You know the old adage. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover. It’s true, we shouldn’t judge people by their appearances or stories by their titles. But we do, and so does everybody, because there’s something in human nature that gives tremendous weight to first impressions. So what’s the secret to a good title?

‘“Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience,” writes Walter Benjamin. If you are like me and you are sometimes seized by anxiety at the thought of slowing down for the repetitive tasks of everyday life, try to remind yourself that boredom creates the time and space necessary for you to be present to the stories within and around you.

I love it when Radiolab tells a story from the outside and the inside, in both past tense and in present tense, using different people’s voices, and different recordings of the same person’s voice, to create a single narrative arc that is easy to follow and dreamily immersive.

When you work in radio, you have the power to record, edit, broadcast, and comment upon another person’s words. Once you have an interview on tape, that’s it. That person’s voice is frozen in time. If you critique their argument, then they won’t have the chance to respond. If you insult them, they won’t be able to defend themselves, or insult you back. If you muscled all the advantages inherent to your position, you could really take the upper hand. But it’s better for everybody, including your listener, if you remain kind.

I think that the most challenging part of writing a story for radio is the introduction. The stakes are very high: your listener will decide within a few short seconds whether to stick around or whether to turn the proverbial dial, and so you must do everything you can to persuade that listener to stay, and you must do it quickly.

When I first started producing radio, I took it upon myself to enlighten my listeners with unusual sound combinations.

In radio in particular, a story’s design remains well hidden because so much of its power comes from feeling authentic, intimate, and spontaneous.