Early humans did not have much in the way of entertainment to pass the time. In a relatively short period after inventing speech, we filled the silence with stories. Over the millennia, our stories have evolved and become more complex, but their structure is written into our DNA. Stories became our greatest tool, arguably more so than the spear or fire. Stories, when crafted correctly, can build cities, inspire movements, and hold people captive.
As a podcast producer, the narrative is your friend. You don’t need a storytelling podcast to tell a good story either.
How does one build a story then? What is a frame that we can apply to any void in order to fill it? We can use a house for this frame. Think of one in four parts: Foundation, Frames, Rooms, and a Roof.
The Foundation: The most important part of the structure. Without a solid foundation, the entirety of what you’re trying to create falls apart. This part is also deceptively simple. Focus on the time and place, the characters, the conflict, the resolution. This is the place for brainstorming. This is done through the “WWWWWH” of your story. To whom are you telling this story? Who is it about? What is it about? When?
A bit of an aside briefly, at this point it is important to begin thinking about your “listener persona” or who you want your audience to be. To develop a listener persona, imagine a single person in your demographic. What is their personality? What are their hobbies? Think of a real person that you know and try to create something that would appeal to them specifically. Write them a bio. Think about their needs and frustrations. What are some brands that would apply to them? How is the Ethos of those brands? Don’t know what Ethos is? You can refer to my previous post.
Frame: The story spine. This is your general outline. “Once upon a time, and every day, until one day, and because of this and that, until finally, and ever since then.” Or the beginning, the event, the middle, the climax, and the end. This is a very basic breakdown of the hero’s journey. This is easy to apply to a storytelling podcast and a little harder for other genres, but not impossible and still helpful. For example, if you are storyboarding your format or scripting an episode for a political podcast, think through the emotions you want your audience to feel at the end of the show. Then form questions in their minds at the beginning to be resolved by those emotions. This will make the entire production easier if you know generally where you want the moral to end up.
Rooms: These are the moments that happen throughout your show or episode. These moments can take many forms: vulnerability (self-disclosure, personal, authentic), relatability (context for the audience, connected theme, common situation), tonality (your voice and inflection, confident), personal connection (transitions, emotionally descriptive, 1st person language). These rooms pull your audience in. They set the scene for deeper meanings or content, but they need to have their structure built first.
I won’t be telling you how to fill these rooms. That job I will leave to you. Be creative, and remember to speak about things that matter to you.
Roof: Every good story encourages the listener to change something about their own lives. This can be a call to action that inspires people to perform certain deeds or act in new ways. This can also be a more general moral that helps shift your audience’s ethics or views. I cannot possibly tell you what yours should be, but I will say that one should always try to lead by example rather than explicitly state what your objective is.
Use this structure to aid in your creative process. Everything I’ve ever made has been rendered all the more easy by an outline. Visualizing the house of storytelling is a wonderful tool in that endeavor. Here’s wishing you a happy groundbreaking. May your structures be skyscrapers.
*This blog post is based on the talk “Let Me Tell You A Story: the power of storytelling” by Tania Woods at Podcast Evolutions 2020