10 Rules For Public Speaking, Overcoming Self-Conscious Writing and Documentaries Designers Should Watch

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10 stories we've enjoyed this week

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Hi All,
We're hiring, again. Come and join us! We're looking for an Operations and People Manager. As a growing company, we want someone that can help us shape and consolidate our operational strategy, systems and processes. Is that you? Find out how to apply, or share with anyone you think would be interested.

It was a complete coincidence that Matt and I wrote about football this week. Matt (Spurs) was asked to write a piece for the excellent Why Is This Interesting newsletter, whilst I (Man U) wrote about Fan Channels for Formats Unpacked. If you have a favourite format you'd like to unpack, or would like to see unpacked, get in touch.

Have a fantastic weekend and enjoy the newsletter.
Hugh

The Short Story

10 Rules For Public Speaking
(10 min read)

George Saunders on Overcoming Self-Conscious Writing
(7 min read)

Gen Z Isn't Mourning the Past - We're Trying to Redeem It
(6 min read)

A Lovely Ode to Public Benches
(2 min watch)

The Powerful, Unlikely Force Shaping Shaping Modern TV
(8 min read)

12 Documentaries Every Designer Should Watch
(Thread)

Why Are People in Their 30s Giving up on Music?
(5 min read)

The History You Didn't Learn - The (Gay) Harlem Renaissance
(6 min read)

One More Rule For Public Speaking to Add to the 10 Above
(Tweet)

Found in a Library Book
(2 min read)

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The Full Story

10 Rules For Public Speaking
This is a useful set of rules. We make a lot of podcasts and I find myself suggesting Rule 8 to any new podcast producers I work with. As a podcast listener, I find signposting really useful in holding my attention. It's also really important for public speaking too: "If you have something you want them to take very seriously, just tell it to them straight: 'I want you to pay close attention to what I’m going to say next.' If you think they are taking things too seriously, you can say: 'Why is everybody looking so glum? Sit back, relax, and let’s have a good time today.' If you are entering the final stretch of your talk, you can actually say: 'We just have a few more minutes together today, so let’s make sure we make the most of it.' Before your last point, you can actually say: 'This is the last point I’m going to make today.' Etc. etc."
(10 min read)

George Saunders on Overcoming Self-Conscious Writing
I absolutely love George Saunders' Story Club. Today a reader asks for advice on how to overcome self-conscious writing. George suggests a really nice trick that gets the writer split their mind into two offices. One houses that self-conscious part of the mind. The other houses this visceral part. This second part is the one we should use while writing – the part that is able to feel whether a reader would feel pleasure and momentum and a compulsion to keep reading if she was reading that swath of prose. This more-generous part of the mind roams through the store, tasting things, seeing what it likes and what it doesn’t. If it doesn’t like something, it doesn’t say much, just shrugs and moves on. It doesn’t care to criticise. It likes what it likes.
(7 min read)

Gen Z Isn't Mourning the Past - We're Trying to Redeem It
The hot takes on young people’s apparent infatuation with the past are peaking at the moment. All come to the conclusion that young people are longing for simpler times and that they can't even mimic the past very well. But all these hot takes are missing the point: "So to older generations who coo that we must be nostalgic for a pre-pandemic, pre-climate change, pre-housing crisis world (themselves indulging in pity porn while doing nothing to actually absolve the crises they’ve bequeathed to us) I respond: the kids are alright. On balance, I feel lucky about the age I’ve grown up in. I honestly couldn’t imagine anything worse than coming of age at a time when heroin chic was all the rage and women on screen were lucky if they had a name let alone a personality. Far from a practice in escapism, our interest in the past is much more about the lessons that can be gleaned from it – both the good and the bad – as well as perhaps a more morbid recognition of the things that have not progressed as much as they should have."
(6 min read)

A Lovely Ode to Public Benches
Nerdwriter, AKA Evan Pushchak, has written this lovely ode to the public bench that is worth two minutes of your time. I love how he describes them as invisibility cloaks for people watching, particularly for the self-conscious. Give it a watch.
(2 min watch)

The Powerful, Unlikely Force Shaping Shaping Modern TV
Storytelling has always been a dance between the creators and the audience. Plots turn and twist, steering expectations and swaying emotions. Fan engagement is at an all-time high as theorists work together to solve a show's mystery. The most passionate viewers have become a part of the writers’ room—not physically, of course, but as a looming presence, at least in the minds of those shaping seasons’ worth of plot. This piece in the Atlantic looks at how writers are responding.
(8 min read)

12 Documentaries Every Designer Should Watch
My wife is working away for two weeks. The TV is mine. A lot of these are getting watched on the big telly.
(Thread)

Why Are People in Their 30s Giving up on Music?
I rarely listen to new music these days. I always feel a little guilty when my friends ask me what I'm listening to and all I can give them is "Gilbert O'Sullivan." As I entered my 40s, I was still DJing and had a job at Radio 1, so chasing the zeitgeist was an essential part of my life. But when I finally tapped out, I ran in the opposite direction. I intentionally avoided new music. It was like a massive weight had lifted off my shoulders. As this piece points out, we don't don't get less curious as we get older, and continue to discover new books, films and podcasts. But for me, chasing new music always felt more exhausting than other forms of culture as I got older. I envy my friends who still do.
(5 min read)

The History You Didn't Learn - The (Gay) Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance is a critical point in the history and evolution of African-Americans in the 20th century. In Harlem and beyond, the 1920s saw a period of relaxed social attitudes as people rebelled against Prohibition-era restrictions. The speakeasy culture paved the way for LGBTQ+ nightlife and drag balls. It really was a fascinating period of time. A year ago we made a series of radio shows about the history of drag and whilst researching it I was surprised that the story of Gladys Bently hasn't yet been made into a feature film. Find out more about Gladys in this short film from Time.
(6 min read)

One More Rule For Public Speaking to Add to the 10 Above
Pause like Obama. Here's a five-minute compilation of Obama pausing. In response to this tweet, Tom Darlington points out that: "In golf tuition, they talk about “feel” vs “real” - what a person thinks is happening when they try to hit a ball rarely is what actually happens. Same seems true of public speaking - pauses perceived and consumed by speaker and audience in a totally different way."
(Tweet)

Found in a Library Book
Nice! The Oakland Public Library has a page on its website featuring scans and photos of all the things they've found in books that have been returned to them.
(2 min read)

We hope you've enjoyed this week's newsletter. I'm sure some of your friends would love to read it. Sharing it would be really appreciated. If you've received this from a friend you can subscribe here and get it direct to your inbox every Friday.

Thanks for reading and see you all next week,

Hugh, Matt, Anjali and the team at Storythings

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