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Thoughts on Writing the Middle

Philip Robotham — Wed, 07 Sep 2022 11:43:45 +0000

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 audience interest until the conclusion.

At the most macro level, the middle is the second act of a three act play. At the most micro level it is a series of MRUs (motivation-reaction units). One way of thinking about the middle of a story that I have found helpful has been to think in terms of sequences. At its simplest a sequence is a series of scenes (or sometimes a single scene) that accomplish a story or plot purpose. It is a very flexible label that can be used to describe everything that happens between a setup and a payoff, the beginning and end of a single try-fail cycle, the introduction and conclusion of a character arc, etc. Sequences always end in a significant change. Sometimes this involves an internal character change (such as passive to active) or an external change to circumstances (wealth to riches, home owner to aftermath-of-an-earthquake survivor, or similar).

Setup and payoff

Setup is a special form of foreshadowing (foreshadowing, more broadly, being discussed elsewhere). It aims to show or reveal the building blocks necessary to give the reader a revelation of deeper meaning later in the story.

To set up is to prepare the ground, to place the props, to provoke the questions that will receive their answers and demonstrate their purpose later on.

We set up our plot points, hinting at and revealing obstacles and objects early, etc. to give our stories credibility, so that the reader doesn’t feel like our plot points are contrived when introduced later. Events should never feel like coincidences; they should always have precursors and causes that were put in place earlier in the narrative. Our setups exist to create curiosity and anticipation in the reader and justify the story choices we have made.

To demonstrate a change in a character or establish the credibility of an important plot-untangling skill that a character will use, we have to setup their ability to use the skill or demonstrate the pre-existing character that must be altered/changed.

Problems can be setup ahead of time to increase the tension and suspense that the audience experience. If we already know that the road on which our protagonist is recklessly driving to escape the antagonist has been washed out, our concern and investment in the outcome is heightened.

Jokes, likewise, have a setup and payoff. The setup, repetition/exposition, and punchline/twist, topper, and second topper (see my article on humour).

Thematic elements and symbols can be planted early and often to emphasise the unity of a story (reminding us of the underlying theme or message).

We perform a setup by planting characters, unexplained absences and presences, symbols, objects, snatches of dialog, reactions, mood, locations, warnings and clues.

It is important that these planted items have a discrete meaning of their own within the story. When the audience encounters a setup, it should not seem arbitrary, but signify something appropriate to that moment in the story. It should also be memorable enough to be easily recalled when the payoff occurs. When the payoff comes, it should provide a new way to see the original event. For example, the shyness of Rebecca when introduced is, re-interpreted, in the light of the payoff, as an attempt to avoid being recognized by someone who could reveal she is an imposter.

Sometimes a setup raises a question that, when payed off, reveals its meaning in hindsight. Questions raised in the mind of the audience need to always be paid off with an answer, preferably and surprising one.

One of the tricks to maintaining interest is to plant setups steadily throughout the story. All setups must be paid off, but the time of the payoff varies. Delay too long and the audience will tire of waiting or be overwhelmed by the number of threads waiting to be resolved. Payoff too early and the setup will lack value and be easily dismissed by the audience. Keep the payoffs coming at regular intervals and interest will be maintained.

Payoffs resolve the setup. There are a variety of ways that a setup can be paid off. Firstly, the action of a character can resolve a setup; they discover or uncover something through research and action that pays off the setup. The character gains an insight that resolves a setup; they think something through and arrive at a realization that pays off the setup. The character receives a revelation that pays off the setup; here a character is provided with information from an external party that produces the payoff. Jokes have a payoff in the form of a punchline – a final line that surprises the reader and makes them laugh. And, of course, the humble twist (discussed in a separate article) provides another form of payoff in the face of a setup – one that depends on misdirection in order to surprise the reader.

The Try-Fail cycle

The middle of a story is made up of a series of obstacles and disasters encountered by the protagonist. Typically this is expressed in a series of try-fail cycles of varying importance that move the story forward. The character has a problem or goal, attempts (tries) to solve or achieve it, and encounters a difficulty/failure that gets them to rethink their strategy and begin the process anew. Generally, a story wants at least three try-fail attempts in the middle that lead up to the reversal before the story climax. Each must have increasingly important and significant stakes and each will contain a series of increasingly difficult obstacles within it. The first try-fail cycle occurs in the lead up to the story’s point of no return (the point at which the character is forced to commit fully to the pursuit of their goal). The next occurs in the lead up to a redirection of some sort (where the character discovers the goal they have been pursuing is in some way mistaken and requires modification). The third occurs in the lead up to the reversal at the end of the second act (that results in everything going wrong for the character and forces them into a crisis).

There is an initial and final try-fail cycle that belong specifically to the beginning and end of the story. The first results in the failure of the character to overcome a significant character flaw that establishes the character’s change arc within the story. The final occurs at the story climax and differs in that the character tries, almost fails, and finally overcomes the major obstacle of the story (contributing to a satisfying ending).

Objectives, obstacles, tactics

Behaviors are always a matter of wants/goals, obstacles and tactics. The protagonist wants a particular thing, but something stands in the way, and he/she is prepared to pursue that thing by employing a variety of tactics. The wants and the tactics speak to the protagonist’s character. Based on their emotions and temperament they will employ some methods to achieve their ends and not others. As their trusted and tried strategies fail they are forced to employ new tactics, tactics that force them to embrace change, engage in struggle, and discover just how much their objectives mean to them.

The middle of the story is where character is demonstrated by forcing the protagonist through the series of try-fail cycles discussed above. Each failure requires the character to abandon their typical approach to problem solving (the path of least resistance) in favor of new strategies and methods that create the opportunity for growth. To properly test the character, the obstacles they encounter must withstand easy solutions and grow in difficulty and stakes.

Major and minor cycles

Each act in a typical three act play contains its own major try fail cycle. But each act can be broken down to contain a series of sequences that replicate the try-fail cycle format. And every scene is a try-fail cycle in its own right (only of minor significance).

Audience fatigue and alternating the beats

Where a protagonist encounters continuous success or failure, one event after another, the effect on the audience will be one of boredom and fatigue. The recommended antidote for this is to alternate successes and failures. The emotional charge at the end of each attempt to overcome a conflict or obstacle should be upbeat (optimistic) or downbeat (pessimistic) depending on what has come before it. Failure to successfully negotiate an obstacle does not necessarily imply a down beat. The failure could result in a breakthrough, insight, or discovery of a clue, etc. that ends the scene with a positive emotional charge. Likewise a success can result in a discovery of tragedy or loss that switches the emotional charge in a negative direction.

Pinch points and Plot points

In the construction of novels and plays, editors often refer to pinch-points and plot points. Pinch points occur where the protagonists are spurred to action by outside antagonistic forces. Effectively a pinch point forces a character to react to an event or situation that is external and results in a significant turn in the plot. A turn is a significant change in direction (a major change in the character’s goals, understanding of the problem, or tactics for achieving those goals).

Plot points occur where the protagonists initiate action as a result of internal desires that result in a similar turn.

Generally, a plot point occurs at the 25% and 75% point in the story. A pinch point typically occurs halfway between the first plot point and the midpoint of the story, and halfway between the midpoint and the second plot point.

In each case the antagonistic forces on display need to be demonstrated as being both stronger and more intimidating than what came before and should result in an emotionally significant change of direction for the story (in terms of goal, strategy, or impact).

Passive to active characterization

In general, the characters in a story spend the first half of the middle of the narrative responding to the events around them. In the second half they establish agency and begin initiating action that puts the antagonist on the back foot and forces the obstacles placed in their way to be increased in scope and number. The midpoint, or point of no return, where the character signals their commitment to solving the problem that they face (either because all other options have been exhausted or because they have finally made an irrevocable decision) indicates the transformation from passive responder to active initiator within the character of the protagonist.

Increasing the stakes by broadening and deepening

It is a commonplace of writing that the middle of the story should be used to build the action to a meaningful climax. Two common ways to increase the investment of the characters and audience is to raise the stakes by placing increasingly challenging obstacles in the protagonist’s path. By broadening the potential impact of the obstacle (increasing the number of people, etc. that it might effect) we increase the challenge presented to the character. A terrorist organization intends to stage a kidnapping… that they wish to cover with a bombing that will kill hundreds of innocent people… that could kick off a global war. By deepening the impact of the obstacle (increasing the effect on the protagonist) we increase the challenge presented to the character. A character attends the doctor because they are finding their work difficult as a result of fatigue… and discover they have a potentially lethal cancer… that will result in severe mental decline and a loss of self.

In each case, by broadening the impact of events on the world, or by deepening the impact of events on the protagonist, the stakes are raised and interest is increased.

We don’t need to restrict ourselves to one or the other approach. The writer can increase the stakes by deepening and broadening the impact of events at the same time in the same story.

Introducing a B-plot

Another useful technique to aid us in writing the middle of the story is to introduce and resolve a B-plot. A B-plot is a separate secondary story or sub-plot that intersects with the first. At it’s most cliched, it is the introduction of a love interest and romance to the plot. But lots of other options are possible. Regardless of what goal the B-plot establishes, the key to a successful B-plot is the introduction of a new set of interesting obstacles and problems to provide variety to the story’s overall trajectory.

Changing objectives in the second act

All of the suggestions regarding writing the middle of a story so far have been concerned primarily with maintaining the interest of the audience. This is for the very good reason that the middle of the story is the part in which the story in greatest danger of dragging and becoming boring. We can usually construct an interesting beginning, and the ending can be planned to include a great climax, but the middle, being a succession of problems and resolutions, can easily become dull.

One technique for addressing this is to introduce a redirection to the plot. The protagonist is pursuing a specific goal that they think is essential to the success of their quest, but an event occurs that demonstrates they have been mistaken – the antagonist turns out to be an ally while an ally turns out to be the real villain, the goal sought turns out to be something that must be sacrificed. The redirection, as its name implies, causes the protagonist to modify or change their goal and begin pursuing something new. This can inject some much needed interest to an otherwise lagging story arc.

Setting up the climax (establishing the stakes)

The end of the middle is established by a major reversal, an event, or cluster of events, so devastating that it appears to the protagonists that all hope of success in achieving their goal has been lost. Throughout the middle of the story the obstacles have been mounting, growing more and more insurmountable, until at last, the entire enterprise seems doomed, and worse still, the likely outcome will be orders of magnitude worse than if the protagonist had left well-enough alone in the first place.

If we can arrive at such a point while weaving sufficient interest into the story through variations in plot, character arc, dramatic beats, depth and breadth of impact, etc., then we will have constructed a middle that will keep the audience glued to the story until we are ready to bring home our conclusion.

The post Thoughts on Writing the Middle appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Writing-Microstructures for Audio Drama

Philip Robotham — Mon, 22 Aug 2022 01:46:10 +0000

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;

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.)
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.

DAVID: Easy Jim, one slip and we’ll be blown to pieces.
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).

DAVID: Can you make out what it is?
JIM: I’m bringing it into focus. Hang-on. Well, I’ll be!
DAVID: What?
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.
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.

SOUND: DISTANT RUMBLE (S) – LET IT FINISH
DAVID: Was that thunder?
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.

DAVID: Where’s that storm front, Jim?
JIM: It’s almost on top of us. The first drops of rain are coming now.
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.

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Weaving Your Themes

Philip Robotham — Sun, 24 Jul 2022 01:19:26 +0000

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 it as an idea that recurs throughout the story – one which the storyteller keeps reminding the audience about because, at heart, it is what the story is fundamentally about.

Ideally, in treating a theme, writers aim to discuss issues without necessarily drawing conclusions.

Every Shakespeare play has an argument that is progressed by multiple characters of multiple viewpoints. In this way he explores themes in all his plays. The best stories will always be more than a story about events and characters – they will have a message (but they won’t preach).

Tell the story with the audience in mind – recognise that stories are about the audience (experiences that are common to the audience as well as the character).

It is a writer’s job to transport the audience – with physical detail (setting), with powerful emotional content (internal character growth), with questions about life (theme). Do all three and the audience will be immersed.

Identify the theme

Themes don’t need to be complicated (in fact simpler themes are often better because you want the audience to keep the theme in the back of their minds as the story unfolds). What questions about life do the characters in the story have? What questions do the events of the story raise about life? What questions do the characters’ flaws, wounds, and needs point to? The more personal to the lives of the characters that the theme is, the easier it is to explore it in any given work.

Brainstorm the theme

Think – what have people said about the topic? What arguments have been made?

How can the characters represent these different views?

Look up quotes from philosophers and thinkers on the topic.

There are multiple sides to all arguments (many more than two). Be sure to conduct research to identify as many sides as possible.

Express the theme

Your aim is to get the audience thinking (be provocative).

Reveal what the characters believe about the topic (at the beginning of your story). Reveal how their thoughts change as the story progresses. Demonstrate the conclusions they arrive at by its end.

Look at the plot – where does the character become aware of the issue? What information does the character receive that causes them to think more deeply (where, when, and how)?

What happens to give the character a breakthrough or insight?

Characters should be designed to express different approaches (or arguments) regarding the themes. In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth presents a ruthless view of masculinity that sees kindness as weakness. MacDuff presents a view of masculinity that sees nothing weak about kindness, loyalty, etc. Each argues for a different definition of and approach to masculinity.

Season your story by scattering references to your theme throughout its telling. Brainstorm words that relate to your theme and use them to link your thoughts and the way you express your story’s events and characters back to the theme.

Here are a series of words (many of them paired-opposites) that relate to the passage of time; clocks, watches, ancient, modern, fast, slow, to build, to neglect, grow, decay, birth, death, young, old, loss, grief, hope, expectation, progress.

Let’s imagine a pair of characters with different viewpoints regarding the passage of time. And have them conversing on a bus ride into town.

MELISSA: So much has changed. The old neighbourhood looks ancient and life has become so busy. No-one has any time left to care for the history that remains.
JANE: Oh, I don’t know. I still remember when we’d have to walk twenty minutes to find a bus into town. Now, it comes almost past our door. Progress has been good to us.
MELISSA: But look at all we’ve lost. The café’s torn down and the boutiques put up in their place, selling stuff no-one needs. People used to meet on these streets and talk of an evening! You wouldn’t want to be out after dark these days.
JANE: It’s not so bad. The neighbours still look out for each other. The world has changed but a lot has stayed the same. (BEAT) Look, here comes our stop.
SOUND: BUS COMES TO A HALT – LET IT FINISH.
DRIVER: You getting off here ladies? Just letting you know; the company’s changing the bus route and this stop will be gone in a couple o’ weeks.
MELISSA: Figures. Ooh. These old-bones aren’t what they used to be.
DRIVER: Come on, ladies. Time’s passing and I got a schedule to keep.

Multiple themes

Stories are not limited in the number of themes they can explore. Some authors include themes for each character, others explore themes in clusters, and others-still explore multiple unrelated themes. In Macbeth, Shakespeare explored duty, freedom and determinism, and masculinity among others.

Helpful exercises

Write three scenes where the character is thinking about the theme or discussing the theme with someone else.

How does the theme come up? Why is it bothering the character?

Write a scene that introduces new information and changes the character’s viewpoint.

Write a scene that causes the character to draw a new conclusion about the issue and a radical change.

The post Weaving Your Themes appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Aristotle Applied to Audio Drama – Part 6 (final)

Philip Robotham — Sun, 21 Nov 2021 01:42:14 +0000

Finally, I present the rather anti-climactic end to my look at Aristotle’s Poetics. Here Aristotle explores a few ancillary topics before giving some final advice on what constitutes a good drama. By finishing this final summary, though its value to writers is, I think, limited, it does give this project some sense of closure..

Chapter 19 – Diction and Thought

According to Artistotle, diction is more properly dealt with under the heading of rhetoric. It is the element of the play generally referred to as performance and he passes over it. I will do the same, but I am curious as to whether Artistotle’s surviving work on Rhetoric has anything to say to the voice actors of our own era. It might be interesting to find out, but I am happy to leave that investigation to others.

With regard to thought, however, Aristotle’s meaning is a bit more difficult to fathom. He defines thought as “every effect that has to be produced by speech” and lists examples such as “proof and refutation”, “the excitement of feelings”, and “the suggestion of importance and its opposite”.

Thought is a strange term to use for it, but seems to refer to the impact of what happens on stage in the mind of the audience. For the audio audience, of course, the stage on which the play is performed is that of the mind. As a result, it seems to me, that this is referring to the success with which the writer creates the drama in the minds of the audience and evokes understanding and emotion.

Aristotle goes on to say that events should speak for themselves – probably the earliest formulation of “show, don’t tell” ever expressed.

One way to think of show don’t tell is to rephrase it as “describe, don’t explain”. Sound, music, and dialog combine in audio drama to complete a picture in the mind of the audience. On stage we can “see” the play unfold, but audio drama must convey what is seen via these other tools. Music is one of the most useful tools in the audio-dramatist’s repertoire for “showing” and amplifying the emotion in a scene – but it is largely the preserve of production rather than writing. Sound is often ambiguous and cannot be trusted to “show” an audience anything in many cases without context. This context is often created by dialog and it is to dialog that we must turn to “show” rather than “tell”. But since dialog is verbal, the question naturally arises as to how this is achieved?

Let’s imagine a character, Bob, who is angry. Bob might say, “I am angry.” This is “showing” or “explaining”. But it is very unsatisfying for the audience. Far better for Bob to express his anger more obliquely and allow the audience to infer his emotion.

SOUND: BUSY OFFICE – MURMURS, TYPING, ETC.

SOUND: DOOR SLAMS. ALL GOES SILENT.

BOB: (LOUD AND IMPATIENT) Where’s the Rotchester Report? (BEAT) Well? (BEAT) What the hell do I pay you people for. Find it!

SOUND: FLURRY OF ACTIVITY.

In narration it is even easier to see. If the narrator says “Bob is angry” we are being “told” and Bob’s behavior is being “explained”. Instead his behavior should merely be described (“shown”) to us (though in the example below the narrative description is redundant and unnecessary).

NARRATOR: Bob is searching everywhere for the Rotchester Report.

SOUND: BUSY OFFICE – MURMURS, TYPING, ETC.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS, BEAT, DOOR SLAMS. ALL GOES SILENT.

BOB: (LOUD AND IMPATIENT) Where’s that damned report got to? (BEAT) Well? (BEAT) What the hell do I pay you people for. Find it!

SOUND: FLURRY OF ACTIVITY.

Chapter 20 – Grammar

Since Aristotle largely treats of Ancient Greek grammar (and I have written a series of five articles on English grammar) I am not going to deal with this subject here.

Chapter 21 – Words

In this chapter, Aristotle explores the types of words used to express a play. He argues for a general reliance on commonly used words that will allow the meaning of the play to be accessible to the greatest number of people in the audience (more on this in the next chapter).

He also spends some time classifying different ways in which words can be used to paint pictures in the the mind of an audience; in particular through what he refers to as metaphor. This discussion is not, strictly speaking, about metaphors as we would understand them (at least at first). The discussion seems to have more in common with our idea of analogy expressed as a kind of (mathematical) set theory.

The relevance of these classifications to the modern writer are a little hard to fathom, but for the sake of completeness, here’s a quick rundown of how Aristotle sees them.

If I say “my ship lies at anchor”, I am employing an instance “lies at anchor” of a greater set of “things which lie still”.

If I say “there lies my ship”, I am employing the greater set of “things which lie still” to describe the specific instance of “lying at anchor”.

If I say “the sword clove the air and separated his head from his body” I am using two specific instances (“cleaving” and “separating”) of the greater set of “things which are split”.

When Aristotle moves on to discuss the impact of metaphor, his advice becomes more practical in nature.

Concepts can also be related to one another through analogy even in apparant contradiction. “A cup of alcohol is the shield of a drunkard. A shield is the cup of a warrior”. The apparent falsehood of the analogy forces the audience member to think and come to see a new meaning. Alcohol makes the drinker dull to pain, in a way, acting as a shield. Arms and armor are intoxicating and exciting to the warrior, in a way, acting as a cup.

In English, metaphor refers to analogies where one thing is identified with another (“he is a fox”) and simile refers to analogies where on thing likened to another (“he is like a fox”).

Whether in the form of a simile or a metaphor, an analogy creates interest for the audience and paints a picture in the mind that can be invaluable in communicating ideas (particularly abstract ideas) through drama.

SIR DAVIS: The honorable member has her snout in every opportunity for graft that our community presents.

WALTER: When Marcus goes to his dance class he looks like a hippo in a leotard.

Artistotle spends some time talking about new words also. These are words invented to help the author communicate his/her thought. It is often stated that Shakespeare invented some 1700 words. This is actually a bit of a myth, since what is true is that he is the first recorded user of 1700 words that had previously not appeared in print. That said, he did, in fact, invent at least 420 words of his own. He would conjoin words, change verbs into adjectives, use nouns as verbs, add prefixes to words, add suffixes to words, and shorten words. Authors and dramatists have always done this. The science fiction writer, William Gibson has invented words such as “channel-zap” and “neuromancy” as a shorthand to express ideas that were otherwise difficult or clumsy to communicate. The important thing to remember about introducing a new words is that it is a perfectly acceptable thing to do, but the context must make the meaning clear. Otherwise confusion results.

Chapter 22 – Style

In chapter 22, Aristotle deals with style. His preference is for “startling simplicity”. He argues in favor of using simple, familiar words, but warns against using them in a conventional (and cliche) way. He warns against jargon and employing common phrases that are so familiar they slide past us without really entering our minds. Phrases such as “at the end of the day…” have become so worn out by use in our own time that they can be dropped altogether without harming a piece of dialog in any way. Instead, Aristotle suggests that simple language be used to create attention grabbing phrases (without, of course, drawing unnecessary attention to themselves). A writer wants the attention of the audience, but does not want the audience to focus that attention on the words themselves. It is a fine line to walk and, as discussed above, he suggests metaphor is the best way to be startling while being simple.

BOB: I walked in on Steve and his girlfriend this afternoon. You never really notice how much kissing sounds like a cow pulling it’s foot out of the mud until you’re forced to listen to a pair of teenagers going for it in the next room.

Complex, large, and rare words are not to be rejected altogether, of course. They are still useful for characterization. Shakespeare would commonly put large and rare words, wrongly applied, into the mouths of characters he wished to suggest were ridiculous, pompous, or ignorant.

ELSIE: One day I want to be effluent, mom.

MOTHER: I think you mean affluent, darling.

ELSIE: Yeah. That’s what I said.

Chapter 23 – Drama vs. History

Aristotle uses chapter 23 to discuss the differences between a series of events being recounted (such as a history) and a dramatic work. Historical happenings are not necessarily connected. The real world is like that. I might do a dozen unconnected things in any given day. A history of my day, however true or accurate, would not be a good subject for drama.

Drama presents a series of unified events with a beginning, middle, and end that tend to be connected causally and feel unified (around a theme or character goal).

For Aristotle this is a matter of selection and exclusion. He advises us to only select what is essential to the telling of the story and exclude all else.

With regard to the connections between events that form a story and provide a story with unity, I imagine he would likely have approved of Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s oft-quoted advice that story episodes should avoid being connected by “and then” but instead be made up of connections such as “but”, “so”, “therefore”, and occasionally “meanwhile”.

Chapter 24 – The Epic

In chapter 24, Aristotle turns his attention to the epic. In our own time, the epic is best thought of as a series. Series’ come in several types; the episodic series, the anthology series, and the serial. At present we are living in a golden age of serial story telling, but the other forms are still alive and kicking.

The episodic series concerns itself with a telling a single story in each episode with all plot lines resolved by the time the credits are reached. It is unified by the presence of recurring characters around whom each episode concentrates.

An anthology series tells stories that are self-contained yet unconnected. Presenting different characters, locations, and events in each episode. Anthologies tend to be unified around a particular theme (tales with a twist, tales of adventure, ghost stories, science fiction stories, etc.)

The serial follows a particular set of characters through numerous connected episodes that, like the tragedy, unfold as a single large tale. This larger scale of the epic allows greater development of character and and a broader exploration of incident, but in most other regards, must follow the same rules that apply to all other drama. It must be unified. It must have a beginning, middle, and end. It must be populated with characters who we can identify with. It must involve turns of fortune that are believable and engage our emotions.

The main distinction of the epic (or serial in modern terms) is that it can achieve a grandeur as a result of its scale that is often out of reach in the stand alone play.

Having discussed the value of long-form story-telling, Aristotle takes a slight digression to discuss how believability is achieved in drama. He suggests that probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities. What this means is that an impossibility that has the appearance of believability is more convincing than something that could really happen but doesn’t seem likely.

We will happily accept a talking cat in a story if the cat demonstrates a consistent and realistic character, far more readily than we would someone winning twenty consecutive games at the roulette wheel. While a talking cat is impossible, it feels believable if all other elements are grounded. Barring some manner of plausible explanation for the unusual coincidence (cheating, or magic, etc.), the random winning of 20 spins of the roulette wheel (while technically possible) is not plausible and will not easily be believed by an audience.

Chapter 25 – Imitation

In this chapter, Aristotle takes critics to task. He suggests that legitimate criticism consists in a critical examination of story structure (a kind of late justification for his own writing) and not in a criticism of factual errors. As was noted at the beginning of this series, Aristotle views art is imitation. The dramatist imitates life as it is or was, as we imagine it to be, or as it should be. He allows for the fantastical far less than we do today, but permits it if, in doing so, we are given insight into the reality of living (through the awakening and purging of emotion). For this reason he considers a play failed if it doesn’t present a turn, a recognition, a reversal, a sense of unity, properly motivated action, etc. He does not however, judge the work faulty because the writer made an error of fact (mis-labeling a medical condition for example).

He also takes aim at, what could best be described as, bad-faith criticism. Picking on a character’s speech because of faulty yet realistic grammar, deliberately not recognizing or understanding the purpose of a metaphor, writing a heroic adventure when the critic prefers a romance, etc.

The legitimate targets of criticism in Artistotle’s view are things which are impossible, irrational, morally harmful, contradictory, or poorly expressed.

Each of these are important to the writer of audio drama to a greater or lesser degree. Impossibility, irrationality, and contradiction all contribute directly to a failure in believability. Even the most fantastical of tales must be believable in this sense. Unmotivated or ridiculous actions (the irrational) and elements of the impossible that have not been established as a consistent part of the world will destroy believability and writers must strive to present the unbelievable in a well established and consistent framework in which actions and reactions are clearly motivated. Where contradictions exist, the audience will become confused. We don’t want our audience asking how could Jim be breaking into the bank’s vault at mid-day while sitting having lunch with his sister in the next scene at the same time.

We are not nearly as concerned today with drama as a means of moral education, but the moral impact of a work remains a matter of significant interest in our world and authors need to be aware of this dimension of writing and take responsibility for their choices.

Of all these matters, the primary concern of the audio dramatist is expression. Is the story clear? Do the characters feel real? Is the structure satisfying? Does the dialog and action elicit emotion? Does the story feel unified?

Chapter 26 – What is best?

In this final chapter of his Poetics, Aristotle explains his view regarding which storytelling form is best (tragedy or epic). He comes firmly down on the side of tragedy, feeling that the greater efficiency and selectivity of the tragedy makes it superior to the epic.

He dispenses with the idea that the acting of a play can be used to judge its worth, arguing that performance is completely in the hands of the actor. It is easy to agree with this, in part. A bad performance says little, logically, about the quality of the play (though it is hard not to judge the play negatively when badly performed). However, a good performance can create a positive impression about an otherwise sub-standard story.

For this reason alone, finding decent actors for a play is important.

The power of a play is present, fundamentally, on the page. If it is badly written, structured, and expressed, a play will never be more than mediocre. The success or otherwise of the play, ultimately, depends upon the writer and it is the writer’s responsibility to understand to the best of his/her ability the craft of storytelling in all its technical and aesthetic detail.

And there it is, an exploration of Aristotle’s Poetics applied to audio drama as best as I can manage it. All in all, I think it was worth the time it has taken. I can see the value that modern dramatists such as Aaron Sorkin and David Mamet find in it, though I don’t think it is terribly accessible to the modern reader. I hope by working through it in this way, I might make it a bit more comprehensible to myself and others.

The post Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Aristotle Applied to Audio Drama – Part 6 (final) appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Some Thoughts on Dialog

Philip Robotham — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 10:08:21 +0000

Believable Dialog

Dialog concentrates meaning. While speech in real life sprawls and weaves and contradicts itself and follows tangents and gets lost and sometimes finds its way to the point via a circuitous route, dialog (with appropriate allowances for characterisation) homes in on the essential meaning in what is being said.

This is, in my opinion, an essential (if contested) element of dialog writing. It should feel authentic without being realistic. Realistic dialog bores the audience. It’s tendency to meander fails to hold attention. And in audio drama, failure to hold attention is a cardinal sin. Efficiency is the key.

As a result, the dialog must feel real while being more efficient than real speech.

So, how is this feeling of reality achieved. Allowing that this is a subjective judgment, there are some things that automatically reduce the degree to which an audience will believe in the authenticity of our characters’ interactions.

In real life, characters do not reveal to each other what the parties to the conversation already know. Such talk is empty and feels inauthentic.

BILL: As you know Emily, we married young and started a family too soon, but always loved each other through it all.

While people do engage in small talk in the real world, it is best for characters in an audio drama to skip small talk and address the point (directly or indirectly) as quickly as possible. Small talk is a distraction that holds up the story and provides an opportunity for the audience to tune out or, worse, change the channel.

BILL: Hi.
JEN: Hi.
BILL: How are you?
JEN: Good. And you?
BILL: Not bad, considering the weather.

Character emotion must be motivated (via the text or subtext of the scene). If a character is expressing emotion that the audience cannot explain through the context provided by the scene, it feels inauthentic and will throw the audience out of their willing suspension of disbelief.

BILL: Happy Birthday, Jenny. I hope you like it.
JEN: Oh, it’s lovely. How did you know?
BILL: (ENRAGED) How dare you ask that! How dare you! You’re nothing but a tramp. A complete tramp!

Character external knowledge must also be reasonable. Having characters discuss things (events, ideas, actions, etc.) that they do not have access to is automatically spotted as inauthentic. This is not to say that a genius character will not work for an audience. Sherlock Holmes is great fun, but he is not a realistic character and his superhuman ability to know things must be well established for us before we will accept his pronouncements as authentic. However, when the work of establishing how a character knows something is accomplished, the knowledge expressed does feel authentic (even where it is impossible).

BOBBY: How was your paper round tonight, Billy?
BILLY: I didn’t get too wet.
BOBBY: So, did you think about my question?
BILLY: Yeah. Your calculations involve compensating for too many neutrinos. Reduce the number of neutrinos in your estimate and I think the equation will work.
BOBBY: You’re a marvel, Billy. What would I do without you?

Internal knowledge must be reasonable also. What is true regarding external knowledge is also true regarding internal knowledge. A character who understands their own stormy sea of internal emotion with perfect insight and expresses this superhuman insight in conversation will not seem authentic (except, as in the case of a Sherlock Holmes of the mind, where this ability has been established ahead of time).

Human beings, with few exceptions, are a mystery to themselves and rarely understand, with complete clarity, their own emotions.

BILL: Why are you always so angry?
JEN: It’s because of my father. He always favoured my sister and I could never do enough to please him. I grew resentful and have internalised it to the extent that I respond to all men this way, now.

Whenever a character expresses knowledge (of themselves or the external world) or emotion for which the audience cannot detect a cause, the audience will likely assume they are hearing the voice of the author speaking rather than the character.

For dialog to feel authentic, it is important to keep a clear distinction between motivation (subtext) and justification (text). There are many things we will not say out loud, not because they are not true, but because they come from our deepest and least worthy drives. The murderer who says “I killed him because I wanted his wife for myself” will not seem authentic to the audience (unless motivated, believably, to the admission by circumstances that make the admission less costly than its concealment). In life people do not come out and admit such things baldly. Instead they produce justifications. “She is better off without him”. “He could not provide for her”. Etc. We recognize these as excuses, but they feel more authentic than open statements (in part because we recognize the human tendency to rationalise behaviour). The jaded villain, who is past the point of bothering to rationalise his behaviour, needs to be established for the audience if such, typically, on the nose dialog is to be accepted as authentic.

Exaggeration (of emotion, or action) rarely feels authentic without motivation, but extremes of emotion and action, if properly motivated, will always feel authentic.

Unnecessary ostentation should be avoided. The desire to create characters that stand out in the imagination of our audience is a worthy one, but a little restraint will help make any ostentation believable. In the realm of clothing choice, a character might, in our modern world, be able to get away with wearing a large coat with a heavy, old fashioned, mantle. But push the ostentation too far and believability suffers. A male character who habitually appears in public in Elizabethan garb (doublet, pantaloons, hosiery) will strain credibility (unless the choice is established in some way to begin with – and even then there is such a thing as “too much”). Where ostentation becomes too much, it appears to exist for its own sake – drawing attention to itself in a way that breaks the willing suspension of disbelief.

Likewise with dialog. Dialog can fall in love with itself and draw attention to itself as ostentatious expression. At the point it does so, we lose our belief in its authenticity.

BILL: I apologise that I have become so intoxicated with the exuberance of my own verbosity.

The opposite holds true as well. Language that is so sparse and spare that it has no adornment whatsoever will feel robotic and inauthentic.

BILL: Give me drink. Give me food. I need nutrients.

The key is to motivate what comes out of the mouths of our characters appropriately. The audience must always feel that there is a satisfying reason for what is being said and the way it is being said. If a character IS a robot, then robotic speech is believable. It is motivated appropriately. Improperly motivated dialog will always come across as inauthentic. To fix such dialog, we must either establish suitable causes for what is being said or, where no sufficient cause can be provided, remove the offending dialog.

The Subject Matter of Dialog

As noted earlier, dialog is action. It wants to achieve something. Therefore, dialog starts with a desire and proceeds as a means of achieving that desire. It adapts according to the environment (to the external obstacles to the achievement of the desire) and according to the personality (to the internal habits of mind and limits that a person places on their speech).

Internal dialogue (the monologue) is a conversation held with oneself. The most interesting monologues are conflicts. The personality is at war with itself because two desires are at work and they appear incompatible.

HAMLET: To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.

Dialog proper, or its most commonly understood form, occurs between two people with differing motivations for the action of speech. Again the most interesting dialog occurs where the desires of the individuals are incompatible and a conflict is occurring.

BILL: We’re running out of time. We have to save the driver.
KELLY: If we do, those kids will drown.

Alternatively, perhaps the characters’ desires are aligned, but the stakes are too high for direct and open speech (two potential lovers, meeting for the first time, attracted to one another, but tip-toeing around the possibility of a relationship). In such a case, the dialog is less a game of verbal fencing than an exploration of shared desire through metaphor. Meeting in a library, our two lovers discuss the books they enjoy as a means of exploring their compatibility; the books are incidental, what matters is what is revealed about their mutual needs and expectations for a relationship partner.

BILL: What kind of books do you like?
JEN: Oh, you know. The dependable sort. The kind you can put down and pick up again with the same enjoyment you felt the first time you read it. What about you?
BILL: Oh, I like a book that thrills you down to your feet. One that makes you forget there is anyone else in the entire world. A book that feels like it was written just for you.

The Relationship between Dialog and the Scene

There are numerous reasons why dialog fails.

The inner desires or external circumstances of the character do not motivate or explain the action of speech (they appear unconnected and are, as a result, confusing).
There is a lack of harmony or balance between the motivations of the character and their expression in dialog (the character appears to be over- or under-reacting, creating a sense that something is off).
The language is bland, unfocused, inefficient, and generic (ignoring the rules of expression that would sharpen it to fit its purpose).
The dialog ignores the needs of the scene (it fails to build, through conflict, to a turning point).

In a scene where nothing changes, no story purpose is achieved. Such a scene should be jettisoned. If our dialog has not contributed to a change in the circumstances of the characters then it has failed to function as action. A lack of action (resulting in change) is a clear sign that a scene serves no purpose and it is a high crime to leave an audience with no clear answer to the question “what was the point of all that talk?”.

Dialog must involve some level of conflict (internal, external, both).
It must build to a climactic crisis in which a significant change occurs.
It must result in a new goal in which the character seeks to meet their motivating need via a new strategy.

Imagine for a moment that a couple enters a restaurant. They are having relationship problems. They sit, eat an enjoyable meal together and go home.

Well written dialog won’t save this scene from failing. In fact, the scene pretty much guarantees the dialog won’t be well written. The scene itself is irrelevant, contributing nothing to the story.

SCENE: (INT) RESTAURANT (EVENING)
(BILL, JEN)
SOUND: RESTAURANT AMBIANCE
BILL: Nice place.
JEN: Yeah.
BILL: You want to order?
JEN: Sure. I like the look of the duck.
BILL: Duck it is.
…
…
JEN: Well, that was lovely.
BILL: Sure was.
JEN: Shall we head home?
BILL: Yeah. I’ll get the car.

The scene is unmotivated. Why are they visiting the restaurant? Is it to try to rekindle what they have lost? Is it to thrash out the details of their separation? Is it so that one can break the bad news to the other (in a public place where it is less likely to result in a screaming match)?

Let’s give the scene some motivation. Our characters are trying to give their flagging relationship a boost via a romantic dinner. They sit, eat an enjoyable meal together and go home. It is little different from the first scene and just as much a failure. Why? There is no conflict.

SCENE: (INT) RESTAURANT (EVENING)
(BILL, JEN)
SOUND: RESTAURANT AMBIANCE
BILL: It’s been a rough couple of months.
JEN: Yeah, but this kind of makes up for it.
BILL: Does it?
JEN: (TEASING) I’ll keep you posted.
BILL: You want to order?
JEN: Sure. I like the look of the duck.
BILL: Duck it is.
…
…
JEN: Well, that was lovely.
BILL: Sure was.
JEN: Shall we head home?
BILL: Yeah. I’ll get the car.

The two characters need to be motivated in different directions. She must want an admission of his failings, while he must be looking to put the past behind him. Or he must be struggling with his feelings of betrayal while she is rediscovering what she loved about him in the first place.

The structure of the scene can be improved. They enter the restaurant seeking to rekindle their flagging romance. They sit, eat an enjoyable meal together, but every time she tries to take advantage of the romantic setting he redirects the conversation to his own feelings of betrayal. At the end of the scene they go home.

SCENE: (INT) RESTAURANT (EVENING)
(BILL, JEN)
SOUND: RESTAURANT AMBIANCE
BILL: It’s been a rough couple of months.
JEN: Yeah, but this kind of makes up for it.
BILL: Does it?
JEN: Sorry, I won’t push. You want to order?
BILL: Not yet. I’m still not comfortable with playing the happy couple again.
JEN: You remember this place. The memories are… special.
BILL: Don’t change the subject.
JEN: I’m not. You are. We came here for this.
BILL: This what?
JEN: The atmosphere. The memories. The chance to… heal.
BILL: I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself.
JEN: Try the duck.
…
…
JEN: Well, that was lovely.
BILL: Was it?
JEN: I’m trying Bill. Damnit, that’s what this whole night was supposed to be about.
BILL: Let’s head home.

The scene fails, regardless of the dialog, because it achieves no change. The behavior (and dialog) is motivated, a conflict exists, but no crisis occurs to force a change.

Let’s structure the scene differently again.

SCENE: (INT) RESTAURANT (EVENING)
(BILL, JEN, WAITER)
SOUND: RESTAURANT AMBIANCE
BILL: It’s been a rough couple of months.
JEN: Yeah, but this kind of makes up for it.
BILL: Does it?
JEN: Sorry, I won’t push. You want to order?
BILL: Not yet. I’m still not comfortable with playing the happy couple again.
JEN: You remember this place. The memories are… special.
BILL: Don’t change the subject.
JEN: I’m not. You are. We came here for this.
BILL: This what?
JEN: This atmosphere. The memories. The setting. The chance to… heal.
BILL: I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself. We need to talk about what happened. You owe me that much.
JEN: I owe you… At least meet me half way. Take a look at the menu.
BILL: I don’t think so. I didn’t come here to participate in another of your stage-managed farces.
JEN: But Bill…
BILL: I’m moving out, Jen. I’m going back to the apartment to pack a bag.
JEN: Please, Bill. Just look at the menu.
BILL: Did you even hear me Jen. I’m leaving. We’re done.
JEN: No, Bill please. Take a look at the…
BILL: Goodbye Jen.
SOUND: BILL GETS UP AND LEAVES.
WAITER: (BEAT) I’m sorry, miss. This fell out of the menu.
JEN: Oh. Uh… thanks Angelo. The letter won’t be needed now. Bill’s gone. He never saw it.

The couple’s relationship is flagging. She wants to try again via a night at a restaurant. He has been feeling betrayed. He wants to talk about it. She wants to take advantage of the setting to reignite the sense of romance they have lost. Every time he tries to raise the issue, she deflects to a discussion of the setting, trying to get him to notice the menu. He gets more frustrated. She wants to leave the past behind. She invites him to immerse himself in the mood of their setting, to see the effort she has gone to, to notice the menu in which she has placed a letter in which she has tried to address his issues. But he keeps focusing on himself. Nothing is going the way she had hoped. At last he gets up, declaring that it is hopeless and that he is going to move out.

Now we have a scene. The dialog in such a scene needs to build via the conflict, through what is said, and left unsaid, to the crisis that instigates a change: he moves out. The status quo is broken. Now she must establish a new goal or perhaps she will maintain the old goal, pursuing it via a new strategy.

We can rewrite our dialog forever and a day and we won’t save a scene that is structurally flawed. But if our scene structure is sound, then it will be improved by careful dialog.

Characterisation

The first voice we express ourselves in is our own. As a result, our characters tend to speak with variations of our voice as well. It is a common complaint against writers of drama (even against some of the best in the business) that characters sound too much alike.

It is not an easy thing to cure. Characters get their unique style of speech from the world in which they are immersed (their job and home life), the people they interact with (bosses vs. friends, etc.), their up-bringing (the knowledge and experiences that shapes their expression), their personalities and traits (loud, passive aggressive, shrill, histrionic, mild, laconic, taciturn, etc.) and their own linguistic quirks (the catchphrases and habitual expressions that uniquely identify them).

Planning Character

Identity is expressed in language.

To give your character his or her unique voice start by considering the character’s background and ethnicity.

Does the character speak with an accent? Is there no accent, but they speak with the careful precision of someone raised with another native tongue. Is there English broken or shaped by a regional dialect? Is their vocabulary that of someone who has been highly educated? Do they speak in a manner that betrays little education? What family sayings have they picked up?

Next consider the character’s personality and beliefs.

What impact do their beliefs have? Would they swear? Is blasphemy something they would use? Do they employ the language of a specific subculture (Muslim, Christian, Existentialist, Budhist, Scientologist, Baseball fan, Gambler etc.)?

Is the character loud, quiet, loquacious, taciturn, thoughtful, impulsive, active, lazy, passive, enthusiastic, jaded, innocent, apathetic, etc.? What impact does this have on how they talk?

Consider the language of the workplace.

What specific knowledge does the character have that shapes the way they think and seeps into their speech? Accountants refer to “the bottom line”. Sports-folk refer to “own goals”. Detectives talk about “liking” someone for a crime. A mechanic might refer to “blowing a gasket”.

People use different registers in different spaces. Someone might use “sir” when addressing the boss, but “mate” when addressing their next-door neighbor. Alternatively, they might only ever use an honorific (such as Mr. or Mrs.). Depending on their personality, they might resent social distinctions and be at pains never to directly draw attention to them.

What specific catch-phrases does the character have that sets them apart. Do they say “Jinkies” like Velma Dinkley or exclaim “flummery” like Nero Wolfe. Do they refer to things as being “elementary” like Sherlock Holmes or habitually respond with the word “indeed” like Gandalf the Gray. Of course, you want to invent something unique to your own character. Borrowing something from another character will, of course, appear hackneyed and cliché.

Once you have the answers to these questions, it can be helpful to record the habitual but unique things that your character says.

What does your character say when they are surprised? Hurt? Angry? Frustrated? Joyful? Happy? Sad? Etc.

Example

Gwen Ross holds a Phd. in herpetology (the study of reptiles) and speaks with a southern accent. She’s highly educated, and quite the snob regarding it. She speaks condescendingly to others and frequently employs sarcasm. Her language is academic. She uses the word “ophidian” when she means snake, in part because she thinks in the terms of her academic discipline, and in part because understanding the term is a shibboleth for determining whether others are worth her time. She uses famous theorists in the study of reptiles to swear by (“What, in the name of Louis Aggaziz, is going on?”). She addresses people formally (Mr. Mrs. Etc.) but only because she requires people to acknowledge her status as Dr. Gwen Ross. She uses phrases like “balderdash” to express disagreement and expresses pleasure only in a muted manner (never wanting others to feel too happy with themselves) with terms such as “very satisfactory”.

Expressing Character

In general, nouns and verbs express a character’s intellectual life (what they know) while modifiers (adverbs, adjectives, and modalities) express the emotional life and personality (what they feel and how they express themselves).

A character who knows little about a subject will use generic nouns and refer to a surgeon’s knife rather than a scalpel. A character with specific expertise in chemistry will refer to a Schlenk flask while someone without might refer to the same piece of equipment (incorrectly) as a narrow jar.

In the same way that nouns reveal knowledge, verbs do as well.

A character who describes someone in generic terms gives the impression of knowing less about the person than someone who is being specific. To say someone “walked across the room” suggests that, while the action was noticed, it wasn’t given much attention. To say someone “flounced across the room” or “slunk across the room” or even “strode across the room” suggests more attention was paid, and by implication suggests the watcher knows more.

Adjectives reveal personality. The person who describes a zeppelin as “big” is likely to be of quite a different temperament to someone who describes it as “huge”, “enormous” or “stupendous”.

Likewise the choice of adverb reveals different things about a character. The character who says someone spoke “loudly” is revealing a quite different personal reaction to the speech than a character who says someone spoke “ferociously”.

It is generally best to avoid the passive voice, but in terms of characterisation it can be useful as a way of revealing personality. Someone who explains that “my wife planned the party” is likely of a different disposition to someone who explains that “the party was planned by my wife”.

In an earlier discussion on verbs (the series of articles on grammar for audio-writers) I neglected to mention modal verbs. These also express personality. Modal verbs are used to express possibility or necessity and include words such as “could, should, must, will, shall, might, and may”. The character who says “people should care for one another” is likely quite different from one who says “people must learn to treat each other more kindly”.

The unique words character’s use, peppered throughout their speech in the unique way in which they use them, gives each character his/her own voice. The character’s inner desires (what they wish to achieve) determines what they attempt to say and when they say it.

One last point worth making is that characters use shorter sentences when under pressure and longer sentences when relaxed. You can convey a lot about the power relationships in a conversation by your choice of who gets to speak longer, more relaxed sentences and who speaks in clipped, short, terse speech.

Dialog is Motivated Action

As stated above, dialog is action. Not in the sense of a car chase or a fight, but in the sense that speech is a means of trying to achieve a goal. In audio drama, dialog is the primary way in which our characters express action. But dialog is also motivated action; action (in terms of the specific verbal strategies employed) that arises from internal desires and needs (both conscious and unconscious) and the constraints (personal, and environmental) placed on that action.

Every character is motivated by over-arching, long-term, goals and in-the-moment (short-term goals). Bob wants to secure custody of his son (long-term) and in-the-moment wants, despite his insolvency, to convince a lawyer to take him on as a client (short-term).

On top of this, every character is motivated consciously (by what they think they want) and unconsciously (by what they, most deeply, need – though they may be unaware of it). Bob wants to provide for his son, who has been abandoned by his mother. Bob needs to be seen, despite a long string of failures and humiliations, as a success – a responsible person, capable of raising a child; the father figure that he never had himself.

And on top of this are the constraints (environmental and internal) that are forcing and restraining action. If Bob is non-confrontational, perhaps he will attempt to manipulate with his speech, seeking pity, or engaging in emotional blackmail (internal/personal constraints). If Bob is afraid of looking like a bad person in his son’s eyes, he might avoid engaging in illegality or bribery to achieve his aims (external/environmental constraints). Again this is reflected in dialog.

Scenes test the Character’s Agency (or ability and willingness to act)

Let’s suppose that Bob (from our example above) has entered the lawyer’s office. He is hopeful that he will be able to get things underway so that he can gain custody of his son but he’s also aware that his financial resources are almost non-existant. Let’s also suppose that the lawyer is something of a thin-skinned shark, who, when he identifies someone who can’t pay, enjoys humiliating them, safe in the knowledge they will never be his clients. The dialog these characters engage in will test the constraints on Bob’s action that his personality and environment create. Will Bob, when encountering the road-blocks created by the money-hungry lawyer, be able to secure his aid? Or will he be forced to compromise his principles for the sake of expediency? Or will it all go horribly wrong? The obstacles will test his character and the limits of his power (ability to influence the outcome). His primary actions will be revealed in the dialog.

Given that Bob enters the encounter in a hopeful frame of mind, it goes without saying that the turn that must be embedded in this particular scene will leave him defeated regardless of the outcome.

SCENE: (INT) LAWYER’S OFFICE (MID MORNING)
(LAWYER – MR. THORNTON, BOB, JONATHAN)
SOUND: DOOR CLOSES.
LAWYER: Is your boy comfortable in the waiting room, Mr. Webb?
BOB: He’s fine. He shouldn’t hear none of our talk.
LAWYER: As you wish. He’ll be watched by my security.
BOB: I thought that guy looked outta place. Big side of beef, ain’t he?
LAWYER: His name’s Jonathan. This isn’t the safest of neighbourhoods. (BEAT) Have a seat. What can I do for you today?
BOB: I hear you’re a pretty good lawyer.
LAWYER: I earn my fee.
BOB: Good. It’s about my boy that I’m here. I need custody.
LAWYER: Custody, hmmmm? It’s a lengthy and expensive business.
BOB: Things are pretty bad for him.
LAWYER: And you can pay?
BOB: I’d like to talk things over, at least.
LAWYER: We’ll come to that, Mr. Webb. You need to know, off the bat, that I charge by the hour.
BOB: I was told you do work, here, on the poor side o’ town.
LAWYER: The “poor side of town”, as you put it, provides me with a good deal of money.
BOB: Uh-huh. My boy is with his mom, officially. But she’s always on a drunk and he spends most of his time with his Grandma.
LAWYER: You still haven’t told me if you can pay my fee, Mr. Webb.
BOB: But she’s old. And her mind ain’t what it was.
LAWYER: Mr. Webb?
BOB: She damn near torched the house last week.
LAWYER: Mr. Webb. You’re already on the clock and, whatever you’ve heard, I don’t work for free. My rate is $160.00 an hour. Can you meet it?
BOB: Ain’t you listening? My boy’s in danger living with her.
LAWYER: I’ll take that as a “no” then.
BOB: Where’s a man s’posed to get that kind o’ money, anyway?
LAWYER: Borrow it. The law’s not a charity, Mr Webb. For all I care, steal it.
BOB: (SHOCKED) Steal it? (BEAT) You’re not going to help me at all, are you?
LAWYER: If you think my help can be obtained without proper remuneration, then no. You can pick up your bill on the way out.
BOB: Out? Now you’re throwing me out? I come here for help and you throw me out?
LAWYER: That’s about the sum of it.
BOB: Like garbage? Just like that?
LAWYER: (SMIRKING) Stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself.
BOB: It’s not the law as lacks charity, Mr. Thornton. That’s your own shyster’s choice.
LAWYER: (BEAT – COLD SILENCE)
SOUND: BUZZER – LET IT FINISH.
LAWYER: (TO THE INTERCOM) Jonathan, would you come in here please? Mr. Webb is refusing to leave.
BOB: Now, wait…
LAWYER: I don’t take kindly to insults, Mr. Webb.
SOUND: DOOR OPENS.
JONATHAN: You need me, Mr. Thornton?
LAWYER: Yes, Jonathan. Mr. Webb is leaving. Now.
BOB: I’ll see myself out.
LAWYER: I’ don’t think so. (BEAT – THEN TO JONATHAN) Jonathan, you go ahead and drag him out of here. By the feet if you have to. Drag him past that boy in the waiting room and dump him in the street “like garbage”. Make sure you give him a few lumps for his trouble. And throw the bill after him.
BOB: No. I… Urk…
SOUND: SCUFFLE – DOOR SLAMS – THEN SILENCE.

From a dramatic point of view, in a conflict between a relatively weak individual (Bob) who is trying to salvage what’s left of his pride and a powerful one (Mr. Thornton) who enjoys throwing his privilege around, getting a poke in (by calling Thornton a “shyster”), will always be met with overwhelming retaliation. The more Bob tries to salvage some dignity, the more humiliation will be dolled out in response. Thin-skinned sharks always smell blood in the water – and they don’t take slaps from their prey. The dialog demonstrates this.

In the first half of the conversation, Bob wants to explain his need, to be heard, and to convince the lawyer to help. Mr. Thornton wants only to determine Bob’s ability to pay. It is the only thing he cares about. When Bob realises this, he vents his frustration on an impassive Mr. Thornton who appears, despite his protests, to enjoy the sight of Bob’s humiliation. When Bob lands an insult, Thornton’s pleasure turns to anger and he inflicts a punishing humiliation upon Bob.

The conflict and dialog grow, as action, directly out of the character’s needs (conscious and unconscious) and the strategies he is prepared to employ in their pursuit (playing the pity card, trying to salvage some pride with a – frankly weak – insult) revealed as they clash with the obstacles in the scene (the lawyer’s focus on his fee and his pettiness). The dialog is action, an expression of the character’s strategies for gaining what he wants in the face of opposition.

The situation and relative power of the obstacles being faced and their amenability to influence by the strategies (in speech) that are employed, test the character’s agency and essential nature. At the end of such a test, if written reasonably well, change has occurred, the plot is advanced, and we know the character more fully. This is the power of dialog.

The post Some Thoughts on Dialog appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 4 – Style and Sentence Construction

Philip Robotham — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 09:26:56 +0000

Universal Style for Audio Writers

Strunk and White’s little pamphlet on style has been in use for decades and provides helpful principles for writers. Their guide is a classic and is full of useful advice. The advice should be followed judiciously, however. Sometimes characterisation requires us to break these rules (some characters are meant to be pompous, overly formal, wordy, or difficult to understand) but in general, unless you have a specific reason not to, the advice should be followed.

Use the active voice

Passive sentences are weak. Instead of a subject acting upon an object, the object is acted upon by the subject and the clarity and power of the sentence is lost.

Here is some passive dialog…

JIM: I was given another deadline by the boss.
BOB: Really? I was given one too.
JIM: I wonder if the same project was given to both of us?
BOB: Maybe. Projects are being handed out all over at the moment. Too many to be unrelated.

It communicates, but it lacks immediacy. Rewritten actively we get.

JIM: The boss gave me another deadline.
BOB: Really? Me too.
JIM: I wonder if he gave the same project to both of us?
BOB: Maybe. He’s been giving too many out for them to all be unrelated.

Remove small-talk and needless statements

Small talk and chat generally slows down and sucks the life out of dialog.

BOB: Hi Jim.
JIM: Hi Bob.
BOB: You heading over to Macey’s?
JIM: Yup.
BOB: The one on fourth again?
JIM: Nah. The one on seventh.
BOB: You don’t think they share their files?
JIM: If they do, I’ll get thrown out quick smart.
BOB: More likely they’ll call the cops.
Dropping the small talk and clarifications immediately improves this dialog.
BOB: You heading over to Macey’s again, Jim?
JIM: I’m hoping the different stores don’t share their files.
BOB: You know if they recognize you, they’ll call the cops, right?

Put statements in positive form

Negatives (indicated by the word “not”) weaken statements in dialog as well.

BOB: You’re not honest.
JIM: Sure. But you didn’t pay attention to my warning.
BOB: You’re warning wasn’t important. It didn’t even make sense.
JIM: Nah. You just don’t remember it.

In positive form the same dialog reads…

BOB: You lied.
JIM: Sure. But you ignored my warning.
BOB: It was pointless and confusing.
JIM: Nah. You just forgot it.

Use definite, specific, concrete and commonly understood words.

General, indefinite, abstract and unfamiliar words take the wind out of sentences.

JIM: Jack was disconsolate during the unfavourable weather.

Rewritten with more specific and familiar terms, the above sentence is greatly improved…

JIM: Jack was upset during the storm.

Preference short words over long

Long words slow the pace of a sentence and tend to make lines sound pompous.

Compare

JIM: I find brandy most efficacious for the alleviation of cerebral tribulation.

With

JIM: Brandy eases my mind.

Omit unnecessary words

It is almost always the case that written speech can be made shorter and given more punch through the removal of unnecessary words. Words that reflect characterisation are not unnecessary, but inefficient speech can always be tightened up without cheapening the characterisation. Shortness is not a goal in itself but, when writing dialog, the real aim is to make every word count.

There are lots of common phrases, easy to reproduce in our writing because we hear them so often, that should be discarded as soon as they are discovered.

Compare…

BOB: Why are you looking so sour?
JIM: It’s due to the fact that I hate cheese sandwiches.

With

BOB: Why are you looking so sour?
JIM: I hate cheese sandwiches.

Or compare

JIM: I want to talk about Maths because it is a subject which is close to my heart.

With

JIM: I want to talk about Maths because it is close to my heart.

Unnecessary words creep in as additions to phrases as well.

Compare

TOM: His story is a strange one.

With

TOM: His story is strange.

Phrases such as “who is”, “which was”, and the like are often unnecessary.

Compare

MICHAEL: Let me tell you about Jack, who is a member of the local police force.

With

MICHAEL: Let me tell you about Jack, a member of the local police force.

Construct short direct speeches

Creating a wall of text can be intimidating, even for the best of actors. Where possible, a writer should aim to break exposition up into shorter sections of speech.

In the film Charade (written by Peter Stone and directed by Stanley Donnen) the character of Mr. Bartholomew must deliver a long speech in a restaurant. Below is a reworked version of the speech delivered in one long block. Following that is the speech as it was delivered in the film.

SCENE: (INT) FRENCH RESTAURANT (EARLY EVENING)
(REGINA, BARTHOLOMEW)
SOUND: RESTAURANT AMBIANCE (CLINKING CUTTLERY, CROCKERY, ETC. PEOPLE SPEAKING LOW) – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.
SOUND: FRENCH ACCORDIAN MUSIC – UNDER
REGINA: (SCARED) Mr. Bartholomew: what is all this about?
BARTHOLOMEW: (TALKING IN A SLOW CONFIDENTIAL TONE) In nineteen fourty-four, five members of the O.S.S.- the military espionage unit – were ordered behind German lines for the purpose of delivering two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold to the French underground. The five men were, of course, your husband Charles; the three men who showed up at his funeral yesterday; and Carson Dyle.
Instead of delivering the gold, they stole it by burying it then reporting that the Germans had captured it. All they had to do was come back after the war, dig it up, split it five ways. Quarter of a million dollars with no questions asked.
Everything went smoothly enough until after the gold was buried. Then, before they could get out they were ambushed by a German patrol. A machine gun separated Scobie from his right hand, caught Carson Dyle full in the stomach.
Carson Dyle was dead but Scobie was able to travel, so the others finally got back to the base and waited for the war to end, only Charles couldn’t wait quite as long as the others. He beat them back to the gold, took everything for himself, and disappeared. It’s taken Gideon, Tex and Scobie all this time to catch up with him again.
REGINA: (DISTRESSED) But if they stole all that money, why can’t you arrest them?

Here is the version of the speech as scripted and delivered in the film…

SCENE: (INT) FRENCH RESTAURANT (EARLY EVENING)
(REGINA, BARTHOLOMEW, WAITER)
SOUND: RESTAURANT AMBIANCE (CLINKING CUTTLERY, CROCKERY, ETC. PEOPLE SPEAKING LOW) – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.
SOUND: FRENCH ACCORDIAN MUSIC – UNDER
REGINA: (SCARED) Mr. Bartholomew: what is all this about?
BARTHOLOMEW: (TALKING IN A SLOW CONFIDENTIAL TONE) In nineteen fourty-four, five members of the O.S.S.- the military espionage unit – were ordered behind German lines for the purpose of delivering two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in gold to the French underground. The five men were, of course, your husband Charles; the three men who showed up at his funeral yesterday; and Carson Dyle.
REGINA: Oh.
BARTHOLOMEW: Instead of delivering the gold, they stole it.
REGINA: How?
BARTHOLOMEW By burying it then reporting that the Germans had captured it. All they had to do was come back after the war, dig it up, split it five ways. Quarter of a million dollars with no questions asked.
REGINA: May I have a cigarette, please?
SOUND: SOFT TEARING NOISE AS FILTER REMOVED FROM CIGARRETTE – LET IT FINISH
BARTHOLOMEW: You tore the filter off?
REGINA: I can’t stand those things; it’s like drinking coffee through a veil.
SOUND: CIGARETTE LIGHTER – LET IT FINISH
REGINA: (DRAWS IN AND BREATHES OUT)
BARTHOLOMEW: Everything went smoothly enough until after the gold was buried. Then, before they could get out they were ambushed by a German patrol. A machine gun separated Scobie from his right hand, caught Carson Dyle full in the stomach.
REGINA: May I have another cigarette?
BARTHOLOMEW: What was wrong with that one?
REGINA: Nothing, I guess. What happened then?
BARTHOLOMEW: Have you any idea what these things cost over here?
REGINA: Please go on, Mr. Bartholomew: what happened then?
BARTHOLOMEW: Carson Dyle was dead but Scobie was able to travel, so…
WAITER: Pardon. La soupe, c’est pour qui?
REGINA: (TO THE WAITER) Pour moi.
SOUND: CLATTER OF CUTTLERY ETC. AS SOUP IS DELIVERED – LET IT FINISH.
BARTHOLOMEW. Where was I?
REGINA: Carson Dyle was dead.
BARTHOLOMEW: Yes, Carson Dyle was dead. The others finally got back to the base and waited for the war to end, only Charles couldn’t wait quite as long as the others. He beat them back to the gold, took everything for himself, and disappeared. It’s taken Gideon, Tex and Scobie all this time to catch up with him again.
REGINA: (DISTRESSED) But if they stole all that money, why can’t you arrest them?

In the second (actual) version of the script, the speech is broken up by interruptions of various kinds. The interruptions turn it into a series of short speeches and make it easier to listen to (by giving the audience a rest from the exposition) and easier for an actor to speak.

Avoid a succession of loose sentences joined by conjunctions (childish speech)

Unless actually writing dialog for a child (and even then, it can feel exaggerated and unrealistic) avoid connecting clause after clause with conjunctions.

The following is flawed

TIMMY: And Roger fell down the well and he was yelling and yelling but Mikey got scared and wanted to run away and the more scared Mikey got, the more scared the rest of us got too, and we could hear Roger splashing, trying to stay afloat but he was getting weaker so we ran to get help and I hope he’s not dead and can you please come to the well and get him out.

But the repetitive monotony of the following is worse still

JAMES: Roger fell down the well and he was yelling for help. Mikey got scared and the other children became frightened. The children became more frightened while Roger grew tired of trying to stay afloat. The children ran for help but many of them thought it might be too late. The adults were asked to rescue Roger but the children thought Roger might be dead.

Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form (write according to the same pattern in the second idea as the first)

This is an easy error to make and quite difficult to catch. Reading the text aloud often reveals the lack of symmetry. Generally, we just feel that something isn’t quite right.

BOB: In the past, science was taught by the textbook method, while now the laboratory method is used.

Rewritten so that the pattern of expression in the two clauses matches we get…

BOB: In the past, science was taught by the textbook method, while now it is taught by the laboratory method.

Rather than splitting the subject and principal verb of a clause, it is better to keep related words together. Of course, this doesn’t apply when the writer is attempting to build suspense or a relative clause is being used.

Avoid

JENNY: The iron, when mixed with an appropriate amount of carbon, makes steel. For generations, in the manufacture of our swords, we’ve been employing this steel.

When you could say

JENNY: The iron makes steel when mixed with an appropriate amount of carbon. For generations we’ve been employing this steel in the manufacture of our swords.

Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end

We have noted that a speaker responds to the final word delivered in dialog by their conversation partner. Likewise, we have noted that afterthoughts tend to weaken sentences. For both these reasons, it is important when writing dialog to make the last word of every speech count.

JENNY: Our steel is principally used for making swords, because of its hardness.

The above line invites the next speaker to respond to the word hardness. But it is more likely that our characters want to talk about swords and forces the conversation to pursue a different track before being brought back around to the point. The presentation of “because of its hardness” as an afterthought also weakens the sentence.

Compare it to

JENNY: Because of its hardness, our steel is principally used for making swords.

Let’s conclude our discussion of sentence style with three more pieces of advice about common issues.

Avoid connecting complete sentences with commas.

This is a surprisingly easy mistake to make. The difference is subtle, but quite significant.

BOB: Then came the jokes, some of them were very amusing, while some others failed to raise a laugh.

Bob’s speech contains two sentences.

Then came the jokes.

Some of them were very amusing, while some others failed to raise a laugh.

One way to fix the issue would be to simply correct the punctuation (adding the full stop/period between “jokes” and “some”). Another option is a grammatical fix; turning the second sentence into a pair of dependent clauses…

BOB: Then came the jokes, some very amusing, others failing to raise a laugh.

Watch out for ambiguous pronouns

Sometimes our writing is ambiguous because we have been unclear about what our pronouns refer to.

Here is an ambiguous line.

SALLY: Several members of my family have died of cancer and I didn’t know if it was hereditary so I decided to find out.

Does the pronoun “it” refer to “cancer” or “death”? Obviously, cancer is more likely, but the sentence remains a little unclear. The following expresses the idea more effectively by clarifying what the pronoun refers to.

SALLY: I decided to find out if cancer was hereditary because several members of my family have died from it.

The rules are actually guidelines

Every one of these guidelines can be deliberately jettisoned for a variety of good reasons. Dialog is often messy. People don’t talk in neat grammatically correct forms. Sometimes, effective characterization requires the imitation of grammatically incorrect forms of speech. That said, dialog is not a direct imitation of real life. Rather, it is a stylised, more efficient, and focused form of expression, where every word is calculated for its contribution to the advancement of the story. As such, with allowances made for the needs of characterisation, the writer of audio drama is still looking for the best way to communicate dialog. And the rules of grammar, style and expression, when applied well, provide just the tools and clarity we need.

The post Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 4 – Style and Sentence Construction appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Basic Punctuation for Audio Writers

Philip Robotham — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 11:08:11 +0000

This week we turn our attention to the practical use of punctuation and how understanding it can help improve our writing.

Punctuation isn’t grammar. But it does govern how we express grammar and, if we are audio dramatists, how a line and its meaning is communicated to an actor. It is the writer’s responsibility to communicate effectively and, though typos WILL happen, a thorough understanding of punctuation goes a long way to ensuring our intended meaning makes it to the page. As such I thought it would be a good idea to interrupt this series for a quick look at the rules of punctuation.

Before we start, though. Let’s take a quick, and amusing, look at what a difference punctuation can make.

“Let’s eat grandma!” vs. “Let’s eat, grandma!”
“Eat your dinner” vs. “Eat. You’re dinner!”
“Twenty five-dollar bills” vs. “Twenty-five dollar bills”
“I want to thank my parents, Tiffany and God” vs. “I want to thank my parents, Tiffany, and God”
“I’m sorry I love you” vs. “I’m sorry; I love you.”
“Man eating chicken” vs. “Man-eating chicken”
“I find inspiration in cooking my family and my dog” vs. “I find inspiration in cooking, my family, and my dog”
“A woman without her man is nothing” vs. “A woman: without her, man is nothing”

Most written expression can be managed with a full stop/period and a comma. Dialog is no exception and can be expressed adequately, even well, with these two tools alone. But to limit ourselves to these two forms of punctuation is to limit the range of expression we can engage in. It’s like building a house with only a hammer and a saw. It can be done, but not very well.

THE PURPOSE OF PUNCTUATION

Punctuation guides how a line is delivered. It seeks to make up for the fact that, on paper, language lacks expression (the gestures and tones of voice we use when speaking face-to-face).

Take the following lines…

MORT: I heard about the accident, old man, and I hope you’re feeling better. Will it cost much to repair the car?”. When spoken aloud, the parenthetical “old man” is expressed by dropping the voice slightly. The full stop/period indicates a drop in the voice at the end of a thought. The question mark indicates a query that, vocally, is expressed by a slight rise in the voice.

Further, look at the following lines…

ALVIN: And then Jack said, “if you’d only followed my instructions in the first place, you wouldn’t be in this mess”. Sheesh! He never could resist saying “I told you so!”.

When quoting someone in conversation we change our tone of voice when we want to communicate that we are expressing someone else’s words. Quotation marks indicate this on paper. Exclamation points indicate in writing that a strong emotion is being expressed. In speech strong emotions are expressed with a change of pitch and an increase in volume.

THE MARKS

There are only fourteen punctuation marks in English (that can be grouped in five broad categories) and they are surprisingly easy to learn (if harder to master).

The marks (in their categories) are as follows.

Sentence endings: period, question mark, exclamation point
Comma, colon, and semicolon
Dash and hyphen
Brackets, braces, and parentheses
Apostrophe, quotation marks, and ellipsis

SENTENCE ENDINGS

Full Stop/Period (.)

This one is probably the most straightforward. Also referred to as a full stop, the period denotes the end of a sentence. A full sentence is considered as one that contains a complete thought and is made up of a subject and a predicate.

WALTER: The dog ran under the fence.

It is also used in abbreviations, such as are used in names, titles, and organizational acronyms.

ANDREW: Call Dr. Smith. He’s having a heart attack!

Of less relevance to the audio writer, periods are sometimes used to separate numbers in a date.

1. 22. 1969

Question Mark (?)

A question mark also ends a sentence, however it is concerned with ending a sentence that is a direct question. Typically, sentences that are questions begin with what, how, when, where, why, or who.

WALTER: How did the dog get under the fence?
ANDREW: Where’s the doctor?

A question mark also denotes a shift in tone in a sentence when read out loud. This tonal shift can be useful in keeping text from getting boring.

Exclamation Point (!)

The exclamation point or exclamation mark is also used at the end of a sentence to express an intense emotion. They add emphasis to the sentence, but can easily be overused. Limit the number of exclamation points used in your plays. The emotion expressed can be varied; excitement, disgust, anger, joy, etc.

WALTER: Look out! He bites.
ANDREW: Doctor! Over here.

COMMA, COLON, AND SEMI-COLON

Comma ( , )

Commas separate information into readable units.

A single comma can indicate that someone is being addressed.

BILL: Jim, how are you doing?

It can also separates one clause from another.

WALTER: When he started digging in the yard, I didn’t expect he would tunnel his way out.
ANDREW: To dial emergency isn’t enough, you have to try and stop the bleeding.

A pair of commas can set off an aside (or parenthetical statement) from the main idea.

WALTER: That dog, mangy though he is, remains the most loyal creature I ever met.
ANDREW: You’re saying that, to stop the bleeding, I should apply pressure to the wound?

A set of commas can indicate a list.

WALTER: The dog’s tags list his name, date of birth, my address and telephone number.
ANDREW: The insurance company wants to know his medical client number, coverage type, date of last payment, and most recent bank balance.

Colon (:)

A colon has three main uses. The first is to introduce something, such as a quote, example, explanation, or series.

WALTER: There are four kinds of dog; pure-bred, mutt, inside, or outside.

A colon can also be used to link two independent clauses if the second clause clarifies or completes the first one. For example:

ANDREW: We’ve got to hurry: he’ll die if we don’t.

Finally, a colon can also emphasize a subject in a sentence:

WALTER: I only hate one kind of human being: the kind that hurts dogs.

Semicolon (;)

Where the colon can be used to expand upon an idea, the semi-colon can be used to link two ideas (two sentences) together. A full stop/period could be used in its place but the semi-colon tells us the sentences are connected in some way.

WALTER: To err is human; to own a dog is divine.

A less common use for semicolons is within a list that uses commas.

ANDREW: That doctor’s studied all around the world. He’s studied in London, England; Paris, France; Rome, Italy; and Athens, Greece.

DASH AND HYPHEN

Dash (-)

There are two types of dash.

En dash: The en dash is shorter and used to denote a range, such as between numbers or dates. It is rarely used in a script since script writers aim to make the delivery of the lines explicit.

Instead of “My first dog lived from 1990-2000” or “The doctor travelled via the New York-Chicago train” we would write “My first dog lived from nineteen ninety to two thousand” or “The doctor travelled via the New York to Chicago train”

The company was operational from 1990-2000.
He took the Chicago-New York train last night.

Em dash: The em dash is longer, and is sometimes used instead of other punctuation marks, like commas, colons, or parentheses. Here’s an example:

WALTER: Take my dog – he’s the big one on the left – and put him in the house.
ANDREW: Is this doctor any good? – Yes!

Hyphen (-)

Not to be confused with a dash, the hyphen is used in compound words to connect the two parts.

BOB: She’s my mother-in-law.
HETTY: He’s my ex-boyfriend.

The hyphen is also used to link words that are not usually associated with one another into a single idea.

MAX: They’ve scheduled another Information-audit.

The hyphen also links a pair of words that function as an adjective before a noun.

BRIAN: Australia is now a post-industrial economy, which is a kind way of saying we import everything and produce nothing ourselves.

BRACKETS, BRACES, AND PARENTHESES

Parenthesis (())

In standard English, parentheses are used to elaborate upon or make a digression from the sentence in which they appear.

MAX: Michelle (who works at the local gas station) gave me directions to the hotel.

Commas are generally interchangeable with parentheses.

In audio drama parentheses are used to provide directions to the actor (LOUDLY), (AT A DISTANCE), (BEAT) and guides to pronunciation (KART-A-HAY-NYA) for Cartagena. Such directions are provided in all-caps to indicate they should not be pronounced out loud. Because of this it is best to avoid parenthesis and use commas or dashes where possible (though parenthesis remain an allowable element in scripts). Square brackets also have a specific use in audio drama.

Braces ({})

Braces are similar to parenthesis but are rarely used. They allow the writer to make a list within a list.

MAX: I went home to pack my bags {clothes, toiletries, and books}, switched off the electricals, and locked my doors and windows.

They can also be used in the representation of mathematical computations.

Brackets ([])

Generally, brackets are used to clarify something, provide explanations of technical terms, and provide parenthetical comments within quotations.

MAX: As Sun Tzu once said “The supreme art of war [in all its forms] is to subdue the enemy without fighting”.
GEORGE: The C.I.A [Central Intelligence Agency] is a sort of club house for spies.
ANGIE: The carburettor [a device that mixes air and fuel for combustion] is filthy. It needs to be cleaned.

In audio drama, square brackets are also best avoided as they are generally reserved for numbering sound effects [1], [2], [3], and identifying sections of the script that should be cued by the director [CUE].

APOSTROPHE, QUOTATION MARKS, AND ELLIPSES

Apostrophe (‘)

The apostrophe is used to mark possession (singular and plural).

MAX: It’s George’s fishing rod. The basket belongs to the Georges.
JIM: It’s the Georges’ basket?

It is also used to indicate contractions (words from which letters have been omitted).

MAX: I can’t figure out why you’re here, Jim. It’s been frustrating me. Won’t you explain?

It can also be useful when writing dialog that involves dropped h’s and g’s.

ELIZA: ‘ow do you know that ain’t exactly what I been sayin’ all along?

The apostrophe can also be used to indicate quotation marks within quotation marks.

SAUL: He told me that “Gerald said ‘any fool can do it if he tries'”.

Quotation Marks (“”)

Quotation Marks are used to indicate (and enclose) words spoken by someone else.

If it appears in a novel, dialog is usually placed inside quotation marks. This is not necessary in an audio script, except where a speaker is quoting another individual.

JENNY: George told me that “Walter is a liar. He’s never owned a dog in his life.” Would you believe that?

Generally, commas and full-stops/periods are placed inside the quotation marks, while colons, semi-colons and dashes are placed outside.

Ellipses (…)

An Ellipsis marks the omission of a word or words. If the omission includes the end of a sentence the glyph has four dots (….) instead of three.

SERGIO: I’m gonna count backwards from ten. If you ain’t told me what I want to know by the time I’m done, well….
TOOTS: Sergio’s gonna leave what comes next up to your imagination.
SERGIO: Ten, Nine, Eight….
MAX: Alright, alright. I’ll talk.

It’s not rocket science, but mastering punctuation and basic grammar helps us to communicate our thoughts on the page far more effectively than we might otherwise have been able to.

The post Basic Punctuation for Audio Writers appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 3 – Constructing Sentences

Philip Robotham — Sun, 17 Oct 2021 10:55:29 +0000

This week we turn our attention to the practical use of grammar and how understanding it can help improve our writing.

Sentence Types

Declarative – Makes a statement about something.

Interrogatory – Asks a question.

Imperative – Provides an instruction.

Exclamatory – Makes an exclamation.

The following exchange contains each of these. But in any dialog the majority of your sentences will be declarative.

SERVANT: Ma’am?
MADAME NORISS: (STARTLED) Oh! You quite frightened me, Sally.
SERVANT: Sorry, Ma’am. I need to be in town in an hour. Is there anything you need?
MADAME NORISS: Bring me a cup of tea.
SERVANT: Yes, Ma’am

Sentences

As has already been stated in an earlier article, sentences are made up of a subject and a predicate and express a complete idea. Phrases and clauses are not sentences.

Using Phrases and Clauses

“Down the street” is a phrase. There is no subject acting, nor is there a verb that turns it into a complete predicate.

“while climbing on the roof” is a clause. It depends on something prior in order to complete the idea it is trying to express.

Likewise, “he sat down for a moment before” is a clause. There is a subject “he” and a complete predicate with a verb “sat down for a moment”, but the idea is left incomplete (as indicated by the connecting word “before”.

Does this mean we should only write in complete sentences? No. We can make use of phrases and stand-alone clauses in our writing, but we need to do so carefully.

If a character overhears a conversation, it is quite legitimate to present a phrase.

SOUND: JIM ENTERS THE KITCHEN
JENNY: (HURRIEDLY) …need to talk to you later. Bye.
SOUND: PHONE HANGS UP
JIM: Who was that?
JENNY: (EMBARRASSED) Oh, nobody.

In the dialog above, the phrase creates mystery BECAUSE it is not a complete sentence.

A broken radio transmission can do something similar…

SOUND: INTERMITTENT BURSTS OF STATIC AT THE GAPS IN THE SPEECH THAT FOLLOWS
RADIO OPERATOR: Mayday. Mayday. The expedition is… (STATIC). We’ve lost all our…(STATIC) … are dead and only (STATIC) remain alive. (STATIC) …are being hunted. (STATIC) …help urgently. Mayday.

Generally, unless we deliberately wish to create confusion, clauses and phrases are used in a way that implies a complete sentence.

BOB: Where’d Jenny go?
DON: Down the street.

Don’s answer is a prepositional phrase, but the complete sentence “Jenny went down the street” is implied.

At other times the sentence has been interrupted (but the full sentence and idea remains intact).

DON: We’ve still got a little bit of time before…
SOUND: GUNSHOT AND BREAKING WINDOW.
BOB: Get down. Damn, that was close. What were you saying? Time before…?
DON: (IRONIC LAUGH) Heh…before the shooting starts.

Despite the interruption (of the bullet) the full sentence “we’ve still got a little time before the shooting starts” remains.

There are also times where we will use a phrase or clause to imply that the character has completed a thought (a complete sentence), even though we do not find out what the sentence is.

BOB: If Salvadore killed Ruby then that means he…
DON: Bob? You just kind of trailed off there, you know?
BOB: Yeah, but I think I just blew this case wide open. C’mon, let’s get down to Police Plaza.

Implied sentences can be of any length.

GRANT: It’s stuffy. I’m going to open a window.
JACKIE: No!

Jackie’s one word, “No!” implies the much lengthier “You must not open the window”.

Here, presented by Elmer, is a two-word sentence.

GEORGE: What was that noise?
ELMER: Sally coughed.

Elmer’s sentence implies nothing – it doesn’t need to – and meets all the requirements of a sentence. The subject is Sally, the predicate is coughed, and it contains a complete idea.

Sometimes. if our dialog feels confused or confusing, it’s because our phrases do not effectively imply or present complete sentences. It can be worth going over our writing and, in our heads if not on paper, translating our phrases into full sentences just to be sure our meaning is clear.

Controlling Sentence Length

By controlling sentence length, we control pace and, to an extent, emotion in our writing. It is good advice to keep dialog short and avoid employing any unnecessary words. But, if dialog is cut too much, it can lose its meaning and power. The decision regarding when a word is “unnecessary” is a judgment we make based on the context of our text and our intention in writing it.

Gary Provost wrote the following paragraph to illustrate this point…

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important.

Realism in dialog

There is a tension that every writer of dialog feels. Dialog needs to sound as if it were being spoken by real people without accurately reproducing the way real people speak.

The apparent contradiction here is explained by listening to any real-world conversation. In real life people repeat themselves incessantly, ramble, lose their train of thought, find it again, mis-speak, correct themselves, forget what they were trying to say, etc. Real-world conversation is inefficient. If we reproduce it for audio drama, our listeners will quickly become bored and switch their attention elsewhere. Speech designed for entertainment needs to authentically express character but in a form crafted to maintain attention without drawing attention to itself.

A rambling sentence…

JIM: You know, he… well the curb. He was hit by a car as he stepped off it. Paying no attention to the traffic, just dreaming. And it hit him… while he wasn’t paying attention.

It seems realistic – the stumbling words, the repetition, etc. We all know people who talk like this in real-life. But it is horribly inefficient.

The following is an equally inefficient sentence…

JIM: He was struck by a car as he stepped off the curb, heedless of the traffic.

This sentence lacks the sense of character of the first and trails off with an afterthought that weakens it.

This sentence is more efficient and impactful…

JIM: He stepped off the curb and was hit by a car.

In the mouth of a hesitant character it might sound something like this…

JIM: He… well, he stepped off the curb. (BEAT) And he was hit.

The shorter, punchier sentence is always to be preferred over longer rambling sentences (even where the characterisation calls for a little bit of ramble).

The two most important parts of a sentence of dialog are the beginning and the end. In a sense, we do well to think about sentences in terms of setup and payoff. When we emphasise the beginning of the sentence we emphasise the setup and elaborate upon it as payoff.

JIM: George is acting crazy; he’s been muttering about spies all morning and now he’s talking to the water cooler!

In the above sentence we know what or to whom the sentence refers; George. Everything else is elaboration.

When we emphasise the end of a sentence we raise a question in the setup and pay it off by answering it at the end (creating a kind of micro-suspense).

JIM: He’s been muttering about spies all morning and now he’s talking to the water cooler. This insane behaviour just isn’t like George.

At times it pays to place the emphasis in the middle of the sentence, creating suspense and then providing an elaboration.

JIM: He’s acting crazy, so unlike George; talking to the water cooler and muttering about spies.

Interestingly, the majority of sentences in published plays and screenplays (50%) emphasize the end of the sentence. While the remaining 50% are made up of sentences that place the emphasis at the beginning or middle of the sentence. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. In dialog, the end of the sentence provides the impetus for the reaction provided by the next character’s line.

The Importance of the last word

Dialog (like acting) is more often about reaction than not. Each spoken line is an action that results in a reaction from another participant in the conversation. As such it is important NOT to bury the point that will illicit the next line of dialog either at the beginning or somewhere in the middle of a sentence. In dialog (as in life) speakers react to the last word spoken.

JENNY: You think she killed all of them and then turned the gun on herself?
KATHY: No. I think we’re supposed to think that’s what she did. This was done by someone else.
JENNY: But who would set up a scene like this? In such a public space? Surely, they wouldn’t have time.
KATHY: Our perpetrator thrives on pressure. The limited time would have given the situation extra excitement.
JENNY: If that’s the case, then the killer enjoys this kind of thing… and it’s probably not the first time.
KATHY: Yep. We’re dealing with a serial killer.

Grammar and Weak Sentences

Attention grabbing sentences are strong. Beware of sentences that end weakly. It’s easy to spot a weak sentence if it comes with a little addition after the main point has been made.

New South Wales is better than Victoria in my opinion.
In most states, a driver’s license is not granted to a person under the age of eighteen unless there are special circumstances, in which case a license may be granted.

Both of these sentences continue adding words after the point has been made. Sentences are always stronger when they finish more emphatically.

In my opinion New South Wales is better than Victoria.
In most states, people under eighteen can’t get a driver’s license.

Another way that sentences are made weak is through use of the passive rather than active voice. The passive voice places the emphasis on the thing being acted upon rather than the thing that is acting.

The cricket ball was hit by the batsman.
The picnic was enjoyed by the whole family.

It is much stronger and attention grabbing to say…

The batsman hit the cricket ball.
The whole family enjoyed the picnic.

Passive voice can be useful if we want to make a character sound pompous and unnatural, but the active voice is always to be preferred in dialog.

Compare

JIM: I was taken by the soldiers to the prison.

With

JIM: The soldiers took me to the prison.

Dialog is always improved where we rewrite instances of passive expression in the active voice.

Grammar and Ambiguous Sentences

Ambiguous sentences can be unintentionally funny when they aren’t downright misleading. Many of these mistakes stem from problems with the placement of verbs.

SAM : Walking down Main Street, the general store glittered with fresh fallen rain.

Oops. Did Sam really mean to suggest the general store was taking a walk? Probably not.

JENNY: Last night I saw my boyfriend in a new dress.

Was the boyfriend wearing a new dress? Unlikely.

BAXTER: I can recommend Simon as an excellent employee without any qualification.

Does Baxter mean that Simon is thoroughly unqualified? Again, no.

We know what the intended meaning is, but the audience can’t help but be forgiven for finding the actual expression amusing. The problem lies in the placement of the references (the way the verbs are associated with the nouns). Dangling present participles (-ing words at the beginning of a sentence) often create ambiguous sentences because they do not reference (are not related directly to) an appropriate noun.

SAM: As I walk down Main Street, the general store glitters with fresh fallen rain.

The walk is now associated with Sam through the pronoun “I” and the general store is left to “glitter with fresh fallen rain” as intended.

JENNY: I wore a new dress when I saw my boyfriend last night.

The wearing of the dress is now associated with Jenny (through the pronoun “I”) rather than the boyfriend.

BAXTER: I can sincerely recommend Simon as an excellent employee.

In this case we could have associated “without qualification” with Baxter but even that is freighted with unintended humor (since it suggests Baxter has no qualification to comment). Eliminating the phrase entirely is the best option here.

These problems are only fixed where every action is associated with a noun identifying the actor.

Sometimes a sentence has the right number of nouns and associated verbs but the order in which they are expressed confuses the sentence meaning.

MICHAEL: Rain moved the graduation exercises indoors which fell steadily all morning.

Did the indoors fall? No.

Compare it with

MICHAEL: The rain fell steadily all morning and the graduation exercises were moved indoors.

And

MICHAEL: The graduation exercises were moved indoors because the rain fell steadily all morning.

Keeping the correct verb as close as possible to the noun responsible for the action fixes a great many issues with dialog.

The placement of verbs is not the only contributor to ambiguity in sentences. Occasionally, adjectives are the culprit.

JASMINE: Sarah came down the stairs with a new hat on her head, all black velvet.

This time we are dealing with adjectives rather than verbs. Was Sarah’s head made of black velvet? No. We fix this sentence by associating the adjectives with the hat, leaving Sarah to come down the stairs without confusion.

JASMINE: Sarah came down the stairs wearing a black velvet hat.

We have looked at sentences and how to use an understanding of grammar to improve them. Next time we’ll examine word choices and some of the rules of dialog.

The post Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 3 – Constructing Sentences appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 2 – More Definitions

Philip Robotham — Sat, 16 Oct 2021 06:22:43 +0000

This continues my series on the basics of grammar for audio writers.

We looked, in the last essay, at the traditional parts of speech and some ways that understanding them helps us to diagnose problems in our scripts. This week we are looking at some other ways to think about and classify words.

Simple, compound and complex words

Simple words

Simple words cannot be broken down into component parts. They tend to be short, like ball, mouse, soft, build, etc. They can also be long like kangaroo, elevator, and alabaster.

Compound words

Compound words are made up of two or more simple words. Some are written as a single word (like railway, airport, and daylight). Others are hyphenated (such as make-believe, or push-button). Others still are written as two words (such as town hall, post office, and high school).

Complex words

Complex words consist of a main part and one or more subordinate parts. The subordinate parts are called prefixes if they come before the main part and suffixes if they come after the main part.

Consider the word transformation. Its main part is “form” and it has two subordinate parts, a prefix “trans-” and a suffix “-ation”.

Complex words are best avoided where possible. They can make writing unintentionally pompous (especially those words ending in -ation, -osity, -ousness, -ance, -bility, etc.). Of course, if you are writing a pompous character, then they will be exactly the right choice.

Modifiers

A modifier is a word (or group of words) which expands, restricts, limits, or defines another word (making the meaning more exact).

As we saw in my last article, adjectives modify nouns. To describe last Tuesday as a cold, raw day, is to give the audience a stronger sense of what kind of day it was. The adjectives “raw” and “cold” expand and fine-tune the meaning expressed by the word “day”.

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.

JOSEPH: She cooks miserably.
MARY: (INSULTED, COMING TO HER DEFENSE) I think she’s very clever.
JOSEPH: I didn’t say she was stupid. I just meant she doesn’t cook very well.

In the first line the adverb “miserably” modifies the verb “cooks”.

In the second, the adverb “very” modifies the adjective “clever”.

In the third line we can see a third use, where the adverb “very” modifies another adverb “well”.

As noted in the article previous to this, it is usually better to make use of strong, active verbs, and specific nouns than to employ adverbs and adjectives where possible.

Clauses

Clauses, phrases and sentences (and how to get the most out of them in dialog) is the subject of a future article, so I will restrict myself to providing some working definitions here.

A sentence, at a minimum, has a subject (something the sentence is about) and a predicate (the part of the sentence containing a verb and telling us something about the subject) and forms a complete thought. It may or may not include an object (the thing that the verb is acting upon).

A sentence, at its simplest, might be “He sits”, complete, in and of itself. The subject is “he” and the predicate is “sits”.

A simple sentence with an object contained in the predicate might be “He hit the ball”. The subject is “he”. The predicate is “hit the ball” and contains the verb “hit” and the object (being affected by the verb) “the ball”.

Clauses differ from sentences in that they are not complete thoughts. Look at the following example…

“after the train stopped at the station.

It has a subject “the train” and a predicate “stopped at the station”, but it is not a complete thought. Something is missing. To complete the thought we could add some words at the beginning and it would become complete sentence.

“She bought some cigarettes after the train stopped at the station.”

A clause may contain all the elements of a sentence but is dependent on another part of the sentence to make complete sense. While it could stand alone, the presence of a preceding word connecting it to another part of the sentence helps us identity it as a clause. Words such as “although, because, since, while, after, where, when, which, who, that, if, whenever, wherever, why, or, else, whether, yet, and but” are among the most common.

Phrases

Phrases are groups of related words without subject and predicate. In the same way that a clause can be part of a sentence, a phrase can be part of a clause or sentence.

An example of a phrase might be “under the bed”. It has neither a subject, nor a predicate, and it is definitely not a complete idea.

The most common type of phrase is the prepositional phrase. A prepositional phrase is introduced by a preposition such as to, in, for, after, above, below, beside, by, except, from, at, among, into, like, near, on, over, through, toward, under, upon, with, without, etc.

We shouldn’t be afraid of phrases in dialog. We use them frequently in everyday speech. As such they are sometimes the best choice.

MAX: Where did you put my scarf?
BOB: On the table.
MAX: Oh, right. Thanks.

Simple, compound, and complex sentences

Like a word, a sentence can be simple, compound, or complex.

A simple sentence cannot be broken down into clauses.

MAX: The shareholder’s report is due on Friday.

A compound sentence consists of two or more clauses that can stand by themselves. They are tied together by a conjunction (such as and, or, or but).

BOB: The shareholder’s report is complete, but I should append my sources to it.

A complex sentence has a main sentence (or independent clause) that can stand alone, plus one or more dependent clauses that rely on the main clause to give them meaning.

MAX: Give me the report, before I’m forced to hurt you out of impatience and frustration.

A complex sentence usually expresses a complex idea. As a result, it is often more difficult to read and understand than the others. They have their place, but where the writing feels confusing or difficult to understand, it can be helpful to look for the presence of complex sentences and break them down into simple and compound sentences.

Back to the Verbs – Verb forms

As the most powerful element in communication, it should come as no surprise, that verbs can also be among the most complex.

Verbs come in a variety of forms.

Infinitive

The simplest form of the verb is the infinitive. It consists of the preposition to, followed by the stem of the verb.

To strive
To seek
To find

It is often suggested that you should never split an infinitive by placing a word between the preposition and the verb stem e.g. “to boldly go”. Personally, I think that’s nonsense and blame this belief on Samuel Johnson who, unlike those who codified the grammar of most of the worlds written languages, chose to do so without consultation with other scholars and prioritized the sentence structures of French and Latin over those of common English speech.

Split your infinitives if you so desire. And if anyone complains, tell them an Australian English teacher gave you permission. Just be aware that, if you do split your infinitive, you are likely to do so with an adverb (and adverbs can, potentially, weaken your point).

Tense

Tense is the form of a verb telling us when the action takes place – present, past, future.

Where the basic verb is “to see”, the present tense is “I see”, the past tense is “I saw” and the future tense is “I shall/will see”. It is the basic way a writer directs a reader, backward, forward or toward the present moment.

Generally when writing for audio drama we want our lines to be as immediate as possible. The preference, therefore, even when dealing with a reminiscence, is to aim to use the present tense.

TIM: (TO THE ASSEMBLED POLICE) I headed for Joe’s place next. (BEAT) So, I’m injured. Badly limping up to his front gate. Just as I swing it open, I hear a snuffling noise and the largest dog I’ve ever seen leaps at me baring its teeth and scaring what little life remains out of me.

Participle

English verbs have two participles. The present participle is easy and ends in -ing.

Singing, shooting, fighting, slicing, etc.

The past participle is a little more complex and usually ends in -ed, -d, -t, -en or -n.

Danced, heard, kept, written, seen.

Principal parts

In verbs, the principal parts are those basic forms of the verb from which the others are, most frequently, derived; the present tense, the past tense, and the past participle.

One way to identify the correct form of these principal parts is to form a sentence with the verb beginning “I…”, “Yesterday I…”, and “I have just…”.

I see. I kill. I bake. I walk. (present)
Yesterday I saw. Yesterday I killed. Yesterday I baked. Yesterday I walked. (past)
I have just seen. I have just killed. I have just baked. I have just walked. (past participle)

Past and past participle verbs are formed, typically by adding -ed, -d, -t, -en, or -n (as above), but there are numerous irregular verbs as well (drove, went, swam, swum) and these can be quite a challenge to get right.

When writing dialog an understanding of the principal parts can be quite useful. Educated characters and characters from an upper-class background have usually mastered the irregular verbs and would rarely, if ever, make a mistake using them.

Less well-educated characters, or those who were not raised with English as their primary language, or those raised in a more working-class environment, are prone to add the wrong endings to words.

JACK: (LOFTILY TO THE CROWD) I have just swum the English Channel for the third time.
BILL: (HECKLING) Is that right, mate? Well, I swimmed it meself, once. Not the whole of it, ‘course, but enough to not be terrible impressed by the likes o’ you.

Even to the native-born, it can be difficult to navigate the irregular verbs in English. Keeping a

Dictionary handy for the tricky ones is well worth the effort.

Word Order

Word order has a huge effect on the meaning of sentences. As we close this article, take a moment to read each of the following eight sentences. By moving one word to a new position each time, the meaning of the sentence is drastically altered.

When you discover a sentence that is unclear, ambiguous, or doesn’t quite capture your meaning, it is worthwhile to go back and check if a rearrangement of the word order doesn’t salvage it. Sometimes a rewrite is required, of course, but some care with word order can save a great deal of time.

Only the police officer ordered me to take the weapon.
The only police officer ordered me to take the weapon.
The police officer only ordered me to take the weapon.
The police officer ordered only me to take the weapon.
The police officer ordered me only to take the weapon.
The police officer ordered me to only take the weapon.
The police officer ordered me to take only the weapon.
The police officer ordered me to take the only weapon.

Now that the basic definitions are in place we can begin to discuss the construction of sentences, in particular sentences that form dialog. That’s where we’ll pick up next time and we’ll look at how to use sentences (and their grammar) to achieve particular effects in a script.

The post Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 2 – More Definitions appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 1 – The Parts

Philip Robotham — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 11:13:18 +0000

A while back I was looking at Aristotle’s poetics and thinking about how they applied to audio drama writing. I worked my way through the first 19 chapters and then came to a grinding halt. The 20^th chapter was about grammar – specifically ancient Greek grammar. Besides being irrelevant (since its discussion concerned a language I have no interest in), the chapter basically stole my enthusiasm for continuing with the exploration. But the more I’ve thought about it, the more a short exploration of grammar has come to recommend itself to me.

You see, I never learned grammar at school. I just happen, like every Australian my age, to have been at school during the years when grammar was dropped from the curriculum in Australia.

This essay is for those, who like me were either taught English during the years that grammar was dropped from the curriculum or who may never have been taught it.

You can still write (and well) without a formal understanding of grammar, of course. Particularly if you have a good ear for the way people speak in real life (and you understand the rules of punctuation). But grammar is useful, among other things, for understanding how to repair sentences that have broken down and need to be “fixed”.

I came to grammar late. I wasn’t taught it at school, and I always felt at a disadvantage because of it. It wasn’t until I began studying other languages at university (German, Japanese, Hebrew, and Greek – none of which I am any good at) that I actually had a chance to learn grammar and discover its usefulness.

I promise that I will unpack the relevance of this for improving audio scriptwriting before we’re through, but to start with, I want to examine the basics.

THE PARTS OF SPEECH

For many of my vintage, grammar is an unknown country. A scary place full of esoteric labels and rules and cultural practices that we easily fall afoul of. And like visiting another country, grammar takes years of immersion to really understand (multiple volumes have been filled with the detail of English grammar). However, the basics aren’t that difficult.

To change the metaphor, understanding grammar is a little like learning to drive a car. You don’t need to be an expert in the combustion engine, and torque, and the way the parts must be tuned, in order to drive a car. There exists a bare minimum that you must know (and a great deal more that you could know) but the minimum will suffice to make driving possible.

To drive, you need to know three things.

The car’s controls (brake, accelerator, gear-shift, steering wheel, lights, indicators, mirrors, wipers, ignition, etc.)
The purpose and operation of those controls (speed up, turn, slow-down and stop, etc.)
The rules and techniques of driving (right of way, traffic signals, speed limits, how to drive in a straight line, turn, parallel park, etc.).

The minimum understanding of grammar needed by the writer isn’t that different.

The basic parts of speech
What the parts of speech accomplish
That rules govern their use.

So, this is my primer on English grammar, for those, who like me, might find such a thing useful.

Let’s begin with the parts of speech, namely: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections.

Verbs

Verbs are action words. They reveal what someone or something did (active verbs). What was done to someone or something (passive verbs). They also reveal its tense; when something happened (in the past, present, future, or if it is occurring right now).

John hit (active, in the past) vs John was hit (passive, in the past)
John hits (active, in the present) vs John is hit (passive, in the present)
John will hit (active, in the future) vs John will be hit (passive, in the future)
John is hitting (right now) vs John is being hit (passive, right now)

Good verbs (vivid and striking) bring writing to life (particularly if they are active – verbs are always stronger and more arresting when they are active).

Billy slugged Bobby.
The tires squealed to a stop.
The wind warbled through the trees.
The surf tore at the breakwater.

Nouns

Nouns are the names of people, places, or things (including ideas, qualities, or actions).

There are two types:

Proper nouns (names, always capitalized, that denote particular instances rather than groups) such as Daniel, Melbourne, Apollo Bay, Jane Eyre.

Common nouns (all other nouns, without capital letters, that denote groups or categories) such as man, woman, donkey, city, water, book.

Adjectives

Adjectives describe nouns. They are the primary way we add meaning to (or modify the meaning of) nouns. By adding an adjective we expand our understanding of the noun in some way.

An outrageous man.
An antique motor car.
A cruel child.

Sometimes nouns are used as adjectives.

A woman driver.
Christmas decorations.
Bedroom furniture.

Adverbs

Like adjectives expand our understanding of nouns, adverbs tell us something about verbs (indicating why, how, where or when the action takes place). Without adjectives, actions are very general and vague.

He stood.
She sang.
The car ran.

Add an adverb and the phrase becomes far more specific, and easier to visualize.

He stood impatiently.
She sang badly.
The car ran poorly.

Most adverbs are formed by adding -ly to an adjective. But some are formed differently; how, where, when and very, today, here, often, then, somewhere, nowhere and never.

Simple adverbs can be used to begin a sentence (referring back to what came previously)

He watched television. Then we just talked.
The movie was awful. Never have I see worse.

Pronouns

A pronoun takes the place of a name, usually the name of something or someone recently mentioned (for example, he, she, and it). The pronoun eliminates awkward repetition of the noun.

When Martha came to work at the old brownstone, she changed many things.
When Martha came to work at the old brownstone, it was badly in need of renovation.
When Martha first came to work for Jim as his housekeeper, he seemed afraid of her. He would lock himself in his study until she had completed her duties.

Martha is referred to by the pronoun she; Jim, by the pronoun he; and the old brownstone by the pronoun, it.

There are many kinds of pronouns, but the most common are personal, relative, and indefinite pronouns.

Personal pronouns are specific and include I, me, we, us, he, him, she, her, you, it, they, them.

Relative pronouns tie sentence parts together and include who, which, whom, that, whose, of which, etc.

Indefinite pronouns are more general and include anybody, everybody, one, any, everyone, other, all everything, several, few, etc.

Prepositions

Prepositions connect the thing that is acting in the sentence (the thing to which the verb belongs – also known as the subject of the sentence) to other words in the sentence (including the object – the thing that is acted upon).

Ten propositions account for 95 percent of all those used in writing. These key prepositions are with, from, to, for, on, by, of, at, in, and like.

A prepositional phrase includes the preposition, the noun, and any added obejcts.

“on the table”.
“at the side of the road”
“by the stream”

Conjunctions

Words that connect other words, phrases, and sentences are called conjunctions. These include and, but, for, although, as, since, because, when, and while.

An example of conjunctions connecting words can be found in H.M.S. Pinafore…

There stood his sisters and his cousins and his aunts.

An example of phrases being connected would include…

He hated her with a passion, but he was drawn to her despite, or perhaps because, of that hatred.

While taught as bad grammar by many (if not most teachers), it is not unheard of, in dialog, for sentences to sometimes begin with a conjunction (joining them to a previous, but interrupted, idea or connecting an afterthought to what has gone before).

But I didn’t do it. I never left the house. And I’d know, wouldn’t I?

Interjections

These are words or syllables that stand-alone, unconnected (grammatically) to those around them. Examples include: Ah! Oh! Well! Eh? Huh? Phooey! Etc.

Using the parts of speech to diagnose problems with dialog

People do not use perfect grammar in their day-to-day speech. For this reason, alone we could be forgiven for wondering what relevance grammar has to the writing of dialog. Hopefully, this will whet your appetite to stay with me in these essays. Before I go, I want to leave you with two tips regarding issues that an understanding of the parts of speech can help the script-writer with.

Have you ever felt that your dialog has come off a little weak, but you can’t quite put your finger on the problem? While I want to wrap this particular essay up shortly, I did want to quickly identify two ways that understanding the parts of speech helps us diagnose problems in our dialog.

Firstly, there is a kind of “order of importance” to the parts of speech. The best word to express a given idea is usually a verb, the next best is a noun, the next after that is an adjective or an adverb. (The remaining four parts are grammatical machinery and not really important for this discussion).

To illustrate, read the following sentences.

GEORGE – I ache to be a writer [emphasizing the verb]
GEORGE – I constantly ache to be a writer [employing an adverb]
GEORGE – My ambition is to be a writer [emphasizing the noun]
GEORGE – I am an aspiring writer [employing an adjective]

It is clear that the strongest, most arresting sentence is the first. If your dialog feels a little weak, check whether an adverb or adjective is draining some of its strength. Then check whether you have expressed the idea with a strong verb in place of an emphasis on nouns.

I am constantly caught out by how often I sabotage my writing by constructing sentences of dialog around nouns instead of strong verbs.

Secondly, specific nouns and verbs tend to make meaning clear, while generic nouns and verbs modified by adjectives and adverbs tend to obscure or muddy meaning. If your writing feels vague and muddy, chances are it is due to the choices you have made regarding nouns and verbs.

Consider the following sentence…

TEACHER: Forcefully utilize a large nail.

By using an adverb attached to a weak or generic verb (“forcefully utilize”), the language already feels forced and artificial. The adjective attached to the more generic noun (“large nail”) makes the line weaker still.

Now, compare it to…

TEACHER: Hammer the spike.

The more specific verb, “hammer”, without being weakened by the addition of an adverb, and the more specific noun, “spike”, create a much stronger and clearer sentence. The sentence is more vivid (easier to picture), less ambiguous, more natural, and more forceful (impactful).

Next Time

Next time we’ll take a look at another way of classifying words that is helpful to our writing, explore what phrases, clauses, and common sentence types are, and take a deeper look at verbs.

The post Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 1 – The Parts appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Aristotle Applied to Audio Drama – Part 5

Philip Robotham — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 11:52:22 +0000

Welcome Back. This week, Aristotle continues to give advice about the writing process, wading, briefly, into the subjects of outlining, gesture, structure, and unity.

Book XVII

Writing Process

a. See the Action

In this section of The Poetics, Aristotle turns his attention to the process of writing. He begins by talking about the importance of using our imaginations to “see” the action we are writing about played out on the stage of our inner thoughts.

In seeing the action “with the utmost vividness” we can help ourselves identify what is essential to the communication of our stories. In audio drama, this means the identification of sound and dialog that communicates everything necessary to create the scene for the audience.

Remember, in Audio, there is no visual information provided to the audience that the audience members do not construct for themselves. The audience of audio-drama constructs the stage for themselves on the basis of the audio cues we provide.

“What do I see that is essential?” is a question to be followed by “What dialog and sound is necessary to communicate that to my audience?”.Let’s say that our gumshoe is returning to his office a little worse for the wear.

SAM SPADE: I stumbled down the corridor and into my office. The beating I’d been given – mixed with the fifth-of-rye I’d drunk to take the edge off – left me too addled to notice that the door wasn’t locked.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS, THEN CLOSES

SOUND: TABLE IS BUMPED. EMPTY GLASS BOTTLES RATTLE FROM THE IMPACT.

SOUND: CHAIR SCRAPES.

SAM: Too tired to switch on the light, I threw myself down in my favorite chair and prepared to drift off into an alcohol-fuelled slumber. (BEAT) That’s when I heard the match strike.

SOUND: MATCH STRIKING.

GLINDA ROUTLEDGE: I borrowed one of your cigarettes Mr. Spade. I hope you don’t mind.

SAM: Mrs. Routledge? I’d generally advise against sitting in an armed man’s office in the middle of the night without the lights on. It’s liable to get you some unwanted ventilation.

GLINDA: Is that right? Then why didn’t you shoot? I could have been a burglar, after all.

SAM: Firstly, Mrs. Routledge, I’m too plastered. And secondly, I like that couch you’re sitting on too much. I wouldn’t want to ruin it with a fresh coat of red.

GLINDA: I wouldn’t have thought “being plastered” could put you on the bench where delivering “unwanted ventilation” is concerned, Mr. Spade.

SAM: Mrs Routledge, it’s far too “three-in-the-morning” for your usual games. And, while I’m prepared to swallow a reasonable amount of sarcasm for a fee, the shiner that’s blooming over my right eye has left me feeling less than generous.

—

From this exchange, we get most of the cues necessary to construct the scene. We discover and/or imagine…

The unlocked office
The door
The table
The chair
The couch
The match and cigarette
The gun
The inebriated state of the detective
His black eye

All of the essential scene-building elements need to be referenced (via dialog, narration, or sound) in order to construct the scene. But the list does not need to be comprehensive because, in audio, drama, the imagination of the audience will provide what is missing. Merely mentioning an office is enough to create a fully stocked detective’s office in the mind of the listener. If elements are not supplied initially (such as the couch), a quick reference to them brings them into existence (and the listener will rarely be left wondering, “now where did that come from?”).

Reading aloud is particularly useful here. One of the best self-checks on my writing, that I know of, is the reading aloud of dialog. As a writer, a great many clunky sentences and ineffective lines of dialog have been fixed simply by reading them aloud. It is sometimes easy to forget that the words we choose, have to be read aloud by other human beings (actors) and that the line that appears on the page, while comprehensible enough inside our heads, is not so easily spoken aloud.

b. Direction

Next, Aristotle discusses gesture. Generally speaking, in our day and age, the actors and director work on this area of a drama together and it has little to do with the writer. However, writers do provide some important direction. While we cannot tell actors how to deliver our dialogue we do want to assist actors in interpreting the lines on the page.

Aristotle, under the heading of gesture, advises playwrights to prescribe the emotion which should govern a line’s delivery.

Some would argue that the dialogue in a well-written play should guide us to the emotion without the need for any special directions. And, perhaps, for the very best of writers, this may be true.

However, language (particularly the English language) can be very ambiguous and confusing – and even the best writers may need to spell out when a line (that appears, on the surface, to be neutral) should be delivered with sarcasm, or simmering anger, or rage, or teasing good-humor, etc.

In Audio drama this is accomplished through capitalized and bracketed directions such as (SARCASTIC), (ANGRY), (TEASING), etc. appearing in the dialogue.

While it is never a writer’s job to tell an actor what to do, it is always the writer’s job to accurately communicate how a character is feeling and speaking. Bracketed directions are an important tool that helps us to do this.

c. Outlining

It turns out that Aristotle was not a pantser, but rather a planner when it came to writing. As a planner, myself, I’m actually pretty happy with this. But if you fly by the seat of your pants when writing (one of the most gifted writers I know has never written an outline in his life) there is still some helpful stuff here.

I happen to be of the opinion that pantsers make just as much use of the rules for planning a piece of writing as those who outline ahead of time, they just apply them later as part of their ongoing revision efforts, while the planners apply them right from the start. Either way, the endpoint is roughly the same.

For Aristotle, the process is straightforward. He advises the sketching of a general outline (beginning, middle, and end), followed by the naming of the various episodes needed to progress through the story, followed lastly by the amplification of the detail (or detailed writing) of each of these episodes (acts, scenes, lines, etc.).

In our own culture, we have become so very accustomed to three-act structure (applied in film, television, and via novels) that we know, almost without thinking about it, when the basic rules of storytelling have been ignored or skipped by an author. Since we know the structure so well, it can be very easy to construct our plays via a detailed outline that demonstrates ahead of time, that we have hit all the appropriate character and story beats necessary to get our stories across.

But because of this incredible familiarity, many writers can hit these beats without the aid of a pre-generated plan (so ingrained has storytelling become, and so immersed in the culture of storytelling are we).

For Aristotle, the most important achievement to arise from planning a story is, the imposition of unity that it affords. In planning, the writer can build each element, scene, and action around the central message of the play, contributing to its overall unity and purpose. He uses the word “Telos” to describe this. The telos of the play is the plot reduced to its essentials in just a couple of lines – the log-line or elevator pitch, if you will.

According to Aristotle, we should never begin writing without having clearly identified the irreducible essence of the story. Writing a logline or elevator pitch at the outset of the process helps both to guide and restrain our story-telling so that it remains unified and relevant.

Book XVIII

Two parts of the plot: complication and unraveling.

Aristotle, in a final act of classification (at least with regard to story-telling), breaks the plot into two important parts. The complication, by which he means everything leading up to the reversal, and the unraveling or denouement, by which he means everything which follows from the reversal.

By making the reversal such a conspicuous boundary in plot development, one could be tempted to believe that it marks the half-way point in a story. This is not, of course, the case. A character may fall from fortune into misfortune early in the plot (at the end of the first act for example) or late in the plot (at the end of the second act – as is common in most modern films). Shakespeare liked to place his climax in the center of the play and have the reversal occur with it.

What is important to note here is that, in tragedy, the reversal is essential. The complication (no matter how long or short) is the portion of the play that MUST lead inevitably to the reversal and the unraveling (no matter how short or long) is the portion of the play that MUST lay out the consequences of the reversal.

Because Aristotle believed good stories are stories that maintain a laser-like focus on their objectives, he provides these classifications to help the storyteller stay focused and unify the work.

Does the action contribute to, or lead to the reversal without any wasted words or episodes? Then it is relevant, contributes to the unity of the whole, and should be retained. If not, it should be jettisoned.

Does the action follow from and make clear the consequences of the reversal without any wasted words or episodes? Then, again, it contributes to the unity of the whole and should be retained, but should, otherwise, be jettisoned.

Tragedies are (as he has already explained) either simple (being made up of episodes strung together) or complex (containing reversals and recognition). But they can also involve characters who are motivated by ethical concerns (rational individuals) or characters who are motivated by passion (emotional individuals).

Aristotle preferred, again as has already been stated, those plays which were complex in nature and had as their protagonists, individuals of a rational disposition. In our own time, it is common for us to have characters who are both rational and emotional and we are far less concerned that our stories should have an ideological message in them than Aristotle was.

Aristotle was at pains to require playwrights to master BOTH the complication AND the unraveling of stories. It was so common in his day for writers to produce good beginnings or good endings, but not both, that he felt the need to address it as a significant problem. Our time is, perhaps, not that different.

Selection

He gives two final pieces of advice in Book 18. Firstly, he reminds writers of the need to be judicious in selecting the elements of a story they wish to tell. You can’t put a spotlight on every action a character takes in the procession of events from the story’s beginning to its conclusion. A writer must elide time, passing over the less important in favor of the more important. Every bathroom stop a character makes during Oedipus Rex is not nearly important enough for inclusion in the story. Selection is essential, and, again, the kernel, or essence, of the story should be our guide. Only include what is necessary to the telling of this story (it’s reversal and resolution) and leave all else on the cutting room floor.

Making the pieces fit

Finally, Aristotle asks the writer to make the chorus an important element in the telling of the story, rather than a sideshow or distraction. The Greek Chorus often explained features of the plot to the viewers (something that Aristotle was not in favor of) or provided a form of half-time entertainment (marking scene transitions and so forth). Neither of these uses were satisfactory as far as Aristotle is concerned. He wished the chorus to push the story forward rather than distract people from it, and in this there is a great lesson to be learned.The audio dramatist (and in fact any dramatist of the modern era) has little use for a Greek chorus, but there are plenty of ways in which the elements of audio story-telling can come into conflict with one another.

All the supporting elements (dialog, narration, sound effects, music) must work together to support the story (in particular, the clarity of the story-telling). An immersive soundscape is a boon to any production, but if it competes with the story for attention, it is failing in its proper job. Likewise, good music is an obvious benefit, but not at the expense of the storytelling. The actors, the sounds, the music, the narration – all of these things must subordinate themselves to supporting the telling of the story. If at any point, the story becomes merely a supporting prop for showcasing the actor, the music, or the sound design, the cart has been put before the horse and the production WILL fail. When all elements see themselves as being in harmony with, and in support of, the goal of telling the story, they will all shine in their own way. When they compete and distract, from the storytelling, the whole ultimately suffers.

Next Time: Aristotle takes a look at diction (or the musicality of dialog) and the grammatical building blocks of words.

The post Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Aristotle Applied to Audio Drama – Part 5 appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Aristotle Applied to Audio Drama – Part 4

Philip Robotham — Wed, 03 Nov 2021 11:29:14 +0000

Hi, and welcome back to this ongoing dive into Aristotle’s analysis of dramaturgy. This week we are getting, at last, into the practical advice Aristotle provides to help us write our plays.

Book XIII

Dramatic Plots

Aristotle thinks about art in primarily moral terms. Part of his purpose was to defend the arts against his teachers, Plato and Socrates, who were… less than convinced that art was socially beneficial. As a result, Aristotle felt that a story without a moral point (social benefit) was less perfect than one which presented a moral point.

Again, we need to remind ourselves that, for Aristotle, a morally beneficial story wasn’t one that taught people values such as kindness and compassion. For Aristotle, as for Greek society in general at that time, moral virtues were the civic virtues of ruthless practicality and rationality. If a story evokes fear and pity in the audience, this is beneficial, not because fear and pity are worthwhile emotions, but because they are emotions to be purged and removed from the body politic.

For Aristotle, the moral/civic value of storytelling lay in providing an outlet for the removal of unwanted emotions and the promotion of civic virtues (such as bravery and ruthless rationality). He would probably have been very comfortable in the company of Ayn Rand.

In our own day, we have allowed ourselves the freedom to enjoy art for its own sake and believe entertainment a social good in and of itself (though we have not, for the most part and rightly, unchained art from all moral principle).

Aristotle’s intention in Book XIII is to show us what a perfect tragedy must look like.

Here, he deals with tragedy alone (and not with any other form or genre).

For Aristotle, the perfect tragedy is complex (involving a reversal – change of fortune – and/or recognition), imitative (presenting human action), and exciting fear and pity in the audience (so that these unwanted emotions can be done away with).

A perfectly good man who is undone by circumstances evokes shock rather than fear and pity. Such a story violates our expectations regarding the moral order of the world, but does not, according to Aristotle, cause us to relate strongly to the story with fear and pity. The historically undeniable impact of the story of the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth (a perfectly good man) suggests that this is not, in fact, necessarily true, but some depictions of the story (such as the emphasis on gore in Mel Gibson’s “the Passion of the Christ”) have certainly produced more shock than empathy.

Further, the story in which a perfectly bad man succeeds, fails to satisfy the moral sense or evoke fear and pity.

Neither does the downfall of the perfectly bad man leave us particularly satisfied, since, though the moral sense is satisfied, we cannot identify with the character; we feel little in observing their fate.In all cases the word “perfectly” is important. These plots fail less, the more the characters approach the admixture of good and bad that exists in all of us as common people.

How are fear and pity inspired?

They are inspired, in the case of pity, by unmerited misfortune.

Fear is similar, but different in that it is inspired by misfortune that occurs to someone “like” ourselves.

Hamartia: The importance of the character’s flaw

Aristotle is at pains to state that we are only moved when the circumstances which lead to a reversal of fortune are brought about, not by vice or evil scheming, but by a flaw in the character’s nature (with which we can relate).

In modern terms this flaw is the character’s wound, the broken part of the personality that the character needs, often unknowingly, to heal. It has usually been inflicted at some time in the past and, as the story opens, is an integrated part of who the character is (usually demonstrated in some way by actions the character takes to protect that wound from exposure).

For example, a character may be content to be the best dancer in the local dance school (a big fish in a small pond) in order to maintain their pride or hide their lack of faith in themselves. Perhaps this is due to merciless bullying by an overbearing parent sometime in the character’s past. Regardless, the character’s wound holds them back from taking the next step and risking rejection in the world beyond the dance school in order to find fulfillment and success as a high level performer.

In a non-tragedy, characters usually succeed, via the character arc, in healing this wound (the dancer is forced to step out of their comfort zone – by a reversal such as the loss of the dance school – and attempt to join a major national dance company, overcoming obstacles along the way until, win or lose – via a further reversal from failure to success -, they make an accommodation with themselves that results in some form of healing).

In a tragedy, however, the character is usually undone by this flaw and the familiarity of their plight inspires the fear and pity in the audience that Aristotle is so concerned to cultivate.

Unless the character to whom all this happens is enough like us that we can put ourselves in their shoes, we will not feel fear or pity on their behalf.

Aristotle is particularly moved by the unhappy ending and is not at all keen on stories that involve a reversal of fortune that, itself, is reversed before the end. He does, however, accept that such stories are very popular, but he attributes this popularity to the weakness of audiences and a certain weakness in writers that makes them cater to the whims of those audiences.

As a writer who enjoys a happy ending and doesn’t share Aristotle’s contempt for the tastes of the common man, I am quite happy to disregard this final observation and agree to disagree with the great philosopher on this point. Non-tragedies are not inferior to tragedies, in my view, merely different.

He does redeem himself somewhat by pointing this out, suggesting that the story with the happy ending (as evidenced by a reversal of the reversal) is of another category and genre than tragedy. For the Greeks such stories were comedies (not because they were funny, but because everything that was not a tragedy was classified a comedy). But since comedies lacked the enervating moral purpose of tragedies, he saw them as a lesser art form – something which, from the perspective of our modern vantage point, it is easy to take issue with.

So what can the audio-dramatist take away from this? I think the following points make up the essential transferable kernel of truth to be found in this book.

Characters must be relatable (in that they must be a recognizable combination of the good AND bad traits that are common to human beings). The story itself must involve a reversal of fortune that is directly related to a character’s main flaw or wound (one that has become integrated into their personality at some time in the past). The outcome of the story (whether happy or otherwise) must follow causally from this wound (and the character’s actions) to either heal or protect that wound.

Book XIV

Plot structures

While Aristotle acknowledges the place of spectacle in stories, he considers spectacle the least satisfying means by which fear and pity are inspired. This is great news for the audio dramatist, for whom visual spectacle is an impossibility. Of course, the audio-dramatist, like the novelist, is involved in the creation of images within the minds of the audience (and these images can be spectacular indeed), but there are no accompanying visuals to assist us in this. Instead, the aids to the construction of images in our imagination are sounds, music, and, chiefly, dialog.

It’s interesting to note that Aristotle opens Book XIV by suggesting that a play is only successful where it can be understood without the aid of the eye, through hearing alone.

Basically, Aristotle felt that if a drama could not (if I might use a modern example) be simulcast successfully on radio while being performed on stage (without confusion) , then the play had failed. I get the feeling he would have LOVED the medium of audio drama were he alive to experience it.

Of course, he also would have been laughed out of town by a film industry that has learned the value of visual storytelling.That said, it is no less accurate to state that Aristotle is talking primarily to those who love writing dialog. For Aristotle, it is in dialog that the effects upon the audience that Aristotle values the most, are achieved.

So, what, according to Aristotle, are the circumstances that people find frightening or pitiable?Actions which create this effect are, generally, destructive and usually the product of conflict.

One person wants something that another wants, but that both cannot have. The cost of not having this thing must be sufficiently high that we feel either pity or fear or both for the character. These costs are often referred to as the stakes.

For example, we do not feel much fear or pity for the participants in a game of bottlecap soccer. However, if we know that the loser must clear the way for the winner to get the girl, the stakes (what stands to be won or lost) are considerably higher and the chances of fear and pity are greater. If, further, we know that the loser is to make way for the winner by ending his own life, the stakes are even higher (and so correspondingly, is the investment of fear and pity from the audience).

According to Aristotle, if an enemy kills an enemy, the level of investment is lower than if the characters know one another. The stakes are higher if the two players, in our example above, are best friends, and higher still if they are brothers.

In the creation of dramatic situations, therefore, the dramatist must always seek those situations that heighten the stakes – life and death being the highest stakes of all – and involve the strongest of relationships.Aristotle breaks these situations down into a number of types.

Firstly, the participants in the conflict may be knowingly engaged with those who stand to be harmed.

Secondly, the participants in the conflict may not know who will be harmed by their actions until the action has been accomplished.

Thirdly, the participants in the conflict may know one another but fail to follow through or abandon the conflict.

Fourthly, the participants may be in ignorance of the identities of the victims of the conflict and then, on discovery of the identities, withhold harm at the last minute.

Aristotle dismisses the third kind of situation out of hand (feeling it does not belong to tragedy). Hamlet comes very close to being a story of this kind of situation.Of the remaining situations, he feels the second is better than the first, and, surprisingly, that fourth is superior to all.

In this regard, I suspect that Aristotle is making the mistake of thinking that his own taste for the last situation is a guide to what is universally true. Or, perhaps, he merely feels that, where harm is prevented, the story is of a morally superior kind. In this, as in other matters, I am prepared to accept that I have either misunderstood him, or that we do not see eye to eye on this particular point.

The takeaway from Book XIV, for the audio dramatist, is simply this; to give an audience a strong emotional experience, we must raise the stakes of the conflicts we present and strengthen the connections between the parties to the conflicts. The higher the stakes and the stronger the relationships under threat, the greater will be the fear and pity experienced by the audience.

Book XV

Character

In Book XV, Aristotle turns his attention to the development and depiction of character.To begin with he suggests that characters must be moral actors (taking actions with moral consequences).

As has been noted elsewhere, Greek morality was different to our own and (Ouch!) Aristotle had a very low opinion of women and servants (women being, according to him, inferior, and servants, worthless). He did allow that these inferior beings can be good (or at least capable of demonstrating moral intention in their actions) but it is quite jarring to come across such an unvarnished statement of sexism in the text.

Despite the inappropriate framing of his point, it is true that the moral quality of an action demonstrates character.

He goes on, however, to suggest that character should also be matched to class in terms of propriety and that it is inappropriate for a woman to, for example, show manly valor. This is base snobbery, and while it is an often-unconscious belief amongst those who consider themselves elite, that others are inferior, it is not something we need to give legitimacy to in these more enlightened times.

Next, he turns his attention to truth. Characters must be recognizably true to life. That is, we must feel as though we might actually be able to meet and converse with them as with a real person and that their behaviour would be comprehensible (even when surprising).Lastly, he talks of consistency. Characters must be consistent in their behaviour, such that, when it occurs, even the surprising action fits in with what we know and expect of the character and appears, in hindsight, thoroughly predictable. Even an inconsistent character must consistently be so.

I think it would be fair to conclude that the first two points are not that important (the second being plainly wrong). Any action after all is a moral action, revealing to an extent the moral character of the individual. More important is it for us to ensure that the character feels real (whether a dragon, or school-teacher) and behave in a consistent manner (whether functional or dysfunctional, predictable or surprising).

With regard to the display of character, Aristotle emphasises the importance of causality. No word or action undertaken by a character should be unmotivated. Each should be causally linked to what came before and what is about to ensue. Further, no action should be random and senseless. There is no place, in Aristotle’s view, for the sudden arrival of unmotivated characters or magical beings who will solve the character’s problems for them. The Deus Ex Machina is here, disposed of, as a poor literary device nearly 400 years before Christ.

Paradoxically, Aristotle, is also in favour of exaggeration in the presentation of characters. He advises the writer to create characters who are like us, only more so; being nobler, and (while remaining true to life) larger than life at the same time.

Archetypes (or stereotypically “big” characters) have always been a useful shorthand for writers. We all recognize the evil sorcerer when Darth Vader enters the stage. But it is also important to make the character real to us (showing us Anakin Skywalker underneath).

For the audio-dramatist (as for any other area of dramatic endeavour) the creation of realistic, consistent characters, whose actions are sensibly motivated by cause and effect is an essential of the writer’s art.

Book XVI

Recognition (Anagnorisis)

For Aristotle, characters experience reversals and revelations. It’s not that far from the action/exposition model that numerous writers refer to today. An action is undertaken to achieve an intention but the reverse occurs. A revelation then ensues.

Recognition occurs where the character(s) have discovered something that affects the story.

Aristotle is particularly fond of the recognition that occurs where one character realizes the identity of another character (or of themselves), but recognition need not be limited to matters of identity.

In a play the opportunity for recognition arises in subtext.June has been given an ultimatum by her father; she must answer the Duke’s proposal of marriage by midnight today. Her heart, however, belongs to Michael, a man whose fortune is under threat.

Michael has managed to secure an investment to save his factory but it will not be signed and sealed until tomorrow.

The unhappy couple meet. June hints that she needs Michael to pop the question immediately or she will be forced to marry the duke.

Michael, however, is wracked with uncertainty because the deal is not signed but hints that he will shortly be able to make the proposal June so wishes.

According to Aristotle, the recognition of the situation that the couple are in might occur in response to a specific sign; June is wearing an engagement ring and Michael notices.

This form of revelation is the least artistic, and results from, in Aristotle’s opinion, a lack of imagination on the part of the writer.

Worse still is where the two character’s openly tell one another of their circumstances, making the subtext, text. Aristotle felt that while the former is the least artistic means of recognition, this latter method of recognition had no artistry whatsoever.

A further form occurs where an external agency furnishes a sign; Michael realises this must be the fateful moment when he sees the Duke’s carriage on its way to June’s ancestral home, or when he hears the church bells chime and connects them to June’s hints.

Another form occurs where a character puts together the clues and arrives at the revelation; Michael sees the tears in June’s eyes, connects the news that June’s house guest, the Duke, has come to the local area in search of a wife with the statement that her father has begun looking for a suitable match that might preserve the family inheritance, and realises he must act.

A final form of revelation comes directly from the action itself; distracted by his upcoming business transaction, Michael and June part company. The next day, signed contracts in hand, Michael rushes to the manor only to find a wedding service underway and June about to be married to the Duke.

Of each of these means of recognition, Aristotle preferred the last.In every age and every medium, revelations that arise from the events of the story itself are much to be preferred. This is as true for audio-drama as for the stage, film, and the novel.

Next time: Aristotle spends some time discussing the writing process and some new plot elements.

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Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Aristotle Applied to Audio Drama – Part 3

Philip Robotham — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 07:21:23 +0000

Today, I’m only travelling a short distance through Aristotle’s poetics. He is again presenting us with a series of definitions, but these definitions are highly practical (at least until we get to book XII which, I think, can be skipped without any real loss occurring). If we use these definitions as a guide, we gain some great insights into what makes a successful scene.

POETICS BOOK X

Simple and Complex Plots

Aristotle makes a really useful distinction here.A simple plot is made of events in sequence. A complex plot involves reversal and/or recognition.

For Aristotle, the difference lies in whether events follow one “after” another in time (are post hoc) or whether events happen “because of” one another (propter hoc).

E. M. Forster’s famous distinction between story and plot provides a useful illustration; “‘The king died and then the queen died’ is a story,” Forster writes. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief’ is a plot”.

More recently, the creators of South Park (Matt Stone and Trey Parker) have expressed the idea in a similar fashion;

When you have a set of story beats (or an outline in other words) and you can put the words “and then” in-between each one – the story fails to grip. That’s boring.

However, if in-between each story beat you can put the words “but” or “therefore” then you have a story in which the events taking place are reacting to each other. The story/plot builds momentum and tension based on everything else that has happened previously, not because of the arbitrary whims of the writer.

POETICS BOOK XI

Peripatea, Anagnorisis, and Pathos

Aristotle introduces three important concepts here; “Peripatea” or reversal, “Anagnorisis” or recognition, and “Pathos” or strong emotion.

As usual, Aristotle is concerned with definitions first, but good stories make use of all three of these plot elements, often in the same scene.

Peripatea

An action occurs but achieves the opposite of its intention – this is reversal.

Reversals are pretty straight forward. A character has an intention that drives their action, but the opposite of the intention results; John sets out to capture a burglar (intention), but is arrested at the scene of the crime by the police (opposite).

Anagnorisis

An action occurs that results in insight, revelation, or understanding – this is recognition.

Recognition occurs where someone discovers something significant about another person – and for Aristotle, recognition nearly always involves discoveries about people in particular (though it can, less usefully, involve discoveries about objects as well); John discovers that Mary is related to every one of the murder victims.

Pathos

An action occurs that results in a strong empathic reaction (the feeling of disgust, sympathy, fear, horror, etc.) in the audience – this is strong emotion.

Strong emotion (in the audience) results where the action involves injury to the individual; John is captured and tortured by the antagonist, losing an eye in the process.

If a scene fails to include at least one of these elements, it fails to be an interesting scene. The success of a scene is heightened by doubling up on these elements.

What is the test of a good scene?

Here are some questions we can apply to our evaluation; Does the action follow causally from what has preceded it? Has something changed by the end of it? Does our audience feel something intense? Have the characters discovered something important about someone? Have the characters experienced a reversal/setback?

If the scene achieves none of the above – that is, there has been no material change to the circumstances of the characters by its conclusion – then the scene itself is a failure, is unnecessary, and should be cut out of the story.

POETICS BOOK XII

The Parts of the Tragedy

This section doesn’t seem particularly helpful (and should probably be ignored). It relates very specifically to the formal structure of Greek plays – a product of their time with little relevance to our present. It is, as you have probably guessed, another set of definitions about the elements of the play.

For the sake of completeness I’ll summarize them here:

Prologue

Extends from the opening of the play to the first full performance by the chorus.

Episode

Those scenes of the tragedy that take place between choric performances.

Exode

Extends from the final choric performance to the end of the play.

Chorus

The choric performances are divided into two parts: the parode, the first full performance of the chorus while it is processing into the stage area, and the stasima, the choric performances that alternate with the episodes of dialogue by the actors.

Commos

A performance within the tragedy in which both actors and chorus take part.

And with that, we at last we leave the preliminary definitions behind and get into what Aristotle advises writers regarding the construction of drama. See you in a couple of weeks.

Next time, we’ll begin to examine the construction of drama in detail.

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Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Aristotle Applied to Audio Drama – Part 2

Philip Robotham — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 06:53:26 +0000

Here we are taking a look at the next 5 sections of Aristotle’s poetics. As I stated last time, I’m working through Aristotle’s Poetics in an attempt to figure out why, even today, he is pointed to by script-writers as a guiding light in the production of drama. He is wordy, and often difficult to work out but, little by little, I’m beginning to see what his fans appreciate about him. Today we look at the elements of drama, in particular, plot, and what makes a good plot (at least according to Aristotle).

POETICS BOOK V

On Comedy and the Epic

In book V Aristotle treats briefly of comedy and the epic.Comedy concerns itself with the ridiculous (but not harmful). That is, in a comedy people behave in dysfunctional or inappropriate ways (such that they appear ridiculous and elicit laughter) but without suffering harm or eliciting sympathy. This was important to Aristotle, because, as already stated, plays in Greek society served an overtly moral purpose and so, he felt the need to establish the moral credentials of comedy. For Aristotle, the comedy was morally useful in rendering inappropriate social behavior ridiculous and thereby furnishing the audience with examples to avoid.

The Epic differs from Tragedy in that it is wider in scope and narrative in form. In today’s parlance, the epic is a book, while the tragedy is a play. A book is narrated, while a play is enacted, primarily, before the eyes (as an audio-play is enacted, primarily, before the ears). Everything you might find in a book can be found in a play, but not everything in a play is found in a book.

If we think of the comedies of Shakespeare, we see this principle at work. The plays might deal with serious matter (duels, love, suicide, etc.), but it is all done in good fun and no-one is ever really hurt (humiliated, maybe, but never hurt). The duels are avoided, the suicides are revealed to have been faked etc. Even where the antagonist gets their come-upance, their final fate is dealt with “off-stage”.

We also see that characters rarely grow or change in comedies designed after the Aristotellian model. The character we meet at the beginning of a comedy is just the same as at the end (though their circumstances may have changed). Is the bachelor egotistical and vapid at the beginning of the story? He will be so at the end (even if by that time he is married). Is the character selfish and stupid? They will remain so.We could do worse than follow such a model. For Aristotle, growth or character change undermined the ridiculous nature of the character and, instead, inspire empathy. This, Aristotle felt, removed what made comedy, comedy.Today, we are much more inclined to want to include character depth in comedy writing, but the principle remains true that the more we have a character grow and change, the less ridiculous they become. Fixed and unchanging characters are a feature of comedy that find little place in tragedy (except, perhaps, as comic relief).

POETICS BOOK VI

Tragedy

Now, back to tragedy (or the play).One of Aristotle’s more difficult, and famous, definitions reads “Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions.

“We’ve dealt elsewhere with the notion that plays, “through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions”, are required to be morally useful. This may be a laudable opinion (sort of), but it is not a constraint we feel the need to strictly apply today. Even as recently as the Golden Age of Radio, radio-shows, such as the Shadow, felt constrained (and were in fact constrained by law) to include deliberate moral lessons – “the weed of crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does not pay. The Shadow knows”, etc. Today, we feel far less constrained and can produce a work of art or play simply to be entertaining. That said, it would be foolish to consider art morally neutral. Entertainment is a high calling, providing people with a way to cope with the stresses of life, a temporary release from suffering, a means of sharing joy with others, etc. It can also be deliberately corruptive. Sometimes this is a feature of the design of the work. Sometimes this is a function of the use to which the work is put. Personally, I feel horrendously under-qualified to be giving writers any moral advice beyond ” be aware of the consequences of your choices, be responsible, own your decisions, and, where possible, try to avoid doing harm”.

Much of the remainder of Aristotle’s definition is common sense. According to Aristotle, a play presents a recognizable and plausible imitation of reality (even where that reality is made fantastic by the presence of gods and monsters). More on this later.Tragedy, in distinction to comedy, is serious. Dealing, as it should, with important themes and actions and consequences, etc. If it is not serious, then it is, in fact, comedy.

It is complete, in that it has a beginning, middle, and end that are intrinsic to the story. A good play begins with the first meaningful action of the story, relates only those events necessary to moving the story forward, and concludes as soon as the story is resolved. All irrelevant material is rejected. Completeness, therefore involves not only including everything necessary for the telling of the tale, but also an economic approach, excluding everything that would distract from it.

To say that a play is of a certain magnitude is to say that it is limited in duration, but also that it functions within certain fixed limits. A stage play has a limited amount of time to tell its story, true. But it also has only so much real-estate with which to work (the stage), the patience of the audience with the story (an audience will only sit still so long) as well as budgetary constraints on the degree and quality of the set, costumes, props, orchestra, etc. that accompany it.

It is often said that Radio is free of constraint. We can, in much the way that a book might, place the setting of our play anywhere in this universe or another. We can as easily visit the belly of a whale or the farthest star.

This freedom is not without limits, however. The radio audience must be engaged quickly. Distraction is only a channel-change away. The soundscape and dialog must be readily decodable. The number of voices must not be so many as to make recognition of the characters difficult without visual aid, etc.

A key feature of drama (and especially of audio drama) is that it is delivered in dialog. Yes, exceptions exist – the BBC’s famous sound-only story, The Revenge, by Andrew Sachs, has no dialog and stands out as a case in point. But generally, dialog is the medium of storytelling in audio-drama. Aristotle places language “embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play” front and center.It is safe to say that that audio-dramatist must be able to do the same, harnessing dialog as a means of story-telling, if they wish to produce scripts for this medium.

The famous maxim “show don’t tell” finds its origin in Aristotle’s insistence that, as far as plays are concerned, drama is “found in action, not narrative”.

But what of non-visual media, like radio, that rely on dialog? The maxim still holds. Characters should not tell us that they are, for example, angry. We should intuit the anger via subtext. We show the anger through the characters words and interactions (with supporting sounds), but we should never tell the audience the character’s emotional state, outright.

COMPARE…

BOB: I’m so angry, I feel like slamming the door today. The yellow party won the election.

WITH…

BOB: Get the hell out of my way! And take that damned yellow hat off. I don’t care who won the election. I’m not having one of those hats in this office.

SOUND: OFFICE DOOR SLAMS

According to Aristotle, tragedy is made up of six parts, organized under three categories;

Category 1: Objects of Action (comprising of Plot, Character, and Thought)

Category 2: Means or Manner of Action (comprising of Language – diction – and Melody)

Category 3: Mode or Medium of Action (comprising of Spectacle (costume, special effects, and scenery).

Aristotle makes plot the primary element of storytelling. For this he has been roundly criticized on many occasions. Those who enjoy character-based drama have often found his opinion obnoxious, feeling, with some justification, that writers who focus primarily on plot produce weak stories. There would be some justification to this viewpoint if Aristotle was only interested in plot (to the exclusion of all else), but he is not. His interest in plot is fundamentally an interest in action and reaction.

Character is revealed in the actions and reactions that the dramatis personae have to the events around them. Character is internal, but, internal character is not accessible to the eye. Because people are capable of deception and lies, it is not accessible to the ear, either. As human beings we can choose to believe or disbelieve what a person says, but we rarely discount what we see them do.

As a result, Aristotle argues that a person’s true character is not revealed by their statements but by their actions. The coward may talk of his bravery, but his true character is revealed when it is tested by events and results in action (standing-fast or running away). Because Aristotle emphasizes the revelation of character through the actions and reactions of characters (rather than through narrative explanation), he argues that events/plot are primary. In no way does he exclude the importance of character. He merely demands that character be revealed in action.

Of the elements of a plot, he singles out the reversal and recognition (discussed later) as the most significant.

Aristotle places character second in his list. Character is where we learn of the moral qualities of the individual (remember his idea that characters are either better, worse, or the same as us). It’s worth stating again that extremes of character are to be avoided (except, perhaps, in comedy). The perfectly good and perfectly evil character do not feel real to us. We know ourselves to be flawed and we empathize with the flaws we observe in others (even as we like or dislike the character overall). The catalyst for the revelation of character are the events of the plot.

Thirdly, Aristotle discusses thought, more properly understood as motivation. A character’s action must never be random. Something must motivate it and that motivation must be plausible. If a character expresses fear, there must be something in the environment or in the mind/thoughts of the character that elicits that fear. If a character begins to run, there must be an accompanying motivation (a desire to exercise, or the fear of an axe-wielding maniac).

While the motivation may be hidden for a time (in order to increase curiosity) it cannot stay so. The motivation of the action must be clear, revealed in sound and dialog, to be satisfying.At a more basic level, motivation relates to desire. Characters never initiate action without wanting… something. Even when coerced there is desire (to get out from under the coercion).

The characters desire/motivation is revealed in what they choose to do or avoid and in their decisions.

When characters face choices, anticipate, consider, weigh up, and explore the potential consequences of those choices, and then settle upon an action, thought is further revealed.

Fourth comes diction– the way voices are differentiated and the idiosyncratic ways that characters speak. Does the character speak slowly and thoughtfully, using big words? Does the character drop the “h”? Does the character mispronounce words, or utilize an accent? Is there a rhythm to the words, or are the words abrasive and jarring?

Aristotle also discusses, fifthly, song. The lyrics, rhythms, and melody of Gilbert and Sullivan spring readily to mind (although the art of the musical is somewhat foreign to a non-musician like myself). Song is something that Aristotle sees as an embellishment of the dialog.

With that understanding we turn to our final element; spectacle. On the stage this consists of costuming, props, and set. In film this is expanded to include CGI and special effects. But in audio-drama, the “spectacle” is created by sound effects and music. The sound effects support and illustrate the action of the story, creating the pictures in our minds that help to sell the reality of the story world to us, while music underscores and emphasizes the emotion and tone of the story. But both, in combination with the dialog, can bring the world of the play to life.

Aristotle makes the spectacle least important in his list on the grounds that, were it left out, a good play could still be enjoyed on the basis of the dialog alone. While sound is essential to a sound-only production such as the BBC’s “Revenge”, it is certainly the exception rather than the rule. As a life-long reader of plays (both for entertainment and as a means of self-education regarding the art of play-writing) generally speaking a play doesn’t “need” the embellishments (except at points and to achieve certain effects). However, the embellishments of sound and music can and do significantly increase the immersion generated by the story and, in many cases, could not be removed without doing violence to the whole.

POETICS BOOK VII

The PlotThere are times when reading Aristotle’s Poetics that I find myself wanting to scream. He often goes into frustrating detail about more obvious matters, while providing very little detail on the more complex topics that I find harder to understand. In book vii, he labors over the seemingly obvious, but there is value here nonetheless.He reminds us of his definition (again) that drama is “an imitation that is complete and whole and of a certain magnitude” before going on to define what that completeness is.

A drama has a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning starts at the last possible initial and essential moment (a moment that nothing essential can come before). The ending occurs at the last possible final and essential moment (a moment that nothing essential can follow after). And the middle is made up of those essential moments that come between the beginning and end.

Obvious, right?

But it is the essential nature of the parts that are significant to Aristotle. A story doesn’t begin just anywhere. It begins with an event that initiates the action and leads irrevocably through a chain of events to a conclusion. These events are selected by the writer and NONE of them can be purposeless, random, or unnecessary if the writing is to be successful.

Artistotle goes on to point out that a dramatic work of art must be comprehensible (that it must make sense). If it is too short, a beginning only, it will not satisfy. If it is too long (so that, either because of its complexity or duration, its parts and their working together cannot be discovered by the viewer/listener) it also fails to satisfy.

Here he is concerned with both duration and completeness. A play may be long or short, but it must be complete and, in being complete, it must not be stuffed with anything un-necessary.

Finally, he makes the point that a plot must be concerned with change. He takes as his primary examples a change from “good fortune to bad” or “bad fortune to good”.

For Aristotle, a story cannot be good where the status quo does not alter.In terms of how this applies to audio-drama, the following can be stated;

An audio drama (of whatever length) whether an episode in a series or a feature length story must describe a change in the circumstances of a character (or characters) from its beginning to its end in as economical, yet essentially complete, a manner as possible.

POETICS BOOK VIII

The Unity of the Plot

Unity is an essential feature of a story. Sometimes a writer makes the mistake of thinking that a story is unified because it deals with a single subject or character, but, as Aristotle points out, a life is not a plot. The fact that I was born, lived in a home with my parents, went to school, worked in a series of jobs, married, and had a family does not make these events a unified plot simply because they are about me.

A plot is formed by the selection of events around a particular character goal/desire and restricts itself to only those events relevant to the complete telling of that tale. The Odyssey by Homer, for example, carefully selects from the life of Odysseus only those events relevant to his home-coming.

A successful plot is dependent on the skill of the writer at selecting those events that contribute to the whole in an essential way. Recounting what the protagonist ate for breakfast is not essential to a story where the protagonist’s goal is to rescue his kidnapped son, for example.

The test of the unity of a story consists of ensuring that no element of a story can be removed or added without significantly changing or distorting the whole. A whole must be understood in relation to its parts and its parts in relation to the whole. Anything that cannot contribute to the unity of the story must be excluded.

POETICS BOOK IX

Plot vs. History

Just as a life is not a story, neither is history, in and of itself. Recording events as they happened, in sequence does not result in a plot. Stories involve invention. They are about what might be, or what might have been, more than they are about what actually was. And, unlike history, which concerns itself (at least according to Aristotle), with producing a comprehensive record of events, drama aims, more philosophically, at communicating ideas. In this, I suspect Aristotle is groping towards the notion of “theme”.

Rather than being a mere chronological sequencing of events, a story is about something. And in Artistotle’s Greece, where drama primarily served a civic function (teaching and promoting civic duty) it is not hard to see why Aristotle felt this way.

But as a general principle, beyond the culture of Greece, this has a lot of merit. Stories aren’t merely collections of events from a life or history. They are, in fact about something; about coping with change, about love, or revenge, or grief, or achievement, etc. They are, to paraphrase Aristotle, about universal experiences that we all can relate to (or they are if they are any good).The value of history, as a source of story, lies in its plausibility. The story based on history is believable because its events have in fact happened in the real world. However, Aristotle is at pains to point out that we are not restricted to “historical” stories. All stories, even the historical ones, must be fictionalized to a degree (through selection and invention) so that they can express their message. History lends a sense of reality to stories, but wild flights of fiction can be plausible so long as each event is linked to each by a clear chain of cause and effect.

That which Aristotle calls the episodic story is to be avoided. A story that is merely a series of events in sequence. The “and then” story – “I got up and then I went outside and then I caught a rabbit and then I ate it and then I looked at the sky and then I noticed a storm gathering” – is ultimately unsatisfying.

For Aristotle, the satisfaction and believability of a story is tied up with it being motivated effectively. Eg. “Cold and hungry, I left the cave and caught a rabbit for breakfast. The wind was picking up, so I scanned the sky and noted the gathering clouds. Storms in the mountains could be dangerous, so I would need to seek shelter.”

The inclusion of motivational links takes the “episodes” related earlier and makes them plausible and part of a unified whole. This story is one of survival against the elements. It is about something.

Here, Aristotle makes an aside that speaks directly to our present. Good writers will, from time to time, include unmotivated episodic material at the behest of (and to placate) their actors, or studio, or investors. Bad writers do it because they can’t do otherwise.

But what of surprises and twists? According to Aristotle, an action does not have to be predictable to be motivated. In fact, the best actions are surprising when they occur – however, when we look back at them they must appear to have been inevitable (that is, we must be able to see the antecedent causes and motivations that led inevitably to them).

It may be a shocking surprise that the mild mannered wife takes an axe to her husband in the second act, but given his dismissive and insulting behavior, when we look back over their interactions, it should appear thoroughly motivated and plausible.

Next time, we’ll examine Aristotle’s break-down of the key elements of a plot.

The post Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Aristotle Applied to Audio Drama – Part 2 appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Artistotle applied to Audio Drama (Part 1)

Philip Robotham — Sun, 31 Oct 2021 00:45:49 +0000

This is a rambling exploration of Aristotle’s guide to understanding and writing drama (as applied to audio drama) that began as a set of personal notes on Artistotle’s little book “The Poetics”, but, as I wrote, turned into a one-sided imaginary address to other writers, who like myself, are interested in figuring out why script-writing professionals from David Mamet to Aaron Sorkin consider it such a masterful guide to the craft.

If you find it a bit preachy or pretentious, I can only apologize and say, yeah, that’s how most of my first drafts look. I’ve rushed to publish it simply to get some content out (with the full realization that, given how busy I am at the moment, any delay at all would result in it never seeing the light of day).

This is only the first part and deals with Aristotle’s introduction to his subject matter. Future articles will go further into depth regarding his theory of script-writing.

TLDR Version

Art is creative imitation. Art forms differ in terms of the medium, object, and manner of this imitation. A painting, for example, is quite different to a play. Unsurprisingly, audio drama is a unique art-form telling human stories (object) through sound, music, and speech (medium) in the form of recordings of scripted and acted play performances designed specifically for the ear (manner). A proper understanding of the unique elements of the form we choose to work in is essential to the successful creation of art.

Dramatic art has a long history that is still evolving, one we ignore (or over-emphasise) at our peril; a point that is as true of audio-drama as any other art-form.

The Poetics of Artistotle applied to Audio Drama (Part 1)

Background

Back in 330 BC Aristotle explained his “theory of Art” to his students in his Poetics. He did so, largely, to refute his great teacher, Plato, who felt that art, being but an imitation of life, had little value because it distorts the world and, being fiction, is a form of deceit – a view that the Puritans would have found themselves whole-heartedly in agreement with.

Aristotle, however, saw things differently. He saw the way art imitates life as essentially redeeming and justified.”

The Poetics” isn’t a particularly long or difficult read, but it does refer to some things (familiar enough once you see what they are) in language and terminology that differ in meaning and usage today. So a little background is in order.

According to Aristotle, art imitates life, and imitation is the key to learning. As children we learn by imitating those around us. Language is acquired as we imitate the sounds made by adults. Moral character is learned as we imitate and enact the behaviour of others. In fact, according to the Greeks, learning doesn’t take place fully until it is expressed in action. That is, the Greeks did not consider head-knowledge to be knowledge at all. In Greek culture knowledge had to be applied, practically, before it could be considered “truly” learned.

That said, experience did not have to be first hand for learning to occur. It was possible to share in the experience that made learning real by watching it (or perhaps, by listening to it – if we try to apply this idea to the realm of audio).

By imitation, Aristotle didn’t see the role of art as being to provide exact imitations of life from which the audience might learn, rather he saw art as a genuinely creative process in which the distortions of real life that art was capable of, could be harnessed, shaped, and directed for positive effect.

For the Greeks, art was NOT entertainment. Art, while entertaining, served another purpose entirely, and one that we do not easily comprehend in the modern world.Greece, in particular Athens, was a fairly brutal culture. While free (by ancient standards) and inclusive in its decision making (having a form of democracy) it was also a violent and conquering power. It held up cold (even ruthless) logic as the social ideal and viewed emotion (especially pity and compassion) as something to be put aside as dangerous and antithetical to the completion of one’s civic duty.

Once a year, during a festival, the people of Athens would gather to watch plays produced in a competition. These plays were intended to teach important civic values and the winner would be presented with a wreath in recognition of their service to the community. According to Aristotle, along with fulfilling this overtly preachy purpose, plays functioned also as a means of exciting and ridding the populace of unwanted emotions (such as pity and fear) that had no place in the fulfilment of civic duty. By allowing them to be experienced via proxy, the audience could safely vent these “unhealthy” emotions without allowing them to impact life in the real world.

While this made a kind of cruel sense in the Greek world, it’s certainly not the case that art is limited to, or even expected to perform, this function in the modern world. We often enjoy art for its own sake, as a form of expression and entertainment to be admired simply because it is there. Aristotle’s ideas regarding catharsis and purgation, therefore, have little to say to us today (being more or less nonsense), however many of his other ideas are particularly useful to the audio dramatist.

Of particular interest to the modern writer is Aristotle’s differentiation between tragedy and comedy. To understand Aristotle properly we must recognise that comedy meant much the same in his time as it does in our own (the depiction of the ridiculous and humorous), but that tragedy refers fundamentally to EVERYTHING else (ALL serious drama that is not intended to exaggerate for the sake of a laugh or that has as its primary object presenting the ridiculous or absurd).It’s my intention to work through Aristotle’s little pamphlet and draw out the insights he has found that have stood the test of time, hopefully discovering, in the process, why so many writers refer to “The Poetics” as a master work of instruction in the creation of stage drama and how those principles might be applied to the writing of audio drama.

Before I do, however, I feel like I need to say one more thing. Aristotle comes across like a boring elderly professor, all “let’s define our terms” and “this thing can be broken into twenty-seven subcategories that we will discuss in detail”. Working through his book, short though it is, can be a little daunting as a result. I think it’s worth the effort, though, especially if we apply what we are learning as we go.So, without further ado…

POETICS BOOK I

Introduction

Aristotle starts by telling us his purpose, he intends to analyse the types and parts of storytelling (particularly the plot) that are on display in Athens. At this time, poetry was a performance art, one that told stories in the form of plays, songs, and narrative recitals – a subset of the fine arts that included music, painting, sculpture etc. Abstraction was not really something that the Greeks had a concept for – though they did use patterns on their pottery that were simply decoration.It also appears to be the case that written stories were only just emerging and presented a particular problem for Aristotle in deciding how to classify them.

The Medium Of Imitation

POETICS BOOK II

The Objects of Imitation

In this second part to Aristotle’s analysis he treats, briefly, of characters. According to Aristotle, drama is necessarily about characters. He refers to characters as “men in action”. But effectively, he means any characters with human traits. Whether gods or monsters, or oracles, (or anthropomorphised household objects in the Disney sense) characters in stories must, necessarily, be in action. They must want something and act to achieve it, even if what they want is to be left alone in order to do nothing.

It’s worth noting that in audio-drama, as in any form of drama, characters in action are crucial. No behaviour should ever be unmotivated and no driving motivation should be left un-acted upon. This is one of the keys to making our characters authentic and relatable.

It is also the case that a character’s motivation must be known to the audience (even if it is only known through sub-text). A character who acts in a senseless or unmotivated manner will always lack authenticity, as will a character who fails to act on, or acts contrary to, a driving (or significant) motivation that is known to the audience. In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the titular character’s dithering inaction is authentic because we understand it to be motivated by a desire to avoid confrontation and discomfort.

In typically Aristotelian fashion, Aristotle seeks to describe and categorise the things he is studying. In this case, characters (“men in action”) fall into three groups; those who are better (more noble and/or morally “good”) than we are, those who are as we are (having both strengths and weaknesses), and those who are worse (more foolish and/or morally “bad”) than we are. As usual, this is more a spectrum than a distinct set of classes without overlap. At the outer edges lie the caricatures (the “Dudley Do-rights” and the moustache twirling villains) but as we move a little towards the center, heroes begin to demonstrate flaws and villains begin to demonstrate redeeming features, while in the middle our “heroes” and “villains” may be all but indistinguishable, having “strengths” and “weaknesses” in equal measure. While tragedy and comedy (as Aristotle understood them) can draw on any of these types, he tended to see comedy as drawing primarily upon characters who are worse than we are, and serious drama (tragedy) as drawing on characters who are the same or better than we are.

This focus on the moral nature of characters is a little surprising to the modern thinker, but makes sense in the context of Ancient Greek society and its insistence that plays serve a civic purpose.

For the audio dramatist, the division is somewhat arbitrary. Exaggerated and foolish characters lend themselves to comedy, true, but the ability of an audience to relate to and identify with characters increases the further towards the middle of the spectrum characters are placed. Perfectly good, or capable characters (the dreaded “Mary Sue”) are the bane of engaging story-telling. Likewise, the unambiguously evil, or incapable character comes across as a caricature and leaves the audience unconvinced and unmoved by the action of the story.

Of more importance is the principle that characters must be in action (even if that action is a motivated desire to do nothing) and that characters must act according to motivations that the audience can recognize and relate to – the only, possible, exception to this would be where a character is sufficiently alien that we wish to emphasise its “unfathomable and alien nature” as lying beyond human understanding. Even here, however, great caution needs to be exercised, or the character becomes farcical. Better to give an alien being an understandable motivation (for example hunger) and bend it a little, than to present something too off the wall (such as a desire to merge with the color blue, or a tendency to lick people’s ankles every 17th of June).

POETICS BOOK III

The Manner of Imitation

Book, play, song, poem, (and today film, television, and audio-drama) are all means of delivering these imitations of life that we understand to be stories. Aristotle points out that books are different to plays. In a prose work, the author chooses who’s voice to address the reader with (his own, perhaps, or that of one of his characters). In a play numerous voices are employed and the action is made visual. In a radio drama, the voices are numerous and the action is made audible. Unlike the stage play (in which each performance is a varied and unique experience, even if performed night after night) the radio play is usually recorded and can be experienced over and over. The emphasis on rendering the action of the play through sound requires some unique understandings that do not necessarily apply as completely to other forms of art.

In film and on stage for example, the action, generally, occurs in front of the audience and the sounds support this. Any sounds are explicable. They are provided to add verisimilitude (realism) but require little explanation because we can generally see what the sound applies to.

In audio drama, however, sound is, while occasionally self-explanatory, typically quite ambiguous. The crackle of cellophane can be “read” by the audience as a crackling fire, a foot stepping on dry twigs, rain falling, or a sweet-wrapper being opened, to list just a few possibilities.

The more ambiguous nature of sound as compared with sight (and also as compared with the long narrative descriptions of a novel) makes clarity harder to achieve. And a lack of clarity breaks the immersion that is so central to the effectiveness of audio-drama.

I’ve written elsewhere in detail about immersion, sound, music, dialog, casting, and narration. If you’re interested in these matters (and they do, after all, contribute to a proper understanding of the elements that make audio-drama a distinct form of Imitation in the Aristotelian sense) the following articles may be of use…

PART IV

A Short History of Drama

This has turned into a longer discussion than I originally intended, but I do want to have a quick look at Aristotle’s discussion of the history and origin of story-telling in the Greek context before we complete Part 1.

As noted previously, for Aristotle, art is a form of imitation. He places the origin of the impulse to imitate, unsurprisingly, in human nature. Children, especially, learn through the imitation of things in the wider world (particularly their parents), and adults likewise do the same, though not with the same alacrity or delight necessarily. Aristotle points out that imitations of things delight us and give us pleasure. We see a particularly beautiful painting, or hear a particularly exemplary song, and we take pleasure in it. Even things which are frightening to experience in reality – war or spiders – can be enjoyed if experienced as a representation (a painting or picture or story).

Also as noted in the introduction, Aristotle saw plays as an outgrowth of song, which in turn grew out of fireside story telling. It’s long been known that pre-literate societies (which the Greeks were well in advance of) used rhythm and rhyme as a way of aiding the memory in the learning and transmitting of stories. In Europe, fairy and folk tales were passed down in pre-literate societies using patterns of language, etc. to aid in their remembering. Songs are remembered far longer and with more accuracy than any teacher’s lecture ever delivered.

As he explains it, the history of dramatic story telling is one in which the telling of stories became a matter of religious ritual, song and dance, performed by a group. At some point (Aristotle attributes the innovation to Aeschylus) actors began stepping out of this chorus to deliver lines. While at another (this time attributed to Sophocles) backdrops and props began to be used. The rhymes themselves began to be delivered in different rhythms (originally delivered in trochaic tetrameter – a rhythm suited to dance – but shifting to the iambic – a rhythm more closely approximating speech).

For millennia, verse was the primary means of delivering dialog in a play. Shakespeare used Iambic Pentameter for his noble characters (though the non-nobles spoke in a much more normal fashion). In deference to the Greek use of masks and archetypes, characters were often simplified caricatures, though throughout human history, uniquely human characters were being drawn by playwrights. The modern era of realistic dialog and characters was an innovation brought to us, not that long ago, by Henrik Ibsen and others of the “realist” school.

Aristotle had the good sense, born out by history, to understand that the dramatic form of his day was not necessarily the final “true” form that it would assume.

Those of us involved in the writing and production of audio drama need, likewise, to be wary of adopting a “one true way” attitude to the art. Audio drama is a unique art-form, different from a book and a film, but audio-drama is NOT a complete and proscribed art-form. It will continue to evolve and change, develop and adapt. There will be many expressions of audio-drama and this diversity is both to be expected and to be welcomed. Innovation is one of the signs that an art-form is alive.

A second lesson to be learned here is that Audio drama has a history and we fail to pay attention to that history at our cost. Many audio-dramatists look at the work done in the past with haughty disapproval. Often this is based on ignorance (an egotistical disregard for the past borne of the erroneous belief that we have, in the present, already surpassed it). In other cases, it is more realistic, having been born of exposure to the large amount of sub-standard material that was produced in the factory-like heyday of Old-Time-Radio. The result is that many new entrants in the audio-drama arena waste a lot of time recreating past errors, reinventing already established techniques, and stumbling over problems for which ready solutions already exist (and have existed for a long time).

Our attention to the past must be selective (we need to look at and learn from the masters of the form such as Arch Oboler, the team behind Gunsmoke, Carlton Morse, Norman Corwin, and many others) while also being critical (recognizing the importance of modern pacing, the failures and lazy excesses of the factory-like production system etc.).

Further, we need to be wary of any pre-conceived ideas about how the industry works (or should work). It’s not uncommon for folks to assume that work-for-hire, Hollywood, business models and conventions are the only ones available to those who want to work in the audio-drama space. This is, of course, not the case, as any examination of the history of the art-form will tell you. Investment money may attempt to tie up all manner of rights and one-sided-obligations in exchange for funding, but those rules are not written in stone and a couple of kids with a microphone can still attract the kind of audiences and revenue that the so-called “big-boys” can only dream of.Here are a couple of articles I have written on the importance of Audio drama’s history…

I will close with one last point. Something in the constitution of human beings, something deep within our psychology, predisposes us to enjoy and seek out stories. As well as getting an understanding of the past and present, it is essential for the writer of audio-drama to understand the nature of human psychology and work in cooperation with it to produce stories that most effectively produce delight. Earlier, I listed some articles I have written that discuss the unique way in which audio-drama interacts with the human mind. When we fight or ignore these features of human psychology (much as occurs when we ignore the lessons of the past and present) we fail to achieve the heights of which we and our art-form are capable. Perhaps this is the fundamental reason why a critical examination of a 2000 year old philosopher is worth our time, even today.

Next time, in Part 2, I will begin looking at Aristotle’s understanding the types of drama and the importance of plot.

The post Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Artistotle applied to Audio Drama (Part 1) appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Word Choices for Audio Dramatists

Philip Robotham — Wed, 13 Oct 2021 10:44:11 +0000

Cliché and curiosity-quenching prose are the twin enemies of the writer of good dialog. And first drafts are often filled with both.

Cliché is the Enemy

Because we are saturated with story, conversation, prose, poetry, and music lyrics, etc., our attempts at writing (at least in the first draft) are prone to include dull, conventional, and cliched words and phrases.

It’s not until someone stands out from the crowd that we notice the extent to which we have been sleep-walking through the culture we consume.

Take music for example. So many contemporary songs sound the same, using hackneyed sounds and rhythms and lyrics and chord progressions. It isn’t until someone like Ed Sheeran turns up and shows us something new and original that we realize just what a homogenous soup, the majority of modern music is.

The reason for this is something I have talked about before. The sheer breadth of our exposure to human speech (in dialog, film, television, song, poetry, lyrics, books, etc.) results in our first thoughts tending towards the conventional. Our first thoughts tend to reproduce the things we have seen before. Want a couple to meet for the first time? We might set the scene in a bar (because that’s where we’ve seen a thousand such scenes set). It’s the first thought we have. But if we stop and think about it for a moment, we could set that meeting somewhere far less clichéd; in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, a community center, a parent-teacher conference, a bookshop, or an airplane for example. Any of these would be a more interesting setting than a bar.

So it is with speech. We tend to choose familiar phrases like “at the end of the day”, “the bottom line”, “out of the frying pan” and so many others. Where we do so, we’ve rendered our writing more inclined to put our audience to sleep than hold their attention. The mind of the average audience member tends flow over familiar phrases without ever really paying attention to them.

Therefore, one of the writer’s first tasks is to eliminate cliché by digging a little deeper in search of original ways to express themselves; original words and phrases that raise questions for the reader.

Raising Questions

Curiosity is the writer’s best friend. We maintain reader interest through an exercise in successive set-up and payoff, raising questions (even at the level of sentence structure) to keep the audience engaged and eager to find out what will happen next.

What follows are some thoughts and tips on crafting dialog to maintain interest and avoid cliché.

Three levels of Dialog

Dialog represents three areas of personality coming out into the open – expressing the surface (literal) meaning of words, expressing an unspoken intention or the (intended) meaning behind the words, and expressing what the character cannot say (even to themselves); the unspoken (unintended) meaning of the words.

Context provides the keys to understanding the subtext or meaning behind a line and we increase the density of our dialog (a very good thing) where we find ways to layer in multiple levels of meaning.

Take the following exchange…

JENNY: “You didn’t stack the dishwasher? Again?”

JOHN: “So?”

SOUND: Plates fall with a crash.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS (HIGH HEELS) RUSH TO THE DOOR. DOOR SLAMS.

JENNY: (DISTANT, MUFFLED, SOBBING)

Jenny’s line indicates, at the literal level, that the dishwasher hasn’t been stacked, but also communicates her meaning that John should be helping out but is, instead, taking her for granted. Unspoken (even to herself) is another level of meaning – “You don’t love me!” – one that John’s heartless “so?” brings to the surface.

Three Types of Sentence and their Impact

Dialog is either front-loaded with meaning and elaborated upon, or backloaded with meaning, creating suspenseful sentences, or loaded with meaning at a middle point (doing a little of both).

JASPER: Dorothy sounded sour. Sour and angry and a little self-pitying.

Here we are given the meaning upfront and then that meaning is elaborated upon. As a structure, if the opening idea of the sentence is sufficiently startling (a “hook”) then the audience is carried along by the elaboration and expansion upon that idea. Sour is a great “impact” word. It’s close enough to bitter, but not as familiar and overused.

WENDY: Like venom. Like the poison from a snakebite, making its way through a wound. Subtle at first, but slowly paralyzing its victim as it makes its way to the heart. Always fatal. That’s what a conversation with Dorothy is like.

In this phrase, the audience is dragged along by curiosity. We want to know who this phrase refers to. The revelation that gives the phrase its meaning comes at the end.

BENNY: “‘Curdled’ was all I could think, “like the offer of a glass of warm milk spiked with lemon juice”. Dorothy’s voice scraped at my nerves, mid-way between a whine and an accusation, despite her winsome looks and harmless demeanor.”

In this phrase the revelation comes in the middle, and is accompanied by an explanatory elaboration; an attempt to achieve both effects (suspense and elaboration) is present.

Hook Words

Note that a hook word or image is usually present also. Something to grab at our attention that doesn’t put us to sleep with how commonplace and predictable it is; something that also raises a question for the reader. This is set up and pay-off at work in the realm of sentence construction. A question is raised; “in what way does Dorothy sound ‘sour’?”; “what is like ‘venom’?”; and “just what is it that is ‘curdled’?”. Each of these questions is paid off within a sentence or two, resolving the tension of the setup sentence.

The selection of the startling word and turn of phrase (those lines from films, plays, audio dramas, and novels that we love to quote) is an art for which a few rules can be found helpful. When crafting dialog, select words that grab attention. Use unusual rather than commonplace (forgettable) words. Say “her words were sour” rather than that “she sounded bitter”. Words that awaken the senses are always stronger and create a bigger impact than words that are merely descriptive. Analogies, similes, and metaphors are also more impactful than merely descriptive words. The phrase, “like the offer of a glass of warm milk spiked with lemon juice”, is more impactful than “she looks sweet but says mean things”.

Adaptation

For those who adapt stories, be aware that many of the best lines are contained in the narration rather than the dialog. Prose writers tend to reserve the best lines and observations for their descriptions and narrative flourishes. The dialog, resultantly, tends to be fairly boring by comparison. As such, when adapting, look for ways to spice up the dialog (perhaps by putting the best lines from the narration into the mouths of the characters.

Timing the Powerful Phrase I

When should we use a startling or memorable phrase? Generally, “less is more” so you want to reserve your best lines for moments that have the greatest dramatic impact. Where every line is equally attention-grabbing, fatigue sets in, and nothing appears important anymore. The opening, closing, and climax of the scene are obvious candidates for the placement of your best lines.

Examples

Opening lines…

GEORGE: (ROAR OF RAGE) Which one of you lime-suckin’ hillbillies killed my dog? One o’ you turned him into crow’s meat. What for? Huh? He never did anything to any o’ you.

Closing lines…

SADIE: When you’re done with your meal, Walt, you’re gonna go up to our room and pack your bag.

WALT: Oh yeah? Why do you think I’ll do that?

SADIE: ‘Cause if you don’t, I’m gonna take a carving knife to you in the middle of the night. I mean it. And you’ll wish that truck had run you over and turned you into ground tomatoes and beef. And don’t think I won’t relish it. I’ll be like one o’ those rich gals sipping at their fancy drinks. Just sipping and listening to your screams.

WALT: (SNORTS). You finally grown a spine, huh? (DEFEATED) Alright, I’m going, but I’ll skin you for this Sadie. Skin you and turn you into a saddle blanket. That’s what I’ll do. You’ll see.

Climax…

TIMMY – I saw it. And I wouldn’t believe it neither, ‘cept I saw it myself. And Chelsea was smiling. Smiling the whole time. You’ve gotta believe me, it was her. Covered in gore all the way to her armpits, laughing like she just won at musical chairs, and swinging that knife like the baton in an orchestra.

To introduce a scene with an attention-grabbing line acts as a hook to pull your audience into the scene. To land a strong line at the end of a scene pays the scene off for the audience, leaving them satisfied and ready to continue forward (especially if it sets up a new question to be answered in the next scene).

Timing the Powerful Phrase II

Emotional turning points and key revelations within the scene are also great candidates for the delivery of a strong line, adding memorability and impact to a moment in which the author deliberately seeks to emotionally affect the audience.

Examples

Emotional Turn…

TOM: Hey everyone, I’ve got something to say. Emily, come up here, sweetie. That’s it. Um, I’ve got some news. (TO CROWD) Yeah, you guessed it, Emily has agreed to become my wife.

SOUND: APPLAUSE

TOM: So… Em? Got anything to say?

SOUND: (LOUD) SLAP INTO SHOCKED SILENCE FOR A BEAT.

EMILY: You’re a pig disease, Tom Franks. A pig disease on the skin of this community that won’t ever heal over. I hate you. I’m leaving.

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS RUN AWAY

SOUND: SHOCKED MURMURING FROM GUESTS

Key Revelation…

DOCTOR HARGREAVES: We spend decades learning to do what we do. And we’re only ever one malpractice suit away from having to start again. That you’d throw in your lot with the muck-rakers and ambulance chasers, tells me all I ever needed to know. You’re not my son.

Economy of Language

The sentences in the examples so far have all been a bit wordy. Long sentences are my personal kryptonite; I take way too long to say things. Taking out unnecessary words and leaving only what is essential to convey the character’s meaning is an incredibly important skill for the audio drama writer (and one, because it is a personal weakness of mine, I am forced to work on every day). Unnecessary repetition, overuse of adverbs, using six words where one would do, confused and unclear sentences… These sins must be struck out through careful editing. Editing can be the removal of dialog, but sometimes it’s the rearrangement of the same. At other times again, it requires an entire rewrite.

Look at the key revelation example above. Doctor Hargreaves’ line (like most of the lines I have used in these examples) is too long and cumbersome to feel authentic.

We could rewrite the line to be a bit more efficient as follows…

DOCTOR HARGREAVES: Despite years of sweat, I’m only one malpractice suit away from losing everything. The ambulance chasers don’t care. All they see are the dollars, but you know better. (BEAT) But you still took their side. (BEAT) You’re not my son.

It might not be perfect, but it is markedly improved. It’s more personal. The accusation against the son is clearer. The last two lines are short, accusatory and final.

Beware, however, of stripping out the characterization in search of a more efficient phrase.

“I didn’t do nothing, missus. Honest” may be less efficient than “I did nothing, missus”, but the character of the speaker is lost when the dialog is pared back this far.

Silence and the Pause

Silence is the final element of dialog I want to discuss today. The audio dramatist doesn’t have any visuals to engage in the heavy lifting except those they invent themselves. As such, body language, facial expression, posture, etc. are unavailable to help communicate the story. Everything must be communicated through voice and tone (what Artistotle referred to as diction). Diction is more truly the actor’s preserve than the writer’s, so I won’t spend much time on it here. However, it’s important to remember that meaning can be leveraged through tone of voice and vocal expression to indicate all manner of heightened emotional states, some congruent with the words being spoken (encouraging trust) while others are incongruent (sarcasm, etc.). These, however, are matters of performance.

With regard to the text itself, there is one more feature of dialog worth mentioning; the pause.

NARRATOR: The pause, (BEAT) dear listener, can be as eloquent as any raised eyebrow or frown.

Pauses can emphasize the drama, express confusion, suggest cold disdain, or express shock, etc. In audio drama, the pause has traditionally been indicated by the bracketed (BEAT) notation (as per the narrator example above).

Conclusion

To be an effective writer, not every line needs to be a zinger. But delivered at judicious moments of high dramatic impact, especially if the line represents multiple levels of communication, strewn with occasional and appropriate pauses, and edited with care, an original line of dialog, or turn of phrase, can turn an otherwise ordinary play into something both quotable and memorable.

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Communicating Exposition in Audio Drama Script Writing

Philip Robotham — Sat, 09 Oct 2021 12:18:55 +0000

EXPOSITION

I’ve been thinking about exposition in audio drama lately and thought I’d take a moment to sum up some of the conclusions I’ve reached regarding how to deliver it.

ON THE NOSE EXPOSITION

Exposition is incredibly easy to get wrong – something I have proved in my own writing more than I’d like to admit. Most “on-the-nose” dialog tends to occur in sections of exposition. Nothing offends the sensibilities of the audience more than dialog like the following…

BOB – As you know, Sarah, we’ve been married for nearly twenty years and are still as much in love as we were on the day we took our vows.
SARAH – Yes, Bob. And even though we have our problems and argue from time to time, we always patch up our differences in the end.

Two characters telling each other what they already know is an ugly and ham-fisted way to communicate exposition to the audience. The audience automatically realizes the characters are not talking to each other (but to them) and recoils at how artificial and false it sounds. When approaching exposition, the writer needs to ask “is it natural?”, “is it minimal?”, and “is it necessary?”. It should be drip-fed to an audience and there should never be a lot of it at once (a cardinal sin). It has to feel like a natural part of the conversation, and it must contribute something essential to the story (such that without it, something important would be missing). As soon as the minimum necessary information has been imparted, it needs to disappear. Exposition also needs to be appropriately motivated. Generally speaking (with an exception discussed below) exposition should never involve characters telling each other what they already know.

WORD PICTURES AS EXPOSITION

One way to deliver exposition is to have characters build word pictures with the dialog. In this example, I have tried to embed exposition into the dialog to create a picture of a particular place (an advertising agency)…

GEORGE – (TO MICHAEL) You should come and visit the Monkey House some time. When the other alphas aren’t flinging crap at each other, we actually do some good work.
MICHAEL – (UNIMPRESSED) Sounds charming.
GEORGE – It’s not so bad – even fun – up to a point. You don’t get a 21^st floor outlook on Madison Avenue by playing nice, so it’s competitive as hell. But, so long as you don’t trust any of ’em, you can make a decent hand from the advertising game… and have a pretty good time doing it.

At the least, it’s better than…

GEORGE – As you know, I work for a Madison Avenue Advertising Firm that is scary, competitive, but fun.

In the dialog above, George wants to impress Michael. Michael’s lack of enthusiasm prompts him to try harder and reveal more and so, as well as revealing the setting, it tells us something about the characters and their relationship.

Wherever possible dialog should strive to accomplish more than one thing (advance the plot and reveal character, reveal character and establish setting, establish setting and advance the plot, etc.).

Exposition in dialog can be used to expose more than mere location data, however.

SANDY – I thought I told you not to come back here.
BOYD – C’mon Missus. I just want to buy a pie.
SANDY – Hmpf. I know you can read. ” No shirt. No shoes. No service.”
BOYD – I ‘aven’t got a shirt. Leastways, not one that buttons up. But I got some cash.
SANDY – Rob anyone for it?
BOYD – No, Missus. You know I’d never.
SANDY – (EXASPERATED) What the hell happened to you, Boyd? You were a good kid once. Tearing around the neighbourhood with the others. None of them are sleeping rough.
BOYD – ‘s no work Missus.
SANDY – (SIGHS) Alright, Boyd. But come around to the back door. The smell’s gonna drive my regular customer’s away. And I’ll be keeping the change. You don’t get to track your filth into my shop and not pay for it.

Boyd’s intention is to buy a pie from Sandy. As part of their exchange we learn that Boyd is living on the street, unemployed, doesn’t have a shirt that buttons up, and badly needs a shower. We also learn that Sandy sees homelessness as a moral failing but has no problem stealing the change from a homeless person. The real interest for the audience lies in the questions that are raised. Is Boyd as polite and obsequious as he seems or is he playing the role that is expected of the down-trodden? Is Sandy, truly, a compassionless cow? How do they know each other? In the process of having our curiosity prompted, we learn a few things about how Boyd looks, smells, and lives from day to day, as well as how Sandy sees the world. Wherever possible, revelations should prompt questions to keep the audience engaged.

EXPOSITION AS CONFLICT

Another way to deliver exposition is to turn it into ammunition in a conflict. Generally speaking, you never want to have characters telling each other what they already know (the dreaded “as you know…” opening above), but in a conflict, people often bring up the past, weaponize it, and throw it in the face of their opponent.

JIM – You’re a pig! You knew I was almost ready to buy that shop. Another week and I’d have had the deposit.
BILL – Yeah, well. If you’d really wanted it, you’d have got the loan sooner. And you’d know better than to blab your intentions down at the pub.
JIM – How many drinks did you buy me that night?
BILL – Hey, you were the one who drank ’em!
JIM – You’re a thief!
BILL – I’m a business man. You’d have done the same.
JIM – You really believe that, don’t you? That’s the difference between you and me. You’d sell your own mother for an extra quid or two.
BILL – No-one needs your “community center”. At least I’ll be creating some jobs.
JIM – You’re opening an adult goods store in the middle of the village square. Cheap pornography, two streets from the local comprehensive school.
BILL – Don’t act all outraged with me. People need what I sell. And if I wasn’t selling it, someone else would.
JIM – What the hell happened to you, Jim? You were always a hustler, but you never ripped off your mates. Two years in London and you’re almost unrecognizable. Is this how you’re going to treat everyone from the old days?

In this dialog, the two characters throw facts at each other as part of their conflict and we learn a lot about them and the setting in the process.

EXPOSITION AS REVELATION

Another way dialog can be used to provide exposition is through the exposure of secrets. People keep secrets and watching those secrets get forced into the open is both dramatic and fascinating. It’s a particularly good way to reveal backstory. How does this happen? Usually, it is through the character finding themselves in a situation where the revelation of the secret is the lesser of two evils.

JANE – I don’t understand. Are you being blackmailed?
ERNEST – No. It’s not that.
JANE – Then, I don’t know, an affair? Are you keeping a mistress?
ERNEST – No. I’ve never cheated on you.
JANE – Then what is it? The secret account… These payments… You’ve been making them for years. Who is this woman?
ERNEST – Damn it Jane, why’d you have to be so nosy? I kept it from you because I didn’t want you hurt. Truth is, I have a daughter. From before we met. I’ve been paying for her education. She doesn’t know.
JANE – But… all these years. And you never told me?

Here, Ernest feels it’s better to admit to what is really happening than let Jane form her own conclusions.

EXPOSITION THROUGH NARRATION

Lastly, exposition in audio drama can be direct (in the form of narration). Elsewhere I’ve written in defense of short, unobtrusive narration. The narrator can be a character in their own right (Doctor Watson), a voice-over that provides internal monologue (Sam Spade), a breaker of the fourth wall who turns and addresses the audience (Ferris Bueler), or a non-character that provides short connecting exposition (“meanwhile, back at the ranch…”). The downside of narration is that it always disrupts the immersion of the listener in an audio drama, but its advantage lies in its ability to communicate exposition quickly and then get out of the way so that the drama can continue. A brief disruption to our sense of immersion (the briefer the better) can be forgiven if it lets us communicate scene, setting, and background details in a way that saves or avoids pages of clumsy dialog.

NARRATOR – Jenny sits on her bed fingering the edge of her knife and trying to come up with a reason NOT to seek her revenge…

This kind of narration sets up place character and intention, all in a single sentence. It might be more satisfying to introduce these facts through dramatization, but if the real story (the story the writer intends to be told) is what follows this moment, then these brief words are easily forgiven. For most listeners, a brief moment of narration (if short and infrequent) is the equivalent of a mild misstep that doesn’t break your stride. It is jarring but quickly forgotten as the drama takes over (and the important details are retained).

Are there any other techniques for exposition that you are aware of and would like to share? I’d be keen to hear them.

The post Communicating Exposition in Audio Drama Script Writing appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

The Deaf Writer’s guide to sound and silence (Part 2) – constructing and cueing sound effects – what the writer needs to know.

Philip Robotham — Fri, 30 Jul 2021 22:01:54 +0000

Once again, I am, in my overlong and wordy way, wading into an area of Audio drama that, as a person who has significant hearing loss, I probably don’t belong. As with my last article on the topic of sound and silence, these aren’t hills I’m particularly committed to dying on – merely thoughts and observations on sound from my own point of view (as a scriptwriter).

STORY FIRST

What’s the most important part of an audio drama? The dialog? The sound effects? The music? None of the above.

The most important part of an audio drama is the story. Every element of the drama must serve (and not compete with) the story. Anything that gets in the way of the story (whether the dialog, the sound, or the music) must be jettisoned. That is not to say that any of these elements are unimportant. They all matter, but the thing that decides the relative value of each is their contribution to telling the story.

In a previous article, I talked about how the relative importance of each is highlighted by audio drama’s spotlight; volume. That which is most important is loudest while that which is of lesser importance becomes part of the background. And we determine what should be loudest by its relative value to convey the story. Sometimes, the dialog is front and center. Sometimes the sound effects necessarily overwhelm everything else, and sometimes the music needs to soar in order to convey the emotion of the scene. The importance of the element is conveyed by its volume from moment to moment, and that volume is determined by its importance to the needs of the story from moment to moment.

When it comes to sound, it is easy to fall into the trap of over-layering sound – a trap that is peculiar to sound engineers. People who work with sound tend to have a highly tuned “ear”. Typically, they detect more sounds than the average (in terms of the range of pitch and loudness, softness), and they tend to be able to distinguish (or identify) more sounds than the average person. The downside of this gift is that they can lose sight of how a sound “reads” to an ordinary person.

TYPES OF SOUND

There are two, general, types of sound effects. Self-identifying and ambiguous.

Self-identifying sounds are sounds that most people can be relied upon to recognise without any help from the context or external cues. A police siren, a heart monitor, a tin whistle, and a bell tend to be sounds that are self-identifying.

Ambiguous sounds are sounds we rely on the context to decode. Is that the hiss of a pneumatic pump, or a steam kettle, or a snake? Is that the sound of rain on a rooftop, or the sound of a fire burning in the hearth? When it comes to ambiguous sounds (sounds that are similar enough to be difficult to distinguish) we let the context tell us what they represent.

And herein lies one of the great freedoms of audio drama. You can build a soundscape that is “readable” by an audience from sounds that are not exact matches to the real thing (crumpled cellophane can stand in for flames, etc.). Sometimes sound engineers forget that their trained “ear” is significantly more sensitive than that of the typical listener and that, in the midst of a story, a close, but not perfect, sound will be read as the story requires so long as the context and dialog support it. Likewise, without proper context, a sound that, in terms of verisimilitude, is an exact representation of something in the real world, will be misread if not properly supported (fire really does sound like rain – and vice versa – if the context isn’t clear and goes a long way towards explaining the dreadful cliché of having a thunderclap sound before a downpour is heard).

Commitment to realism is great but, if it is not paired with a recognition of the need for context to establish its “readability”, it will only confuse an audience. “Deep” soundscapes quickly become confusing noise where the sounds that are layered into them are without context and/or are hard to pick out. The skilled sound engineer is in danger of letting their own capacity to identify sounds carry them away when constructing an immersive soundscape.

So how much is enough? And how accurate must we aim to be?

REALISM VS. REPRESENTATION

Sound does not need to be “realistic” to be effective. The imagination of the audience can carry a production a long way.

Let’s imagine a sound effect or two that we would like to build. Start with a body drop, for example.

What are the chief characteristics of a body drop? For a start, it’s a soft thud, to be differentiated from the harder thud of a block of wood falling to the floor, or the metallic clang of a kitchen knife falling. It also sounds “heavy”. It has a resonance and weight to it. A duffle bag full of cloth scraps makes a great body drop sound, but in a pinch so will allowing your arm to fall heavily on a wooden desk. The brevity of the sound means that there are plenty of substitutions that could be made here. The context (a gunshot or a character crying “lookout, she’s going to faint”) will be enough to establish any reasonable facsimile of a body drop, and the quickness of the sound effect will cover any slight lack of realism in its use.

Approximation is fine when it comes to ambiguous sounds, but there is a limit. A duffle bag full of sharp-edged blocks of wood would make a clatter that would contradict the context – falling people don’t clatter. The incongruity or dissonance would break the audience’s sense of immersion and their willing suspension of disbelief.

What about a more complex sound, for example, a horse and cart? Well, you could go out and record the sound of a horse and cart of course, but you could also build the “impression” by building together a bunch of approximations. Coconuts can be used for the hooves on a hard surface, as can bags of cloth thumped against the chest for hooves on a soft surface. The rhythm is ultimately what sells the sound. What else is needed? The rumble of the wheels of the cart is a key sound. A friend of mine put a steel drum on a crank handle and made a passable wagon’s rumble by turning it. Together this might be enough, but the jangle of some car keys to suggest tack and harness could be added as well. The context needs to ultimately sell the combination of sounds, so a character saying “It’s been hard work gettin’ this wagon down the trail” or something less on-the-nose would clinch the deal.

Do you need more? More could certainly be added. You could simulate the thump and clatter of the cart hitting bumps with a couple of blocks of heavy wood. Layering in some horse snorts and some ambient outdoor noises (birds, wind, etc.) could also help. But to “read” the scene, the audience only needs enough sound to register the context and support what is taking place in their imaginations. And, as mentioned in a previous article, sound fades from our attention once it has done the job of establishing itself – so it needn’t stay for long and should never be allowed to stay in the foreground long enough to distract us from the story.

Some sounds can’t be faked, of course. Animal vocalisations are particularly difficult unless you have access to a skilled impressionist. As a result, a recording of a real horse’s neigh or lion’s roar may be required. But many sounds can be approximated with a bit of creativity. A friend of mine simulated a cart crashing into a wall by slowly crushing a balsa wood box (that he built out of some balsa wood planes that were being thrown away) against a table. The result was great.

Near-enough is often good enough, as far as our brains are concerned, so long as there is context (in the form of other sounds or dialog) to help identify the action – but selectivity is essential. Just like the mind, a good audio drama will ignore sounds in which it is not immediately interested and will aim to employ sounds primarily for their clarity and effective communication. By this selection, audio scripts control and direct the listener’s attention. It is important to only introduce sounds that serve a dramatic purpose. If this does not happen the story is rendered confusing. Listeners are forced to pay attention to the irrelevant and lose track of the important.

MINIMALISM – SELECTING AND PRESENTING ONLY WHAT IS NEEDED

I don’t want to rehash the points made in the previous article in this series except to say that an immersive and realistic soundscape is a great thing, if you have the budget and technical expertise, but a minimalist approach to audio drama can be just as effective (if not more so) because of its selectivity. An approach where only sounds that contribute to the story are selected is not to be underestimated. Most listeners won’t notice that they haven’t been hearing footsteps in the story, even if we introduce the sound of someone limping at a later point. Our brains are quite selective regarding what we pay attention to and we rarely notice the absence of a particular sound if it isn’t important to the action. Audio drama is quite “realistic” in this sense – it doesn’t have to give us a layered and detailed soundscape to be satisfying. In fact, a minimalist approach that carefully selects sounds for their contribution to the drama can feel more immersive simply because of the absence of distracting “noise”.

THE WRITER’S ROLE

But what significance does this have for the writer? After all, isn’t all this the preserve of the sound engineer? You don’t want to step on another person’s creative expression, right?

The design of the sounds themselves are definitely the preserve of the sound engineer. However, the ambiguity of sound makes identifying the sounds for the audience a writer’s problem. Without the sense of sight to tell us what an ambiguous sound refers to, we need cues to help in their identification. Ambiguous sounds require “stage-setting” or guidance from the writer. This stage-setting should generally occur before the sound is introduced to prevent confusion. If the listener is thinking conveyor-belt before the sound is identified as a waterfall, then confusion will, inevitably, result.

Generally, the identification of a sound is made through dialogue or narration.

IDENTIFICATION THROUGH DIALOG

When identifying sounds through dialog, the identification doesn’t need to be explicit. Indirect reference works equally well.

SOUND: RUMBLE OF CAR – FADE IN.
BOB: Take the back roads, Jim. We can’t afford to get stopped again this trip.
JIM: Sure. It might slow us down a bit, though.
BOB: It’s better than trying to explain why we’ve got Ted Wilson’s body in the trunk.

Narration has a bad reputation these days, but a few words of narration can render an otherwise confusing soundscape intelligible.

NARRATOR: Ted and George make their way through a busy building site.
SOUND: WHINE OF A METAL SAW, CLANG OF HAMMERS AND PIPES ETC. – ESTABLISH AND UNDER
TED: Keep your head down. If Moretti’s guys spot us, they aren’t gonna play nice. A lot of innocent workers are gonna get hurt.
GEORGE: Then why did you lead us here?
TED: They’d have spotted us on the street in a minute. Our only chance of getting out of this alive is to lose ’em in here, so stop your whining.

IDENTIFICATION THROUGH OTHER SOUNDS

Occasionally sounds can be used to identify other sounds. Again, it doesn’t need to be explicit; an implied identification is often all that is required. The sound of thunder prior to rain, the sound of a car horn to introduce a car’s motor, or the sound of a train whistle to introduce a train are common to the point of being a cliché. The sound of a heart monitor automatically establishes that we are in a hospital and will identify an otherwise ambiguous whooshing sound as intubation.

In many cases, sounds become clear through context (through the plot itself), via perfectly natural references in dialogue and narration.

BACKGROUND SOUND

Sounds can serve a purpose in setting the scene: establishing the presence of a babbling brook, or busy roadway. Scene setting is essential but many (perhaps most) scene setting sounds are not self-identifying. Bird song suggests a rural setting, outdoors during daytime, and crickets suggest night. Horns honking suggests traffic, but running water? Scene setting narration or exposition may be required.

Compare…

SOUND: RUNNING WATER – FADE IN, ESTABLISH, FADE UNDER
JENNY: I don’t see any way across the stream, do you? Should we wade through?
SAMANTHA: It depends how deep it is in the middle. I can’t swim, remember?

With…

SOUND: TINNY RADIO – UNDER – AT A DISTANCE
SOUND: RUNNING WATER – FADE IN, ESTABLISH, FADE UNDER AND CONTINUE TO 6.
SOUND: OCCASIONAL SPLASHING – CONTINUE UNDER
JENNY: Don’t let the sink overflow.
GEORGE: I won’t.
JENNY: What are you doing, anyway? It’s not like you to clean the dishes.
SOUND: FAWCETT TURNS OFF – LET IT FINISH.
GEORGE: I’m doing my socks.
JENNY: At the office? I’m sorry I asked.

The same running water sound effect could be used in both, but the context identifies the sound differently for the listener in each.

In long scenes, we may need to bring the background sound back to the audience’s attention from time to time in order to keep the setting alive.

Later…

SOUND: PLUNK (WATCH FALLS INTO BASIN) – LET IT FINISH.
GEORGE: Damnit. That was my watch.
JENNY: Aren’t you finished yet?
SOUND: SPLASHING IN SEARCH OF IT – CONTINUE UNTIL 6.
GEORGE: I was just about to pull the plug.
JENNY: Was it worth it?
GEORGE: Huh? (BEAT) Wait, there it is. If I clean off the suds it’ll be good as new.
JENNY: You know, worth it? I mean your socks have to cost less than your watch.
GEORGE: Not as much as you might think, and besides, nothing beats wash-basin fresh. Anyway, it’s not the first time. The watch will dry out… eventually.

But if you go to the trouble to introduce setting and events with sound, make sure they contribute something to the story. If we must listen to George drop his watch in the basin, then the story had better include a moment later on where George’s watch is discovered to have stopped and where that stoppage has a significant impact on George’s life.

UNREALISTIC SOUND

I’ve already mentioned that sounds intended to represent real-world experiences can break immersion where they are not close enough to the real thing, are not identified for the audience, or contradict an audience’s expectations. But it is also possible to use sound deliberately in an unrealistic manner.

Comedic scripts in particular make use of unrealistic sound cues. A door might open and close in an unrealistically fast manner or a whoosh might accompany the suggestion that someone is traveling across town at blinding speed. A slide whistle might accompany a fall or a comedic crash might accompany someone tripping over. Bird whistles might accompany someone receiving a bump on the head. These unrealistic sounds will fit such a context – if they appear to be a deliberate choice by the script’s writer and producer. The danger, of course, is that the audience might think the sound is merely a poor choice or accident.

Here contrast and exaggeration help. Unrealistic sounds require a certain amount of exaggeration to read as deliberate. If you want to make a comedic body drop, the sound should not be similar to a realistic body drop. Instead, the sound should be exaggerated in its difference. A standard body drop is a heavy thud, so the comedic body drop could be presented as a metallic crash. It would be advisable to lean into the difference by extending it a little and exaggerating it (so that the sound includes numerous metallic pieces falling and perhaps a trailing item ringing as it comes to rest).

Another unrealistic use of sound arises when you want to communicate symbolically. It’s a little cliché, but the ticking metronome is easily read by an audience to indicate that time is running out. Music, such as the “dun-dun-dah” sting used to announce the discovery of a body, is also a well-recognized (cliché) audio symbol.

WRITING SOUND CUES IN THE SCRIPT

Remember, the written sound cue puts a spotlight on a particular sound. That sound will be given prominence in the story for a moment through volume. As such, only the most important sounds tend to make it into the script… and when they do it is because they fulfill an important role in the story.

A number of formats are currently in circulation for audio drama (American Audio drama, BBC format, Screenplay format). I have my own preference (American Audio drama), but writers need to use the format preferred by the production company they are working with – and I have used each, as required, at different times. My preference for American Audio Drama format arises from its use at the height of the Golden Age of Radio Drama. It was developed specifically for radio in the context of the high-volume production environment of the ’30s through ’50s when audio drama was engaged in constant innovation and refinement. As a result, it is highly efficient and radio-specific. The BBC format (again designed for radio) is my second choice. Screenplay format was designed for a visual medium and isn’t, in my view, as good a fit for audio production, but it does have the advantage of being readily automated and available in tools like Final Draft, CeltX, Fade In, and Studio Binder – lots of companies prefer it.

Regardless of the script format, sound cues are generally formatted in ALL-CAPS with underlined text in the present tense. The golden age of radio taught writers to make them as simple as possible. Many shows were produced live and depended on the effects being quickly read and implemented by the sound effects staff. The habit of concision is still worth cultivating. The sound engineer will thank you for keeping the cues short, to the point, and concrete.

Bad cues are wordy, needlessly abstract, and don’t serve the story. E.g…

SOUND: GEORGE ENTERS THE ROOM WITH A SOUND LIKE THE SLOW LEAKING OF A BROKEN HEART

Good cues are short, to the point, concrete, and serve the story.

SOUND: DOOR OPENS

Some additional cue-words and descriptions are listed below that can help to capture your intention for a sound effect.

SOUND: (WALLA) CROWDED CITY STREET – FADE IN, ESTABLISH, FADE UNDER AND OUT.

(BRIDGE) — Music played between scenes — the audio drama equivalent of raising and lowering the curtain on a scene.

CONTINUE UNTIL — Let the sound or music play until a particular line number or symbol (such as * ) is reached.

[CUE] — The actor or sound should wait for the director to indicate it is time to begin delivering the line or playing.

ESTABLISH — Let the sound or music play for a moment before any other sound or dialog is added.

FADE IN — Start the sound or music softly and then gradually increasing its volume.

FADE OUT — Gradually lower the volume on the sound or music until it can no longer be heard.

FADE UNDER (or simply UNDER) — Lowering the volume of the sound effect or music until the actors’ voices are clearly audible over it.

LET IT FINISH — Playing the sound or music until it is complete without fading it.

(STING) — Music used as punctuation to emphasize the emotion of a moment. The “dum-de-dum-dum” that plays when a body is discovered or the “bada-bing” cymbal crash of a joke being delivered etc.

UNDER — Continue a sound effect or music at low volume under the dialog or action taking place.

(WALLA) — Background sound belonging to the environment (for example, the sounds of a busy street).

While it is generally the sound engineer’s responsibility to source, construct, record, and edit sound effects, the inclusion of sound cues in the script remains an essential skill for the writer. The number of sounds that require identification far outnumbers those that are self-identifying. As such it is essential for the audio scriptwriter to identify those sounds for the audience in the script. The scriptwriter (even a hearing-impaired writer like me) must know, at least a little, about how sounds are constructed and how they can be identified for and decoded by the audience.

The post The Deaf Writer’s guide to sound and silence (Part 2) – constructing and cueing sound effects – what the writer needs to know. appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

The Deaf Writer’s Guide to Sound and Silence in Audio Drama

Philip Robotham — Fri, 03 Jul 2020 02:08:55 +0000

As a person who has a hearing loss (deaf in one ear) I always feel a little awkward sharing thoughts on sound. After all, there are whole bands of sound-frequencies that I can’t detect that are available to everyone else, so who am I to express an opinion? However, my inability to detect certain pitches, etc. does not, I think, prevent me from making some basic observations regarding sound from an audio-script-writer’s point of view – and in my imagination, and as I write on the page, my hearing is as good as anyone else’s.

Audio engineers and sound effects artists have expertise that I, as a writer, do not. But my script should aim to provide these artists with appropriate guidance as to the way sound should be used in the telling of my stories. Some of this guidance will be ignored (in favour of that expertise) but my own expertise as a storyteller is only enhanced when I understand and can use the spatial, psychological, and auditory qualities of human experience (hearing in particular) to more effectively tell my story.

It’s common, when thinking about audio drama, to focus, as a writer, on speech (dialogue and narration), sound effects, and music. After all, these are where the storytelling happens.

However, that is not all there is. Speech, SFX, and music might form the canvas upon which we paint our stories, but a fourth (if somewhat abstract) element is essential to our understanding and our writing; that is, volume.

Volume

Volume is audio drama’s spotlight. That which is loudest is most important. Therefore, by controlling the volume, the audio dramatist controls and directs the attention of the audience.

A common mistake, even among experienced dramatists, is, in production, to fail to effectively separate background from foreground. An immersive soundscape that is not sufficiently distinguishable from the dialog becomes an inaccessible and confusing jumble. Where everything is equally loud, our brains attempt to treat everything as equally important. And where everything is equally important, nothing is important, and so all is confusing.

From a writer’s point of view, the spotlight is controlled through the use of sound directions such as ESTABLISH, FADE UP, CROSS FADE, FADE OUT, FINISH, SOFT, LOUD, AT A DISTANCE, DEPARTING, APPROACHING etc. Newcomers to audio drama sometimes fail to realize that the most effective use of sound cannot be accomplished without a little understanding of how our brains work when hearing and listening.

Selective Attention and Fading

Not all sound is equal. The world around us is full of sound. True silence is very rare. Yet we don’t consciously experience all (or even most) of the sounds that are occurring near us at any given time.

As I write this, I can hear a fan running, the sound of my kids in the background getting breakfast, and the sound of some birds outside (it’s early morning). There’s also some traffic in the distance as well as a dog barking. But until I specifically stopped and listened, those sounds did not register consciously, or command my attention. I was experiencing silence where there was none. This experience of silence in the midst of sound is a function of the human brain.

There is, in our brains, an area known as the Reticular Activating System. It acts as a filter, designed to select what we need to pay attention to from all the stimulus we experience. It selects what it thinks is most important and weeds out (or silences) the rest.

When I get up in the morning and get dressed I might, for a few moments, feel the cloth of my shirt against my skin, but the RAS quickly decides this is not important and silences that sensation so that it won’t distract me throughout the day. Can I still feel the texture of the cloth? Absolutely. But my brain has filtered the sensation out – effectively silencing it. This is also true of the sounds we hear.

The sounds I mentioned before were all around me (and still are), but my brain was filtering them out (silencing them) because they were not important. This is something the brain does automatically. Registering new sounds, deciding whether they are important or not, and bringing them to our conscious attention (or suppressing them) according to its own inner logic is an automatic and unconscious feature of human experience.

In audio drama, the writer and the producer of sound seeks to mimic this through control of volume.

But if the brain is so clever, and does this naturally, why should it be necessary for us to try to take control of this process when writing audio-drama?

In part it is due to the technology of audio drama delivery – the speakers, headphones, etc. that the sound is being delivered to us through. When the brain focuses on an audio drama, it treats the speaker(s) as a single source for the purpose of filtering and doesn’t attempt to filter out any of the background sound the drama supplies.

In the real world, we automatically filter the background sounds around us out. But when listening to an audio drama, the producers must do this for us, mimicking what our brains would otherwise do naturally, effectively tricking the listener’s brain into believing the drama is a facsimile of reality.

How is this achieved? Through the use of the fade.

When we enter a crowded restaurant, we hear the soundscape behind us (cutlery clinking, the murmur of many voices, perhaps some ambient music). These sounds set the scene, but, in the real world, these sounds are of little importance and quickly fade out and are excluded from conscious notice while we focus on what we do feel is important; the voices of our dinner companions.

Audio dramas which continuously play realistic background sound under the action and dialogue, ironically, fail to create realism. We instinctively know that we should not be continuously aware of the background, and so the scene feels off and slightly unreal.

However, when the audio drama plays the background sound at the start of the scene then fades it to nothing when the dialog begins, we notice nothing. It simulates our ordinary experience and therefore both feels real, and is not noticed.

Likewise, footsteps. Footsteps that play continuously under a scene are distracting. Footsteps that are established and fade out, are not.

Note the importance of FADE rather than STOP. If the background sound simply stops, we notice it and wonder why. If the footsteps stop suddenly, we assume the individuals have stopped walking. But by fading the noise out, the audience assumes the sound is still present (even though it is gone).

When we wish to reintroduce background sound, however, we usually bring it back sharply, mimicking the abrupt shift of our attention back to the soundscape (turning what was unnoticed, and therefore silent, background into foreground).

In our restaurant scene, we might have our characters enter the restaurant and establish the ambient sounds, quickly fading them out as their conversation gets under way. But when two gunmen enter brandishing weapons we bring the background noise back into focus as the patrons scream and drop their cutlery etc. in response to the changed conditions.

Likewise, we might fade out the sound of footsteps while our characters are walking down the street, but when they stop, we might introduce the sound of their shoes scuffing to a standstill, signalling the end of the walk (even though the sounds of walking were not present for a significant period).

Microphone Position

The position of the microphone is another key element of sound design. The microphone stands in for the audience member. Each audience member is the unseen eavesdropper listening in on the action. Part of the immersion created by audio-drama comes from this realisation. When a character moves away from the microphone, they are moving away from the audience member. When they approach the microphone, they are approaching the audience member. And when the microphone follows a character, the audience member is, in fact, doing the following. This allows us to create various levels of involvement and distance in the story. A different emotional effect is created when actors approach and move away from the microphone to when the microphone follows them around (moving with them from one room to another, for example).

Spatial Quality

I also want to make a point with regard to reverb. One of the unconscious cues we use to orient ourselves in space is the amount of reverb we experience. We can tell whether we are outdoors, or inside a cavernous room, or inside a small box, based on the echo (or its lack) around us. When the spatial characteristics of the locations we choose to present to our audience are ignored in the production, we create a sense of unreality. Some writers argue that the inclusion of INT and EXT (interior and exterior) is unnecessary in audio drama scripts, but this is not the case. The location has a distinct impact on the design and production of the sound.

Immersive versus minimalist sound design

One area I have deliberately avoided commenting on, at least until this point, is that of immersive sound-scapes versus minimalist sound design. Here my hearing disability has a bearing and I’m fairly certain my perspective is skewed. I am personally biased towards minimalism. Like many folks with hearing loss, there are certain auditory experiences that are very unpleasant. I dislike being in large crowds or crowded restaurants where there is a lot of ambient noise. The sounds tend to bleed together into a white-noise haze that I cannot separate. As a result, I go from being partially deaf to completely deaf in such environments (with all the sense of social isolation that involves).

I can still enjoy a multi-layered, realistic and immersive, soundscape – Gunsmoke comes to mind as the ultimate example of this – but beyond a certain point and volume, the soundscape becomes auditory mud.

That said, the selective nature of the psychological experience of hearing, means that a minimalist soundscape can seem just as “real” to a listener as something more immersive. It is also cheaper and easier to take a minimalist approach, requiring fewer people and resources to achieve. It is also, it should be said, more accessible. Some folks, particularly audio engineers, aren’t aware that their own expertise and proficiency distinguishing sounds is not shared by the wider population, being in fact a fairly rare gift. As a result, they produce soundscapes that are not readily accessible to anyone who does not share their finely tuned auditory sense. It may come as a surprise, but many deaf people, like myself, enjoy audio-drama, but we do find simple soundscapes more accessible.

That is not to say that complex soundscapes should be avoided. Build the show you want to build. Here I am merely stating a preference.

Stereo Sound

This leads me to the final, and least qualified, point I wish to make. A final feature of realistic listening experience is stereo. We are stereo creatures; we have two ears positioned one on either side of our heads. We experience sound and detect where it is coming from based on the relative loudness of sound in each ear. As a deaf person, I am an outsider to this experience. I have only one working ear and so I cannot detect where a sound is coming from except by turning my good ear towards it and detecting the change in volume. However, even though I am deaf in one ear, my good ear can still hear all the sounds around me. Some will simply be softer because they are occurring on the other side of my head.

So, if by chance, an audio-engineer happens to be reading this article, I’d like to end this secton on a plea with regard to stereo recording (and panning). Please, please, please, make sure you never place sound exclusively in one or the other stereo channel. In the real world, sound can be heard by both ears all the time, it is merely louder in one than the other depending on the orientation of the listener to the sound. If you place a sound exclusively on one channel you, firstly, create a circumstance in which the soundscape noticeably ceases to match what we experience in the real world, and, secondly, you exclude those of us who are deaf in one ear from detecting the presence of the sound at all. Sixty to Eighty percent of every sound should be centered, while only 40 to 20 percent of the sound should favour a particular stereo channel (and from a deaf person’s point of view 20 percent or less is better).

Of course, given my own circumstances I would never provide guidance in my own scripts regarding panning and stereo, but your mileage may differ.

I want to look at sound-effects and music before moving on to how this all interacts with the writer’s bread and butter (speech).

Types of Sound

There are several broad categories (or axes) of sound that writers should be aware of.

Firstly, there is diegetic and non-diegetic sound. Diegetic sound is sound that is natural to the scene, that a character in the scene would, normally, be able to hear (footsteps, the fan, a gramophone playing, etc.). Non-diegetic sound is sound that is added to the scene that would not normally be heard by the characters in the scene (the ambient music of a soundtrack, the loud beating of a heart etc). Sounds are generally placed on a spectrum between these two poles, but tend to cluster at the non-diegetic end in larger numbers.

Secondly, there is self-identifying and ambiguous sound. Self-identifying sounds are readily recognizable sounds (such as a car engine starting, or the clickety-clack of a steam train hurtling along the tracks) while ambiguous sounds require context to be identified (the sound of crumpled celephane can be read as fire, twigs snapping, a note being crumpled up, etc.). Again this is a spectrum in which the majority of sounds cluster at the ambiguous end.

Wherever possible the writer should try to identify the appropriate context for a sound before it occurs.

E.g :

EDDIE: Hey Joe, can you get a fire started? You can borrow my flint.

JOE: Sure, Eddie.

SOUND: SPARKING OF FLINT, CRACKLE OF FIRE TAKING HOLD.

Because most sounds are ambiguous, we want to prevent the listener from having to revise their interpretation after hearing the sound as this tends to break their immersion.

If we provide the interpretation for an ambiguous sound immediately following its introduction, it will usually be okay, but it’s far better to provide it ahead of its introduction wherever possible.

Musical Soundtracks

Non-diegetic music (background music) is intended to support or highlight the emotion of a scene. Not everyone uses music in their productions, but there are some general guidelines that should apply for those of us who do. Sometimes as writers we are aware of the exact piece of music that would support the scene we are writing. If you have a precise vision of what you want to use, then name the piece in your script. However, copyright, licensing, expense, and or the preferences of the producers may render the piece unsuitable or unavailable.

More important, you should identify the mood or emotion you want the music to express (and then add the title of a suggested piece that captures that mood). As a non-musician, even though I am fully aware of how much value is added by a good musical score, I rarely bother with musical cues (leaving that to those who are more gifted than I), but when I do, I make use of Hevner’s adjective circle. This construction may not hold much water as a means of classifying music, but I find the adjectives helpful when I am trying to describe the mood I wish to communicate.

Here they are…

1 awe-inspiring dignified lofty sacred serious sober solemn spiritual

2 dark depressing doleful frustrated gloomy heavy melancholy mournful pathetic sad tragic

3 dreamy longing plaintive pleading sentimental tender yearning yielding

4 calm* leisurely lyrical quiet satisfying serene soothing tranquil

5 delicate fanciful graceful humorous light playful quaint sprightly whimsical

6 bright cheerful gay happy joyous merry

7 agitated dramatic exciting exhilarated impetuous passionate restless sensational soaring triumphant

8 emphatic exalting majestic martial ponderous robust vigorous

Tips for Integrating Dialog and Narration with sound

Audio drama is an auditory medium. The audience constructs the visuals in their minds in response to what they can hear. But, as already noted, not every sound is clearly able to identify what is happening for the audience. The context, and here I mean the speech that provides the context of the scenes, must assist the audience to understand the sound. We often intuitively believe that the sound supports the story telling (and it does) but the majority of sound is not readily identifiable (and therefore cannot do its job) without the context provided by speech.

Speech, in the form of dialogue and narration, is essential to conveying a large amount of what cannot be seen, and interpreting the sounds that add to the realism of the play.

In a film, when two gunmen enter a room brandishing pistols, it is obvious to all. But in audio, the audio must assist the listener to “see” what can only be heard.

Sometimes this results in dialogue that would in a stage play or cinematic setting, be a little on the nose…

SALLY: Look out, George, those men are carrying guns.

Or…

GEORGE: Take it easy, fellas. Put the guns away.

Another feature of audio that is important BECAUSE we only hear the action is the repeated use of names. Characters in audio, refer to each other far more often by name than they do in other mediums. This is because voices are not nearly as distinctive as images. We can see George came through the door in a film, but in audio, it helps if someone says “Oh, hi, George” and identifies the character by name, even if he speaks on entry.

And while we’re on the topic of names, try to avoid giving character’s names that are difficult to distinguish from other words. For example, “Hugh” and “you” are too easily confused to make it a good name to pick for an audio-drama character.

Characters are easily forgotten without a visual reminder of their presence, so when a scene contains more than two people, it is important to regularly have the extra characters contribute something to the conversation. Otherwise they will not remain alive and present in the imaginations of the audience members.

Voices

And at last we come to the final topic that it is helpful for a writer to understand. Audio drama is a more intimate dramatic form than many others. We do not have the advantage of visuals to help us distinguish characters and therefore rely on vocal quality. In the days of old-time-radio, casts were deliberately selected on the basis of vocal characteristics.

Bass: Heavy/Elderly male

Contralto: Elderly female

Baritone: Leading man

Mezzo-soprano: Leading woman

Tenor: Juvenile

Soprano: Ingenue

Trebble: Child

Along with identifying accents, these seven vocal types – E.g GEORGE (Elderly Male shopkeeper with a BASS voice and a Dixi accent) – can be very useful (and provide a great deal of variation) when describing and defining your characters. Characters who sound too similar to one another will easily be confused. And limits on human memory tend to make confusion even more likely when a cast exceeds five to seven main characters in total.

As advice to writer’s go, I’m aware that this was fairly eclectic. What other advice regarding sound would you add for those who are engaged in writing audio scripts?

The post The Deaf Writer’s Guide to Sound and Silence in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Trouble with Time – Flashbacks and Event Order in Audio Script Writing

Philip Robotham — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 22:13:15 +0000

In previous essays, I’ve mentioned that I’ve had to learn that unnecessary backstory should be dispensed with in the interests of getting to the story-proper as quickly as possible. I’ve also talked about the need to judiciously seed the backstory throughout my plays (at the moments when they become most relevant).

Flashbacks

This week I’ve been thinking about time in audio drama, and, to begin with, how I can provide back story when it is called for.
The best way, in my opinion, is through judicious and provocative lines of dialog. Here’s an example…

David is a doctor, giving a statement to Dan, a police officer who he’s known since he was a kid.

DAVID: She looked so small and helpless. Pale. And the paleness made the bruises stand out.
DAN: I remember when you used to sport bruises like that.
DAVID: Don’t… I don’t want to talk about that.
DAN: I’m telling you this as a friend, Dave. What happened to you as a kid gives you motive. Now that the father’s turned up dead…
DAVID: Should I be talking to a lawyer?
DAN: (PAUSES) Yeah. Yeah, you should.

Here the lines don’t give away too much. They tell us that David was the victim of abuse as a child and that this gives him a motive in a murder investigation. No more is relevant at this point in the story, so no more is given.

Another technique is, of course, the flashback. My early scripts are full of flashbacks. Now I avoid them, and if you can find a way to live without them, you probably should too. To quote an adage, Flashbacks don’t just halt the momentum of the story, they put the story into reverse. And while they can be used to good effect, they more frequently broadcast that a script is amateur or lazy (providing an unnecessary backstory dump). To get away with an extended flashback it needs to be essential to the story, contain intrinsic interest and conflict (so that we want to see it), and be dramatized (not merely retold).

In audio drama, transitioning into and out of a flashback can be tricky. Transitions include the horribly cliché harp glissando (which, while on-the-nose, at least has the benefit of recognizably coding the scene), a line of situating-narration (NARRATOR: Back in the fall of 1956…), an addition of reverb faded out as the scene begins (suggesting the past or present coming into focus), cross fading to the past, or a simple scene change with dialog and characters that place the scene in its temporal context.

Here’s a, hopefully, useful example of a flashback scene…

David is now being interviewed by the police.

INTERROGATOR: Tell me about that house on Weir Street.
DAVID: I grew up there. I always hated that place.
INTERROGATOR: Mustn’t have been easy. You remember much?
SOUND: (FADE IN) BIRDS ETC. IN DISTANCE. FOOTSTEPS ON PORCH. DOOR OPENS AND SHUTS (BLOCKING OUT THE OUTSIDE NOISES) – ESTABLISH UNDER
YOUNG DAVID: Mum! Mum! I got great news. I’m allowed to sit for the…
FATHER: (SLURRING) I said ‘shut up’. What do you know about any of it?
MOTHER: I know that job is killing you. You never used to drink like this.
FATHER: I told you to shut up.
SOUND: SLAP.
FATHER: It’s about time you were reminded who’s in charge here, Sally. It’s about time I…
YOUNG DAVID: Stop it! Stop hurting her.
MOTHER: David!
FATHER: Looks like you both could use a lesson in the right way to talk to your old man.
YOUNG DAVID: I hate you!
FATHER: Why you! Come here.
SOUND: SLAP
YOUNG DAVID: (PAUSE) (THROUGH TEARS) I hate you, and one day I’m gonna kill you. And kill everyone like you. People who hurt women and hurt kids. I’m gonna kill you and everyone like you.
INTERROGATOR: (BREAKING IN) David? David, did you hear my question?
DAVID: Yeah, sorry. I was… Look I really don’t remember much from back then.
INTERROGATOR: Just that you didn’t like that house?
DAVID: Yeah.

In this case the flashback does more than communicate that David was an abused kid. It tells us he made threats against his father, and abusers generally, and more, that he wants to keep this information from the police. For the audience it raises the question of whether he, in fact, could be the vigilante the police are trying to find.

While I really do believe flashbacks are best avoided, if you are going to do one, then it should be dramatized, to the point, and give the audience information that is essential to the story and couldn’t otherwise be supplied.

Tracking Time

Speaking of time, flashbacks aren’t the only problematic elements of scriptwriting that trip me up. Timekeeping is especially easy to get wrong.

I have bungled this so often that it bears repetition; timekeeping is especially easy to get wrong. In fact, it is so easy to mess up that I now make it a rule to include a story-based time-stamp in my SCENE descriptions (alongside the location information) and build myself a timeline of my story to avoid the problems that can arise.

What’s the danger, here? Everything from having so much happening in a single day that my protagonist has to move faster than light to be able to do it (travelling impossible distances across town etc. in no time at all) to creating weather for the wrong season, to having my protagonist fight her way through peak hour traffic on a Sunday morning (because I lost track of what day it was) to announcing that it is somehow the middle of the night when the action began in the early morning.

When these errors show up, it’s always embarrassing.

But it’s not enough to keep track of the time, myself. I need to communicate the time to my audience. This can involve everything from narration, voice over, dialog, to sound effects or some combination of each.

It’s also something that I want to signal without labouring the point.

SOUND can help; birdsong at dawn; crickets in the evening; sizzling bacon as a background to breakfast, the gong of a clock; drive-time radio announcements.

Having characters comment on recognizable milestones of the day works as well; the lunch-time rush, peak-hour traffic, kids coming home from school, the lights turning on at twilight. You can even have characters, unobtrusively ask each other the time “I’ve been sitting in this car so long, my legs have lost their feeling. What time is it?”

Narration can briefly signpost the time and day for the audience – “Tuesday, 2:15…”, “Twenty minutes later…”, “Wednesday morning…”, “3:20 AM…” “A cold wind at midnight blew…” etc., and voice over can do the same; “It was nearly three o’clock when I…”

Event Order

There’s at least one more embarrassing time-based trap that I have been known to fall into, and it’s to mess up the order in which small actions take place. A character puts the papers in the safe after it has been locked. A character switches off the inside light after the door has been shut on their way out. A character opens a door that was previously established as being open already. And yes, I’ve done all of these.

This kind of mistake shouldn’t be confused with employing non-linear time in a play (which is a different (and increasingly popular) skill entirely.

Even more subtle is the tendency to mess up human reactions. Generally speaking, when something happens, we experience the reaction to that event physically first, emotionally, second, and then finally at the volitional level (of human choice and free-action). The tiger springs out and I freeze, feel the fear wash over me, and then turn to run. I don’t turn to run, feel the fear, and freeze with fright.

In a script, where the murderer is standing over the dead body of Mrs. Standish when Nellie, the serving girl, walks into the room, this works…

SOUND: CRASH OF SERVING TRAY BEING DROPPED.
MURDERER: Now Nellie, don’t look so frightened. You’ve dropped Mrs. Standish’s dinner. It will all be over in a moment.
NELLIE: Mrs Standish. She’s… I need to run. I need to…
SOUND: FOOTSTEPS RUNNING AWAY DOWN HALL.

In this case the physical reaction (Nellie drops the tray) comes before the emotional reaction (that the murderer comments on), and Nellie’s choice to run away (her speech and volitional reaction). We recognize the psychological reality of this and the temporal priority to be given to each element of the reaction.

However, the following reaction, which does not occur in the right order, does not ring true…

SOUND: FOOTSTEPS RUNNING AWAY DOWN HALL.
MURDERER: Now Nellie, don’t look so frightened. It will all be over in a moment.
NELLIE: Mrs Standish. She’s… I need to run. I need to…
SOUND: CRASH OF SERVING TRAY BEING DROPPED.

These kinds of obvious problems in a script are very embarrassing to uncover. They often occur in the process of rewriting and revision – where I insert some new action or reaction without fully considering the context of the scene or situation. It can also happen where, because I know what I mean to write, I overlook what I have actually written.

In my case, at least, these errors usually only come to light when a fresh pair of eyes looks at my work. It’s why I recommend creating or being part of a writing group, or finding some “beta” readers who you trust to look for, and inform you of, your mistakes.

Of course, you mightn’t make mistakes (in which case you are incredibly talented, and I envy you immensely, or you are… well, possibly a bit deluded about the quality of your work).

Anyway, losing track of time is easy to do and can ruin my writing. Thankfully, it is very easy to fix.

The post Trouble with Time – Flashbacks and Event Order in Audio Script Writing appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Bad Beginnings – Unnecessary Prologue

Philip Robotham — Fri, 29 May 2020 22:20:07 +0000

I seem to be getting rather confessional lately. In part, it’s because I realize, as a school-teacher, that my screw-ups are often more helpful to students than my successes.

In my early days of writing (and as I hit a patch later on where I started to get a little over wordy) I was inclined to ignore how important grabbing the attention of the audience quickly was. It’s understandable, I guess. When you believe in your story, you believe the “good stuff” is worth the wait and you want to prepare the ground effectively for your audience.

Unfortunately, this belief and attitude were horribly mistaken and a sign, not only that I was a rank amateur, but that I had fundamentally misunderstood the audience I was trying to reach.
In a media-saturated world with ever more options for people’s attention and time, stories must grip hard and grip fast if they expect to earn a hearing.

One of my early mistakes was an over-reliance on a, usually, unnecessary story element: the prologue. Like with every general rule about writing, there are exceptions where this is not true, but generally speaking, prologues are bad and should be avoided for the following reasons…

The scene before everything starts

Prologues are often merely a scene that occurs before everything properly begins.
A scene that you create before you introduce your characters is nearly always a problem. Firstly, it confuses your audience since they inevitably conclude that the protagonist will be one of the first characters they encounter. If the opening scene doesn’t reveal your protagonist but instead focuses on someone else, the result is confusing but worse still, it tends to burn some of the good-will that the audience brings to your story and you run the risk that your listeners won’t invest in the story or trust you enough to invest in the protagonist when at last he/she is revealed.

There are exceptions of course. A murder-mystery story might open with a character being bumped off. An archaeological adventure might begin with the loss of a great treasure at some time in the past, etc. But generally speaking, unless your audience is already aware of, or able to recognize these conventions for what they are, this may not be the best way to open your play and might be better presented after your main characters have been introduced.
In all cases, we should aim to get the action started at the point of highest interest.
Compare this opening…

BILL: (SNORING LIGHTLY)
SOUND: PHONE RINGS ESTABLISH AND UNDER
BILL: (YAWNS) Who’s ringing me now?
SOUND: PHONE IS PICKED UP
BILL: Hello.
JERRY: Hi Bill. It’s Jerry. Your cat’s dead.
BILL: Huh? Do you know what time it is?

With this…

JERRY: (THROUGH TELEPHONE, FILTERED) Your cat’s dead.
BILL: (JUST WAKING UP) Huh? (BEAT) Do you know what time it is?

It’s hopefully pretty obvious that starting at the point where the dialog gets interesting is far more effective than filling the scene with unnecessary prologue. Likewise, the problem would be made even worse by writing a preliminary scene where we watch Bill go to bed after a long day. It adds nothing. If the real action begins with Jerry’s announcement that the cat is dead, then that’s where we should begin. And if it is important to know that Bill went to bed the night before, exhausted after a long day at work, then we can reveal this with a line of dialogue rather than devoting an entire scene to what is, ultimately, just supporting information.

The long introductory narration

Here’s another of my early mistakes. This example is taken from one of my published plays…

NARRATOR: The details related in the following audio drama were first uncovered in documents found in the attic of a tenement house in London in late 1985. They were the property of a well-to-do gentleman who had lived at the end of the nineteenth century — a doctor and soldier who had been invalided back to England after a tour in Afghanistan, later married, and had received the documents as a bequest. The contents of this property amounted to some sixty manuscripts of varying sizes, upon the pages of which were recorded, in a spidery hand, a good number of tales both fantastic and macabre. We do not make any claims regarding the veracity of this material — since there is much it contains that is frankly unbelievable. Nonetheless, its author most certainly believed that what was recorded was true, and we now make it available to you so you may attach your own verdict to it.

Did you find yourself wanting to skip over it? I don’t blame you.

In this case, I proceeded to make the situation worse by adding a further narration by the protagonist as an old man introducing the circumstances of the story.

Looking back, I’m honestly astonished that my editor didn’t kick the damned thing to the curb.

It is tempting, especially when dealing with fantasy or sci-fi settings, to think that there is a lot of back-story and world-building that must be explained before the story begins. This is another mistake. Audiences are quickly turned off by long introductory narrations. Far better to let your audience meet your characters and, as quickly as possible, learn their dilemma, than risk losing them entirely with an introduction that no-one, ultimately, will thank you for.
This is a particular weakness of mine that appeared all too regularly in my early plays. I often gave a narrator a long screed explaining the setting or backdrop of the story. Most listeners want to skip these opening narrations. Given that there is no easy way to skip forward in a recording, most listeners simply hit the off-switch.

The Star Wars opening crawl, while a fun nod to nostalgia (and a demonstration that this guideline does not apply in all instances), was not necessary to understanding the story. All of the information contained in it was ultimately revealed elsewhere – a technique discussed later in this article.

The (apparently) unconnected prologue

This is a little more subtle. This occurs where we create a scene, the significance of which will not be revealed until much later. The scene might be crucial to the correct understanding of a later event but, unfortunately, by front-loading it, we risk turning the audience off.

If I present a scene at the beginning of the story that reveals that a character we do not meet until 2/3 of the way through was abused as a child, I might think I am providing crucial information that will help the audience understand the character when they do turn up, but in reality, most listeners will have forgotten all about it and, as a result, will need to be reminded of the information later (making the prologue redundant).

Worse, because the actual introduction of the character is going to come so late in the story, the listener will be left wondering what connection, if any, the scene had to the plot. Chances are they will feel confused, tune out, and switch the play off.

At least, here, the solution is simple. If the scene is necessary for what comes later, then move it to the point in the play where it becomes relevant.

It is all too easy to front-load a scene that we believe is interesting and attention-grabbing, on the grounds that it makes a great opening scene, without connecting it to our story effectively. It doesn’t matter how attention-grabbing the scene is if it fails to connect to our story. We might think we are creating a sense of mystery (and sometimes, perhaps, we are) but it is more likely we are simply creating confusion.

The late introduction of your main character

From the moment your story begins, the audience is attempting to identify the protagonist; that character that they are supposed to find fascinating, identify with, or support (even if the protagonist is an anti-hero or overall unpleasant individual).

Take the following (bad) example of dialog. Here, a group is sitting down at a restaurant deciding what to order. Who is the protagonist?

SOUND: BUSY RESTAURANT. PLATES AND CUTLERY. MURMUR OF PATRONS – ESTABLISH AND UNDER
WAITER: So what I can I get you, folks?
GEORGE: (ANNOYED)What? Is that the way you talk to customers?
MICHAEL: (TIRED OF GEORGE ALREADY) George…
GEORGE: No, he should know better. We’ve barely sat down. Mary’s not even got her menu open.
MARY: If I don’t mind, why should you get so…?
GEORGE: It’s the principle of the thing. Nobody cares about customer service anymore.
WAITER: I’ll come back after you’ve had a moment to think about it then, shall I?
GEORGE: (AFFRONTED) You cheeky bugger. I want to talk to your manager.
MICHAEL: Oh, for God’s sake George, do we have to go through this every time we go to a restaurant?
GEORGE: We aren’t even all here yet. Look, Shelley’s chair is still empty!

If the protagonist is the waiter or George, this scene isn’t so bad. But if the protagonist is Shelley, we have a problem. The audience will be trying to figure out who the protagonist is. Maybe they’ll stick around if the conflict between George and the waiter is interesting enough (and if the action moves quickly to the introduction of Shelley), but it is likely they will feel more than a little confused when the story turns out to be about someone who isn’t even at the table yet and doesn’t turn up until the next scene.

And all of this is by way of saying that the creation of a prelude scene is risky, but not that it never works or that there aren’t specific techniques available to us to overcome the problems.

Beginning the story

The most important thing to determine at the outset of a play is when to begin the story. Everything that occurs before the story begins is prelude. So, how do we identify the beginning?

The answer is deceptively simple. We need to begin at the point of change or transition. In a character-driven story, this moment is the call to change. In a plot-driven story, this moment is the inciting incident. Where both are running together (generally my favorite kind of story), the two should coincide (an incident should occur that demands the protagonist make some kind of change).

Introducing backstory

What about establishing what life was like for the character previously in order to help the audience understand where the character has come from and where they will be going? After all, the demonstration of life “before change” is part of nearly every published model of a character arc or plot outline.

The thing is, though, that a large amount of backstory (that takes place before the story really begins) is unnecessary.

I’ve learned this the hard way. In a play I recently wrote, intended to be part of a serialized story, I spent multiple scenes establishing the characters in their pre-existing lifestyles, prior to the inciting incident and calls to change that would upset the balance of their lives. What resulted was some great (in my view) writing that turned my audience away before the action even had a chance to begin. Big “oops”.

If we’ve done our job right, we’ll have constructed, in our heads, the “before change”/”normal life” part of our story as one of comfortable routine, where a significant flaw in our character is openly on display and obvious, but isn’t unduly disturbing the character’s comfortable routine.
To establish this “ordinary, but flawed, life” for our readers, with one or more complete and lengthy scenes, however, is wasteful and dull. The story actually begins at the point at which this “normal, routine-driven” life is disrupted. As such, we should be aiming to introduce the disruption immediately, revealing only just enough of the background to give the event context. In short, a demonstration of the character’s flaw and normal habits, while important, should be no more than supporting detail in the presentation of the inciting incident and call-to-change.

This radically shortens the opening act (when understood as the lead up to and introduction of the inciting incident and/or call to change). It can reduce it to a single scene (which, itself, can be a very short scene).

Let’s say our character suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder. We could spend a few leisurely scenes demonstrating how they function day to day, following a strict routine, often mildly disrupting and disregarding the lifestyle and needs of others in order to maintain that routine. It’s a different way of living and experiencing life, so it might prove interesting to an audience, right? But if our story is about how this character is forced to cope when they are taken hostage in a bank robbery, we would do much better to get to the point fast.

A better approach would be to demonstrate how the character disrupts and inconveniences others while in the queue at the bank just as the robbery begins.

SOUND: CLOCK TICKING IN BACKGROUND – ESTABLISH AND UNDER
TOM: (IMPATIENT SIGHS AND HARUMPHS) Get on with it, will you?
FEMALE BANK CUSTOMER (FBC): Can you please step back, sir? You’re making me uncomfortable. And I got here first.
TOM: Just hurry up.
FBC: There’s a customer at the window. Look, there’s another that’s free, just over there. if you’re impatient, use that one.
TOM: This is my window and it’s nearly 10.00.
FBC: So what? You think you’re the only customer in this bank?
TELLER: Next.
TOM: Here, give me your purse.
FBC: What, no. Hey!
SOUND: PURSE BEING UPENDED.
TOM: By the time you’ve picked everything up, I’ll be done.
SOUND: TOM WALKS TO WINDOW (QUICK FEW STEPS) – LET IT FINISH.
TOM: (TO THE TELLER) Right, can you please cash this check? I’m in a hurry.
TELLER: You shouldn’t have done that, Mr. Oakdale. I’m going to have to call the manager.
SOUND: AT A DISTANCE – SHOTGUN COCKING – GUNSHOT INTO CEILING – SCREAMS – LET IT FINISH.
ROBBER #1: Don’t anybody move. This is a hold-up.
TOM: What the… Oh, this is all I need. (TO THE TELLER) Just cash the check.
TELLER: (SHOCKED) What?

All the pertinent information can be provided in a few lines of dialog and interaction before, or just as, the robbery is revealed. Other information about the character can be drip-fed to the audience in the telling of the story and its conflicts over time.

When it comes to backstory, it is better to assume it is unnecessary to the audience and that, if required, providing less and providing it later is a good guide.

One of the keys to setting ourselves free from the habit of providing boring “expositional data-dumps of backstory” to our audience (and I have yet to see an “expositional data-dump of backstory” that wasn’t boring) is to seed it throughout the play, revealing it only when it becomes relevant to the action taking place at the moment and revealing only that element that has a direct bearing on that moment.

Back story and exposition are best provided through dialog, but beware of the dreaded “as you know” sentence. Characters should never tell each other what they already know.

For example, the following is just awful…

TOM and the bank TELLER) have been taken hostage in the bank)

TOM: Tina, I’ve been coming to your window at the bank for the last three years, and as you know, I’m the ex-Secretary of Defense. These clowns have no idea what kind of storm they’ve created by taking me hostage.

Horrible, right?

Rewritten to have the conversation occur between strangers, this becomes much better.

TOM: (WHISPERING) These clowns have no idea the storm they’ve just created.
BANK CUSTOMER: (WHISPERING) Don’t I know you? You look familiar.
TOM: I used to be the Secretary of Defense.
BANK CUSTOMER: (WHISPERING) Oh, yeah. Didn’t you go nuts or something?
TOM: I was diagnosed OCD. It’s different.
BANK CUSTOMER: (UNCONVINCED) Right.
ROBBER #1: (YELLING AT A DISTANCE) Stop whispering over there! Unless you wanna see what color your insides are?

It’s only a snippet and needs some work, but it should be easy to see how much better it is than the first attempt.

If, after all this, you still feel that time spent in a prologue is essential to your story, then try to implement the following guidelines.

Where possible, establish your character well, first.
Make sure the prologue serves an important purpose.
Double-check whether the prologue would be more effective as scene 2 of your script or if it can be integrated into the introduction of the protagonist.
If you use it, keep narration short.
Even if you don’t use narration, make the prologue as short as possible.
Connect the prologue to the introduction of your protagonist as soon as possible.

Here’s an example that I think works better than most… Note how the second scene is directly connected to the prologue while introducing our protagonist.

SCENE 1: ANCIENT GREECE – CITY OF ALEXANDRIAN
NARRATOR: Alexandria, 256 B.C
SOUND: FADE IN – SCREAMS, FLAMES ETC – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.
DYING MAN: I’m not going to make it. Here, take the map and hide it. They’re torching the library. These barbarians must never be allowed to find Alexander’s great trove.
BOY: Yes, father. I promise.
DYING MAN: Good, now run. And stay out of sight.
MUSIC: SCENE ENDER

SCENE 2: PROFESSOR’S OFFICE
SOUND: RADIO PLAYING IN BACKGROUND – 30s BAND MUSIC – ESTABLISH AND UNDER
PROFESSOR TOM: So, where did you find this map?
WILLIS: On a dig in some caves in Alexandria, about twelve miles from the capital. It was lying in a jar beside the skeleton of a boy who appears to have died from a sword thrust to the ribs. He must have escaped his killer and crawled into the caves to die.

Well, that’s enough from me. If you’re new to scriptwriting, I hope you’ve enjoyed (and hopefully learned something useful from) this discussion of some of my early mistakes. And if you’re an old hand, I hope you’ve enjoyed this reminder that we all had to start somewhere.

The post Bad Beginnings – Unnecessary Prologue appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Writing the hook

Philip Robotham — Sat, 23 May 2020 02:50:52 +0000

One of the weaknesses in my writing that has been brought to my attention recently has been a tendency to blow the hook.

The hook is the opening of the script that aims to capture and keep the attention of the audience.

Attention spans are getting shorter. Whatever the reason (and everything from television to social media has been suggested as the culprit), the challenge for a writer in gaining and keeping attention is getting bigger.

Today we must gain the attention of listeners within the first 30 seconds of our opening… and then we have to keep it. There are just too many options available to media consumers today for us to indulge in a belief that people will stick around during a slow opening to get to “the good stuff”. “The good stuff” must be presented from the very first line. And I have been wasting those precious seconds at the beginning of my plays in the, false, expectation that my audience would indulge me in this.

The primary criterion for the successful opening of an audio drama is that it makes the listener want to hear the next line… and the line after that… and so on. To ignore this is to court failure from the outset.

Pacing

The opening can be fast or slow, containing quick punchy lines (“Damn it, Bill, duck!”) that get the action happening quickly, or long lines that create a slow build of mood (“And all I am saying, Lillian, is that these overgrown hedgerows, the full-moon, the shadows cast by the mansion on the hill, and our proximity to the local cemetery, weren’t bothering me until we came across this corpse.”).

The opening of every story has an important task it needs to accomplish; it must introduce the protagonist and the protagonist’s problem as quickly as possible – but, even if it involves longer, mood-building sentences, there must be no wasted words. And it must raise questions and inspire curiosity to listen further.

Contrast

Contrasts and unexpected juxtapositions can help us design a good hook (“Who’d have thought such an expensive dress would be found in such a filthy alley?” or “George, why is there a dead body in your freezer?”)

Tone

Tone is significant too. It helps the listener decide whether the play is for them.

Compare…

TOM: What’s the matter Margie? That was a great dive.
MARGIE: Stop it, Tom, and pay attention. I can’t see the boat!

With…

TOM: Didn’t they pronounce you dead yesterday, Norm?

The first conveys panic. The second is humorous. Both of them deal with serious subjects but each with a different tone.

Provoking Curiosity

Good hooks raise questions that draw listeners forward, delaying their instinct to switch their attention to something else. But it isn’t enough for the hook to be attention-grabbing. It must raise curiosity for the next line, and that in turn must raise curiosity for the next, and so on (hopefully all the way through).

MARGIE: Let’s see if we can shift this body, shall we?
TOM: Are you sure? That’s an awful expensive dress you’re wearing. I’d hate you to get blood on it.
MARGIE: I don’t have time to argue. I’m already late as it is.

Hopefully, this will have raised a bunch of questions that will keep the listener tuning in to find out what is happening.

The aim is to sustain the interest of the listener from one line to the next so that we can establish the story and the listener forgets about the pile of dirty dishes that were waiting for them in the next room, or the latest meme sent by their friends that is blinking at them from the phone.

Here’s a longer attempt…

SOUND: OLD STYLE PHONE SMASHING INTO WALL (BELL, PLASTIC CRUNCH ETC.).
TOM: I can’t believe that son-of-a-bitch had the gall to… damn. I think I busted it.
MARGIE: I’m not paying for that out of company funds, by the way. If you’re going to…
SOUND: BUSTED PHONE STARTS TO RING – CONTINUE UNDER
MARGIE: Well, damn. It’s still working.
SOUND: THREE RINGS HAPPEN – CONTINUE UNDER
MARGIE: You gonna answer that, Tom!
TOM: Hmpf!
MARGIE: (SIGHS) Alright.
SOUND: PHONE STOPS RINGING
MARGIE: Tom Shephard consulting, Margie speaking. (BEAT) Yes, inspector. (BEAT) Yes, I’m sorry, the phone must have cut out. (BEAT) Yes, Tom’s here. Just a moment. (ASIDE) Tom, it’s the inspector.
TOM: Tell him I’ve gone out.
MARGIE: He can hear you, you know.
TOM: Tell him I’m out, I said. I don’t care if it is Barry who’s dead. And I don’t care how weird it looks. I tried to warn him and he wouldn’t listen.

Note how each action and line raises more questions.

Why did Tom smash the phone?

What does Tome Shephard consulting do?

Why is the Inspector calling?

Who is Barry? And how did he die?

And why did Tom know it was going to happen before it did?

Here’s another attempt…

MARGIE: I’m telling you, someone’s following me.
TOM: (PLACATING) Margie…
MARGIE: Everywhere I go, I keep seeing him.
TOM: So it’s a man.
MARGIE: Yes, its a man. Why wouldn’t it be a man? Don’t you think a man would want to follow me?
TOM: I didn’t mean… Look, maybe he’s interested in you. You know? Romantically.
MARGIE: He’s always wearing a suit.
TOM: Um… so?
MARGIE: Suits are worn by foreclosing bankers and officials, politicians, and funeral directors. Suits are trouble.

Cliches

It can be hard to avoid cliches in openings. Take weather for example. Unless the weather and climate play a particularly important role in the story, it’s probably best to avoid using weather in a hook.

If however, the whole story hinges on being trapped in a snow storm, or on the effect of heat and humidity on a dead body, then starting with a reference to weather might be appropriate. But even then you want to grab attention and get the questions flowing.

MARGIE: I hate the snow. It keeps covering up the details.
TOM: What do you mean?
MARGIE: Well, you can hardly see his face anymore.
TOM: Isn’t that a good thing. It’ll hide his identity.
MARGIE: Not as well as a mallet and chisel might.
TOM: Come on. Finish covering him up. The guests will be here soon.

Cliches aren’t just related to the weather, either. Dead bodies, phones ringing in the early morning, strange packages in the mail. All these ideas have been done one thousand times before. If you’re going to use them (and you should if, and only if, they are important to your story) then make sure they are delivered in a unique way.

Let’s take the “early morning at the office” trope…

SOUND: DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES – LET IT FINISH.
MARGIE: Hey bright-eyes, what brings you into the office so early?
TOM: I found this in today’s paper.
MARGIE: What is it?
TOM: My obituary.

And on that note, I’ll bring this short article to an end.

We can all do better at creating openings for our plays. The key elements are to make sure our openings are attention-grabbing, introduce our protagonists and their problems clearly and early, put our protagonists into the thick of things quick, signal the tone, provide an attention-grabbing and interesting contrast or juxtaposition, avoids cliches, and raise questions that propel the listener forward into the story.

The post Writing the hook appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Conceptualizing the story

Philip Robotham — Mon, 11 May 2020 10:24:03 +0000

Some thoughts on what comes before the story

I am, as I have noted elsewhere, a fan of structure. Not because I feel I must slavishly follow every convention of structure, but because, frankly, I write better when I keep the elements of Structure in mind.

Structures

Three Act Structure, for all the hate it receives helps me to remember that a story involves taking someone in their comfortable routine and shaking them out of it through a disruptive event that forces them to pursue a goal (the inciting incident). Conflict arises and obstacles to the achievement of the goal are placed in front of them that raise the stakes higher and higher (rising stakes). At a certain point they are forced to commit themselves fully to the task, burning their bridges behind them (the point of no return). Eventually the obstacles become so great (rising tension) that they lose and all seems lost (the reversal), but, by making a final titanic effort (the final confrontation), they will either overcome and achieve their goal or it will be forever taken beyond their reach. Either way they will, if I’ve done my job right, have learned something important and their life will settle into a new normal (denouement).

There are a million tales to tell within this structure and it is helpful as a guide to where any given plot might go.

The Character Arc structure is also helpful. Where the plot structure deals with the external events of the plot, the character arc provides a structure for mapping the internal responses of the characters in a story to those events.

Generally, characters are flawed and need to change (before change), then an event occurs that seeks to break them out of their comfortable routine and send them on a journey of self-discovery and change (the call to change), but at first they avoid making the decisions they need to (resisting change). Eventually they are forced to the realisation that a change is really needed (embracing change) but it hasn’t yet taken root. Circumstances arise that test their resolve (testing change) until at last they prove to themselves (and, sometimes, those around them that a real change has occurred) (demonstrating change). The change then becomes part of the character’s new normal (after change).

These, of course, aren’t the only helpful structures available to writers. John Truby, whose advice is the subject of this essay, suggests some further structures and processes. The following relates to conceptualising the story – or generating the idea for a story. His aim, in proposing this process, is to help the writer develop a genuinely original (and hopefully satisfying to an audience) concept.

Steps towards a concept

Step 1: Create a premise (a one line summary that consists of an event that starts the action, a sense of the character that the event befalls, and a sense of the outcome of the story.

To develop a story idea or premise, you need to jot down everything that you would like to see in a story. This is a brainstorming task. You won’t use every idea (or even most of them) in your story, but you will develop a resource to pick and choose from.

Next write down all the story ideas and premises you have ever thought of. Again, you are creating a resource that allows you choice.

Select your favourite premise from your list.

Step 2: Explore the possibilities. Brainstorm. Take your idea and play what if? You have a boy who witnesses a violent crime. What if he is from a peaceful Amish community? What if an individual licensed to use, and familiar with the exercise of, force must protect the boy, entering the Amish world? What if he falls in love with an Amish woman? That was the film, Witness. Essentially, the exercise is one of changing things up to see what new, interesting, and original possibilities might be found (rather than accepting an idea at face value).

Step 3: Identify the challenges that are built into your premise. Ask yourself what must I accomplish to successfully tell this story. Must I authentically communicate a clash of culture? Must I raise the mundane to the level of the Shakespearean epic? Must I explore the emotional life of a child?

Step 4: Identify the designing principle. Not all stories have one, according to John Truby, but every good story does. The designing principle is a statement that expresses the deeper theme of the work and through which the selection and arrangement of events can be accomplished – a benchmark for the story’s deeper theme, if you will. What thematically challenging choice or circumstance does every scene, character, and action within the story find itself addressing? Supersition vs Rationalism? Trust vs Prejudice? Cruelty vs Kindness? Violence vs Peace? Etc.? Now identify how this idea will be explored? A plague where a doctor and a priest square off against each other? A KKK member who must rely on two black FBI agents to survive? A man of violence tasked to protect a child while inside a community of pacifists? A war criminal is nursed back to health in a convent behind enemy lines?

Step 5: Determine the best character to use. Who is the most interesting character? Does the character generate curiosity in you? Do you want to follow them and explore what they think? Who, among the characters, do you love the most? If they are not the main character, then change the premise so that they are or, if you can’t find a character you love, move on to a new premise.

Step 6: Identify the main conflict. In one line determine who fights whom over what. It must relate directly to the designing principle

Step 7: Identify the cause and effect pathway. What is the one action your character takes that connects all the pieces of the story? Do they use their fighting skills to defeat the villain? Do they sacrifice their goals for love? Do they bury their pride and cooperate with others to win the day? That is the cause and effect pathway.

Step 8: Determine how your character will change. What is the character’s weakness? How will their actions address that weakness? The characters action is the mid-point between two behavioral extremes. Lets say the main conflict requires the character to take violent action. Perhaps he or she begins as a frightened and cowardly individual. By the end he or she is a protector of the weak and downtrodden. Or perhaps he or she begins as a lover of peace and non-violence that in the end becomes a bullying warlord.

Step 9: Identify the protagonist’s moral choice. What choice between two competing and compelling goods must the protagonist make in order to complete their journey? Will they choose love or wealth? Will they choose trust or power? Will they choose honour or approval? Make the choice as equally balanced as possible to create the greatest sense of drama.

It’s a little hard to see what this looks like in practice, so here is the development of a complete story concept that forms the basis of a short and spooky play I am writing.

Template (Example)

1. Premise: A young man, looking for a quick dollar (and travelling with an older companion), is tasked with couriering an, unknown to him, magical statue, from New York to a small railroad town and dooms himself by letting his curiosity drive him to ignore clear warnings that danger lies ahead.

2. Possibilities: Throughout the journey he encounters omens and individuals that warn him to turn back, but overcomes them through the reckless application of his curiosity, each time digging himself further into the pit.

3. Story Challenges and Problems: To convincingly convey to the audience that his choices are bad while making him likeable enough to care about and making his choices so plausible that he remains plausibly convinced they are good.

4. Designing Principle: Curiosity didn’t kill the cat. Ignoring the warning signs did.

5. Protagonist: Curious young man who wants to do good but has a reckless curiosity.

6. Conflict: His companion wants him to mind his own business (and so also ignores the signs of danger). The statue wants him to submit to it and unwrap and free it from its packaging.

7. Basic Action: Giving in to his curiosity and giving the statue control in exchange for aid when danger threatens.

8. Character Change: Gives up his money and stops being reckless in order to try and save his companion – but too late.

9. Moral Choice: The protagonist must choose between loyalty (to the post office) and compassion (the safety of his companion).

Admittedly, the expression is a little clumsy, but I think the overall concept is pretty clear.

The post Conceptualizing the story appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Increase Immersion with Four Narrative Techniques (and a Fifth Tip that Matters Just for Audio Drama)

Philip Robotham — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 04:34:47 +0000

Four Narrative Techniques that Increase Immersion (and a Fifth Tip that Matters Just for Audio 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.

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.

script writing Archives - Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama

Thoughts on Writing the Middle

Writing the Middle

Setup and payoff

The Try-Fail cycle

Objectives, obstacles, tactics

Major and minor cycles

Pinch points and Plot points

Passive to active characterization

Increasing the stakes by broadening and deepening

Introducing a B-plot

Changing objectives in the second act

Setting up the climax (establishing the stakes)

Writing-Microstructures for Audio Drama

Creating authenticity through the Motivation-Reaction unit

Immersion and Voluntary Suspension of Disbelief via the KAV cycle.

Problems implementing the KAV cycle

Weaving Your Themes

Theme defines Meaning

Identify the theme

Brainstorm the theme

Express the theme

Multiple themes

Helpful exercises

Learning from Aristotle – The Poetics of Aristotle Applied to Audio Drama – Part 6 (final)

Chapter 19 – Diction and Thought

Chapter 20 – Grammar

Chapter 21 – Words

Chapter 22 – Style

Chapter 23 – Drama vs. History

Chapter 24 – The Epic

Chapter 25 – Imitation

Chapter 26 – What is best?

Some Thoughts on Dialog

Believable Dialog

The Subject Matter of Dialog

The Relationship between Dialog and the Scene

Characterisation

Planning Character

Dialog is Motivated Action

Scenes test the Character’s Agency (or ability and willingness to act)

Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 4 – Style and Sentence Construction

Universal Style for Audio Writers

Use the active voice

Remove small-talk and needless statements

Put statements in positive form

Use definite, specific, concrete and commonly understood words.

Preference short words over long

Omit unnecessary words

Construct short direct speeches

Avoid a succession of loose sentences joined by conjunctions (childish speech)

Express co-ordinate ideas in similar form (write according to the same pattern in the second idea as the first)

Keep related words together

Place the emphatic words of a sentence at the end

Avoid connecting complete sentences with commas.

Watch out for ambiguous pronouns

The rules are actually guidelines

Basic Punctuation for Audio Writers

THE PURPOSE OF PUNCTUATION

THE MARKS

SENTENCE ENDINGS

Full Stop/Period (.)

Question Mark (?)

Exclamation Point (!)

COMMA, COLON, AND SEMI-COLON

Comma ( , )

Colon (:)

Semicolon (;)

DASH AND HYPHEN

Dash (-)

BRACKETS, BRACES, AND PARENTHESES

Parenthesis (())

Braces ({})

Brackets ([])

APOSTROPHE, QUOTATION MARKS, AND ELLIPSES

Apostrophe (‘)

Quotation Marks (“”)

Ellipses (…)

Basic Grammar for Audio Writers Part 3 – Constructing Sentences

Sentence Types