Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama
Drama for the dinner table
Writing the Middle There are a variety of ways to think about the middle of a story. They are not a prescription; no-one should feel obligated to use these techniques. At most they should be understood as suggestions based on some common ways that writers have approached the story’s middle and the problem of maintaining […]
Over the years, I’ve found a couple of writing micro-structures very helpful in building immersion in my worlds and a sense of authenticity in my characters. They are the MRU and the KAV cycle. There’s nothing particularly clever about them, they just provide me with a conceptual label for something that many writers do without […]
Theme defines Meaning Theme is the deeper meaning of the story, usually a topic with universal appeal. You don’t need to preach or prove a point in stories, but they can be made more impactful and affecting by including and exploring a theme. One of the easiest ways to think about theme, is to view […]
At one level, nothing changes when telling stories for younger audiences. A show that is designed for kids has all the same requirements, with regard to good storytelling, as shows for other audiences. The story must have conflict, compelling characters, a strong structure with plenty of interesting incident, a great setting, and a well-explored theme. […]
Understanding Conflict Conflicts grow out of character and setting. The classical formulation of conflict is as follows… Person vs. Person (protagonist vs. antagonist) Person vs. Self (protagonist vs. addictions, weaknesses, and flaws) Person vs. God Person vs. Society Person vs. Nature (plague, storm, drought, etc.) Conflict is the engine that drives stories. A conflict is […]
Publishers have a lot of information about what their readership is looking for. This information is used by publishing companies, Hollywood studios, and just about anyone who is in the business of delivering entertainment to consumers. For this reason alone, it is important for writers to have a basic idea about what audiences look for. […]
Aristotle and Catharsis Aristotle was aware that stories achieve an effect in an audience that is somehow pleasing; what we call entertainment. He intuitively felt this was good for us as human beings (and in this I concur). But for Aristotle, the definition of what is good for us needed to be framed in terms […]
THOUGHTS ON CHARACTERS I go back and forwards on the issue of character. I used to write long, involved, and often useless amounts of back-story and description with regard to character, planning out the internal and external traits and attitudes they held in great detail. Typically, the character would morph into someone quite different during […]
Conversation is research I’m a shy person and fairly introspective. I need people, but I don’t spend a lot of time seeking them out – I live with the constant fear that if I pursue them, I will bore them (and I REALLY don’t want to be “that friend” that everyone avoids). And, worse, I’m […]
Designing Effective Character Growth and Change in Audio Drama All stories are about change. Time in stories can be linear or circular, but change is a given. Inevitably we think about change in terms of character and there are a variety of ways we deal with character change. Aristotle Aristotle argued that there were two […]
There are at least four types of time that are commonly used by authors when writing scripts; Real time Concurrent time Disjointed (or Flexible) time And Elided time. Real time is experienced with the characters moment by moment. While I call it “real time” it is, in fact, only an approximation of real-world time. The […]
Below we present the complete text of Wrack and Ruin; episode 5 of Mort Flintwich and the Outworlder War. Mort Flintwich and the Outworlder War EPISODE #5 – Wrack and Ruin by Philip Craig Robotham Cover illustration by Philip Craig Robotham Copyright 2022 Philip Craig Robotham Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Edition. […]
