to describe scenes and characters and images. It’s almost like a dream.”

Primacy and recency. In structuring our story, we focus on the most compelling moments. We start with discovering which moment should be the first moment and which moment should be the last. We build the outline from there.

Authenticity. Finally, we can be ourselves. We can be authentic, a person with a unique personality. “Everything is more compelling when you talk like a human being, when you talk like yourself.” No matter the subject, we enjoy speakers who are passionate about their topic, teach us abstract concepts, and illustrate the concepts with real stories and real examples.

Try Ira Glass’s storytelling secrets for yourself. Make Glass’ secrets your secrets. Structure your storytelling purposefully. Strive for something powerful and meaningful. Strive to move into the heart of the conflict. And strive to open up possibilities for workable solutions. And be surprised with how your advocacy improves.