Garr Reynolds, in his masterful Presentation Zen blog, wrote a brilliant and just-what-was-on-my-mind-right now post on interviewing and capturing stories and anecdotes via a YouTube interview with Ira Glass. His take on storytelling:
"The Power of the anecdote is so great...No matter how boring the material is, if it is in story form...there is suspense in it, it feels like something's going to happen. The reason why is because literally it's a sequence of events...you can feel through its form [that it's] inherently like being on a train that has a destination...and that you're going to find something..."
— Ira Glass
Unsurprisingly brilliant, coming from Ira, of course, with a nod to Garr for providing that particular excerpt in his own post.
So as I watched this video of Ira explaining the points of why anecdotes are so engaging and so very human, I began to wonder how the interviewer could work to bring those out. As an interviewer, Ira seems to have a magical gift for inciting interesting anecdotes. For the rest of us, how would we accomplish that? How do we move from fact-finding questions to a situation in which the interviewee is comfortable enough to actually tell us a story?
Trained interviewees, of course, will have their best point-illustrating anecdotes in their back pockets and will whip them out whether you ask an appropriate question or not. But often we podcasters are interviewing brilliant, insightful people who don't happen to be media-trained. The benefit is that their voices are still real and human, and they don't speak in sound bites. The downside is that they might not have their point-illustrating anecdotes ready to go.
So how do we, as podcasters, draw those out? How do you set up an environment ripe for anecdotes?
Creating Passionate Communities with Blogs and Podcasts, May 12, Wheaton, IL