I sometimes wish every story in existence could go through some sort of This American Life ‘golden story’ machine and come out shining like the stars. I love this series of videos in which Ira Glass shares some of his secrets for great storytelling, with equal doses of humility and self-respect for his mastery of the craft. Here are a few excerpts, but be sure to watch them yourself.
On the power of the anecdote:
A story in its purest form is somebody saying this happened and that lead to this next thing and that lead to this next thing and that lead to this next thing, one thing following another. And some of the things in the sequence can be ‘that made me think of this’ and ‘then I said this’. There can be facts and ideas as part of it but one is leading to the next is leading to the next.
And the power of the anecdote is so great that no matter how boring the material is […] it has a momentum in and of itself…
On killing crap:
It’s time to kill and it’s time to enjoy the killing because by killing you will make something else even better live and I think that not enough gets said about the importance of abandoning crap.
One thing that you should know is that all video production is trying to be crap. Like, in fact our radio production is trying to be crap. Basically it’s like the laws of entropy. You know that thing where like the universe is… All the energy in the universe is dissipating and all the atoms are getting lower and lower in energy? Well basically anything that you put on tape, from the moment that you put it on tape, basically it’s trying to be really bad. It’s trying to be unstructured, it’s trying to be pointless, it’s trying to be boring, it’s trying to be digressive, much like these sentences that I’m saying right here.
And pretty much you have to prop it up aggressively at every stage of the way if it’s going to be any good. You have to be really a killer about getting rid of the boring parts and going right to the parts that get into your heart. You just have to be ruthless if anything is going to be good. Things that are really good are good because people are being really, really tough.
On the gap between your stuff and your taste:
And the thing I would just like to say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short, you know, and some of us can admit that to ourselves and some of us are a little less able to admit that to ourselves.
But we knew that it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have and the thing is … everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase or if you’re just starting off and you’re entering into that phase, you’ve got to know it’s totally normal and the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work.
Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. You know what I mean? Whatever it’s going to be. You create the deadline. It’s best if you have somebody who’s waiting for work from you, somebody who’s expecting work from you, even if it’s not somebody who pays you but that you’re in a situation where you have to try not to work. Because it’s only actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions.
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