This is my process of producing Word! This episode is about words, at the right time and the right moment, a Ramadhan special episode.
Story 1 (00:00 - 04:12): When Tanita didn’t know the right word to say in time of distress, she said the one phrase she didn’t understand.
Story 2 (04:12 - 12:00): Najee thought he was just helping a friend with learning English, until the table turned.
I want to thank Najee/Arnold Stapleton who has shared his story with me, and Ashmita Biswas for introducing his story with us on a cold winter evening.
The episode was hosted, written, reported, produced and sound designed by Tanita Rahmani.
How the story was found
For the longest time, I never quite get how shows can produce soo many real life stories. It seems so impossible because I would have a lot of topics and research articles and news that fascinate me, but little to no stories. I mean, who am I kidding, I have ZERO story. You know what I mean?
Maybe that struggle warrants its own page (re. what makes a story) but basically, I knew what I had weren’t stories and no matter how much I want to get it out there, they just don’t sound like the kind of stuff I want to be making, the ones that inspire me and got me doing this in the first place. I felt gutted to have an idea what “decent” might look like, to have a taste, and yet my ability seems too far from it.
I also feel like how stories are found is not something we talk about often in the community, what do you think? So for a long time I feel like that’s something I can only truly achieve when I’m hired for a show. Urm....but in order to get hired I already need to prove that I can do this shit (finding stories, generating stories). Welp, good luck with that :’(
Now that this episode is made, it means I have finally found a story! So how did I do that? In short, this is an episode where the story is found through a conversation I had over dinner-ish. But how I figured out that was a story took some learning curve, it went like this:
I had just watched Glynn Washington talking about how to pitch to Snap Judgement. One thing he said was about how they are interested in someone who has a want, a desire and does something about it. So that was what my mind was tapping into as I surfed through the web. It’s what my ear was tuning into as I engaged in conversations or attended conferences.
The story we heard that night was about how a colleague at work wanted to learn something because he needed to prove something to someone. So I thought, yep, that sounds like someone who’s doing something about what they want.
When I finished my pre-interview with him, I attended a narrative storytelling workshop with Karen Given, who told us that a quick way to find stories is to zoom into a series of events. So I started to see my conversation with him from that lens. And I did found that series of events, it went like this:
“One day, he was doing this when someone said that and so he decided to do this and that, until finally this happened.”
How the structure was built
Despite waiting for a few weeks to get a response (I reached out via email at first), I was feeling really confident when I was about to do my pre-interview with Najee, the character in my pitch. I think this confidence was really because I already knew or had a good idea of what happened to him. The constraints in my theme and scope helped me. I suddenly remember all those times I went to explore a potential story from a topic/ research I made, and plunged into a call with bajillion questions not knowing if I will get a story out of it. Ugh!
So, then what happened next was that I built the questions around just that thread of events, which makes the work of interviewing and building story structure so manageable. What I tried to focus on getting was the contrast of before and after - the change.
I forgot when in the timeline of producing this piece that I got this feedback, but I was pitching a different piece to Snap Judgement around this time, and they told me that I need to complete the pitch by revealing what happened after the series of events - what was the result of one’s effort, and what that result meant in one’s respective hero’s journey.
Just when I thought things were going really well, I was kind of discouraged after my pre-interview with Najee. The problem is not at all with him or his experience. He was eloquent and remembered details. As crazy as it sounds, I felt like the problem was that while this is a story, I’m not sure if it is something with enough complexity to churn Ira Glass’s tummy.
Was the effort he made to prove a point to his friend really that extraordinary? I’m not sure. Were there other things going on in his life during that time that may give more dimension and nuance to the story? No. For a while, I didn’t think it’s a good enough story, so I wasn't going to produce it.
Kill or not to kill?
I realized that it’s my problem. I was so consumed in thinking how I might pitch this to other studios/shows and it took away the fact that this is a story coming from an honest character whose life experiences are as valuable and personal as those that might be at the likes of big shows. I realized I was capitalizing his story and took away the fun of listening and immersing myself in other people’s world (who, by the way, have generously welcomed me to theirs). And the fun of actually producing it, crafting something from scratch.
At the end of this journey, I have spent maybe 5 weeks on this (along with other pitches and ideas), and I took some time off during Ramadan. I finally went ahead and set up an actual interview at Najee’s office. I have a slim line of questions, really focused, but I did let myself be completely in the moment and responded to him with banters when the interview happened.
What came after this was me deciding to put myself more in the story. I decided that it’d be stronger if I can weave Najee’s experience with a personal story of my own, to show something universal in both stories, a common thread. And that’s how the first part of the story gets made.
I think this experience has been an important milestone for me in courage. The courage to put myself out there, the courage to let my ideas see the light of day without censor, without needing approval from other institutions, or capitalizing it!
This is fantastic, it takes courage to create something and put it out there. And to do it so thoughtfully with the goal to be immersed and transported to Najee’s world is a testament to your ability to shine a light on someone’s lived experiences. Great job!