How story structure helps you become more creative (6S Framework - Part 2 of 6)
This is the second of a six-part series on our 6S Audience Engagement Framework. Read the overview here.
As a reminder, here's the framework again:
Sound Vision — Can you hear the story in your head? (read about Sound Vision)
Structure — Take listeners on a journey. (continue reading below)
Scenes — The engagement backbone. (read about Scenes)
Surprise! — Even the most straightforward of episodes should contain surprises. Look for them. (read about Surprise)
Suspense — Intrigue creates forward momentum. (read about Suspense)
Specifics — Details create driveway moments. (read about Specifics)
Amit Kapoor and Michael Osborne, hosts and producers of Famous & Gravy
For those of you who haven’t yet listened to Sound Judgment’s Episode 23, “How to make serious topics fun with with the hosts of Famous & Gravy,” first of all, you’re missing out. Hosts and producers Amit Kapoor and Michael Osborne created an elusive blend of the hilarious and the profound that, personally, is exactly what I need, often.
Second, their show provides actionable lessons on why and how to build structure into your podcast from day one.
Famous & Gravy has one of the strongest structural foundations for a show I’ve ever seen. Amit and Michael ask each other 12 questions about each dead celebrity. They have effectively drawn a blueprint that enables them to easily wrestle raw content into meaning that sticks with you.
Some of us balk at structure or simply don’t know where to start. This should help:
1. Structure provides creative constraints, or what I usually call guardrails. Simply the act of creating a structure helps us know what to include, when, and how — and equally important, what to leave out. (I could write pages on this topic, so I’ll save the deep dive for another time.)
These creative constraints make producing each episode easier. In fact, Michael and Amit rarely discuss content with each other before they tape. They do their research separately and draw their own conclusions, leading to lively discussions, and — counter intuitively — more creativity, not less.
2. A structure can be both content- and time-based: The famous NPR “clock” divides magazine shows like Morning Edition into precise, time-limited segments. Each segment contains a different kind of content, such as the day’s top news, field reporting, cultural coverage, news analyses, and so forth. The clock specifies time slices for underwriting, station i.d.s, and so forth. Producers and hosts know exactly how much time they have for each segment. (And underwriting folks know the quantity and length of the advertising slots they’re allowed to sell.)
3. Time constraints make us better producers and hosts. As you can imagine, such a structure helps us organize content. But radio time clocks also help producers build our “discipline muscles.” They train us to get rid of fluff. Hosts of live shows quickly learn how to hit their time “posts” — meaning that with one eye on a countdown clock, we finish a segment exactly when we need to. It becomes second nature.
But because radio clocks are so precise, they can also feel constraining. Podcasts aren’t subject to rigid time limits — but creating even suggested time windows offers many benefits to audio makers and listeners alike.
4. Grow your audience by building listener habits. As listeners, we want to know what to expect. A structure like Famous & Gravy’s 12 questions builds that habit. Perhaps we wind up with a favorite question among the 12, such as “How do you grade the first line of their obituary?” In addition, the questions build on each other, leading to a climax. As listeners, we hang on for the payoff.
But let’s dive under the covers of this technique for something important — something far too many “chat show” producers ignore to their peril.
5. There’s a destination in every episode. In Famous & Gravy, every question leads to the final one: Will St. Peter let them in? Once you know that question is coming, you’ll listen to the whole episode because you must learn the answer.
Beginnings hook people. As Amit says, the beginning works for business reasons. You bring people in, you attract them, you grow your audience. As storytellers, we often give short shrift to endings because they’re hard. But how you leave listeners at the end is what makes them keep coming back.
So give this a try in your studio. Break down your episodes: how can you clarify your existing structure? If you’re launching a new show, get a handle on your structure from the get-go. You wouldn’t build a house without a blueprint, right?
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