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 having to stop and think about it.

Creating authenticity through the Motivation-Reaction unit

The MRU is an acronym that stands for Motivation-Reaction Unit.  It is a means of describing the way a human being reacts to a stimulus (motivation).  The MRU consists of four parts;

1. The Motivation
   An event or stimulus to which a character will react.  This stimulus can be external or internal to the character (an event or a feeling).  Events include the appearance of a tiger, a car crash, a foetid smell, a loud noise; anything that attracts the attention of a character and elicits a reaction.  External motivations are appeals to the senses; sight, sound, hearing, taste, smell.  Internal motivations are emotions (eg. A feeling of being watched, sadness, joy, etc.)
2. The Reaction
   The reaction is made up of three optional parts.  It does not require the presence of all three elements, but if more than one is being employed, they must appear in the right order.
   1. Physical Instinctive reaction
      We react to a stimulus at the unconscious/automatic/physical level first.  Such reactions include freezing, feeling our heart race and breathing become more rapid, breaking out in a sweat, etc.
   2. Emotional reaction
      Next we react with identifiable emotions (even when we react to emotions) eg. fear, anger, horror, disgust, delight, etc.
   3. Volitional reaction
      Finally our conscious mind kicks in and we choose to act (raise the rifle to sight at the tiger, turn and run, climb a tree, etc.

While it isn’t necessary to include every element of the reaction, the order is important.  We react physically first, then emotionally, then volitionally (as our conscious brain catches up with our subconscious).  When a writer puts these elements in the wrong order we always notice (even if we aren’t quite sure why the description feels wrong).

Immersion and Voluntary Suspension of Disbelief via the KAV cycle.

Some stories transport us to a new place and immerse us in this world so that we do not wish to leave it while the story is being told.

To be entranced, a reader must be willing.  When an audience member chooses to listen to your story, they are willing already.

To deliver immersion we MUST make sensory appeals to our audience.  In audio drama, we are limited by the medium to conjuring sensory experience through sound, dialog, and music – the other senses are not directly available to us.  That said, we can activate the senses indirectly through the means we do have available.

In the real world our attention is given primarily to visual elements 60% of the time.  We attend to what we hear about 20% of the time, what we feel (physically and emotionally) about 17% of the time and what we smell about 3% of the time.

Interestingly, this doesn’t reflect how our attention is captured.

The order of sensory appeals is sometimes referred to as the golden circle and at others as the KAV cycle.  Our attention is captured first by emotion and movement (kinesthetic appeal, K), next by sound (auditory appeal, A) and, lastly, visually (through visual appeal, V).

In many ways this is more detailed modification of the MRU and provides the detail on the motivation side of the equation. Generally, we are doing/experiencing something and a sound catches our attention and directs our sight.

In audio drama this requires careful handling.  Narration provides an easy way to hit each of these notes but, used to excess, turns an audio play into an audio book.  It is far better to add these immersive appeals through dialog, sound, and music.

Music is a strong means of establishing emotion.  If you are lucky enough to have a composer as part of your production team, they can be crucial to creating the emotional tone of the play and reflecting the emotions of your characters.  It is also possible to construct a musical soundtrack from public domain or purchased sources.  It is difficult to decide, however, which approach is the more difficult and fraught. 

If you don’t have the budget for it, however, you may have to rely on dialog to communicate emotions and descriptions to achieve the immersion you’re looking for.

1. DAVID: Easy Jim, one slip and we’ll be blown to pieces.
2. JIM: You think I don’t know that?  My hands are so sweaty (K) I can hardly hold the wire cutters.

Visual description can also be achieved through dialog, but we must be careful not to have our characters discussing what is obvious to all.  The audience won’t notice “Look out!  He’s got a gun!”, but “Look out!  He’s pointing that Colt pistol he’s holding in his left hand two inches to the right and one inch above your heart” will come across as inauthentic and will, likely, destroy the sense of immersion you are trying to create.  It is always helpful to give your characters a reason to describe things to one another (such as only one character having binoculars with which to see something in the distance).

1. DAVID: Can you make out what it is?
2. JIM: I’m bringing it into focus.  Hang-on.  Well, I’ll be! 
3. DAVID: What?
4. JIM: It’s no rhino.  That’s a dinosaur, a triceratops I think.  The wrinkled, leathery skin (V), had me fooled ’til it turned around.
5. DAVID: Here, give me those binoculars.  I want to see.

Sound is a surprisingly challenging element to include.  Given that our chosen medium is audio drama, you’d think that sound effects would be the main way we communicate what is available to the senses of our characters and while, to an extent, this is true, it is more complicated than it seems.

Some sounds are self-identifying (such as an airplane, or train, or car engine) but most are not.  Most sounds require context (visual or verbal) to give them meaning.  The sound of a fire can read as rain or crumpled cellophane (and vice-versa) depending on the context in which it is delivered.

This means that sounds must be explained to the audience via the context if they are to be “read” clearly.

1. SOUND: DISTANT RUMBLE (S) – LET IT FINISH
2. DAVID: Was that thunder?
3. JIM: No.  That was cannon fire.  Fifty calibre, unless I miss my guess.  I reckon they’ll be here by nightfall at the latest.

Generally, it is best to establish the explanatory context of a sound before introducing it to your audience.

1. DAVID: Where’s that storm front, Jim?
2. JIM: It’s almost on top of us.  The first drops of rain are coming now.
3. SOUND: RAIN COMES DOWN (S) – UNDER

Motivating action tends to follow the same repeating pattern.  We are engaged in an experience (emotional and physical).  We are looking forwards.  Sound causes us to turn our heads, up, down, behind us, in order to change our visual focus.  We look at what has attracted our attention.

A word of caution should be expressed here when we use stereo or surround sound.  We hear with both ears, so placing a sound exclusively in the left or right channel will not create a realistic experience (and will be inaccessible to people who, like myself, are deaf in one ear).  Emphasise one channel over another by including the sound in both channels but reducing its audibility in one.

By appeals to Kinesthetics, then Audio, then Visibility, we immersively establish the motivaters to which our characters will react.

All elements are needed and the cycle is repeated over and over.

The brain empathises with the description of action and emotion through music and dialog, activating in sympathy.  The brain empathises with the presence of sound and music in a script, activating in sympathy.  The brain empathises with the description of visual input via dialog and narration (so long as it is not overdone), activating in sympathy.  The more this activation happens the greater the voluntary immersion occurs.

Problems implementing the KAV cycle

Some appeals are weak – too vague. Eg. A crowd is too vague.  What kind of people are we seeing in this crowd (in terms of time and place).  Groups lack details in general.  General descriptors are too weak.  A creature is too vague.  More detail is needed where possible.

The more description that is supplied, the more an audience can see with their mind’s eye, but a wall of text is counter-productive.  Precision is important (without being overlong).  A few judiciously chosen KAV details will bring the scene to life without burying it in exposition.  Don’t include details without a purpose.

Emotion should be conveyed through the scene and the action within it.  Reveal details of the scene through physical details (dry mouth, heart racing, etc. wherever possible and appropriate).

Not all appeals need to be strong, but the most important ones should be.  Ensure you use well chosen modifiers, adverbs, and adjectives (as well as evocative and illustrative metaphors and similes) in your dialog.

Rate your appeals.  Can they be made stronger than appears in your draft.  As you revise, strengthen them, but avoid the equal and opposite sin of becoming exposition heavy.

Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2022 

The post Writing-Microstructures for Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Are you looking for some suggestions on how to increase the immersion created by the stories you tell?  Some simple ways to bring your scripts to life in the minds of your audience?

The following are some ideas/techniques, borrowed from prose and narrative writing, that I have tried to employ in my script writing in order to do just that.

1. Create a sense of time and place – ensure the audience knows where and when the action is taking place. You can reveal it slowly throughout the dialog or in a single convenient hit (using a narrator). Some folks hate the use of a narrator, but for setting a scene, the narrator can be genuinely helpful.  It’s easy to forget to tell your audience where and when the story is taking place but without that information the degree of immersion is lessened.

Even though we are talking about audio drama, it can be helpful to think about setting the scene in cinematic terms – using the wide shot, medium shot, and closeup to set the scene.

The wide shot (or establishing shot) sets the location in its context (eg. “In a dusty desert plain…”).

The medium shot presents the location itself (eg. “… stands an old wooden house…).

The closeup presents the scene’s characters in context (eg. “… in which an old man sits on a battered sofa, staring out his lounge room window.”)

2. Establish the mood – is it celebratory, creepy, tragic, joyful etc? Finding and communicating the emotion of a scene to your audience increases immersion. A scene in which giggling children visit their grandparents well-kept house for a family celebration on a sunny day has a totally different mood to a scene where nervous children visit their grandparents run-down house for a wake during a thunderstorm.

3. Activate the senses – let the audience know how the setting sounds, smells, feels, and appears. The more the audience can “sense” the space in which the characters are moving, the greater the immersion that will result.

4. Engage the emotions through reactions – reveal the physical/instinctive reaction, emotional reaction, and volitional reaction of protagonist(s).

Instinctive reactions are laughs, cries, grunts, turning pale, breaking out in a sweat, having your heart start thumping in your chest, jumping with fright, etc. These reactions follow events instantly, occurring at the unconscious, instinctive, level and are usually physiological in nature.

Emotions then follow; fear, surprise, joy, sadness, anger etc.

Lastly, the brain kicks in and our characters decide how to respond.

Jack is walking along a jungle trail and out jumps a lion – he freezes and starts to tremble, the fear mounting inside him, and raises his rifle to try and sight along it at the creature.

We don’t need to provide cues to each of these elements of human reaction every time, but we do need to take note of the order. Instinct precedes emotion which precedes conscious thought and not the other way round. Audiences can ALWAYS tell when we mess this up; it just feels wrong, somehow (like someone saying tock-tick instead of tick-tock).

5. Have the characters use each other’s names regularly; in audio, names need to be heard more frequently than in visual media (or even books). In real life we don’t use each other’s names that often, but in audio drama we need to provide the audience with name cues fairly regularly in order to make up for the lack of a visual reference points for recognizing characters.

These techniques don’t need to be used in every scene and situation, but they can be used to help create immersion whenever and wherever you deem fit. Let’s take a closer look at how this works with an, admittedly, artificial example.

Example Scene (Before)

Firstly, (for comparison purposes) here is an example scene without resort to these techniques. It’s incredibly basic and could definitely use some sprucing up.

1. SOUND: NIGHT AMBIANCE – SOME WIND – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.

2. JOHN: Look at this place will ya? No-one’s been in this old house for years.

3. BASIL: Yeah, well. I never said we was going on a picnic.

4. JOHN: I mean it, Basil. It’s like the folks who lived here just got up and left everything behind.

5. BASIL: Stop being such a whiner.

6. SOUND: AXE BEING DRAGGED ALONG FLOOR. LIMPING FOOTSTEPS APPROACH – UNDER.

7. JOHN: Basil, d’you hear that?… Basil?

8. BASIL: This ain’t right. There shouldn’t be anyone else here.

9. JOHN: Basil? What do we do?

10. SOUND: LIMPING FOOTSTEP AND DRAG APPROACHES – CONTINUE UNDER.

11. BASIL: Just get your gun up and ready. Who ever this is… they’re in for a big surprise.

12. SOUND: TWO GUNS BEING READIED – LET IT FINISH.

###

Example Scene (After)

Even though what follows is a little artificial, it’s easy to see how the techniques we’ve discussed add immersion to the action.

1. NARRATOR: It’s midnight and deep in the Wisconsin woods stands a large wooden house, the second story of which juts up over the dark and twisted treetops. Inside the house two intruders are moving quietly from room to room. [Establishing sense of time and place – and a bit of mood –  using wide shot, medium shot, and closeup]

2. SOUND: NIGHT AMBIANCE – SOME WIND – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.

3. SOUND: CREAKING FLOORBOARDS – UNDER. [Activating senses – hearing]

4. JOHN: Look at this place will ya? No-one’s been in here for years. This dust is an inch thick and I ain’t seen this many rat droppings in… well, ever.

5. BASIL: Yeah, well. I never said we was going on a picnic, John [introducing the second character’s name].

6. JOHN: I mean it, Basil [introducing the first character’s name], this place is creepy. Nothing’s been touched in here forever. It’s like the folks who lived here just got up and left everything behind… and the shadows look… wrong somehow. Deeper. [Establishing mood and activating sight].

7. BASIL: Don’t get your panties in a twist. You’re gonna make the women nervous. Hold that gun of yours tighter and wave it around a bit if you’re scared.

8. JOHN: (IGNORING BASIL, GRUNTS IN DISGUST) Ugh.

9. BASIL: What now?

10. JOHN: I just walked through a mess of cobwebs. Damn it. They’re stuck to my face. Here, check if I’ve got any spiders on me! [Activating touch]

11. BASIL: Stop being such a whiner. What’s a spider or two? They ain’t gonna hurt you. (BEAT) What’s that smell? I think there’s something dead in the next room.

12. JOHN: I don’t… hey yeah. Something smells… rotten. [Activating smell]

13. SOUND: AXE BEING DRAGGED ALONG FLOOR. LIMPING FOOTSTEPS APPROACH – UNDER. [Activating hearing].

14. JOHN: Basil… Basil, you’ve gone pale. [Physical reaction]

15. SOUND: BEATING HEART – UNDER AND FADE.

16. BASIL: This ain’t right. There shouldn’t be anyone else here.

17. JOHN: Basil, I’m scared. [Emotional reaction]

18. SOUND: LIMPING FOOTSTEP AND DRAG APPROACHES – CONTINUE UNDER.

19. BASIL: Shut up, John.  Just get your gun up and ready. Who ever this is… they’re in for a big surprise. [volitional reaction]

20. SOUND: TWO GUNS BEING READIED – LET IT FINISH.

###

The above example may not be great art, but I think it illustrates how the elements combine to intensify the immersion of the audience in the scene.

A Note on Music

Background music of the appropriate mood also intensifies the experience for the audience (but I’m no musician, so I really don’t have much to say about the use of music).  If the use of music to affect mood is of interest, I’d recommend the following video by Brian Mackenzie as a great example of just how powerful music can be.

Well, that’s it until next time. Why don’t you reply in the comments with any tips and techniques you use to increase the immersion your audience experiences when listening to, or reading, your plays.

This article is © 2017 by Philip Craig Robotham – all rights reserved.

The post Increase Immersion with Four Narrative Techniques (and a Fifth Tip that Matters Just for Audio Drama) appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.