Out on the Wire

The Episode 7: Dark Forest archive: The Edit with Robert Smith and Jess Jiang

Rough mix: Episode 7: Dark Forest

In Episode 8: Your Baby's Ugly we talk a lot about how we edited Episode 7: Dark Forest into into its final form with the help of Jess Jiang and Robert Smith of Planet Mo

Out on the Wire Episode 9: Make It Work

It’s one thing to finish a story, it’s another to make stories your career. In our final episode of season one of Out on the Wire we talk to three creative professionals,

Out on the Wire Episode 8.5: Workshop

  Dan Waldschmidt and Matthew Williamson just produced the pilot episode of a podcast called "Ordinary Heroes," but they know they need a new point of view on it — time

Out on the Wire Episode 8: Your Baby's Ugly

Our stories are our babies, but not all babies are cute. This week, we figure out just how far we’ve still got to go when we take a finished draft of our own show and sub

Out on the Wire Episode 7.5: Workshop

Céline Keller is making an autobiographical audio story about how she turned her life upside-down in order to raise two wild baby boars on her father’s remote farm in Ger

Out on the Wire Episode 7: Dark Forest

The Dark Forest is where we go when we're deep in the writing process and lose our way. Overwhelming feelings of self-doubt, confusion, and inadequacy threaten to halt ou

Out on the Wire Episode 6.5: Workshop

This week, Matt and Ben and Jessica critiquing scenes written by members of the Out on the Wire working group. An ethnographic memoir about marrying into a new culture, a

Out on the Wire Episode 6: Proof of Concept

It’s time to get some ink on that page. We’re in the lab, testing our story hypotheses in the crucible of the writing process. We put things in order, break them down, bu

Out on the Wire Episode 5.5: Workshop

This is our 5th workshop episode, where we discuss work posted the Out on the Wire working group. This week, interviewing—we talk about space monks, schadenfreude, the va

Out on the Wire Episode 5: You're Not Lucky, You're Just Good

Don’t be lucky. Be good. Manufacture your own luck with the right kind of preparation for an interview. We hear from Zoe Chace, Robert Smith, Ira Glass and Jenna Weiss-Be

Out on the Wire: Interim

Young Ira Glass learns a lesson about how to make his own luck in this story that appears in Out on the Wire (the book), but didn’t fit in episode 5, about interviewing.

Out on the Wire Episode 4.5: Workshop

In this week’s workshop, we’re critiquing work from the Episode 4: Bare Bones challenge: stories of a modern cinderella, a veteran seeking justice, and an antique dealer

Out on the Wire Episode 4: Bare Bones

This episode is a flight check: We’re making sure the underpinnings of our stories are tight and structured by utilising the narrative arc, chronology, and framing. You'l

Out on the Wire Episode 3.5: Workshop

In our third workshop episode we critique a few of the character profiles posted in the Out on the Wire Working group. This week: stories about Lithium mixers, a future d

Out on the Wire Episode 3: Walk In My Shoes

Today we dive deep into character, characters that let us walk in the shoes of someone else. But how can we create characters that feel genuine while also functioning to

Out on the Wire Episode 2.5: Workshop

In our second workshop episode we're talking about some of the focus sentences and XY story formulae posted in the Out on the Wire working group. This week: stories about

Out on the Wire Episode 2: Focus

How can we know if an idea is a good one? This time on Out on the Wire, we investigate how to refine story ideas using the focus sentence and the X/Y story formula. Plus,

Out on the Wire Episode 1.5: Workshop

In our first workshop episode, we take a crack at some of the great ideas popping up on the Out on the Wire Working Group. Join Jessica, Ben, and Matt as we dig into how

Out on the Wire Episode 1: Eureka

Out on the Wire is the show about making stories, step by step. Join cartoonist Jessica Abel as she breaks down the principles of storytelling and puts you on the path to