Truth hits (and hurts)

I’m a big fan of Transom.org, a site dedicated to encouraging, developing, and promoting “citizen storytelling” for public radio. One fantastic service they office is free (!) evaluation of audio works submitted for review. Feedback is given by long-standing professionals in the field, and those pieces which the reviewers find particularly intriguing are nominated for broadcast on Massachusetts public radio. Wow.

After I got word that Tom Wangler (Sr.) had passed away last January, I pieced together a kind of audio memorial from telephone conversations with Todd, Mom, Dad, and Grant. It was just my way of doing something to acknowledge the loss — the life — of Mr. Wangler, especially as I wasn’t able to attend the memorial. I was fairly proud of my finished work and must have listened to it daily for several weeks after final editing. A story that resonates so close to home will do that. But it can also inspire false confidence.

Still floating along in the warm haze of my afterglow, I decided to submit the piece for review to Transom: a gutsy move considering that I tend to shy away from criticism, constructive or otherwise. After several months of hearing nothing I gave up and simply forgot about it. They were probably too busy to bother with my little amateur-hour project, anyway.

Then, last week, I received an email. Several days passed before I raised the courage to even open it, as I pretty much found what I had expected: the truth. The thing is, everything they said was spot-on. The comments stung at first, but after I’d absorbed them I began to feel a lot better — mainly because I concurred with the feedback. Getting a second opinion isn’t so bad, after all.

(I present the following, for your reading pleasure.)

Hi David -

First of all – thank you for sending your work to Transom and apologies for taking so long to get back to you. We did listen to your piece but somehow our notes never made their way to you.

Our team has reviewed your work, and for editorial and/or technical reasons, it was not selected to be featured on our website. Hoping it is useful we have attached reviewers notes below, that might help to inform your future work.

As you know transom.org aims to help producers like yourself, so please take advantage of the growing resources on our site, suggest others, and pitch in on the discussion boards. We look forward to your continuing participation in the online work of the transom.org community.

Good luck in the future.

Kind regards,

Transom.org Editorial Team.

NOTES from reviewers: take them for what they are worth. They are only opinions after all:

Really like the idea, and as a memorial for people who knew him, it’s fine.

 

But as someone who doesn’t know Tom Wangler it’s difficult to buy in. What do you want to share that rises above the specifics of the 4 voices’ experience of this man?

 

There are lots of wonderful moments, but they’re a little buried in the amount we receive. A point strongly made once carries more weight than that point made over and over. And not everyone needs to comment on all aspects of Tom.

 

You’re painting a portrait, the colors need to be strong around the shape of his head, so we know it’s his head not anyone else’s. Not black and white, but strong.

 

To start with we need something to hang our ears on. Open is OK being vague at first… some guy Tommy’s dad has died and he drank a lot and people are thinking about it. And they knew him from the time they were young. And he had cancer. And he didn’t want anyone close…and OK, he was married, couple times.

 

And just when I get impatient, it goes onto something a little more concrete. The mysterious open could be a touch shorter.

 

Who are these people? How do they know him? Material needs to be shaped so we feel more powerful arc instead of feeling we’ve absorbed a volume of info.