I found this advice to help you with your radio stories:
- When you can convince people that you really just want to listen to what they have to say, that person will open their heart to you every time. When you listen to people you’re giving them a very rare and special gift.
- When people tell you a story, it’s like they’re singing you a song. Every voice has its own musicality, its own tone and timbre. And even just a little half-sentence fragment can go in through your ear and tell you something profound about a person’s soul.
- The public radio airwaves can be an echo chamber for predictable voices saying unsurprising things about familiar topics. But those same airwaves can also be a blank canvas for something different, for something a little more impressionistic, something abstract, that achieves its effect through tone and mood and juxtaposition, and honors listeners’ powers of inference and empathy.
- Finally, it might make you nervous. It might feel awkward. It might be very counter-intuitive, the last thing you’re inclined to do, but if you talk to strangers, it’s a guaranteed way to improve your day and theirs.