“Having a great narrator is like having a great friend whose company you love, whose mind you love to pick, whose running commentary totally holds your attention, who makes you laugh out loud, whose lines you always want to steal. When you have a friend like this, she can say, ‘Hey, I’ve got to drive up to the dump in Petaluma–wanna come along?’ and you honestly can’t think of anything in the world you’d rather do.“

– Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Want to hear a narrator like the one Anne Lamott was describing?
Start listening to this video…

In the video below: the opening narrator in Shakespeare’s play, Henry V.

O for a muse of fire, that would ascend the brightest heaven of invention. A kingdom for a stage, princes to act, and monarchs to behold the swelling scene. Then should the warlike Harry like himself, assume the port of Mars, and at his heels should Famine, Sword and Fire crouch for employment. The flat unraised spirits that have dared on this unworthy scaffold, to bring forth so great an object: Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France? Or may we cram within this wooden O’, the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt? Suppose within the girdle of these walls are now confined two mighty monarchies, whose high upreared and abutting fronts, the perilous narrow ocean parts asunder. Piece out our imperfections with you thoughts, into a thousand parts divide one man and make imaginary puissance; think when we talk of horses, that you see them: Printing their proud hooves in the receiving earth. For it is your thoughts, your thoughts that now must deck our kings!