The Story

This is an interesting assignment because i find the notion of Recording my voice. Uh, its kind of a way of writing with my voice. Because i’m Um, Using my voice. Create a record of something that i’ve said or something i’m thinking about. And, So, as i was reflecting on that i suppose, One of the experiences i was thinking about was doing a voice. Interviews with people. Um, when over the years, especially In the past. I’ve conducted interviews over the phone. And or interviews online. Where i’ve been, i may have been just Listening to somebody’s voice and speaking with them during the interview or They may have been available on video as well, but the the Um, The main purpose of the interview was to capture their thoughts by audio. And then later record them and into some form of writing whether journalism or whatever. But i’m thinking of a Uh, some podcast experiences, i’ve had where i’ve been the person who’s being interviewed for the podcast, And, Uh, i’ve always felt that. I can be much more persuasive in my writing than i can be. In my, In my conversation, or my Um, My my speaking, my focal speaking. I I think that’s because I’ve i, when i think Uh, i continually think in the feedback loop and when i’m writing, i Have the ability to to pause. And give myself some feedback on what i’m writing because i can see visually what i’m trying to express. Whereas, with speaking, when i get into that kind of feedback loop, It actually interrupts my thinking and Um, Prevents me from Uh, communicating as well as i would in writing. And, But i wanted to make one observation about my podcast experiences. Generally. I prefer if i know in advance what the the conversations or even, the questions are going to be about. Which is a little amusing, because When i worked as a journalist, one of the things i’d almost never do is tell people in advance, what questions i was going to ask. Because that’s not something you do as a journalist because of the The independence, you want to have and you want people to speak freely but you don’t necessarily want them to prepare something in advance of the interview. Uh, so it’s a little ironic that Uh when i was being interviewed for podcasts that i would want that kind of preparation. I’d like to know at least some of the questions that we’re going to be posed. And, And get a sense of the structure of the interview so that i could prepare notes for myself. So inevitably, what began is notes for myself? Started turning into a script for myself. And so, as it turned into a script, Um, Of course i was trying to refine. That script as a writer would do. Rather than think about, How it would come across. Um, during our or a dialogue together. And, Afterwards, what i found is that when i was listening to myself in the podcast, i’ve felt like I was listening to myself giving speed a speech or a series of speeches. Rather than Um, having an actual dialogue with the interviewer back and forth and there was some of that it’s not to say that. I i didn’t have some back and forth with the interviewers, But, It, it occurred to me that in trying to Um, use writing to Structure my speaking, it took a lot of the spontaneity and the dialogue in the interaction of it. So that’s what i learned.

My Observations

• How does the text deviate from conventions of written English?

In my transcript, there is no organization of ideas into paragraphs, so when I read it, it was hard to follow the flow of my thoughts because they seemed to be a rambling stream of consciousness without a clear structure. In addition to this, the transcript fractured my sentences into broken sentence fragments because it interpreted any pause as an ending of a sentence. The transcript also provides no sense of my personality or the intonations of my voice as I was speaking. Without a written narrative added to the transcript afterward to  provide context and emotion for my sentences (e.g., “Garth emphasized that…” or “He said with a smile…”), it comes across as robotic and almost self-absorbed.

• What is “wrong” in the text? What is “right”?

Without using a script to tell the story, I had to organize the main points of my story whilst I was speaking, which made it difficult for me to objectively listen to myself and evaluate whether I was telling the story properly. I suppose I could have used longer pauses to collect my thoughts between parts of the story rather than rushing through it, but I felt that I needed to fill the time with as many words as possible to ensure that I told my story in a fulsome, complete manner;  in doing so, however, I found I was going off on a tangent sometimes or else not providing enough context, so then I had to jump forward or loop backward.

The positive aspects are that because the flow feels more spontaneous, the transcript might provide a sense that the story is more personal, more honest, and more unfiltered than text that had been carefully crafted and edited. There is a sense that it is virgin speech, pure and untouched, with all the imperfections of colloquial speech.

• What are the most common “mistakes” in the text and why do you consider them “mistakes”?

Aside from poor punctuation, awkward syntax, missing words and words that were not transcribed properly (e.g. “focal” instead of “vocal”), it also tends to be repetitive and verbose. My transcribed speech seems to be circling around the points of my story rather than developing them in a consistent, linear way. I realize that I am critiquing it as a written text and expecting it to follow rules of grammar, spelling and narrative storytelling when in fact it is a spoken word story that has had its sounds and emotions deflated and dessicated into flat, dry text.

• What if you had “scripted” the story? What difference might that have made?

If I had scripted it, either by writing it originally or by editing it afterward, I could have probably made it more concise by reducing the word count by 40-50% and by structuring the story into three short paragraphs that went straight to the point and followed a logical progression—something that was linear rather than circumspect. It might make my story slightly more coherent and convincing, yet in making it objectively stronger it might also lose some of the subjective qualities such as the spontaneity and colloquial imperfections that are part of human speech. On the positive side, if I had scripted it, I might have been more critical and analytical about my story elements and then revised my original ideas into a text that offered deeper insights and more clarity.

• In what ways does oral storytelling differ from written storytelling? 

In my experience, oral storytelling is literally created by a human voice or a group of voices. It is more immediate (temporal), more subjective, and more culturally rich.  It expresses a story in a creative, individual style that can only be represented in the highest fidelity by an audio recording because even if another person uses the same words to tell the same story,  the story will be different in the way it is told because of the personality, style and culture of the alternative speaker. Written storytelling almost always relies on reading the story by sight, although many people many read it by touch as well in the case of Braille writing. Generally, speaking, oral storytelling is meant to be heard and can be done without having to see the speaker whereas written storytelling is meant to be seen and can be done without having to hear the words spoken aloud. Written storytelling is more timeless, objective and may even be read without a sense of the writer’s personality or culture. As such it can focus more on structure, facts and details and be read asynchronously while oral storytelling can focus more on individuality, emotion, and be  heard as an event in time.

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