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Episode 515: Pitching Stories and Not Topics with Atavist Writer Peter Ward
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"The worst thing you can do is pitch a topic, not a story. You start with a topic. I like to talk to a few people before I write a pitch, which can be difficult because people you're asking to talk to don't know where it's going. I just look for topics that interest me first, and I dig down to an expert, and then from the expert, I try and find individual stories within that," says Peter Ward, whose "Master and Commander" appeared in The Atavist Magazine.
It’s that Atavistian time of the month, so there might be some spoilers here. I can’t remember. Good chance of it. Visit magazine.atavist.com to read the story by Peter Ward, a writer whose work has appeared in GQ, The Atlantic, Wired, The Guardian, and others. He’s the author of two books of nonfiction, The Consequential Frontier and The Price of Immortality. This story for The Atavist titled Master and Commander is wild. Here’s the deck: When a scraggly band of folk musicians arrived to tour the UK, residents of a small Welsh town were enamored—until they learned that the band’s leader ruled with an iron fist.
There’s sea shanties, people.
We’re gonna hear from lead editor Jonah Ogles first and dive into the Atavist’s national magazine award nominations, namely Drew Philp’s story “There Will Be No Mercy.” You can hear out chat about it on Episode 449.
Peter is here to talk about how he arrived at this story.
- Pitching a story, not a topic
- Off the record conversations for trust
- His cheat code
- How the story was a house of cards
- Better Call Saul
- Finding voice
- Interview prep
- And the video clip of Matt Stone and Trey Parker that really helps with story development
Promotional support: The 2026 Power of Narrative Conference. Use narrative20 at checkout for 20% off your tuition. Visit combeyond.bu.edu.
Show notes: brendanomeara.com
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Transcript
Metallica Concert Excitement
00:00:00
Speaker
I am about to spend an irresponsible amount of money to see Metallica at the sphere in the snake pit.
2026 Power of Narrative Conference
00:00:11
Speaker
ACNFers podcast shares a promotional sponsorship with the 2026 Power of Narrative Conference taking place March 27th and March 28th in lovely Boston, Massachusetts.
00:00:24
Speaker
This year's keynote speakers include Ken Burns, Patrick Rattenkieve, Angela Patton, and Natalie Ray, Sarah Stoneman, and Asma Khalid. There's a handful of CNF pod alums on the total roster, so you're going to really want to take advantage. If you use the promo code NARRATIVE20 at checkout, you get 20% off your fee. That's some serious cheddar.
00:00:45
Speaker
Visit combeyond.bu.edu to register.
Podcast Sponsorships and Promotions
00:00:50
Speaker
Repairing, restoring, reconnecting through true storytelling. This podcast is also sponsored by the word harumph verb to make a low guttural sound as of clearing the throat usually thought of as pompous to express
Atavistian Spoilers and New Stories
00:01:06
Speaker
disapproval. The greater podcast scene looks at CNF pod and harumphed. Thank you harumph for your support.
00:01:15
Speaker
You've got to get X number of words down on the page today, even if they are the worst words ever put down in sequence.
00:01:28
Speaker
Oh, well, it is the Atavistian time of the month, so there might be some spoilers here. I can't remember. Good chance of it, though. Visit magazine.atavist.com to read the story by Peter Ward, a writer whose work has appeared in GQ, The Atlantic, Wired, The Guardian, and others. He's the author of two books of nonfiction, The Consequential Frontier and The Price of Immortality.
00:01:50
Speaker
This story for the Atavist titled Master and Commander is wild.
Introduction to the Creative Nonfiction Podcast
00:01:55
Speaker
Now here's the deck. When a scraggly band of folk musicians arrived to tour the yeah UK, residents of a small Welsh town were enamored until they learned the band's leader ruled with an iron fist.
00:02:08
Speaker
There's Sea Shanties people. Oh, by the way, this is the Creative Nonfiction Podcast, a show where I speak to tellers of two tales about the true tales they tell. I'm Brendan O'Mara, hey, with apologies, as I might add.
00:02:19
Speaker
More on what you'll learn in a moment. As you know, show notes and all kinds of junk can be found at brendanomero.com. You may also elect to subscribe to the wildly popular Substack Pitch Club, where I invite primarily writers on to share a winning pitch or query and have them audio annotate their reasoning throughout so you can read a little and you listen a little and you learn a lot.
Teamwork in Journalism
00:02:39
Speaker
And with issue 10 with Pete Croato, I put the transcript of each audio clip in its own footnote.
00:02:45
Speaker
So if you can't listen for whatever reason, you can still benefit from the insight. I aim to serve, even if it kills me. We're going to hear from Jonah Ogles here, the lead editor of this piece, and dive into the Adovitz National Magazine Award nominations, namely Drew Phelps' story, There Will Be No Mercy.
00:03:06
Speaker
You can hear our chat about it on episode 449 if you to.
00:03:11
Speaker
Revisit that. Or visit it. I don't know if you've been there before. I don't know your GPS. So let's get to our good pal Jonah right now. Riv.
00:03:28
Speaker
kind of hate it when people say that writing is fun. But every day is very much a pair of socks. And I love style. Don't get me wrong, but that style had better be adding something. Yeah, this could be good. This is going to have to interest somebody somewhere other than me.
Challenges in Reporting
00:03:53
Speaker
Congrats are in order for the National Magazine Award nominations that you guys have procured, man. That's awesome. Yeah, thank you. Thank you. You know, and it um I'm so glad that, you know, it's always nice to be recognized, but I'm really glad that story in particular got recognized because, you know, it's about this conflict that basically no one was reporting on, you know, and it and it took a lot of work on Drew's part to even just get the story. And then i was I was also, like I started telling my wife, like, it also feels nice because that one was really a group effort.
00:04:32
Speaker
You know, it really took everybody being on their A game from Drew to the copy editor, fact checker. Sayward went on maternity leave partway through that story, so I kind of picked it up midway.
00:04:48
Speaker
and And then I i realized like that is what I end up saying about all of the stories we've been nominated for. They're the ones where you almost have to be at your best in everyone. like it's The stories where it's just like, oh, you know, Sayward handles the edit because it's easy, or I handle it. um I mean, those are great stories, but the ones that get nominated tend to be the ones that were just like a full team effort, which is really cool. And I think probably says something about what it takes to make really great stories. Yeah. And I remember what stood out to me about talking to Drew about that piece also when to get the trust he needed to report that story out and the physical risk he was under, to speak nothing of the physical risk that everyone else was under that he was reporting on, was that he got that trust because he really had to put his own skin in it and like find a way to get there, to get face-to-face with people. And it was really then that... they opened up to him like, oh, if you're willing to put this kind of risk and put your skin on the line, ah we're going to trust you all the more than ah than than we were before. And that always that that's what still sticks out to me about that conversation and that story.
00:06:04
Speaker
yeah it I mean, it was a real feat. you know like that's could It could have gone wrong in so many ways. And the fact that he was able to pull it off and and get them to trust him and that they were willing to. i mean, those sources are extraordinary people.
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and ah And now we've got, you know, Peter Ward's story here about kind of this ah this traveling folk band and ah that ties in and in modern slavery and all this stuff. and like It's a wild, a wild story. So what like what did this look like when it came across your Yeah.
00:06:42
Speaker
and I mean, it sounded wild from the beginning, you know, when you when you just start listing like all the keywords in it, you just kind of go, what is going on in this?
Storytelling Structure and Source Management
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah, this was one that like we were immediately interested in. It has a great subculture, you know, which like so many magazine stories dive into that. So you have this really interesting like sea shanty thing.
00:07:08
Speaker
subculture going on sort of mixed in with pirate reenactors and you also have like the very this very small town and in north wales full of its own characters so it was just like you know one thing piled on after another to make this really rich world that that we got to inhabit the There was definitely you know challenges ah in the reporting and people who felt comfortable going on the record and others others didn't for fear of ah yeah ah retribution of some kind or another. So with those reporting hurdles you know at the forefront, yeah what ah what gave you you know pause or caution as you were you know looking to you know see the story fully fleshed out?
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, well, we spent a lot of time before we assigned the story talking about what documents we had in hand in the event that people didn't want to participate or or change to their minds as Peter was reporting the story.
00:08:09
Speaker
If I remember correctly, it was one of those situations where he had a few key people already pretty committed to speaking with him. You know, they had assured him, hey, there are others who are going to be willing to talk as well.
00:08:23
Speaker
we did make sure that we had public records and documents sort of as a backstop so that we didn't have to, you know, we wouldn't have to kill the story if, if people decided not to talk, but, but luckily it really worked out well. You know, there were, there were plenty of people willing to speak on the record, which is always really nice from a,
00:08:48
Speaker
from a reporting standpoint. and and those those who weren't, who either wanted a pseudonym or or just wanted to sort of take a diminished role in the story, I think we were able to work our way towards something where everyone was comfortable. you know and the And the story I don't think suffered too much from that. That was always the conversation Peter and I were having and say where as different people had different responses was like, okay, well, can we do, can we sort of help them out and make them comfortable without hurting the story or in what ways do we need to change the story so that that doesn't really stand out. And so there there was some give and take. Certain people's roles were really reduced in the story. Others were expanded a little bit. But in the end, I think it turned into a really great read.
00:09:41
Speaker
And i I think everyone... is comfortable with sort of how they're represented in the piece. Yeah, the piece really does have a lot of you know good pulse, good energy that it's building and building and building to the to the end with ah you know each of its each of its acts. I always love getting a sense of yeah the way you're thinking as an editor about the structure of this piece. So what how were you thinking about the the structure element of this?
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, well, it I think this one presented a ah couple of different challenges. One, but i guess the big one was that there were like four years of tours, maybe five years of of tours that we needed to cover, you know, that this band kept coming back to the UK.
00:10:28
Speaker
And each tour... You know, the musicians alleged that a lot of the same bad behavior was happening, you know, threats and not getting paid and, you know, all the strange rules on the contracts they were they were made to sign.
00:10:47
Speaker
But it it got repetitive, ah you know, when you read one 2,000 word section about the first tour and then another about the second. So we we ended up doing a ah lot of condensing just on that front so that we could get to this pretty delayed moment where something finally happens, where the police start investigating.
00:11:08
Speaker
That was a a key part of it. And then we were also, there was some discussion about when to get to the modern slavery investigation because that happens at the end.
Music and Story Editing
00:11:21
Speaker
But it it's ultimately like a fairly big part of the story, you know, and just explaining what, how that works and and how the hotline works and what's considered modern slavery. And initially we had that at the beginning of the piece to sort of, you know, set the frame.
00:11:39
Speaker
here's Here's what this story is about. but we ended up saving it until the end. i think in, in part because like starting the story in that way almost made me read faster to get to that point again in the story, you know, and it doesn't come till the end. And so it felt like maybe that gap was a little too large and, and readers might miss some of this really like important stuff that's happening before that investigation begins. So we ended up moving that later to the piece, which I think allowed it to flow a little more naturally and and hopefully allows readers to take in some of the other stuff that
Peter Ward's Writing Approach
00:12:24
Speaker
happens. Yeah, and you're a musician. So you know what was your feeling of ah you know working on this story, given that yeah know music is the big backdrop to this?
00:12:34
Speaker
Yeah, it was fun. it was. i was i was like excited to, was like, oh, hey, it's a little bit about like how hard it is to make money as a musician in this world, which felt like my small contribution to the industry. And it was certainly fun to just like listen to sea shanties for a while. you know like i think I always sort of just throw music on as ah as I'm working on an edit. But ah this one, I was a little more, you know my my playlist was curated to to fit fit the environment. That's awesome. Well, cool, man. Well, yeah, we'll kick it over to Peter now and talk about, you know, his approach and his reporting out the story. But, yeah, it's it's a rollicking read, and I imagine that people are going to really dig it. So, as always, Jonah, thanks so much for the time.
00:13:20
Speaker
Yeah, thanks for having me.
00:13:28
Speaker
Nice. Yes. All right. So this was a toe tap and good read and a toe tap and good conversation. A real foot stomper. and Peter is here to talk about how he arrived at this story for The Atavist about pitching a story and not a topic, off the record conversations during trust his cheat code for the story how the story was a house of cards uh inspiration from better call saw finding voice interview prep and this video clip that i put in the show notes with matt stone and trey parker the founders of south park that really helps with thinking through story development really great stuff here and i hope you'll stick around for a parting shot that could change your life not really though but i would love your feedback on the idea email the show here's peter hu
00:14:26
Speaker
Before putting graphite to paper, John Steinbeck would sharpen 24 pencils and place them point up in the first of two wooden boxes. Each pencil lasted just long enough to dull its point, then be placed in a second box point down. After all 24 pencils had progressed from one box to the other, John would resharpen each pencil and begin the process again. which is a, that's a lot of writing and a lot of sharpening, but ah I wonder for you, like what are the conditions that, that you like to have a good writing session?
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's a really good question. It's not mine and not that elaborate. Definitely. But then maybe I'd be more like Steinbeck if I did. So and yeah, maybe I should start sharpening pencils. I am fairly low maintenance, mostly from my necessity. i I wrote an entire book and I did it almost entirely crouched over myself on a couch in a tiny New York apartment.
00:15:22
Speaker
so And it was just like, i need to get this done. This is the best place for me to work. And I just did it. So from then on, I've realized that I'm not really a high maintenance. like I don't have to have certain things to to work. Mostly I just have to have the pressure.
00:15:38
Speaker
So I'm a terrible procrastinator, as I guess most people are, and have extremely creative ways to procrastinate. So go off on the craziest tangents. And it's worse as a writer, I think, because you can kind of call it research as well. It's just that you're researching your next project instead of working on your current one.
00:15:56
Speaker
So yeah, I, I really just sit there and do it. And I just tell myself, I do set myself parameters as in, you know, right. You've got to get X number of words down on the page today, even if they are the worst words ever put down in sequence. I just want to see something on the page by the end of the day, which I can then either delete completely or, you know, fix.
00:16:17
Speaker
So yeah, I don't really have much in the way of sort rituals. um I, yeah, I did, I do have an office in my house to write in, but i as a consequence, I think of writing that first book, my back is terrible. So this office doesn't actually get used that much anymore. yeah um So I ended up writing almost, I think my back is just trained to that position that I was in for that whole sort of year and a half. So i have to now write on honor ah yeah a normal chair rather than an office chair.
00:16:46
Speaker
so yeah i wish i had something more sort of grand and steinbeck like but i'm just very low maintenance right well i love hearing you say that just getting any words down no matter how bad they are like that's part of the practice you know a lot of people have a hard time writing through the bad stuff because they read such great polished stuff that they think it has to come out of their brains fully formed and and really just cracking and pyrotechnic but The truth is, it's a lot of sitting around. It's like 75% bad stuff to get to 25% good stuff. So like how how did how have you over the years cultivated that that muscle to know, like oh yeah, and it's going to take a lot of bad writing, but eventually it's going to get better and good.
00:17:31
Speaker
I think one of the things I made a mistake of when I was younger, as ah starting out as a journalist, was sort prided myself on how fast I could write. And that's okay, I guess, if you're doing breaking news and things like that. But I realized that, you know, that is not a good thing at all, really, if it's terrible writing. So I guess some people can just sit there and and bash out perfect writing, but ah most of us can't.
00:17:57
Speaker
So I think, yeah, over time, i I didn't want to be too hard myself if I did write fast because it's good to get something down. So it was kind of like a mix of those two things of um constant editing, self-editing and getting as much done done as possible.
00:18:16
Speaker
I think I have put in places over time of getting that structure in place first. I think I was very much ah you know someone who dived in previously. um Now I will sit down and I do have a whiteboard which helps me sort of organize my thoughts in terms of structure and what I have.
00:18:34
Speaker
um But i also have a ton of just Google Docs which are open, which have timelines. And this is possibly Act 1, this is possibly Act 2. Just full of bullet points would make no sense to anyone else but me probably.
00:18:49
Speaker
That does help me have some kind of structure in my head. And I do that with the sort of recognition that that might all get thrown out of the window at a later point. But it does help me organize my writing, especially when it's something long form like this. So I can say, OK, I'm going to tackle.
Pitching Stories Versus Topics
00:19:04
Speaker
this act today or in the case of this story it was ah it was handily done in years so there was a tour each year which i could write about so it's like okay i'm gonna you know get to x point in 2021 this year or twenty s three four etc Yeah, I think it's, it has evolved over time.
00:19:22
Speaker
I haven't taken the easy route. I think, you know, if someone was, you know, there was no need for me to go through that whole learning curve. I, I should have, there were books out there, which are, you know, ah a brilliant that I've read.
00:19:34
Speaker
And I thought I should have read this 10 years ago. um But I think, yeah, it's just a learning thing. I can't be too hard on myself. You know, it's just all about getting it done at the end of the day.
00:19:45
Speaker
Yeah. What are some of those books that you that you read that you wish you read a long time ago but you you got to them eventually? Yeah, ah so story, obviously. have them behind me. I can probably get them out. So yeah, obviously Robert McKee's story was a massive one. And then a lot of screenwriting books. So even things like Save the Cat, I find it just really, even though I didn't particularly enjoy reading that one, um the screenwriting books just helped me think of things in that format and the way of telling the story. Obviously The Hero's Journey was a big one as well.
00:20:19
Speaker
of just trying to think like, um yes, I want to be creative, but there's a reason why these structures exist and why they appeal so much. So using those, especially when I pitch a story, I do try and think of it in in those sort of formats. And then when it comes to writing it, I usually just go with what the editors say. So I'm very much in the, you know, i I don't argue with my editors at all. I assume that I know best about my characters and what happens in the story, but I completely trust that they know how to tell the story better than me.
00:20:56
Speaker
So, yeah. And thankfully, when, you know, obviously, if you're working with the Artivist, you have the best editors, so you you can really put that trust in them. Yeah. And with, um you know, in freelance journalism and everything like ideas are everything. And so how do you vet ideas and organize ideas and then see which ones maybe lend themselves to this kind of narrative blowout treatment that say you were able to pitch for the atavist?
00:21:24
Speaker
Yeah, it's a tough one. I think, yeah, the worst thing you can do is pitch a topic, not a story. um So I, but you kind of have to start with a topic, I think. So for me, I like to talk to a fair few people even before I write a pitch, which can be difficult because people are less keen talk to you if they don't know where it's going, etc.
00:21:45
Speaker
But yeah, I just look for topics that ing interest me first, then I dig down to an expert. And then from the expert, I try and find sort of individual stories within that. I mean, in this case, this one was just really fell in my lap because ah it involved my dad.
00:22:02
Speaker
So so um it was, yeah, like in 2021, my dad just started talking about this band. And I thought, okay, this is weird because my dad doesn't usually talk about bands, let alone sea shanty bands. um And so back then, i kind of thought it was an interesting story, but it was a very sort of wholesome story. Didn't really have much of an edge to it. It was just band comes to small town and they look after them, even though the pandemic is on and they kind of got a bit stranded, but the whole town pulled together and helped them.
00:22:35
Speaker
So I could see that there wasn't a story then. i sort of discussed it with people. So, you know, do you think this is a story? And everyone said, you know, it's really wholesome, but it's not quite there. So I kind of shelved it.
00:22:48
Speaker
And then I just couldn't believe my luck when all the stuff came, you know, started to emerge about modern slavery and this, you know, captain figure who was,
00:22:59
Speaker
doing all these things to the band. So that, yeah, completely fell my lap. It was like the perfect story for me. I had an in, my dad knew all of the main characters. Everyone was really keen to talk. So yeah, this one, I can't really attribute to and anything of my own research. It just kind of came to me, which was obviously amazing.
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah, what was the the challenge in making your your sources comfortable to talk over with with such kind of ah a sensitive experience that they were you know going through with with this tyrannical ah band leader?
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah, it was tough. It was it it ranged. like Some people were just desperate to have the story out there, so they were happy to talk. And then you kind of have the opposite problem where, okay, are you are you exaggerating slightly?
00:23:52
Speaker
How much can I take for granted? like is this This is your truth, but you know I need to get the actual truth. And then a lot of people, yeah, they were quite scarred by what had happened and it was still quite fresh for them.
00:24:06
Speaker
um So to get them to talk, I think I always find it important to have a conversation off the record and not even necessarily a about the topic in hand.
00:24:18
Speaker
Just say, look, I just want talk to you. If you're comfortable, we'll hit record and we'll talk about the story. But otherwise, let's just get to know each other a bit more. um I think that really helps build that trust. If you've got the time to do that, obviously, that worked with some of the characters, meeting them in person, obviously works really well.
00:24:38
Speaker
It's just such a big responsibility. You know, people are trusting you with that story. So I think you do have to win that trust a little bit and just give them some time as well. I think time is the ultimate thing. At time, and you just mentioned meeting even face to face if possible. yeah We're so digitally interfaced now that yeah it's hard to know if you're getting spam with AI email or if this is this a bot or because it can feel so genuine. But, you know, without that face to face interaction, yeah it's hard to trust people. But I imagine like leveraging that, you know, really got them on your side.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It's not some, I mean, a lot of the the band members have kind of gone all over the world. So it wasn't easy to do. i had a cheat code for this because a lot of the band had met my dad. So I could say, look, you know, my dad, I want to talk to you. And luckily he's a nice and trustworthy person. So it didn't count against me.
00:25:33
Speaker
yeah getting to meet people faceto face face really important even if so a couple of characters I just went and met them even though we didn't do an interview that day just went and had a beer basically just made sure that they you know we'd seen each other and knew they knew how you know invested I was in the story and they could trust me and yeah it's kind of a sad thing isn't it that you have to check that someone's a real person as well these days it's like a sad new box to check Exactly. yeah i've gotten a couple emails of late from like like a a radio kind of service. So it's like, if you we want to promote you in front of this audience, and it'll be $175 to do this. I'm like, I don't think so. And then there was another, like a book club kind of thing from New Jersey, And they were like, yeah, we want to feature you. And it's like coming across almost two salesmen like I'm like, I feel like this is a scam of some kind, like trying to prey on ah insecure writers who want to get more attention. I'm like, and I'm an insecure person and an insecure writer at that. So that's another level of insecurity. I'm just like, you know what? I think I'm going to have to pass on this one, too. Yeah, I think I have. I think I got the same one with the book club.
00:26:52
Speaker
um i got one recently of a book club like we want to feature your book. And I'm exactly the same. Like my first instinct is is no one wants to feature my book. There's something wrong. Yeah, that's a lie and you know it. you You don't want to feature me. Were they out Jersey City by any chance?
00:27:10
Speaker
I think this one was like a New York one. I think it was like a Williamsburg meetup group or something. It just, something about it didn't smell right. Yeah. And it started to get a little pushy. It was just like, you know, give us links to so we can buy your books and then we'll feature you. I'm like, I don't know, this is getting weird. And ah so I'm just kind of ghosting them. At first I was like, okay, fine. If this is an actual book club, cause I've done that before, like virtual book clubs and all that. But it doesn't seem as sales pitchy. And I'm like, this is just
Overcoming Storytelling Hurdles
00:27:41
Speaker
bizarre and weird. And no one wants to read my biography on Obscure Runner from the 1970s. Like, no, no, you don't. Don't play don't even play that you you're interested in this book. Yeah.
00:27:53
Speaker
There's got to be some benefits to being an insecure writer, and I think not being scammed is one of them. Yeah, it's slouching towards paranoia now, which is just is not helping matters. But with you know with this piece, too, as you're you know ginning up the mill for your reporting and everything, i'm yeah what were some roadblocks or just hurdles that you were experiencing as you were gathering information?
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah, one of the weird problems that i haven't had before was that it was very repetitive in nature. um So every year the band would come back and every year he would the the band member would treat them in the same way. It was a different cast of characters, but it was the same treatment, almost exactly.
00:28:33
Speaker
So it was telling a story which went over five years, but there was a lot of repetition in there. So that was one sort of roadblock, like, how am I going to get around this? It was, yeah, it was really tricky. I think one of the trickiest things, was obviously, everyone you interview, the people, someone from 2023, who's talking about what happened to them that year, it's so really important to them, and they're telling you the story, and then you think afterwards, okay, well, actually, this is probably not going to make it in. So you kind of have that guilt of,
00:29:01
Speaker
okay, you told me the story, but it's not going in because it's just too similar to the story the year previous. So that was one sort of issue we had to go over. i think another one just for me because of my own ignorance is that, you know, I don't speak Spanish. So that was...
00:29:19
Speaker
that was a very so And some of the interviewees were insisting on on doing the interviews in English. And so it was it was difficult sort getting across. It was really difficult getting across who was on the record and establishing what that meant to some interviewees, like on the record, on background. So that in the end, worked with a great translator, Anna, who who really helped. But it was it was tricky when someone's like, no, I don't want to speak to translator. i'm just I just want to be me and you. And I'm going to go ahead in in whatever English I can muster, which is totally my fault for not knowing Spanish. It's not their fault.
00:29:54
Speaker
So, yeah, that was another one. And then just just illegal issues as well. And we kind of have it had an incident where there was like a deck of cards collapsed where one person had a, without getting too much into it, and revealing what I was not supposed to reveal. It is basically one character became concerned for their safety over over a certain incident, which was supposed to be a major sort of scene in the book and in the story.
00:30:17
Speaker
Because that character pulled out, it meant that that scene was basically deleted. And then a lot of the buildup to that scene was then useless. And another character basically was pared back almost completely.
00:30:30
Speaker
So that kind of source management was really difficult. It was just one person got nervous, essentially. And I think, you know, you can't really question someone getting nervous if they are worried that that, you know, if they've received threats and they're worried that someone's going to carry out those threats. But yeah, that was another big, big one.
00:30:47
Speaker
But overall, I would say this story was was fairly incident free. I'd say there wasn't anything major that thought, my God, we're not going to do this. Yeah, with the Atavis, thankfully for them that they are able to send things out to a fact checker to do that. But given that sources from the story were kind of nervous and maybe a little gun shy about being on the record or not, you know, with you you, you go through your drafting process and they're cool. And now they're going to run up against a fact checker, too. And they're go that's like another layer of or another off ramp for them potentially. So what was like the feeling you were experiencing as it goes to fact check? You're like, you know, the fingers crossed, like, don't, don't abandon ship yet on me. Yeah, it was exactly that. It was like every step of the way, youre just thinking, please don't, please don't. And in the end, someone got cold feet very, very close to the end, like, like a few days before publication. so that was yeah that was tricky at that point it was a tough one because technically i i think we could have done it we could have just run it as it was it was really sort of an ethical question rather than anything else i think just the general rule of don't be a bad person try and help people out and try and be understanding I guess, yeah, I was getting frustrated, but then, you know, having to sort of hold myself back because you kind of remember that, you know, I write the story, finish it and then, you know, move on. Whereas these people kind of, it could follow them for a lot longer.
00:32:20
Speaker
Yeah. The people in Argentina were a bit more nervous than the people in the UK because people in Argentina felt that they had less protection against any sort of physical or or legal threats. So yeah, just constantly, yeah, just desperately hoping that people hold their nerve, but then also trying to be very understanding when they don't and talk them through it.
00:32:43
Speaker
Because I think a lot of the time people don't realize that you can't, you know, that we can use their name. A lot of people would just say, take my name out. And it's like, well, your name's in public record. and Yeah. You know, we can we can use your name. This these things happened. So to explain that was kind of tricky, especially through the language barrier.
00:33:00
Speaker
But yeah, it's just being on tenterhooks the whole time. And a part of this, a big part of the story, too, is this idea of the Modern Slavery Act of 2015. So just tell us a bit about that. That was news to me like I had never heard of this thing. And so, yeah, talk a little bit about the Modern Slavery Act and what this was and how central it is to this story.
00:33:22
Speaker
yeah so Yeah, so obviously Broughton in 2015, and at that time it was considered this sort of world-leading law in the UK. It was supposed to be you know a way to protect people who were being exploited, either that's... Most commonly it's it's kind of s sex worker type stuff, it can know but more recently in the UK it's been drug mules. So there's a thing in the UK called County Lines,
00:33:46
Speaker
where drug dealers will give really young kids just like a backpack, tell them to get on a train and they go to rural places and deliver drugs. it It used to be considered ah you know a great law. I think it's really not what it was. it's It's trying to be, it's not really fit for purpose as it is now. It's really hard for victims to come forward.
00:34:07
Speaker
And it's really hard for the police to get any kind of conviction as well. because often it's like mental coercion or it's, you know, psychological coercion or it's it's not always some things that are obvious or can be proved in court.
00:34:24
Speaker
So, yeah, and I think depressingly recently in the UK, it's also been dragged into the immigration debate as well. So people are, so you know, saying that it's a loophole to get out of being deported essentially to say, oh, I was coerced. I was, people made me.
00:34:40
Speaker
Whereas in fact, like, no one really is going to claim they're modern slave unless they absolutely have to. And most people don't. And it and that's why even though the conviction rate is low, even the number of people coming forward is so he's even lower. Like none of the guys, I think, knew about modern slavery in in the band until British people told them about it.
00:35:03
Speaker
So yeah, super hard to prove, um which is why it was really great that these musicians, that the ones in 2025, to get confirmation from the British government that they were victims of modern slavery.
00:35:16
Speaker
Just that alone is really hard. But then to get a conviction on top of that is even harder. it It is ah an increasing problem, I think, because there's so many ways to exploit people in general.
00:35:27
Speaker
But if you in the UK, it seems like it is a growing problem with and the law is shrinking in terms of what it can do about it. Yeah, for sure. yes Talking about ah exploitation, like maybe weird online writing groups that are trying to pilfer insecure writers into coughing up money for exposure. It goes it goes on and on. ah ada Going back to earlier in our conversation, I love the idea of you bringing up this idea of topic versus story. and I think a lot of people who pitch stories, especially the atavists, but elsewhere also, They're not doing enough of that legwork up front to really flesh out the story components. So how long did that take you to yeah to build that muscle through your experience?
00:36:17
Speaker
I think it took me a long time because i think when you're coming up, especially I came up through B2B magazines, which is like the ultimate place to write about topics, not stories.
00:36:27
Speaker
Okay. going to write about this topic today. So it does take a lot of time. I don't think some people ever, you know, I think you can go you can go through your whole journalism career and not ever grasp the difference between it and and have a perfectly good career. But if you want to do narrative, obviously you're going to have to grasp it. So I think for me, looking into the screenwriting stuff really helped.
00:36:50
Speaker
I think one one book, I don't know if it was William Goldman or something like that, described the sort of story as, okay, imagine a clothesline. Your story goes from A to B. And then what you do, that's the story and it has to travel from A to B. And then you take all your good scenes and they're like the the laundry and you drape them over one by one. And that's how you build a narrative story, basically. So I've always had that in mind when I think of a story. OK, does it go from A to B?
00:37:20
Speaker
And then what are the scenes that i can then drape over that thought straight line? so things like that have helped me sort of decide okay is there a story here just reading a lot helps like i know that sounds like the most basic ah advice to anyone but i always tell people if when people come to me say i want to write this type of story it's like well read this type of story read any that you can and learn from people i think somehow that falls through the cracks in terms of writing a lot just read
00:37:53
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And even ah to pull on the screenwriting metaphor, too, it's like, how are filmmakers doing it? You know, yeah every time the we're shifting perspective, you know, we're moving to it. It's all scenes. You know, it's not it's rarely pure exposition, though there is some of that in some ah some stories. But It's all scene driven and like getting that into that mindset. It's like, okay, like now, now that I know what that looks like from a story mechanics point of view, it's like, okay, how can i report
Maintaining Narrative Drive
00:38:24
Speaker
to that? So that is verifiably true and evocative in a way that it is on on screen, but it's, you know, nonfiction stuff.
00:38:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. i don't know if you've seen that clip of, um it's Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the South Park guys. um And they give a sort of, they're giving a talk at a college and they say, what makes a good pilot basically. um And they say, if you ah say, if at any point you say this happens and then this happens, then you're screwed. Basically you should never have, and then this happens. You should have this happens.
00:38:59
Speaker
Therefore this happens. ah yeah um But this happens, you know, it should never be an and. um And obviously that doesn't always work with with nonfiction. Like you can't you can't force things to to point, in you know, to go into that. But when you're thinking of a pitch, I think that kind of thing does help. It's like, do you have a story and a narrative which which is driven in that manner where it's not just a bunch of things happening concurrently? It's one thing causing another thing which makes this happen, which um you know there's a there's a sort of engine to the story i guess yeah yeah i've heard say we're talking about the animating force of a story like it does have a propulsion to it yeah a cinematic nature to it which unique to the atavists that they're able to kind of do these kind of stories that ah Yeah, that do have real locomotion to them in a way that, know, maybe a feature for even like the New Yorker doesn't like they do great features and great profiles. But narratively speaking, I don't think they necessarily do that. Sometimes there is an element of that. But by and large, you know what you're doing and what a lot of other writers do for the out of us, it does feel like a little movie in a way ah and a short story. It kind of reads like fiction.
00:40:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think that's one of the great things. I mean, yeah, I say all this as if I practice exactly what I'm preaching, but like one of the great things like that um Sayward and Jonah did for this story was that they they brought it down to this like really focused, really fast-moving pace.
00:40:35
Speaker
And that's not something that the first draft did. The first draft had everything in it. I just threw everything at it. And it was it moved in one direction, but maybe not as... fast as it needed to be and it carried too much weight.
00:40:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How it's a great point you bring up because it oftentimes, and you know, the beginning of stories like this can come out of the shoot like a cannon and and then the ending, of course, has its own pulse and feels strong, but the middles can sag. And the the challenge is always to not make that feel bloated and sag and drag the narrative down. So when you're thinking of a story like this, yeah how are you thinking about keeping that middle nice and tight so you're still getting momentum and carrying you through 9,000 that it is?
00:41:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's, that is really hard. and i think that's probably what I didn't do on my first draft. So I think one of the main things is not building out your character list too much. So you're not constantly bringing in new characters in that middle section.
00:41:35
Speaker
It really helps if you've got a driving one character that drives all the way through. one of the tricky things about this was it was a different set of characters each year. Almost. We had like the bad guy who was all the way through, but he was this kind of shadowy figure who we knew we could never get near.
00:41:51
Speaker
So yeah, and I think it's just about choosing your battles and agreeing when your editor says, I like this, but it's going. I'm not really complaining at all.
00:42:04
Speaker
like I write everything with the full expectation it will be deleted by the editor. Yeah. And then I'm pleased when, you know, anything survives. So I think, yeah, that middle section in particular is where you can be like, oh, well, you know, this is, there were a lot of things that happened with the band that didn't get into the story in that middle section. There was a, there was a guy, there was an older guy who was brought in at one point and then he was jettisoned out of the band. There was whole 2023 was basically put brought down to one paragraph. It was, um,
00:42:36
Speaker
So I think it's just about being ruthless more than anything. And the old hold kill your darlings thing and listening to editor. Yeah. I think if you're not, if you don't have the benefit of having amazing editors, then really try and take one character through the story and not try to avoid just going off on those tangents as much as possible. I don't bring anything else to the reader that you don't have to in that middle section. Yeah, yeah that's a great point underscore. And I think short fiction does that better than anything. And so almost like to if you want to write this kind of nonfiction well, taking models from short fiction, short stories, I think does a as good a job, if not the best job, of teaching you the economy of what you show the reader from a character, how many characters, what details do you use from those characters to...
00:43:30
Speaker
Yeah, to illustrate who they are and why are they important to this particular story, you know, for four to 8,000 words or whatever. like that Those tend to be at least good models for me. I'm trying to read more short fiction to get better at this kind of nonfiction. Yeah, it's definitely a great model. Yeah, because your character, I guess you're never going to get the the whole everything your character does into the story. So it's really, I guess, picking the parts that are most important to them. And that's almost represents their values and on which direction they're going in, like the decisions that they make.
00:44:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's like when you're fleshing out those characters, it's like, I think in nonfiction, especially and coming up in, say, like traditional feature writing and you you want to throw in just every detail you get about a person. But yeah, doing this kind of thing, it's like, well, this detail better be like an oar rowing in the right motion. For this particular story, you know you know everything else is kind of that iceberg under the water kind of thing that feeds their kind of informs their character, even if it's not explicit. But it but you kind of feel that pulse of it there through all your reporting. but It's like, yeah, you got to really interrogate every detail. but Like, does this really move the story forward?
00:44:44
Speaker
yeah yeah i think and you can do it in a really subtle way like you can have little scenes which are not explosive um that still drive on so much in terms of your cat your understanding of a character i don't know if you've seen better call soul that's like oh my god yeah it's always a scene which i go back to and it's like just an opening scene of um howard the um the partner of uh Jimmy's brother in the solicitor and he's and it's just this opening scene mostly silent of him making this coffee and he makes it with such love and attention and detail into it and he puts the little logo on top even and he places it down for his wife who's just come into the kitchen and she grabs it and she just dumps it straight into her like a coffee mug And i in just that's that scene with barely any dialogue, you could just understand everything about those characters and their dynamic.
00:45:43
Speaker
So I think like obviously it's hard to do that with nonfiction, but I think aspiring to do something like that is like that is something that always really excites me, of like these subtle things that tell us so much with with so little dialogue or information.
00:45:57
Speaker
teasing out the Vince Gilligan story tree and how they go about breaking story and the, they do such a good job of not hitting you over the head with things like that. Yeah. Finding those details in nonfiction is so hard, but when you can stick the landing and pull that off, it's like, there's nothing better.
00:46:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, it's so good. i mean, i remember I wrote previously a story about an art forger, Brooklyn art forger, a guy called Alfredo Martinez. And he just told all this, like, if you did an interview with him, you'd know it'd be like 95% bullshit. It's like, He would just tell all these stories about, you know, was basically forging basquets his
Developing Writing Style
00:46:35
Speaker
whole life. That's how he made a career. And it was it was really interesting speak to him. Anyway, one of my favorite things he told me, which actually rang really true, was he went through how he actually did the forging.
00:46:47
Speaker
And he'd be like, right, I would, you know, I would get everything together. Then I would just go up this little um ladder up to the roof. And I would sit on the roof on my own in the sun. And I would just forge these basquets.
00:46:59
Speaker
And he was just like amongst all the bluster and craziness of his life and his story. That was just a very real sort of, it showed you how actually meticulous he was about his craft and how, yeah, how purposeful it was, even though it was a completely illegal enterprise. um And yeah, I think if you can find them, it's like gold basically. And in doing stories of this nature, ah they can be there's a certain amount of style and voice that the writer can bring to it. And just for you, how have you over the years in writing hundreds of thousands of words, if not millions of words, like cultivated a sense of voice and style that feels altogether unique to you and comfortable for you?
00:47:43
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's one of the things that gives you the most insecurity um of knowing, do I have a style? Am I just mimicking other people's style? Am I just this chameleon that goes from one thing to another? An impressionist, yeah. yeah Yeah, exactly. um It's it's just really tough because you do have to obviously change your tone and style for different publications and for different assignments. I think I probably have without realising it, but I might be the worst person to say what it is.
00:48:14
Speaker
And so I haven't ever tried to, whereas maybe I maybe i should have done I don't know. Yeah, I think it's one of those things where with really great writers, you know you're reading them before without looking at the byline.
00:48:27
Speaker
And I don't know how... best to do that i guess just stick to your principles and i i know i write in a certain way and i can tell you know i don't write sort of over the top i don't think i think it's it's kind of you know straight to the point more in that style but i don't know because i think that possibly that question gives me so much um anxiety that i've never asked it of myself and think that's probably the most honest answer I know. I think ah but the the the whole imitation game, I mean, you got to imitate a lot of your influences to get something ah that feels comfortable to you on the page. And I think a lot of people, and I you think that maybe it'll just the voice or the style just clicks into place overnight, but it's really just this gradual thing that over like 10 15 years, you kind of
00:49:18
Speaker
settle into and like, oh, that's my, that's kind of like my pocket where that feels like me. That feels like I'm not copying anybody else, but there is an influence of all these other people that are making me, me, but it yeah it doesn't happen overnight. And it it definitely takes a and an unsettling amount of time to reach.
00:49:37
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. I think one of the hardest things about writing anything is the lack of honest and valuable feedback. um Like you get great editors and that is like an amazing thing, but you might not get great editors for a long time and not the same editors. So you're kind of moving from one to the other.
00:49:56
Speaker
So trying to pick through what is good about your writing and what is not good can be tricky. It's like, you might think that something, oh, this is my, you know, this is my calling card and it could be terrible.
00:50:11
Speaker
And that's one of my biggest fears, I think, is like, ah you know, this is the way I write. And then someone's like, that's the worst thing you could do when you're writing. please stop that. Yeah. I'll never forget Peter. Like a few years ago, I just was doing like some content work for, ah some, some website or whatever. And I turned in what I turned in. And usually with them, they sometimes they like ask these questions of the person and then write the piece up. And like,
00:50:40
Speaker
I was like, okay. And I've done okay for myself over the years with various profiles in journalism and written a couple books. And this person like thought what I did was total like trash. And it was basically like, yeah, we're not working together again. I'm like, oh my God. I couldn't even clear that hurdle. It really like fucked with my confidence for for for a bit. and i eventually just brushed it off and just kind of determined that that person was kind of an asshole anyway.
00:51:10
Speaker
but But it is one of those things like that sucked. Like that was like the biggest layup to ever write. And this person's like, yeah, yeah I'm not and not a fan of what you did. I'm like, well, you told me basically what to write. And so you basically have a problem with the assignment to yourself. And then you're just blaming me. ah at The check cleared. So I guess that's all that matters in the end for that one.
00:51:32
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Often it's the jobs that you're just doing for the money, which like totally surprisingly just come up and buy you. like I had a a similar experience. I was doing one of those, um you know, those like guides, which I think someone needs to parody at some point, you know, like the how to like buy your car insurance or, and things like
Editing Process Insights
00:51:52
Speaker
that. And then, and then laid out in the same format, like the wiki, the wiki how or something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I would love someone to like start a newsletter where it's just ridiculous ones like that, like how to you know pick a political party and how to or you know sabotage your career. yeah um
00:52:10
Speaker
But yeah, i was doing one I was doing those and I did a few of them and they were like, they weren't, I always put, I guess, yeah, I was a bit guilty of putting in as much effort as the pay reflected. And it was, and yeah, someone edited it and I just went into the document and they were like, this is terribly written. This is awful. like Okay. This did not pass the test of one of my least favorite forms of writing. And it's really, and you just say, oh, maybe I'm terrible. Maybe I'm below this level.
00:52:39
Speaker
Like this is... Right. Yeah. And then then you're able to step up to, you know, the big leagues with something with the out of us. And that kind of maybe restores some faith in yourself. You're like, OK, I I'm not a total piece of shit. Yeah. Yeah, I think that was actually my first um emotion when the pitch got accepted.
00:52:58
Speaker
It was exactly that. You know what? i'm I'm not a piece of shit. And I'm thankful for this. Yeah. And then working with Jonah, and you were talking about this earlier, because ah ah about you know streamlining things. And Jonah's particularly talented at lopping off big things. He's really good at tightening things down to their essence. So what was just the overall experience of, you know, working with him in tandem and maybe what did you learn from working with him? Who's got such a good eye for this stuff?
00:53:27
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it was just really great experience. It was, um, he just, so yeah, has this like laser focus on what's important and does it in such a gentle way that you're not, you can't even be mad or even consider being mad. Not that i I would be, but, um,
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah, I think the way he knows what is what is just unnecessary fat that can just be trimmed straight away is is pretty impressive. And obviously it's always easier when you're not the one writing it. But um yeah, sort of figured out very early that he was very good at this and didn't question anything.
00:54:08
Speaker
um I think I fought for like one or two things to remain in and then quickly was just like, okay, no, it's fine. and and it was it was sort of I think it was for me it was me being too invested in the story like there was one character I thought was just a bit was was terrible and we we took them out because they weren't central to story and it was almost me wanting that character to get their comeuppance and so that's yeah that's not good and and yeah so he hit him and say we're like okay we're not gonna have that person but um yeah I think it's about just maintaining that laser focus isn't it and Yeah, I think i think I'm going to definitely look back and see, look at my first draft, look at the story, and definitely going take the time to do that and properly assess. And then I think that's when I really learn from what's happened. I think like as much as I sort of hate going back and looking at old stuff and even like listening to, like for example, I probably won't listen to this because I hate the sound my own voice. I'm just saying when I'm on podcasts, I, I share everything to honor the work they put in, but I won't listen back to it. yes I just, I know I won't do it. Yeah. I think in writing, you, if you can force yourself, there's so many like nuggets in there, which you can learn. It's like, okay, this section got obliterated. Like, why was this not necessary for the story?
00:55:31
Speaker
Um, why did this not, why was this cut so quickly? Um, So I think that is something that I'll go back and do. And that's yeah something i've I've done in the past as well and has really helped the next story from the start.
Field Reporting Essentials
00:55:45
Speaker
Yeah. And I always love getting a sense of, as journalists, like what are the the tools that we bring out with us in the field? like The kind of notebooks we use, whether we use recorders or not, stuff of that nature. So like when you're when you know you're going to be out now doing some reporting on a given day, like what are the things you like to have you know at your fingertips?
00:56:06
Speaker
Yeah, so definitely notebook, at least like two or three notebooks. And I have just like basic ones that just, yeah, not the sort of old school reporter ones, like the proper book ones.
00:56:17
Speaker
And then my phone. I used to have the most amazing dictaphone, which I loved. I still have it, but I just don't use anymore. And I kind of miss it. But I wish I had an excuse to use it. But I still, I just i just have to use my phone now.
00:56:33
Speaker
For one thing, because on on the iPhone, it has that automatic transcribe function on the voice memos now, which you absolutely can't rely on, but it's good just as a starting point for when you do transcribe it yourself.
00:56:45
Speaker
So yeah, it's phone, notebook, and... um I think that's about it. Obviously I'll have notes in my notebook before I start, but i always take notes during an interview, just so as a way of knowing that even though I'm recording it, it helps me know that I'm tuned in and I'm listening. Not that I'm you know sat there looking out the window if I'm not doing that, but I just like to make sure that I'm kind of present and doing something with each line and listening out. So I will make notes as I go.
00:57:18
Speaker
I'm not a big one for like taking photos or anything. I will do if there's like is a scene, which I think is really important. With this story, so much of it was like given to me. There was so much audio and video and pictures that I didn't have to sort of go out and get stuff as much.
00:57:34
Speaker
But yeah, I think that's it. I travel fairly light. And then i when I'm writing, I do that mainly at home. So I'm not one to go to like a cafe or something and take a lot of books. I like to just do it in my own space.
00:57:45
Speaker
And when you're setting out to interview people for a story, like how would you ah how do you prep for an interview and how do you characterize maybe your style of interviewing?
00:57:58
Speaker
Yeah, I think while prep first, I think you should always sort of know at least one thing about someone that they wouldn't expect you to know. i think that's a good golden rule to go in.
00:58:09
Speaker
And that sort pushes you to do a bit more research than is necessary. it's like... The first thing is to read anything else they've ever done in terms of an interview. i think to know how they talk and how they um what pitfalls you might want to avoid.
00:58:25
Speaker
And then in terms of my style of interviewing, I just like to ask as little as possible, like very open questions and then listen. um If I've got like 40 minutes of them talking and me not saying a word between questions, then I'm really happy. I mean, when I was younger, when i and I used to sort of get these interviews with, like, oil and gas executives when I was really early in my career, and they used to just see me as this, like, really young kid who probably didn't know anything about oil gas, and they were, you know, right – But I used to sort of use that to my advantage of just like, I don't know anything you need to tell me.
00:59:04
Speaker
So even if I did know something, even as my sort of knowledge in that industry grew, I'd still sort of have that, oh, I, you know, tell me about that. Tell me about that. So i think knowing a lot, but not let no one that, you know, everything is a good way of doing it because people like nothing more than to sort of educate or even lecture someone and then just let people run, like let people
Podcasting Techniques
00:59:25
Speaker
go with it. Like I hate,
00:59:27
Speaker
It really frustrates me when people ask very long questions where they're really just trying to insert their own knowledge. Like when someone stands up at a press conference, it's like, what are you doing? Yeah.
00:59:38
Speaker
Getting back to that insecurity thing we were talking about earlier, I think it stems a lot from that. They want to show how much they know. And then all they're doing is often answering the ah the worst is when they ask a question and then answer it themselves. yeah And then either throw that up to the person and they just echo what you just said. Or even worse, they'll ask the question, answer it themselves, and then through their own meandering, ask an entirely different question than what they started with instead of just having the confidence to ask a question in five to 10 seconds and get out of the way.
01:00:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I think that's a really good skill is to cut off your question. The one thing i when I listen back to my interviews that I hate is that i never finish a sentence when I'm asking a question. I always just like trail off. So I'll just start answering questions. It could just be as simple as like you know where ah you know how did you feel about this on this evening?
01:00:32
Speaker
But then I won't stop it there with a question mark on this evening or... you know you know like a lot of my questions end with you know which is really dumb but yeah i think really open-ended questions are the best and then just listen because people will talk themselves into saying something interesting eventually like they if they keep talking like silence is is a really good tactic sometimes where you just sit there silently and just let them carry on Because people are always so keen to feel a silence that they'll say anything. And I think the more people say, the more truth you'll get eventually.
01:01:08
Speaker
Right. Yeah. And to your point of looking at your recording or something, and if they go for 40 minutes and you don't hear yourself, like that's pretty good. Like when I dump my podcast transcripts or reporting transcripts into Otter, it'll often show the percentage of me versus the other person. And if I'm 10 to 15% of the conversation, that's pretty good by my metric. If it's 85 to 90% them, 10 to 15 me, I'm like, okay, I think I did a good enough job here.
01:01:40
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I think, yeah, I think with the podcast, obviously you're hosting as well. So I guess it's, it's slightly different, but yeah. A little bit. Yeah. I've i've had to be okay with,
01:01:52
Speaker
I love asking just like lean, open, neutral questions and turning the guests loose. And I do that most of the time. But over the years, I'm like, oh, you know what? I don't want to be as long-winded as a lot of the the bro podcasters because that drives me insane.
01:02:07
Speaker
But there is an element like you are a participant in in the show as a podcast host. So it's like at some point you do need to like interject ah you know some ah some more long-winded stuff like I'm doing right now. and ah yeah but ah it But that is part of the the dialogue and the back and forth and yeah the understanding of this format versus like pure reporting.
01:02:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. It's interesting. Yeah, I think that's why I've never done a podcast is just because I think I wouldn't, I'd probably say like 10 words during the whole thing. be her I made one, a stylistic choice in one podcast that was Annie Duke, who's a brilliant ah writer in her own right. I edited out all my questions. to her So I just had her answers and had the guests infer the question based on her answers. And ah it was odd. I never got any feedback from it, but I understood like, okay, this is a flawed way to do a podcast. ah But it was something I wanted to just yeah mess around with because ah I hate podcasts where the the host can't get out of primarily his own way and doesn't shine a light on the guest because that's the point of this is to celebrate the other person. But so often,
01:03:24
Speaker
they blather on for three, four, five minutes. I'm like, ah I'm kind of not here to hear you that much. i'm And i as a result, I've really outgrown, I've long outgrew those podcasts and thankfully so, but it's just one of those things where I'm like, ah yeah, i kind of I kind of know what I'm looking for in in a podcast and it's it's usually for the guests. i yeah I kind of want the host to get out of the way. Yeah, yeah.
01:03:48
Speaker
I think, yeah, that's probably possibly the issue with some of those podcasts. The hosts are just like these... grotesque sort of um like barriers to actually gaining any knowledge it's yeah exactly inside yeah 100 percent um but yeah well in any case well well peter this is so great to kind of talk some shop with you and i get to celebrate this incredible really rollicking piece that you did for the atomist and um you know And as I bring these conversations down for a landing, I always just love asking the guests for a recommendation of some kind for the listeners. And that's just anything you're finding cool and fun that you want to recommend. And it can't be a book or a movie um or like a brand of socks or a brand of coffee. It doesn't matter. So it's like just anything you want to share.
01:04:32
Speaker
Yeah. ah Let me think. I mean, this is this too obvious to say? I watched Hamnet the other day and I just absolutely loved it. And it was just like soul destroying.
01:04:44
Speaker
So I'm going to say, yeah, absolutely love that. um If you're in the UK, there's a service called BFI Play as well, which is one of the best ways to get indie movies in the UK. So I would recommend that. I got a trial of that recently and I watched so many movies in one go before the trial ran out. I'm going to re-up it, I think.
01:05:03
Speaker
um What else can I recommend? yeah I know, I think that's it. I mean, I could also recommend staying off social media. Nice. Yes. That's my goal. And I feel really guilty because whenever I write story, I kind of just emerge from nowhere on back on social media to promote, to do some self-promotion, but then I am just desperately trying to get away from it in any way I can.
01:05:27
Speaker
Yeah. My goal is to sort of de-platform myself by the end of this year. So any steps you can do to that, I would absolutely recommend. Nice. Well done. Cool. Well, awesome. i think That's a really, really good recommendation. Then the de-platforming for sure is, ah I think, a worthy goal that I think a lot of us can can heed. Awesome, man. Well, this this story is incredible. And I just really appreciate carving out time to talk shop and ah be so forthcoming with how you go about the work.
01:05:55
Speaker
Yeah, no worries. Thank you so much for having
Creative Focus and Social Media
01:05:57
Speaker
me on. Yeah, it's great to talk.
01:06:03
Speaker
Yes. Awesome. Thanks to Jonah and Peter. And i'd be sure you head over to magazine.atavist.com to read Peter's story and maybe subscribe to the Atavist. It's 25 bucks a year. I don't get kickbacks if you think I'm here just pushing product for my own personal gain.
01:06:20
Speaker
If that's what you think. Well, I'm not that savvy. Be sure to follow along with the show wherever you get your podcasts and at Creative Nonfiction Podcast on Instagram and the newsletters Pitch Club and Rage Against the Algorithm. And the Rager is coming out on the full moon of every month now, so it's a true werewolf. It could shapeshift, man.
01:06:39
Speaker
Nose to the wind. In my never-ending quest to be free of this attention-depriving technology, I was struck by seeing this video of Chase Jarvis on Instagram. I realize the irony. Saying, what would you do if you went hard for 90 days, disappeared and worked on your thing? you what would that look like in the end? You know, get away from social media, get away from posturing, get away from the bullshit and just work on the skills, work on that novel, work on those video skills, work on whatever. i don't care.
01:07:13
Speaker
and Frankly, it's a good time to get off social media a bit, especially as people are posting nonstop about AWP. Don't worry, it'll all be over soon. I'm not an AWP guy. If it's in my backyard, I'll go. I'll go, i guess, if I'm on a panel and I've never been on a panel. People think I'm a fucking idiot so I don't get invited to such things. This is my panel, man.
Innovative Writing Tools
01:07:37
Speaker
And you signed up for class, sucker. When I was at the Bee Writing Festival here in Eugene and delivered a riveting talk on research, you one of my fellow presenters, Erica Goss, was telling me about her social media habits and how it gets in the way of her writing.
01:07:54
Speaker
And she said to try to fight that. She has a pile of books at arm's length to reach for instead of her phone. know, why not read a page that'll take, let's say, two or to three minutes to read instead of spending that same amount of time scrolling.
01:08:07
Speaker
It's a saying, I guess it's like reaching for carrot sticks versus Fritos. Oh, man.
01:08:16
Speaker
Fritos. I have this tiny little book by Julia Cameron called The Writer's Life, Insights from the Right to Right. It's about the size of a phone. And I have taken to placing this on top of my phone. So when I instinctually go to grab that motherfucker, if it happens to be beside me, which it usually is, so instead of checking a cursory scroll of the gram to see if someone liked something or slid into my DMs, I riffle through this book and read a page to get a a little hit.
01:08:51
Speaker
Like this one. Being in the mood to write, like being in the mood to make love, ew, is a luxury that isn't necessary in a long-term relationship. Just as the first caress, ew, this is a bad example, ah can lead to a change of heart, the first sentence,
01:09:09
Speaker
however tentative and awkward, can lead to a desire to go just a little further. All of us have a sex drive. Okay, this is getting grosser than I had intended. All of us have a drive to write.
01:09:20
Speaker
The drive to write is a primary human instinct, the drive to name, order, and in a sense, control our experience. The drive to write, that primal glee we felt as children when we learned the letters that formed our names and then the words that formed our world, It's a drive that has been buried in our frantic electrical telephonic age. Email is a rebalancing of the wheel. People love email because they love to write. Furthermore, because it is instantaneous, email tricks people into evading their sensors. Okay, maybe not the best one, but you know what? It sure is...
01:09:54
Speaker
Hell beats reaching for the phone. but ah But I don't know. and Maybe not. Maybe my phone would have been a better one to reach for than that one. But at least it was paper. And it got me thinking, can I make a phone-sized zine that is either a full episode transcript that you can use as a pattern interrupt or make a phone-sized zine that includes my favorite quotes from the podcast? One page long.
01:10:18
Speaker
So you flip to a page and you might read Elizabeth Rush saying, I'm just a mule. I'm just pushing that thing up the mountain. Or Sasha Bonet saying, what are you doing?
01:10:28
Speaker
Look at yourself. Or do I design a CNF pod app that is a random quote generator? Text an audio and just hit a button and it spits out a quote from the podcast. yeah There's got to be some gems from the more than 500 hours of the show. That's like 21 straight days worth of audio strung together. Anyway, yeah who has the time, right? Give me enough time and I'll talk myself out of an idea. you know I've long loved the idea of a paper podcast, which would just be a transcript of a podcast episode in the form of a little chat book that you can tuck into your pocket or you can highlight and make notes.
Final Creative Encouragement
01:11:04
Speaker
Battery will never die on this thing. I've even thought of annotating these transcripts for the little chat book paper podcast thing with footnotes to provide maybe extra context information. Or if they cited a certain book about something, I could then add a footnote that was like comp titles to check out. Or if you like this book, oh or maybe check out these three other ones. These are good.
01:11:24
Speaker
Fact is, this shit is expensive and time-consuming, and I ain't got no dough or no time. So I'm just a boy looking at an idea. No, I will not go nodding hill on CNF pod zines. No, B.O. Stop it. Stay wild, CNFers. And if you can't do, interview. See ya.