His voice is distinctive, a characteristic that makes his distinguished career in radio seem destined. It’s nasally, but not in an annoying, mouth-breathing way, and it’s almost meek sounding in a neighborly, affable way. Ira Glass has been the host and producer of Public Radio International’s “This American Life” since 1995. The program reaches over 1.7 million listeners on over 500 stations every week, making Glass the one of the most recognizable voices on the radio today. He’s an inspirational figure, particularly in the realm of compelling storytelling.
Everything is Interesting
Each week, “This American Life” takes a theme and weaves stories of real people in an engaging, thought provoking way. The topics run the gamut of human life, ranging anywhere from pets to the Byzantine Empire to archaeology. Glass makes even the most mundane topics interesting, which is inspiring for presenters whose content is particularly dull. It’s important to get into the mindset that everything is interesting. Paper clips? Wow! Fax machines? Cool! That lamp? Awesome! You get the drift. Think of clever ways to make prosaic things extraordinary. Unearth fascinating facts and poignant stories about your topic; get to the bottom of data by providing a compelling framework to explain those boring numbers.
Editing is also a critical part of telling a compelling story. Take out what is unimportant and ineffectual. You may truly love that little paragraph there, you may have crafted it until it was just right, but eventually, you may realize it doesn’t fit in the final draft. Cutting it out may be difficult (it can be downright painful sometimes) but it’s necessary. Cut out the fat. Get to the meat of the matter. In the end, editing and simplifying will strengthen your presentation’s story.
Building Blocks
In an interview on storytelling (inconveniently split into four parts on YouTube), Glass discusses the two building blocks of storytelling. The first, he says, is the anecdote, or the story in its purest form: what happens from one moment to the next. You must decide where to begin, how the story will unfold, and most importantly, he says, what the story’s ultimate destination is. Which brings Glass to the second building block of storytelling: a story must raise questions for its audience. It must constantly encourage inquiries from the audience (Why is that happening? Where is this going? What if he hadn’t done that? etc.). And the storyteller must answer these questions eventually, which leads to Glass’s final point on storytelling: there needs to be a moment of reflection. The story must say something new; it must offer something vital to the audience.
Without each of these elements, a story is lacking something crucial. Think about these building blocks of storytelling when you are creating a narrative for your upcoming presentation. Be inspired by listening to one of Glass’s TAL episodes, and remember that everything is interesting when you tell a compelling story.
Do Work, Often
One of the more frustrating situations to find yourself in as a budding creative, or particularly as a young person, is feeling as though your creativity, your talent is not coming through in your work. This is when inspiration feels almost sublime, but also like a high that is always fleeting. Glass understands this feeling, and extrapolates on it better than 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,” muses Glass. He says the antidote to this is to keep doing a lot of work. It takes time, and it’s normal for it to take time. “Fight your way through that,” he urges.
This advice is truly inspirational for anybody who has felt that their creative work is not stacking up to their potential. Glass himself says he felt this way for a very long time before he finally broke through. Keep at it, even while working on a presentation that feels overpoweringly mundane. The creativity is there, the potential is there, you just need to keep chipping away until your work satisfies your expectations. Don’t quit or settle for mediocrity. Find inspiration in Ira Glass, the acclaimed storyteller with a funny voice.
