578- The craft of podcast story-telling

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In this episode of The Podcast Reporter, we review some themes from Evo Terra in his podcastpontifications.com podcast show — in particular, why podcasters may not consider themselves as good story-tellers and learning the craft of story-telling.

In his recent episode where he discusses story telling, Evo tackles the self-imposed limitation that podcasters may have when they believe that their story-telling expertise is not good enough for podcasting — and the possibility of being “out-podcasted” by a good story teller. He states: “But not every podcaster is as confident in their storytelling abilities. Many struggle with storytelling on their shows, either because they have an actual deficiency when it comes to storytelling or because of that pesky imposter syndrome that won’t shut up as it tries to convince competent, capable podcasters that they’re worse at storytelling than they really are.”

Evo does have a few suggestions that have worked for him to master his craft of telling stories:

become an avid reader;
listen to podcasts that tell stories;
use the OUTLINE method to get a draft of the story you wish to tell, and then refine it with good story-telling materials and tools;
keep some stories “in your back pocket” just in case you need to bring one up and relate it when you are being interviewed or recorded in a podcast;
Practice the craft of telling stories constantly (and for many episodes) in your show: “As with any skill, you have to practice. Yes, even those who have mastered their craft—regardless of what that craft is—have to practice.”
Practice speaking your story out loud, as this is one way that it helped Evo to internalize story-telling;
Move your mindset to positive telling of stories to others.

For this podcaster, I have studied the art of story-telling, as my studies in my college undergraduate work was in writing for television and film — and story-telling was a key part of learning the craft. And always, the feedback is most important.

However, as a podcaster, mixing the story telling with the fact-based narration or deconstruction of events and situations is also something that is learned over time with much work and practice. And I would suggest that outlines and the writing of good show notes for your episodes would also be a major boost in perfecting your story-telling abilities — and your listeners will be able to comment on that more positively than other podcasters who become critical (and sometimes for the sake of just being critical of other podcasters).

Thus, I would suggest that you listen to the episode about story telling from the August, 2021, episode from Evo Terra in his podcastpontifications.com show and then review your own methods and workflow and processes and tactics that you may now use in story telling — and improve on them or incorporate new ones for your show.

I agree with what he says that your podcast show will “out-podcast” other shows when you tell good stories in your content and deliver that kind of value to your listeners.

Thank you for your attention.