Non-fiction storytelling is a part of everyone’s life. For myself, it usually takes place in the form of conversing with others, doing some personal writing or, sharing thoughts and photos to Instagram. Whilst my output of non-fiction storytelling is limited, my intake of it is quite the opposite. Whether it be listening to others, reading about what people think and see, watching television or listening to a podcast, I feel I’m in a constant state of processing the world around me. For this very reason, I think it’s time to have a go at doing more of my own non-fiction storytelling.

I began to desire an active role in producing non-fiction work after listening to the podcast Views by David Dobrik and Jason Nash. Whilst on a superficial level the podcast is purely comedic, I find that through them sharing their life experiences, I’m left wondering about my own and for this, I find it to be an admirable skill. In saying this, whether it be telling my own stories, sharing the story of someone else or of a place, I hope to produce non-fiction work that resonates with someone.

Whilst the podcast as a whole has inspired me, I found the latest episode titled ‘David Meets His Idol’ to be of particular importance to me. One conversation during the podcast was about the 2009 film The Invention of Lying. At mention of this film, I thought “wow it’s a small world.” The reason being that we had just watched F for Fake and so, I was already thinking about truths and lies but now something unrelated to Real to Reel had provoked the same thoughts in me. This was simply a coincidence but nevertheless, I began to ponder about the size of Earth. By this I don’t mean it’s height or it’s width, but I mean the distance a connection could travel between people. Something along the lines of those confusing stories like “see that person sitting across from us? They’re my sister’s friend’s brother’s friend’s boyfriend. What are the chances we’d both be here?” Now maybe that story might tell us that that person is a little too invested in finding out who their sister is friends with, but I think it tells a little more than that. From this, I think that non-fiction storytelling is extremely powerful. Often I think that if it’s non-fiction then it’s made only to reflect one specific facet of our existence such as a documentary on whales and so, only targets a niche group of people. Whereas now, I realise that non-fiction storytelling has a relatability to everyone in some way. Therefore, I want to improve my non-fiction storytelling abilities because it will enable me to and viewers of my work to form new connections to this world as we navigate through it.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoy listening to Views. As it comes from two people who make YouTube videos it teaches me that it can be useful to produce content across a variety of platforms. Therefore, I feel very inspired to test out various non-fiction media practices this semester.