Ira Glass on storytelling
We’re fans of Ira Glass and “This American Life” as witnessed by my post here. One of my cohorts at work forwarded me a link to Glass talking about the radio show’s story-finding process. It’s well worth watching because it’s a reminder that most story concepts are, as Glass calls them, “crap.”
Apply what Glass says to your screenwriting, specifically the ideas you choose to write. A writer has to have a seriously high standard in judging their story ideas — and most of them will be crappy ideas. As Glass notes, one key is simply to churn through a mass of ideas in order to generate that one golden nugget. But listen to Glass — he makes the point really well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qmtwa1yZRM