What’s it like being in love and coping with the death of your spouse of 70 personalities, or, being an Afghan boy when a gun-wielding Talib enlists your help to win over the heart of a girl in your village? I recently took a storytelling class through CreativeLive, taught by Snap Judgment podcasters Julia DeWitt and Anna Sussman, who didn’t answer those questions, but instead shared how they went about crafting stories around them. Finding these stories seems daunting, but they exist in every corner of society across the globe. You just need curiosity, persistence and your human nature.
“How do you go about finding these stories, these people?” asked a class attendee. Their responses outlined what many creative professionals do every day—consume content they find personally interesting, with openness and curiosity.
Anna and Julia walk through the world and consume content with their antennae up—every waking moment. They’re curious people, and when coupled with their personal interests, they can readily find little gems, little seeds of something that could be their next story. Then they dig.
As a longtime musician and music producer, I can relate. If I listen to my favorite artists or songs intently, I might uncover a little melody or styling that could become the basis of an entire tune, just as a graphic designer might scroll through a magazine and pick up an element that influences a logo they’re working on. David Bowie, RIP, touched on this cycle of influence humbly. “Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I’ve seen on some of the songs that I’ve written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in.” Interpretation is our human nature. We observe, discover, interpret, and then share. Anna or Julia might pick up a little seed of a story, then tell it in a unique way, or from a different angle.
Having listened to songs with open ears for so long, I’ll never know what it’s like to listen with untrained ears. I can certainly turn off my radar, but then the music becomes, well, background music. If I focus, if I listen, the antennae go up. Am I alone in this? Doubtful, but how is it different for musicians vs. storytellers vs. designers vs. photographers? Perhaps that’s just the very seed of a story worth exploring.