I've discovered Ira Glass and This American Life only this year, and I'm a huge fan of the show. Imagine my surprise when today, on Freakonomics, I found a few web clips of Ira talking to me.
Okay, he's not technically talking to me, Rebecca Chastain, but he could be. He's actually talking to people who want to create podcasts or get into TV or radio. Yet, everything he says could have been written for writers, especially writers just getting into the business or writers yet to be published.
In the first video, he describes, in the most basic terms, what makes up a story. Genius.
My favorite line comes at 1:51 in this second clip:
"Not enough gets said about abandoning the crap." How amusing but true!
And a little wisdom about the divide between the great authors you read and the work you, at first, create—those cringe-worthy tales that you heartfeelinging pound out, knowing it's the next great American novel, only to read and realize it's, well, crap (and on the process of getting better):
One final clip on the importance of your own voice (here he means it literally, but it works for fiction written works, too):
I love these videos. They're so streamlined and to the point, filled with wisdom I perhaps already knew, but said so clearly, they're worth watching a few times.
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