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What producers can learn from live storytelling
Hey audio storytellers,
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Harriett Jernigan started reading the Sherlock Holmes books when she was nine, and was immediately captivated by the mystery. Her love of story was nurtured by listening to her parents share memories from their own childhoods. “My mother in particular has a very vivid setting for her stories: the Everglades,” she says. “They never had arcs; they were anecdotes. But being able to see very specifically what she was talking about really does put you there.”
Harriett is a writer and lecturer at Stanford’s program in writing and rhetoric. She also founded First Person Story, a storytelling event and workshop that platforms under-represented creators. It’s different to a lot of open mic-style storytelling shows in that it offers training and support, developing folks’ stories over the course of a month before they go on stage.
From Pixar storylines to why our sense of smell is so important, in this issue Harriett shares what audio producers can learn from live storytelling…
What inspired you to launch First Person Story?
I started doing live storytelling at the Moth back in 2014. I wanted to be in a community with other creative people, and I wanted to understand story arcs – because I’m a nonfiction writer for the most part, but I wanted to start writing fiction.
I won at the Moth, many times in a row. And then started to understand [what was going on behind] these highly polished, highly rehearsed stories. Your name is getting drawn out of a hat. So there's a huge chance that you're not going to get drawn. The other thing I noticed was that ethnicity plays a role. Gender, class and sexual orientation play a role. So you get a lot of cishet white guys in the hat. They feel confident enough to tell a story wherever. They've never felt really judged in the same way that a minoritized person might feel judged on a daily basis. So it sort of narrows down the pool of participants.
And then competition itself is just terrible, right? It's very hard when you're sitting at the Moth to pay attention to other people's stories, when you're hoping that your name is going to get drawn. You’re going over your own story in your head.
I was at one particular Moth in 2022, and I noticed this woman when we were in line for the bathroom. She was looking over her notes and trying to recite lines. It was clearly her first time doing something like this. Then she goes up on stage and begins with: “I was born into this cult called The Way”. I was like, my god, this is a story I have to hear.
But then she broke down, she couldn’t continue. She left the stage. I thought: we [as audience members] have all lost out here. She’s obviously not prepared; maybe she didn’t know the lights were going to be so bright. She may not have known that you might sweat up there. Then there's the whole fear of being judged, right?
I thought, okay, it’s time to make a space for people like her.
So you were motivated to make a live storytelling event for folks who might have been marginalized or maybe overlooked in more mainstream storytelling, but crucially, an event that offers support and preparation.
I think the most important part is the preparation.
Once someone expresses interest in being part of a First Person Story live show [a jam], I meet them in person. I ask if there’s a story they’d like to tell. I explain that they will be in an intimate cohort of six and that there’s no competition element. Each jam has a theme – the last one was ‘duets’.
We have a memorandum of understanding that says: part of this [process] is about living with discomfort, and that if people can't follow the MOU then they're out.
They also get paid a significant amount for their emotional labor. No minoritized person should ever do emotional labor without compensation of some sort. That usually convinces people that this could be a nice experience for them.
What do you do when people think they don’t have a story or their story isn’t worth telling?
That’s what the workshop is for. Almost everybody has a story. There are lots of things we’ve experienced that we don’t remember, but the stories that stick with you … they stick with you for a reason. So let’s find that reason.
I’ll ask people: How did the experience change you? How did you see yourself in the world afterwards?
Somebody saying, “I know that your story is important” makes a big difference. I mean, how many times have we been told, as women or as minoritized people, “your story doesn't matter, your feelings don't matter, you need to stay silent”?. So there are a lot of social barriers that our initial meeting challenges or interrogates. And then, basically I'm like: don't worry about whether or not the story is good. It's going to be good.
So what then happens in the workshop that draws out the story?
One of our first exercises uses the Pixar storyline. Every Pixar movie has the same story structure:
Once upon a time…
Every day…
And then one day…
Because of that…
And because of that…
Until finally…
So the first thing is to get the beats of the story down. And then we talk about sequence later.
Another exercise we do – which I credit to Karen Eber, who wrote The Perfect Story – is to explore the five senses. We have people create a scene from their story and then ask them how they might activate the five senses in that scene. We spend a lot of time talking about smell.
Why do you think that is?
Smell is the best memory we have. We associate things with smell more than anything else. So when you talk about smell, people are right there with you. They either know what something smells like or they appreciate the metaphor you use to describe it.
I was telling a story about looking for a pie pan in Germany one time, and I ended up discovering a brothel instead. The reason that I was looking for the pie pan was because my roommate had an apple tree with all these bright green apples sitting in the dry air of cold storage, smelling like summer.
Why is live storytelling something that’s compelling to you?
I had no idea that I would like being in front of a live audience as much as I have. People come up to you afterwards and tell you how your story touched them. They’ll say: “I had exactly the same experience” or “thank you for sharing that”.
It helps comfort people and connect with people, but also challenge other people's ideas. Storytelling becomes this endeavor not only to share and connect, but also to expand people's understanding.
It also hadn't occurred to me that part of it was sharing an experience with people, like giving them a gift. It really is like a service. You're doing a service to the people who are in the workshop, and you're doing a service to the audience who’s sitting in those seats.
So [a big part of what drives me now is] not having a completely polished story; and making sure that the story serves the teller as well as the audience. There's really no point to be up on stage if you're not doing it for the greater good.
I really love what I do with First Person. I’m so glad that I started it. Every cohort has been a delight. It's been amazing getting to know so many people.
And we have the best audience. I set up the live shows / jams sort of like a house party. There's free drinks, there's free food. You come in, you sit down, there are games. We have a nice intermission so you can get to know people and chat. It’s always like this nice house party atmosphere.
How does storytelling interweave with other aspects of your career as a teacher and writer?
I think it's just everything. It permeates everything. I always tell a story before class begins, when I teach.
I'm also the coordinator for something called the Notation in Cultural Rhetorics, which is sort of like a mini minor where students look at how they’ve woven their own cultural practices into their education at Stanford. One of the main pillars of is storytelling.
I think the storytelling has also really helped me in my own writing. Sometimes I'll transcribe [oral stories] and then turn them into their own pieces. It helps me see how you can condense something and then expand it and everything in between.
One of your aims with First Person Story is to move voices from the margins to the center –how are you doing that?
We are making and holding space for you and that you can very clearly see that this space is for you. Not for somebody else. And then that idea we talked about: that your story matters.
One of the participants from our January show wanted to tell a story about improv and she was like, I don't know how this story about improv is going to be a good story. And I was like, you're the eldest daughter of Asian immigrants and you have learned how to slow down, and give yourself time. Don't you think that’s going to be important to other people in the audience?
There's also a multilingual aspect that you don't necessarily get in other storytelling events. I encourage folks to use their languages. We are also much more willing, I think, to tolerate a lot of cursing and slang.
And also for me one of the really important parts is African-American Vernacular English, which a lot of people use. But it doesn't win you any friends when you're telling the story at the Moth or something like that.
This language sovereignty extends to storytellers giving us constant permission to use your data. If they don't want us to use the recording of their story, we don't use it. So we have a very specific media release form that centers their choices.
First Person is going to offer you a lot of choices and a lot of sovereignty.
Give me a couple of examples of stories that have really stuck with you.
Smeek Wilson told a story about ziplining in Costa Rica. It was so sweet and beautiful. She hadn’t thought she could turn it into something that an entire audience would be into. It's also completely in AAVE. The audience loved it.
Serena Chang told a story about participating in the LGBTQ Olympics with an all-women swim team, and how it almost fell through because her passport expired, but all her friends got together and made it happen.
How can audio producers apply some of the principles of First Person Story?
The luxury that we have with First Person is time: repeated visits, repeated discussions. Community building is at the core of it. So the more time you can spend with someone, maybe spend multiple sessions with somebody interviewing them, [the better].
Or maybe give people initial exercises before you talk to them. For example, if you had to sum up your life story in six sentences, what would it be? Or what's the scene that you would like to talk about most? I know that a lot of journalists send out prep questions about content, but I wonder if they send out prep questions about style.
Metaphor, analogy, senses: you could have a set list of questions that you can send people that focus on the rhetorical aspect of it.
This summer, First Person Story will be launching a podcast focusing on a specific aspect of storytelling craft and featuring a previous First Person storyteller. Check out their website for updates on events.
Key takeaways: what audio producers can learn from live storytelling
⭐ Can you see it? When your interviewee is talking, make sure you can really visualize what they’re saying — it’ll help you get much better tape.
⭐ When describing a scene or memory, get folks to focus on their five senses, especially smell.
⭐ Use the Pixar structure to develop your story’s narrative arc.
⭐ Think about your own storytelling not just as an opportunity to connect, but to expand your listeners’ understanding.
⭐ Practice taking a spoken story, transcribing it, then adapting it for print – and vice versa.
⭐ Consider how you can center the choices and agency of your characters / sources in your work.
⭐ If you have the luxury of time (and budget!), interview someone over multiple sessions to draw out their story.
Jobs
🌙 Podcast Producer ~ The ACT3 Agency ~ Remote, US
🌙 Podcast Producer Coordinator ~ The Gist ~ New York City
🌙 Senior Marketing Manager, Video Podcasts ~ Vox Media ~ Remote, US
🌙 Audio Producer II ~ WABE ~ Atlanta, Georgia
🌙 Radio Associate Producer ~ GBH ~ Boston, MA
Training and events
📻 NPR’s Embedded: Pitching Your Narrative Podcast Series ~ AIR webinar ~ 15 May
📻 Nova Institute health media fellowship ~ deadline 19 May
📻 Live Wire Radio production fellowship ~ deadline 1 June
📻 Jar Audio’s emerging women in podcasting competition
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