Alex Blumberg has a course on how to use storytelling concepts for making a podcast.

My favorite part was the story formula:

I’m working on a story about x . It’s interesting because of y .

Try it out.

A few other ideas that I found helpful:

Break it up into smaller stories. Stories are merely series of actions. Try to have the flow of the story reset every 45-60 seconds. This means thinking in small blocks of story that resolve in less than a minute. This is getting to a punch line every minute.

YOU don’t always know the best part. When possible, show others your ideas, fragments of story, or the whole piece. They don’t have to be producers or storytelling professionals. Does it resonate? Is it actually interesting? Do they want to hear more?

“What do you make of it?” This is one of the best questions to keep close when doing an interview.

Dialog is great. If you are interviewing someone, can you get them to describe an event with “She said…” and then “He said…”?

Vivid details make the story come alive. When editing your story, skim quickly over the parts of the story that don’t have any interesting details. A script can help. And then focus on the vivid details of the story. The details paint the picture in the mind of the listener.