How to Tell a Story, with Alan Alda and The Moth’s Catherine Burns

The Upgrade by Lifehacker

Lifehacker

Tech News, News, How To, Education, Self-improvement

4.6 • 688 Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2017

⏱️ 67 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, Alan Alda and The Moth’s Catherine Burns join us to talk about storytelling. What makes a good story? What makes a good storyteller? How can we use storytelling to communicate better, to sell people on our ideas, to make people like us?Actor, director, screenwriter, author and science advocate Alan Alda is the founder of the Alda Center for Communicating Science and Alda Communication Training, which trains scientists and businesspeople to use improv in order to more effectively get their ideas across. Catherine Burns is artistic director of The Moth, the non-profit dedicated to the art and craft of stories told live and without notes. We talk with both about the magic and science of storytelling and effective communication. Additionally, Lifehacker staff writer Beth Skwarecki speaks with a children’s librarian about how best to tell a bedtime story, and Lifehacker staff writer Nick Douglas schools us on Dan Harmon’s guide to structuring any written story. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcast from the team at lifehacker.com, where we help you improve your life one week at a time.
0:21.0	I'm Melissa Kirsch, editor-in-chief of Lifehacker.
0:23.7	And I'm Alice Bradley, Lifehacker's deputy editor.
0:26.4	And today's episode is about storytelling.
0:29.0	What makes a good story?
0:30.8	What makes a good storyteller?
0:32.8	How can we use storytelling to communicate better, to sell people on our ideas, to make people
0:37.3	like us.
0:38.5	To help us figure this out, we're joined by actor, director, screenwriter, author, and science
0:44.0	advocate Alan Alda, founder of the Alda Center for Communicating Science and Alda
0:49.3	Communication Training, which trains scientists and business people in improv in order to more effectively
0:54.8	get their ideas across.
0:56.6	He's the author of, If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face, My Adventures
1:00.8	and the Art and Science of Communicating?
1:02.7	The thing that almost all of us do at one point or another in our lives is engage in
1:08.2	the curse of knowledge.
1:09.6	We'll also be chatting with Catherine Burns,
1:11.6	artistic director of the Moth,
1:13.3	the nonprofit dedicated to the art and craft of stories told live
1:17.6	and without notes to standing room-only crowds worldwide.
1:22.1	In honor of the Moth's 20th anniversary,
1:24.8	Catherine has edited a collection of Moth stories called The Moth presents all these
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Lifehacker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Lifehacker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.