Six Things These Three Shows Taught Me About Good Narration
The Wild Boys, Sh*thole Country and The Underdogs by Outside/In - The narrator is everything to narrative podcasts - these three got it right
There are a few rules that I’ve come to when it comes to how to choose the right narrator for a series, and these are basically immutable:
The narrator must have a personal connection to the story. Without a personal connection, it’s very hard to care; it’s perhaps the bridge that travels between the land of pure “journalism,” and the land of narrative audio storytelling.
The narrator must take you somewhere…inside a story, to a faraway place, into the innermost thoughts and emotions. It doesn’t have to be an actual physical place, but the writing needs to actually move the listener, physically, emotionally, spiritually. Ideally, the story is also told with a trajectory; the beginning is materially different from the ending.
The narrator should speak to a person, not to an audience. There’s something very granular about this, so much so that it’s hard to define in words. But it’s the difference between writing the narration as though it’s for a crowded room, versus for people listening one-on-one.
It’s about making that connection directly with a human on the other end of the story. It’s about looking into the eyes of the listener, or pausing between breaths, adjusting the seat, and then leaning in to say that final point. Often you see this when it’s not, and it’s a feeling you get when you listen, poorly defined as ‘just not quite there.’
These three series, Wild Boys, Sh*thole Country and The Underdogs by Outside/In do these three things, often masterfully. But then they do a few things extra.
In this post, I’m going to drill down to exactly what those things are.
A confabulation, a journey, and a wild ride
Each of these series take you somewhere that you haven’t been before, either because you can’t travel back in time, because it’s such a personal experience that few would have had a similar experience, they are so remote it’s unlikely.
Wild Boys is like a personal time travel vehicle to explain how mysteries could still be local mysteries, and what life was like before social media changed the Internet forever. Welcome back to 2003. It’s not told in a ‘gather-ye-round-me-youngins’ kind of way; it’s an honest exploration of how a memory of place can reveal some truths about a community, and humanity, in the before times.
Sh*thole Country moves from a small apartment in Brooklyn to Ghana, where Mama Agnes has found her passion, and has the wish to reunite her family under one roof, but the daughter isn’t so sure that’s the plan.
The Underdogs travels between Minnesota, Alaska and New Zealand to uncover a mystery of what happened to a group of elite dog athletes, ones that trained to run the longest and most grueling dogsledding race in the world, the Iditarod, the 1,000-mile race between Anchorage, Alaska, and Nome, Alaska, that traces the mail-in, gold-out route of the early days of the goldrush.
Each of these series do what great narrative podcasts can does best: bring you to a far-away place where you’re fairly unlikely to stumble on yourself.
But they also offer a personable and unique guided tour so that they bring you inside the personal narrative in a way that makes sure it stays inside of you.
Wild Boys
An 8-part investigation about The Bush Boys, who appeared out of nowhere, one summer before social media began, in small-town in British Columbia, in 2003
Produced by Sam Mullins for Season 3: Chameleon, by Campside Media
Winner, Podcast of the Year, Ambies 2022
This was one of the first series I listened to last summer when I finally got serious about launching this newsletter. Here’s what I also learned after listening to this series: must take notes as I go; because after five, eight 10 hours, it’s tough to remember those specific moments in detail. Now, for my workflow wow, I always open a Notes note for each series that I listen to, and make notes as I go (often by dictating thoughts as they occur to me).
Despite my lack of notes of actual names of people, places and facts, there are things that have stuck with me about this series.
1 - Open with a mystery and stick to the facts:
This story opens as a memory and then unfolds in a rather straightforward chronology. But the story, the mystery is actually a confabulation; it was conceived by two brothers who lived so deeply inside of their own lie that they began to believe it.
The story follows two young boys who suddenly appeared in a small town in Interior BC, Vernon BC, which is also the hometown of the host Sam Mullins (personal connection, check).
These boys told a rather audacious story: That they had been living in a cabin, not far from town, for their whole lives, but had never integrated into society. They didn’t know things like television, processed food or school…they claimed that when they ventured into town looking for fruit, which is where this story picks up, it was their first-ever contact with civilized society.
The town bought the story and rallied behind them. The local media jumped on the bandwagon. Local families took them in.
Somehow the writing of this narration allows the layers of this incredible story to be…credible…and the appropriate amount of sign-posting is employed to navigate us back to the world that was literally five minutes before social media was invented (2003).
The narrative tone is sincere without doting. These boys were also dealing with an eating disorder that I had never heard of—Orthorexia Nervosa—which is the unhealthy focus on healthy eating. The mystery of the story also unwrapped the mystery of their little-known mental illness, and then carefully reunited with the characters at the end.
2 - Keep the time stamp alive:
The only way this story makes sense is that it all happened before social media changed the Internet. Although this was only 20 years ago, it’s hard to put into context how much those decades matter, without sounding pedantic and OK-boomer-ish (even though some Millenials also lived before Internet!)
The exact era of the story is also the mystery; it’s the missing piece that makes this story so intriguing. We have largely forgotten what life was like before we all knew this much about each other’s pets, hometowns, family milestones and random party nights, via the various social media platforms with coexist with today.
The way these details unfold is important; Sam Mullins allows for the mystery to live just as long as it takes for the time stamp to catch up with it. It’s an honest move; it keeps the story credible and convincing.
Trying to trick your listeners into thinking that this makes more sense than it does is not genuine would not work. We are smart. We figure things out fast as we listen; but please, lull me into believing it while I listen. It makes for a much more interesting ride along the way.
Sh*ithole Country
An 8-part memoir about identity, family, ambition and connection
Produced by Afia* (not their real name) for Radiotopia Presents
Nominated for a Peabody in 2021
I listened to this show last year, over Mother’s Day weekend, when I happened to find myself on an 8-hour solo drive. I could not have picked a better companion story. Me the mother of a child about to go away to university. Me the daughter of a mother undergoing a difficult surgery that same weekend…the idea of connection and family, where and how a family lives together and apart…was already on my mind.
This story brought me into what felt like a long discussion with the self, about how to be part of a family, but also be your own person. And also the matching ambition between how a mother sees life ahead for her children...and something about what the daughter has to say to it, or has said already, through actions and decisions.
Seeing this story through the lens of a family that immigrated to America, and then wandered back to the mother country, was an insightful voyage into that version of the story. Although this is not my life story, the way the story unfolds brought me inside that version of the story, and helped remove some cobwebs from eyes to see it more clearly.
3 - Narration can also feel like a meditation:
Afia narrates the story like a long conversation with the self. The thoughts seem to have a cadence and a soundtrack that feels like when your questions cycle and recycle, like when you meditate and annoying thoughts keep re-emerging. And then the thoughts are dealt with in successive and realistic ways. But not always concretely. Not always tidily.
This cycle feels like a rhythm and allows you to feel alongside the facts, emotions, ideas and conundrums. It takes you on a bit of a ride without making you feel woozy.
The thoughts change and grow and adapt, but they don’t feel chaotic. They are given space to breathe and be considered, which is an accurate way to describe a long and tricky decision-making process.
Afria returns home to Ghana, where her mother has the gift of a lifetime waiting for her. We see how attaching strings to gifts is both alluring and realistic (from a mother’s perspective), but then stifling and disconnecting (from a daughter’s view).
It’s a memoir that explores identity, which offers insights and ideas but stays true to the idea that there doesn’t have to be a neat and tidy conclusion. Identity is not something that you can nail down to the floorboards - and this is perhaps even more true if this identity must be forged between countries, cultures, languages, and multi-layers of family and belonging.
4 - The secondary character can be equally compelling as the main character:
Afia is the daughter. Agnes is the mother (those are not their real names, but they feel real and connecting as you listen to the story).
Every time Agnes comes into the story, I’m leaning in for more. Her real voice appears in the show, which was crucial. Having her as an idea, a person who is referred to, but we never meet, would not have produced the same reaction. She is larger than life, she is an amazing woman. And that’s really the point of the story. This mother is the life force playing out in the decision tree of her daughter.
The way this balance is struck reminds me that the narrator doesn’t also need to be the star of the show. If the connection is real and strong, and built genuinely from inside the story, there’s ample room to share the mic.
It reminds me that stories should share the space when they can, because it allows for the story to reach more broadly.
Maybe I see this because I’m both a mother and a daughter, and I’m looking for clues of both; but the balance here is beautiful.
The Underdogs from Outside/In on NHPR
A 3-part series reported by Nate Hegyi
Appears as a mini-series on the Outside/In feed, produced by NHPR
My dog is no sled dog…he prefers to sit on my lap when he can, or sleep next to me on a warm blanket all day while he snores (Boston Terriers have that cute scrunched-in face that makes them do this). Enough to say that my days are very dog-focused and I love dogs.
But I also recognize that many people who are dog-focused don’t understand what it means to have a “working dog,” ie a dog that has a job, say at a farm, or a dog who is next-of-kin to a wild beast and they are trained like elite athletes.
5 - Address the controversy right up front:
Nate Hegyi saw that flashing sign up ahead and addressed this controversy right up front. Dog owners are pet owners, which is not a term that should be confused with a farm worker, or a dog musher, as is the case here.
It was going to be impossible to tell this story credibly without providing a translation script for the difference between a house dog and a working dog. This becomes more true as the story unfolds and we go out to different people in the professional dog world; trainers, breeders, transporters, and tour operators.
Even if it wasn’t a problem inside of this story, once it went out into the world, it might have become a problem elsewhere. That’s when it struck me how smart it was to bring this potential problem right up front, name it, provide boundaries around it, and then let it go. This allowed the story and the script to continue apace without constantly having to couch it between the cushions of one school of thought, and another.
Putting this upfront also allowed the story to resolve on its own, and not dwindle down into a pedantic mess. It gave the dogs the credit and honour they are due, without dwelling too long in that field. And it provided a context that might not have been seen properly without it.
6 - Go to the place you’re talking about:
I love the trailer for this show, where Nate talks about his snot freezing to his face, because he had gone to the farthest place away he could find, to talk about these elite athletes…the dogs who race the mega ultra-marathon of dog sled races, the Iditarod. When I heard this as an ad on another show I was listening to, I paused, did a search, and saved this for later. I wanted to go to that snot-freezing place where dogs howl.
But the story doesn’t stop there; it goes and finds the woman who bred the dogs, back in Minnesota, who refused to speak over the Internet. And then of course, it goes all the way to Alaska, to see and feel what it’s like to be there surrounded by dozens of almost-wild-dogs, the elite Huskies who race in dogsleds. But the story doesn’t stop there…the job of the story is to get to the bottom of two New Zealanders at the center of this story.
Instead of going there himself, Nate introduces the journalist trick of a Door Knock, when the journalist knocks on the door of the person in the story to get an answer or a reaction. And when Nate couldn’t go all the way to New Zealand just for a Door Knock, he hires someone to record that exact moment. He introduces him, the concept, and then we walk into the story together.
I loved how Nate opened the playbook on producing, while bringing a new character into the show, all done with a public radio budget.
It’s a smart show, reported for public radio, but done smart and done well. It manages to go to all the places it’s supposed to and remembers that the listener is there for the whole ride.
