Good storytelling

Part 1 of 3

I currently edit and produce a podcast called Inside A Bubble. I do a lot of the research and writing work on it. When you listen to any episode of the podcast, a lot of the words you hear the hosts say are written by me. The podcast exists because I wanted to tell stories about people in a new format. Podcasting is growing fast right now; there are a lot of independent creators making their own podcasts. These podcasts feature hosts interviewing people and sharing their own personal views. A lot of them sound the same. One of my biggest fears in life is being the same as a lot of people. I am obsessed with trying to stand out. So the first thing I tried to figure out was how to make a podcast that would stand out. Luckily enough, I listen to a lot of podcasts and some of those podcasts really ring true to me as very good. They are the kind of podcasts I would like to make. Podcasts like Startup by Gimlet media or Everything is alive by Radiotopia. The question I asked myself was: What would I need to do to make my podcast as good as these podcasts while telling the stories I wanted to?

• Production value had to be top-notch.
• It needed to sound great.
• The stories had to be good
• The writing had to be good
• The episode had to feel complete and enriching.

The podcast I was making was going to be crowdsourced, meaning every episode would feature voice notes from a couple of people. The stories were going to be tied together by the writing of the episode. More than just tying the stories together, the writing for each episode would be responsible for leading the narrative. That writing had to be good. Now, this was one problem. The writing had to be good at telling the story; the writing wasn’t the story. The voice notes were. Getting the writing to be good would be easy enough because It was in my control. The voice notes on the other hands weren’t. They were in the hands of the contributors that I was yet to meet. Those voice notes had to be good too. They had to tell good stories or tell stories in a good way. I did a lot of research to learn how to tell a story in a good way. When I finally got that down, I started production. I think about the things I learnt during that research before embarking on any creative project, including writing articles for this blog. To talk about what those things are I think it will be best I show you a video that encompasses every single one of them.

Part 2 of 3

Trevor Noah is a great storyteller, no doubt about that. Over the years, I have developed a huge respect for him. I first fell in love with his standup comedy. The thing about his performances is that they are a lot like this story he is telling here, they are just stories. What makes them so good, funny and interesting, is how he tells them. The main difference between a story and a joke is the punchline. Jokes always have a punchline. Stories not so much, they just end. The punchline is where the audience knows to laugh, it's the satisfying end. Comedians are always building to the punchline. Even when there are little pockets of laughter here and there, the punchline is still the point of the joke. As far as I know, there are not a lot of exceptions to the punchline rule for jokes (there’s one notable one that I am currently writing about). Trevor Noah’s jokes are all stories but they are still jokes, which means there is always going to be a punchline. Which makes every story he tells, satisfying at the end of the day.

“You know what your problem is?”

I’m like ‘what?’

She’s like “You brush the ball too much”

It is not necessary for your story to have a punchline but if it does, then you have at least one thing going for you.

Let’s look at the entire video. It follows the typical 3 act structure most storytellers use. There is a beginning, there is a middle and there is an end.

The beginning starts here

‘So they think I am a professional’

and ends here.

I say I have never played

He says “But you are playing Roger Federer in 2 months”

And I’m like “yea”

And he says “this is big problem for you”

It sets precedence for what the story is about. Trevor cannot play tennis. He needs to learn because he will be playing the best tennis player in the world in two months. That’s all that happens in the beginning. Beginnings do different things for different people depending on what the story is about. But the most important thing for the beginning to do is hook the reader (or listener). Now we all want to know what happens after the coach realised that Trevor cannot play for shit.

The middle starts here

He doesn’t know how to teach me because I am useless

and ends here

Like a week and half of brushing, the ball does not go to the other side. I am panicking. I am going to look like an idiot in front of 52 thousand people.

The middle is the body of the story, it’s the chunk of what happens. In Trevor’s story, not a lot happens in the middle. He is a bad tennis player and he doesn't get better. But instead of simply telling us that, he describes how he tries to get better and fails. For a podcast, the thing I think about when making the middle of the story is that it needs to keep moving. If I stay in one place for too long, people will lose interest. As much as I can, I avoid lingering, except in specific situations that I will talk about in the next part of this article. So that’s the middle, it’s the story. By the end of the middle, we are on the same wavelength as Trevor. We acknowledge his fear and concern and we wonder how it will end.

The end starts here

“So I get another coach, her name is”

and ends at the punchline

Then we all clap.

The thing about the end is that it doesn’t have to do too much, it just has to close the story well. It is easier to do too much at the end than to do too little. You don’t want to introduce too many new things at the end of the story because you are now giving the users too many things to keep track off. As much as possible, don’t start new stories at the end, end the story you started. It feels counterproductive saying that seeing as the end of this story is Trevor’s time with the new coach, which goes to buttress something I need you to know.

There are no absolute rules.

I am not an expert. In fact, this publication gets its name from the fact that I don’t feel qualified to write any of the things I write. But that’s the beauty of it.

Trevor does introduce one new character at the end but he doesn't delve into a new story. He uses her as a plot point to close the story he has been telling. So at the end of the day when he is finally learning something and we finally get the chance to be happy for him, he can hit us with the punchline.

Part 3 of 3

You know how I just said don’t introduce new things at the end? Yea this is awkward…

You don’t have to actually watch this video but if you do, you will not regret it. Tiffany Haddish is a brilliant storyteller. I wanted to include this video because she epitomises my last point. This video doesn't have to be 7 minutes long. In fact, Jada tells the same story in 3minutes

But it’s the way she tells the story that is the beauty of it. She has the same three-act structure. The first act starting with her dinner with the Smiths. Look at the difference between Jada saying it and Tiffany saying it.

Jada

So I took Tiffany out to dinner with Will and I. It’s Friday night so I say ‘what you doing tomorrow’

Tiffany

Jada had invited me to dinner with her and Will Smith and I thought ‘ohh this is it, I am about to make it’. I wore my best dress from china and a button popped after dinner. They asked me - Jada said “what you doing tomorrow? we off work, what you doing tomorrow?”

They had essentially said the same thing but Tiffany had done three things that made us feel more included in the story. She had shared her emotions

ohh this is it, I am about to make it’.

Added details

I wore my best dress from china and a button popped after dinner.

And used quotes for the other character

Jada said “what you doing tomorrow, we off work, what you doing tomorrow”

Thinking about my episodes as having a beginning, middle and end helped me know how to write my narrative but didn’t help very much with getting my tape. For good tape, I look for two things.

Details and Emotions

Both of these things you can find in Trevor Noah’s video. Even though it’s just 2 minutes long.

The only time it is useful for a story to linger is if it is adding useful detail or describing the emotion to be felt.

Trevor Noah uses such details as quoting his coaches and going as far as to mimic their accent. Now we can picture this man saying

“Bresssh de ball

jurst bressssh de ball”

over and over again because of the detail he added. The emotion, he shares with us when he talks about how he is panicking.

I am panicking. I am going to look like an idiot in front of 52 thousand people.

Emotions are important because more than telling the audience what is happening, you are also telling them what to feel about what is happening. Humans are deeply emotional and nothing happens without sparking some form of emotion.

So those are the five things I keep in mind when trying to write a good story, especially for my podcast.

• Write a beginning that gives the audience a reason to stay
• Write a middle that’s engaging and keeps moving the plot along
• Write an end that is satisfactory
• Add as much detail as possible
• And include Emotions.

And that’s one way to do good storytelling.

Thank you for reading all the way to the end. You are the real MVP.

Plug

I have already plugged it so many times but in case you missed all of them, I have a podcast. It’s good and it gets better with each episode. Episodes for the first season start coming out on the 27th of March and a new episode will be out every two Fridays. Go subscribe and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @thepodofbubbles

You can watch Trevor Noah brushing the ball with Nadal, Federer and Bill Gates here.

Support

Always looking to get support from you guys. The easiest way to do that will be to share with one friend who you think might enjoy (or benefit) from reading this. You can take it a step further and share on all your social media pages. For a grand gesture, you can support by becoming a patron on my Patreon. Patrons help me make podcast episodes and write new articles.