[Podcast] Snap Judgment's Glynn Washington: Lessons from a Master Storyteller
SOUND JUDGMENT, THE PODCAST - EP10 PUBLISHED ON 1/12/2023
To a lot of listeners, Glynn Washington is a legend. His show, Snap Judgment, has been airing across the country and in our ears continuously since 2010. It’s snapped up two million times a month by people who love his particular, recognizable brand of storytelling—as he calls it, storytelling with a beat. He’s one of only three people in the world who have had three podcasts hit number one on the Apple charts at the same time—Snap Judgment and his two other shows, Spooked, and a limited series called Heaven’s Gate. When people describe Glynn, and Snap, the words that come up are curiosity. Music. Empathy…and wonder.
And no wonder. Because who else other than Glynn would include this statement in the credits of a podcast episode? “We love the universe of life in its glorious splendor.”
Glynn and I delve into hostiness, empathy, surprise and why you should go small when storytelling, not big, on this episode of Sound Judgment, where we investigate just what it takes to become a beloved podcast host—by pulling apart one episode at a time, together.
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How to tell better stories: 5 takeaways from Glynn Washington
You’re taking your listener on a journey with you. That takes intention.
From the beginning of every episode, Glynn is thinking about how to persuade the listener to go on a journey with him. He’s taking you into a different world, introducing you to the interior lives of the characters in these stories. He wants you to be curious, surprised, to feel things. He asks: “What piece of myself can act as an avatar for this journey I want to take people on? What piece of me can do that? That’s the hostiness of it all.”
To have hostiness is to be animated by a question. The question that lights you up will be different than the one that lights me up. Snap Judgment is all about empathy—to get listeners to walk in someone else’s shoes for a little while. In contrast, Jad Abumrad of RadioLab was animated by curiosity. What animates you? Stay true to that.
To Glynn, the best characters are the most flawed. They’re not famous and successful. They’re the people who’ve made mistakes, who don’t want to face the ramifications of their actions, who’ve had some hard knocks—like Dick, the zookeeper in the Snap Classic story, “Zoo Nebraska,” who didn’t want his story told. Rarely, if ever, are people villains on purpose. If you find that you’ve painted a character as 100% good or evil, go back and revisit your choices. Dig deeper. Figure out what you’re hiding, or what they are hiding, and show it.
You don’t have to be Batman to have a good story to tell. In fact, you may be able to tell an amazing story about walking across the street, if we learn what it took for you to get from one side of the street to the other and how high the stakes are.
Don’t leave out the washing machine. It’s the ordinary details of life—even when they happen in the middle of a chimp escape—that make stories real for listeners.
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The episode discussed on this Sound Judgment:
This story details violence against animals. Sensitive listeners, please be advised.
"Zoo Nebraska," a Snap Classic, Season 13, Episode 18 : The story of a chimpanzee and a man whose dream brought disaster to a small American town. (Produced by John Fecile and Carson Vaughan, original score by Renzo Gorrio. Additional production by Jesse Dukes and Pat Mesiti-Miller. Artwork by Teo Ducot.)
Read more about Zoo Nebraska in Carson Vaughan’s book, Zoo Nebraska: The Dismantling of an American Dream.
Additional thanks to Patti Ragan from the Center for Great Apes. Interested in protecting Great Apes? Learn more at the Center for Great Apes
Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies. It is hosted by Elaine Appleton Grant, project management by Tina Bassir, sound design by Andrew Parella, and cover art illustration by Sarah Edgell.