Podcast: How to tell stories that inspire

My Domestika course, Intro to Podcast Production: Tell Stories That Inspire, is all about telling stories that inspire. But what does inspire actually mean? For me, it’s about making change, doing something, spreading the word. What does it mean for you?

It’s a subject that I dive into often in the work I do, from my podcast, food writing and creative writing retreats to the interviews I do weekly with my guests on Cooking the Books and the Food Foundation Podcast. The answers may be different, but how do we tell stories that compel?

Here, I’ll share with you a recent experience where digging deep has discovered gold.

At a recent Cooking the Books food writing retreat, one of the would-be writers arrived with a finished book. She had joined us at my home in East Sussex to chat about the details, to discuss distribution, photography, social media. She was looking forward to a couple of days away from the family, sitting on the deck, drinking wine and soaking up the vibe of the food writing community.

We got to pitching pretty early on; as with the Domestika podcasting course, the aim is to drill down to the essence of what people want to say, to whom and why, and we need lots of time to get it wrong before we get it right. It was Nancy’s turn, but as she told us her idea, she was met with blank faces from her fellow retreaters. Friendly appreciation followed within a second or two, but it was too late; she’d got her response. She’d forgotten the big fat So What? We just didn’t get it.

It sounds brutal, but it’s human nature for eyes to glaze over when we don’t hear what someone is saying. Words are often just not enough. We want pictures in our heads from that pitch, a reason to care. We want to see people, to be moved by their story.

At the Food Foundation, a British charity which campaigns for better access to healthy food for the poorest kids in our society, the role of the podcast which I produce is to make the listener weep. Or write to their MP. Or both. So when I interview people who rattle off the (outrageously high) numbers of children who live in food poverty, I’ll add a picture-phrase. “That’s in Britain today; the sixth richest economy in the world”, I’ll write into the voice over script, and get the presenter to pause for effect. I’ve loaded my bow, pulled back the arrow and landed a bullseye in the heart of my listener. Consider that MP letter written.

Nancy looked again at her manuscript as we asked her what she wanted to say, to whom and why. She burst into tears (it’s ok, it’s actively encouraged at my retreats, and softens an already supportive retreat community like butter on a summer’s day). She told us the back story of the book with an arms up, direct dive into a family legacy she’d forgotten to mention. As she surfaced with the ingredients for a joyful, practical manifesto for dealing with tough times, a family cookbook from hers to ours, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house.