Out on the Wire – Details, episodes & analysis

In Episode 8: Your Baby's Ugly we talk a lot about how we edited Episode 7: Dark Forest into into its final form with the help of Jess Jiang and Robert Smith of Planet Money. We wanted to share that process, so here's our original mix of episode 7, which we sent to Jess and Robert, their edit meeting with us, and the final version of episode 7. Enjoy!

Don’t be lucky. Be good. Manufacture your own luck with the right kind of preparation for an interview. We hear from Zoe Chace, Robert Smith, Ira Glass and Jenna Weiss-Berman on how to research, prepare, and execute an interview that will provide exactly what you need. Plus we talk to New Yorker staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar about her interviewing technique and her new book.

Young Ira Glass learns a lesson about how to make his own luck in this story that appears in Out on the Wire (the book), but didn’t fit in episode 5, about interviewing. Enjoy!

In this week’s workshop, we’re critiquing work from the Episode 4: Bare Bones challenge: stories of a modern cinderella, a veteran seeking justice, and an antique dealer with attachment issues. Plus we riff on the idea of theme and how to do advocacy storytelling without preaching to the choir.

This episode is a flight check: We’re making sure the underpinnings of our stories are tight and structured by utilising the narrative arc, chronology, and framing. You'll hear from Ira Glass, Chana Joffe-Walt, Sean Cole, and in a brand new interview, from Jonathan Mitchell of the radio-drama podcast The Truth. Jonathan explains his storytelling philosophy and breaks down the creation of one of his stories, Naughty Or Nice. 

In our third workshop episode we critique a few of the character profiles posted in the Out on the Wire Working group. This week: stories about Lithium mixers, a future detective noir, a sci-fi allegory about identity, and the true story of a transgender woman's journey at an Orthodox Jewish university. 

Today we dive deep into character, characters that let us walk in the shoes of someone else. But how can we create characters that feel genuine while also functioning to move the story? Glynn Washington, Joe Richman, Ira Glass, Jay Allison and more are here to help us figure out how to make characters that connect with an audience.

In our second workshop episode we're talking about some of the focus sentences and XY story formulae posted in the Out on the Wire working group. This week: stories about going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, self-help, comedy and PTSD, entrepreneurship, and a lot more. 

How can we know if an idea is a good one? This time on Out on the Wire, we investigate how to refine story ideas using the focus sentence and the X/Y story formula. Plus, Ira Glass recounts a reporting trip gone sideways and Jay Allison's takedown of formulaic storytelling.