Writing Makes All the Difference: The Episode Handshake
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Here we go. A slight rant. If I hear another podcast episode start with last time on, you know, fill in the name of the podcast, I just might blow a gasket. Do you know what I mean? It's maddening to hear the same approach to storytelling time after time after time after time, especially from people whose writing you admire. Like this example from New Hampshire Public Radio and their podcast, Bare Brook. Previously on Bare Brook Season 2, A True Crime Story.

I wanted to trust him. I wanted to trust him. I think he thought he was Telly Savalas. He had a shaved head. He's sucking on a lollipop and he's strutting around the courtroom like he owned it. He had a reputation for solving cases. Here's another example from a podcast maker that I hold in high regard. The New Yorker. Previously on In the Dark.

On the outskirts of his hometown of St. Joseph, a young boy's mysterious disappearance. And he looked at me and then he grabbed Jacob and he told me to run as fast as I could in the woods or he'd shoot. Time's your biggest enemy in an investigation. People have short memories. They don't remember everything correctly. You've got to get out there and talk to people and find out what the hell's going on.

We got the truth. The Wetterling family can bring him home.

See? Or should I say hear? It's kind of the same thing again and again. But surely there must be a better way to accomplish the same task, isn't there? This is Sound School from PRX and Transom. I'm Rob.

So look, I just want to say I get why someone would write using the previously on trope. It's a simple way to help a listener catch up. Plus, a well-produced montage of clips creates rhythm and energy at the start of an episode. So yeah, it's an approach that makes sense. But let's take a listen to a different writing tactic, one that was used in the podcast Pig Iron. It feels more like a handshake, a handshake between the end of one episode and the start of another one.

They're intertwined, like two hands shaking, but they're also separate. Yes, it's an odd metaphor, but I'm certain you'll hear what I mean. First, let me provide a quick overview of Pig Iron. Go ahead. Ready? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay.

For weeks, this European capital has been the scene of a violent uprising. My name is Christopher Allen. I'm a writer and photojournalist focusing on covering conflict. Pig Iron was produced by Tortoise Media and released in 2022. The show wrestles with a troubling story about a young reporter, a guy named Christopher Allen.

Chris threw himself into dangerous situations without much experience. The first was the war in Ukraine in 2014. That's where he reported on mercenaries fighting against the Russians in Crimea. The conflict in Ukraine was just beginning and history felt like it was happening there and better to be on the front lines of history than to be in the library studying it.

Chris's reporting trips to Ukraine really fired him up, maybe too much. He wanted a bigger challenge, needed a bigger challenge. So he flew to Sudan to cover the war there, hoping to get a scoop on a rebel offensive. It's hard work, even for him, who's trained hard for this trip, spending hours at a climbing gym back in Ukraine to get in shape. But still, this is all new to him. His first time in Africa, his first time reporting in these kinds of conditions.

He keeps careful notes as he goes, and he writes, death seems a very close counterpart to life here. Chris was killed in Sudan. He was 26. The details of his death were murky. Was Chris shot while he was reporting, which is potentially a war crime? Or had Chris stepped over an ethical line in journalism and taken sides?

Those are the animating questions for Pig Iron, which was reported and written by Basha Cummings. Investigating the story with Basha is Chris's cousin, Jeremy Bliss. He's a filmmaker, and he's eager to know what happened to his relative. Now, let me show you Basha's handshake between two episodes and how she managed to not use last time on Pig Iron.

I'll start with the end of episode four, which is deep into the seven-part series. I tell you that because you may not understand everything that they're talking about in the upcoming clip, but that's okay. The narrative doesn't matter. I just want you to hear the relationship between the end of this episode and the start of the next.

Here's the final scene in episode four of Pig Iron. We'll hear Basha, the narrator, plus Jeremy, that's Chris's cousin, and a source who claims to have knowledge about what happened to Chris. They refer to the source as the essay writer. Now we need the essay writer to agree to meet us in Kenya. Okay, should I tell him we're ready? Are we ready? For the essay writer's own safety, we aren't telling you his name. We've disguised his voice, and we won't reveal anything about his identity. ♪

Hello? Hi, it's Jeremy. How are you? Fine, Jeremy. I'm okay. What we can say is that he's speaking to us from a refugee camp and we offer to cover the costs for him to travel to meet us in Nairobi. I will very willingly be ready to travel because I don't have any problem with that. Do you think it's safe for me to meet you? Is there any risk? No, there's no risk at all. You know what happened to Christopher Allen?

touched not only me but the whole of my group. But anyway, it's good that I will be meeting you people face to face and you will hear about it. And yeah, we shall talk more when we meet face to face. Just before we go, do you know that the stuff that you put in that letter is true? Yes. I'll be in touch.

The first hurdle has been cleared: place, date, time. Well, it's happening. It's happening now. It's quite a different prospect, sitting in the spare room in my house in Melbourne and making a call in December before Christmas. For something which could have been so complicated to arrange, it all feels unnervingly straightforward. But then the essay writer's tone starts to change.

So you said, hey, can I start checking out whether you are who you say you are? Yeah. So I followed up with that. And he he said he eventually responded and he said, look, it's it's OK, but I prefer that it happens after our Nairobi meeting.

We want to check if this guy is who he says he is. In the essay, he lists name after name, people he says who can vouch for him. But after initially being open to us doing this, he changes his mind. He becomes much colder. So I started to think this doesn't feel good. Yeah. So I said, well, who can I contact? He said, let's meet first and we can arrange that jointly. And so then I thought this is actually getting interesting.

really quite bad yeah so i said why is that and then he got angry and he said to me so choose any contact and that's it and i said i don't want to do anything to upset you but i'm keen to understand your thoughts then he said then you wait so so you're saying to him i want to contact any number of the people that you put in the essay as referees and he's saying wait

something is different. But also, what has to wait until we see each other in person? That's just the other thing that's slightly freaking me out. Like, why can none of this happen beforehand? To sum up, Basha and Jeremy want to meet the essay writer in Kenya. But when Basha and Jeremy start poking around, looking for info on him, he gets cold feet, which leads Basha and Jeremy to doubt the essay writer and their safety. Listeners are left wondering how they'll handle all this.

So here comes the handshake, the top of episode five. So we're about an hour and a half away from Nairobi. We're actually right over South Sudan now, coming up over Juba, and we've just hit some turbulence. Months after a handwritten essay arrives out of the blue, we're finally on our way to meet its mysterious author. So it's about three in the morning, and...

I'm at the airport. After years of investigating his cousin's death, this is a big moment for Jeremy. He might finally get some answers. I feel like this has to happen. Now the reality of doing this piece of work is dawning on me. The essay writer has promised over and over that when we meet in person, he'll tell us what happened to Chris. It feels like we might be heading for some answers, but...

I got an email from Joyce a couple of nights ago and there's one line in particular which has definitely stayed in my head because at the end of the email she says, I know you leave momentarily for Nairobi. She says, we're aware that the conversations you will have may be most significant in determining what happened to Chris and why. Know that we travel with you. It's a reminder at 30,000 feet in the air that Chris's parents are also waiting for us to bring them the truth.

What we discover in Kenya could transform what we know about Chris and how he died. It could deliver his parents peace or shatter them all over again. It could turbocharge their campaign for justice. Or maybe it could destroy it.

I'll stop the tape there. Did you catch what Basha did? Instead of running a montage of clips from previous episodes, she moved the story forward. Basha and Jeremy are flying to Kenya. That's how they answer that lingering question from episode four, will they trust the source enough to go to Kenya? And they didn't even say, we decided to go. They're just going. The answer is obvious.

As they're flying, Basha uses tape recorded on the plane as well as narration to review key details from the previous episode. That there's a cagey essayist who says he has answers and that they'll meet him in Kenya.

In other words, by not saying previously on Pig Iron, Basha seamlessly offers listeners a quick reminder of important details from previous episodes in a manner that doesn't feel like we're stepping backwards in order to step forward. Listeners will feel like they're moving ahead rather than flashing back. I know, it sounds so simple. That's because it is.

It's not some crazy writing magic trick. So I don't know why it's not done this way more often. And what I think is really fantastic about this maneuver is that it works for people listening with long intervals of time between episodes, as well as bingers who don't want to sit through something they already know. It's writing that serves both audiences.

All that said, I was a little disappointed when Basha finished the opening to episode five this way. Well, maybe it could destroy it. I want to know what really happened. They need to know the truth. Who's responsible? Was Chris killed in crossfire? Was he targeted? These are the questions I have. Apparently, Basha couldn't help herself. I guess it's hard to resist the lure of a montage of clips. Oh,

That trope, last time on Sound School or previously on Sound School, it has a cousin, an annoying cousin. Next time on Sound School, and unfortunately, while the writers at Pig Iron avoided last time, the cousin still hung around. I write about it at the post for this episode at transom.org. I have to say, I like doing this, stumbling across satisfying writing, bringing it to Sound School and saying, hey, listen to how they did this.

I'd like to do it more. Does that sound good? Do you find it valuable? You should let me know. Write me, rob at transom.org. In fact, I'll do this again next time on Sound School. See what I did there? I'll feature a writing example to aspire to from Layla Fadl at NPR. I'm Rob Rosenthal, coming to you from the radio center of the universe, Woods Hole, Massachusetts. That's where I record in the studio at WCAI.

I have assistance from Genevieve Sponsler, Jay Allison, and Jennifer Jerry. Radio on, people.