At one level, nothing changes when telling stories for younger audiences.  A show that is designed for kids has all the same requirements, with regard to good storytelling, as shows for other audiences.  The story must have conflict, compelling characters, a strong structure with plenty of interesting incident, a great setting, and a well-explored theme.  That said, for younger audiences our show-design needs to take account of some unique requirements.

The Multiple-Audience

In writing for a younger audience, you must recognize that there are gatekeepers around what young audiences are exposed to.  Not only should you be writing for the younger audience itself, but also for the gatekeepers who must be won over in order to get your content into the hands of younger audiences.

In practice you must, while delivering what a younger audience is looking for, write a show that appeals simultaneously to parents, teachers, librarians, and reviewers.  These individuals are the filter that your content must pass through before your target audience can be reached (something well understood and mastered by companies such as Pixar and others primarily focused on the “family” market).  This is, of course, less of an issue with a young-adult audience.

Appealing to the gatekeepers

None of the following rules are set in stone.  You can make any choice you desire when creating your work, but you need to be aware that some choices will limit the full extent of the audience you can reach.

Stories for younger audiences should be as free from profanity as possible.  Parents are quickly turned off by the presence of profanity in content their children are likely to consume.  Likewise, schools, libraries, and critics will quickly focus on the presence of profanity when it comes to making a recommendation about a show.  No-one ever lost their audience by leaving profanity out of a work that aims at a younger audience, but the presence of profanity is a clear limiting factor with the regard to the size of the audience a show can potentially capture.

Likewise, sex and sexuality is best avoided in material aimed at a younger audience (and for the same reasons).

Lastly, though less significantly, death tends to be a “no-no”.  It is possible to create material that deals with death in a way that is sensitive to both children and their gate-keepers (Bambi, Old Yeller, and others) but the presence of death in a story encourages immediate caution in parents and gatekeepers.

As a younger audience gets older, it becomes easier to explore some of these more taboo issues in our stories, but they MUST be dealt with sensitively and responsibly (and will always narrow the audience that can be reached).

To satisfy a young audience, we must satisfy the older gatekeepers who decide what a young audience has access to.  For this reason, there needs to be elements in our shows that appeal to older demographics.  This includes older characters that the gate-keepers can identify with, and a certain amount of romance, mystery, and adventure.  If these elements are not present, then the story is unlikely to pass from your first audience’s hands into the hands of your target audience. 

Consider, the first Harry Potter novel.  The Hogwarts teachers were, as characters, deliberately designed to appeal to the gatekeeper demographic.  The elements of mystery and adventure supplied were sufficient to appeal to the adult audience as well.  J. K. Rowling instinctively understood that she had to appeal to the adults around the younger audience (of eight to twelve year olds that were her target audience) before her stories would find their intended audience.

Incidentally, Rowling was a genius at writing for an audience that aged in tandem with her characters, introducing death and romance, etc. to her stories in a way that was appropriate to the increasing age of her characters and audience.

Appealing to kids

Children aren’t attracted by drama (of the interpersonal variety).  Conflict is still essential, but soap-opera is frankly boring.  They are primarily attracted by wonder, especially wonder that leaks into the everyday.  Generally speaking, the dialog delivered by characters in a show aimed at 8 to 12 year-olds should involve simpler sentences and word choices.  Characters should generally be less complex and more readily identifiable (in terms of archetypes).  This doesn’t mean that stereotypes cannot be subverted, or that complex themes cannot be explored.  It does mean that clarity and simplicity in the presenting of the story is paramount.

Children also like a degree of horror (when leavened with humor) as part of their attraction to wonder.  The story can be spooky and atmospheric, but must not cross the line into the genuinely frightening or gory.

Humor is essential, younger audiences love to laugh.  A child’s sense of humor is fairly unsophisticated.  They love slapstick, verbal humor, and humor that arises from a surprise or twist.  Adults tend to dislike kids jokes and need more sophistication.  The brilliance of a company like Pixar arises in its capacity to build layered jokes; jokes that appeal at the simplest level to children, but contain layers of meaning that will appeal to the adults who encounter them.  This is not an easy balance to achieve, but the mass appeal of a children’s program often depends on this very factor.

Adventure (particularly exploring) is always a safe bet with younger audiences.  Romance is “icky” but if hinted at (but never consummated) between adult characters will act as a draw to the gatekeeper audience.

Structural Requirements

It is generally true, that younger audiences have decidedly shorter attention spans than their older counterparts and bore easily.  Shows should probably aim at being from 15 to 30 minutes in length.  Long form story-telling will work with a younger audience, if introduced as a B-plot, and can be especially effective with an episode by episode cliffhanger.  The A-plot, however, should be self-contained and resolve each episode in order for younger audiences to feel satisfied.  A children’s show should always aim to surprise the audience with a “wow” moment.  Originanlity is key.

Children are far more resilient and sophisticated than many adults give them credit for.  They are capable of comprehending and processing deep themes about life and friendship and the nature of the world.  But adults tend to underrate children and will often, unnecessarily, try to protect them from content that they feel requires too much of them.  This is largely overcome by writing for a dual audience of adults and children.  The adults will tend to think that the more sophisticated material is aimed at them (and to a degree it is) but it will remain accessible to the youngsters who are the primary audience of the writing.

Poetry and metaphor are key elements in writing for younger audiences.  I am not, when I refer to poetry, referring to rhyme.  What I mean is that children are particularly open to the use of language to evoke emotion, paint pictures in the imagination, and create atmosphere.  They also love the way metaphors can be enjoyed for their surface and deeper meaning.  Employ both to the best effect that you can.

Conclusion

When it comes to writing for younger audiences, all of the principles of good writing still apply. We should never talk down to or be afraid to challenge younger audiences. In deference to the more limited vocabulary and life-experience of younger audiences we should aim to be especially simple and clear in our communication. And we should also be mindful of the fact that younger audiences are primarily attracted to wonder, humor, and adventure (rather than romance or drama).

Of greatest importance is the realization that before we can reach our target audience, our show must appeal to the older gatekeepers who control access to that audience (parents, teachers, librarians, and critics). Unless we can appeal to these individuals as well (with characters and themes and humor that satisfies their tastes) we might never reach the intended audience of our works.

Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2022 

The post Writing for Younger Audiences appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Conversation is research

I’m a shy person and fairly introspective.  I need people, but I don’t spend a lot of time seeking them out – I live with the constant fear that if I pursue them, I will bore them (and I REALLY don’t want to be “that friend” that everyone avoids).  And, worse, I’m appalling at small-talk.  I try,  but I’m clumsy at it.  Over the years I’ve developed some tools and guidelines to help me out in social situations.

For example, there is a phrase that, when I hear it, sends a tight prickle of fear and despair shooting along my spine.  “Hey Craig, we’ve been invited to a party”.

For me, parties are the worst.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE being invited.  I just hate being in attendance at one.  I don’t know what to do with my hands, for a start.  And I’m painfully aware that I’m lousy at small-talk and that small-talk is what everyone in the room is practicing.  I desperately want to find a corner somewhere that I can sit in and talk with someone about Schopenhaur or Christology or books or movies or writing – uninterrupted for a minimum of half an hour.  And then I want to go home.

As an introvert, my batteries will have been flattened by the first fifteen minutes of interaction and I desperately want somewhere quiet to be, preferably with a bookshelf (or dvd or music shelf) that I can quietly browse while I try to recharge.  As a result, I know more about the reading tastes of some of my acquaintances than I do about them personally.

Anyway, I’ve learned a few tricks and insights that help me at parties.  The first is that I’ve learned that deep and meaningful conversation is largely unwanted at a party (unless I am lucky enough to stumble on a fellow introverted nerd who shares my tragic passions).  Instead, a party exists to help people meet each other and feel out who might be interesting to get to know more fully.  The whole point is to circulate, find out what people are into, and arrange to catch up over coffee if it looks like the person is interesting enough, and there’s enough common ground, to try to build a friendship.

This, by the way, is why introverts find the experience so hellish.  We’re not samplers.  Neither are we any good at delayed gratification.  If we meet someone interesting, we want to dive deep, right then and there.  But that’s not what parties are for, and so we feel awkward and like a fish out of water and don’t know what to say.

The second thing I’ve learned to do, is to grab a plate or a cup to hide behind.  It solves the problem of what to do with my hands.  I have no intention of eating what’s on the plate or drinking what’s in the cup (because an empty plate or cup has to be put away to be washed, leaving me without any armor) so I carry it around and my hands are kept busy.

The third thing I’ve learned is a conversation trick called the “conversation stack”.  It’s a list of pre-prepared conversation topics that I carry around in my head – I’m not kidding, I really do this.  First, I find out your name, your family, who you live with and where (not specifics, I’m not a stalker) and whether you have a pet or pets.  Next, I ask about your work and your hobbies/sports/interests.  Lastly, I ask about travel – have you been anywhere or done anything interesting?  At this point, I’m out of topics and I know it’s time to move on to the next poor soul.

The final thing I’ve learned about parties, is to treat them as research opportunities.  I’m a writer and I’ve learned to ask the kind of questions that help me find out if someone is or isn’t interesting – and by the way, everyone is interesting if you can find the right topic or ask the right question.

I’ve learned to avoid the kinds of questions that can be answered with a yes or no.  “Do you like fish?” is a conversation stopper.  “What’s your favourite place to encounter a fish?” is much more conducive to holding a conversation (generating lots of follow-up questions), but even then, it can be answered with a single word or short phrase (“fishing”, or “at James’ seafood restaurant”.  “Why?” isn’t a great question, since it tends to make people defensive so that they feel like they’re being interrogated by their parents.

The best kinds of questions are about action.  “What do you think about…?” is not nearly as interesting as “What did you do when…?”.  It’s been my experience that people will tell you about themselves in terms of how they want to appear, but their actions reveal who they are.  In fact, I’m sure we all know people whose public self-representations and private actions differ markedly.  When we encounter someone who can eloquently extoll the virtues of kindness to animals, but goes home and kicks their dog, we inevitably choose to believe the behaviour over the words.

For this reason, “what did you do then?” is a phenomenal question to ask. 

“How did you cope when your husband passed away?” leads to answers like “oh, I bore up and carried on as best I could”.  But “What did you do when your husband passed away?” leads to answers like “I locked myself in the bedroom for two days, pulled the blankets up around my head, and left the kids to fend for themselves”.

Character is best revealed in drama through action

Drama and the writing of drama is all about capturing the actions that demonstrate character rather than the words that a person says about their own motivations.  In audio drama, we have to find a way to “show” those behaviours through dialogue.  We can demonstrate a conflict through an argument, but how do we “show” grief?  Our grieving wife, locking herself in the bedroom with the covers around her head, works great in a screenplay or stage play, but isn’t quite so well suited to audio drama.

In audio drama, action is made visible through interaction.  Characters who are alone, need to give us access to their inner thoughts via monologue – and for many audience members this, while useful in small doses, isn’t as helpful as an exchange between characters.

Compare…

1. SOUND: DOORBELL RINGS – DOOR OPENS – LET IT FINISH
2. JANE: I just looked at the well-wishers on the doorstep.  I already had acres of quiche – enough to survive a Russian winter.  They stood there with carefully arranged sympathetic looks on their faces and casserole dishes in their hands and all I could think was how much they looked like they’d signed up for the grieving widow package tour.  “See the woman whose husband died in her natural habitat.  Feeding time at 2.00 pm”.  I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I shut the door in their faces.
3. SOUND: DOOR CLOSES – LET IT FINISH

With

1. SOUND: DOORBELL RINGS – DOOR OPENS – LET IT FINISH
2. MARY: (SICKLY SWEET) Good morning Jane, Keith and I were passing and we thought we’d drop in to share our condolences… Isn’t that right, Keith?
3. KEITH: Er… yes. Of course.  How are you, Jane?
4. MARY: I’ll just put this down over here, shall I?  Just some quiche I knocked up.  Nothing special.  (BEAT) Oh.  Well, I’m sure you’ll find some room… somewhere.
5. JANE: Mary, er… thanks, but, this isn’t…
6. MARY: Oh, it’s fine Jane.  No need to put on airs for us.  We can’t expect the house to be in its usual state now, can we?  My, but you have let things go, haven’t you?
7. KEITH: Now, Mary…
8. MARY: Oh, it’s all right, Keith.  Jane isn’t embarrassed, are you dear?
9. JANE: (FLUSTERED) I’m sorry, but I just wasn’t expecting…
10. MARY:  Perfectly, understandable dear.  And how are you feeling?  You know I was just saying to Keith, that I always felt that John was a little fragile.  But even so, suicide?  I mean, it’s a messy business, isn’t it?
11. (BEAT)
12. KEITH: I’m sorry, Jane,  I think we’d better—
13. MARY: Oh, do stop fussing, Keith.  Jane’s fine.  And did you say they found him in the kitchen, dear?  I couldn’t just have a quick—
14. JANE: (COLDLY) I think you should leave, Mary. 
15. MARY: What?
16. JANE: Now.  And you, too, Keith.
17. KEITH: (EMBARASSED) Of course, Jane.  Let me…
18. MARY: Well!  (OFFENDED) I guess we can tell when we’re not wanted.
19. JANE: Yes, I guess you can.
20. MARY: Come on, Keith.
21. KEITH: (TO JANE) I’m so sorry for your loss…
22. MARY: … And I’m taking the quiche.
23. DOOR CLOSES – LET IT FINISH.
24. JANE: (SOBS) – FADE OUT.

Both approaches work to an extent.  The second, I think, demonstrates the action of the first more effectively and communicates the difference between a person’s words and actions.  Interaction between characters allows for greater drama than simple narration – though each is effective in its own way.

Internal conflict is also revealed through action

Action is also the means by which internal conflict is revealed without resort to monologue.

Compare…

1. CLARKE: I didn’t know which way to turn.  The boss needed the plans, and was demanding I put in for overtime, but Anne was ready to walk out.  The anniversary dinner was my last chance to show her that I really cared.

With

1. BOSS: How are those plans coming along, Clarke? 
2. CLARKE: They’re coming.  We’ve had a cancellation.  Our supplier has run out of the double glazing we ordered.
3. BOSS: Then find another source.  I don’t care how long it takes.  Overtime is approved.
4. CLARKE: I’m on it.
5. SOUND: BOSS WALKS AWAY – FADE.
6. JIM (CO-WORKER):  But weren’t you meeting Anne for your anniversary tonight.
7. CLARKE: Oh, hell.  I forgot.  I’m supposed to confirm our reservation.
8. SOUND: PHONE NUMBER BEING ENTERED – BRIEF PAUSE
9. CLARKE: Carlitos’?  Yes, I’m confirming a booking for Masters.  (BEAT) Yes, 8.00 PM.  (BEAT) Thanks.
10. JIM: You’ll never make it.
11. CLARKE: I have to.  Anne’ll do something drastic if I miss another anniversary.

Here we have an internal conflict.  Clarke wants to meet his work responsibilities and attend a wedding anniversary dinner with his wife.  He takes action in both directions, but the audience knows that, barring a miracle, one or the other of these two objectives can’t be met.  By observing Clarke’s action we get an insight into the state of his mind and the internal conflict is “dramatized” for the audience.

In scriptwriting we use dialog to demonstrate action, not merely by telling, but by showing, through interaction, how characters respond to situations. These responses reveal character to the audience.

Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2022 

The post Characters are what they do, not what they say appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Designing Effective Character Growth and Change in Audio Drama

All stories are about change.  Time in stories can be linear or circular, but change is a given.  Inevitably we think about change in terms of character and there are a variety of ways we deal with character change. 

Aristotle

Aristotle argued that there were two main forms of change in stories.  A character rises (from shame to honor) or falls (from honor to shame).  For a long time, in Western culture, this was considered the model for all drama.

Linear Arcs

In recent centuries the idea of the character arc has come into vogue – a literary description of human growth towards maturity. 

Two ideas seem to be essential to the growth and tragedy arcs.  Firstly, there must be a mismatch between what a character wants and what they ultimately need.  Secondly, this mismatch must be created by a significant flaw (or wound) in the character – something that they don’t realize consciously, but which results in a bunch of self-protective behaviors that inhibit growth.

For example, Character A “wants” stability and so seeks to control his/her environment in dysfunctional ways, but “needs” to learn to live in a messy and unpredictable world.  In many ways tragedy occurs where the character is so focused on what they want that they never discover and pursue what they need – losing even what they have and coming to ruin in the process.  The growth arc is expressed through the discovery (recognition) of what they need and their actions to redirect their desires away from what they “want” to that thing that they “need”.

The typical growth arc is as follows.

• Life before change – a demonstration of the character’s dysfunction in daily life.
• Call to change – an event that demands the character makes a change.
• Resisting change – the character’s initial attempts to avoid making a change.
• Embracing change – the realisation that a change is needed and a refocusing upon that change.
• Testing change – the character’s attempt to be different is given a significant trial.
• Demonstrating change – the character demonstrates they are different through a costly choice.
• Life after change – a demonstration of what the character’s life looks like after the change has been negotiated.

A tragic arc is similar but has some key differences.  The first three stages (Life before change, Call to change, and Resisting change) remain more or less the same, but then comes…

• Rejecting change/making a choice – the character makes a conscious choice to not merely resist, but to reject change.
• Testing choice – this choice is tested significantly with negative results.
• Confirmation of choice – the refusal to change comes to a head resulting in a disaster in which everything the character has been struggling to protect is lost.
• Aftermath – a demonstration of the ruin into which the character’s life has fallen after failing to successfully negotiate the needed change.

Circles

Both of these are linear ways of thinking about character change.  Western culture has focused on these kinds of stories, primarily, throughout its history.  Asian cultures (and most mythologies) tend to think in circular rather than linear terms. 

Characters will often cycle from success to failure and back to success or vice versa (shame to honor and back to shame) often repeatedly in a spiral.  The much-discussed hero’s journey is a circular pattern of story telling in which “there and back again” is a deliberate choice.  I recently completed Liu Cixin’s “Rememberance of Earth’s Past” (Three Body Problem) trilogy and it is, perhaps, one of the clearest examples of the circular/spiral approach that I have seen.

Non-Arcs

Strictly speaking, however, depicting a protagonist who successfully or unsuccessfully navigates change ( or experiences a circle of growth) is not the only way to tell a satisfying story.  There is a third type of character arc – better known as the non-arc.  In this type of story the character doesn’t change at all.  Instead, they impact the characters around them and prove to be a catalyst for change in others.  The story of Jesus is one of the most easily recognized.  But it exists also in the Paddington films and, as a negative example, the evil Mr. Ripley (and the disaster inflicted on the people who encounter him) springs to mind.

As writers we have a lot of options available to us with respect to the growth and change of our characters.  Change is inevitable and these patterns can help us to think through and make the changes that our characters experience feel authentic.

Serials

Serials provide a unique challenge.  The characters in a serial “tend” to remain fairly static.  Change occurs very slowly, if at all.  This is also a legitimate pattern – though, even in serial fiction, character change tends, when used judiciously, to enhance the story telling.  Long form storytelling (such as Breaking Bad) tends to pay more attention to character growth and change than episodic shows (such as MacGuyver).  The current fashion (of long form story-telling) trends away from static characters in serials, but a static character is still a perfectly legitimate choice for a writer to make.

Mistakes

It’s a commonplace to say that “there are no rules” in storytelling, but some approaches are more effective than others.  One approach to character growth that doesn’t work for me is to employ regular character resets.  A reset occurs where a character changes and grows through a character arc and then resets so that we watch the character experience the same or a similar change again in the next episode, series, etc.  Resetting to negotiate a new character arc based on a new flaw, also tends to feel unsatisfying (unless it grows organically out of the last one).  Where they are used at all, character arcs need to feel authentic and grow out of the lived experience of the characters.  A character arc for its own sake will feel artificial and unsatisfying to an audience.  In a soap opera, characters might make random choices that maximise drama (unsatisfying as this tends to be), but in a more grounded script, character change is a result of good character design.

Character design

Central to the design of a character capable of experiencing growth is a set of five features.

• Desires/goals
• Flaws/wounds
• Traits
• Strategies
• Emotions

A character wants a particular thing but the character’s flaws prevent them from achieving it, or causes them to seek the goal in a dysfunctional and counterproductive way.  The character is defined by a series of traits that are expressed in the strategies they pursue to achieve their goals.  The character is further revealed by their emotional responses to the events they experience.

For example; Millicent Westenra has inherited a houseboat on the Thames and, because she can’t afford its maintenance, wants to sell it (goal) – unfortunately it is a rust-bucket.  She’s a practical, impatient sort (traits), and something of a bully and control freak (flaws).  She often attempts to manipulate others (strategies). Her anxieties are expressed in anger and frustration at others (emotions) when she can’t get her own way.  This character clearly provides the writer with lots of potential for change, growth, and failure to grow.

The interaction between plot and character

Note that change is a function of conflict and character change is a function, more especially, of internal conflict.  The external events that provide obstacles to the achievement of the character’s goals become far more interesting when they trigger or mirror internal conflicts (in which the character is forced to combat their own desires).  Internal conflicts arise where the character becomes aware that they want two simultaneously incompatible things.  Change occurs as the character gives up one thing in order to embrace something else (sacrificing their sense of safety and control in order to take a risk that allows them to achieve a greater good).  The best conflicts are those that challenge the character’s comfortable patterns of life.  What we want to design are plot events which force the character to depart from the path of least resistance onto a road of struggle. 

Every character has a habitual approach to solving problems.  A highly dependent character will, for example, turn to others to solve their problems for them (perhaps a parent).  So, as authors, we kill the parent and force them to seek another path.  The first instinct of the character may then be to find a replacement for the missing parent figure (the path of least resistance is the path that allows the character to apply their most familiar strategies).  So, we close these options off.  People refuse to help and turn their backs on the character’s attempts to shift responsibility or find a rescuer.  Now the character is forced to decide how badly they want the things they get from the solving of their problems.  If the desired “good” is desirable enough the conflict will become internal – they must defeat their desire to shift responsibility to others and take responsibility for themselves.  In this way the events of the plot interact with the character’s personality to add extra layers of conflict that improve our experience of stories.

Conclusion

Stories are about change.  Events can drive change and so, plot is a significant driver of change and interest within our stories.  But change, driven by a character’s internal needs and conflicts, gives us the ability to increase the complexity and satisfaction that our stories create for our audiences. Change arcs are a proven way to accomplish this.

Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2022 

The post More thoughts on Character Growth and Change appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

There are at least four types of time that are commonly used by authors when writing scripts;

• Real time
• Concurrent time
• Disjointed (or Flexible) time
• And Elided time.

Real time is experienced with the characters moment by moment.  While I call it “real time” it is, in fact, only an approximation of real-world time.  The pacing created by sentences and selectivity also has an effect on our experience as the audience in “real time”.

A large amount of description can make an action that is being read, or heard about, take far longer on the page than it takes in real life.

Compare…

1. JOHN: I glance at her outfit, taking in the deep crimson of her dress, the mother-of-pearl buttons and her jade broach inset with pearls.  Her hat, of matching crimson with a black velvet band, was set at an angle, pulled low over one eye, revealing a mass of curly black hair that cascaded down the side of her face.  Her shoes, also red, had four-inch heels and buckles of silver.  All in all, she oozes money.  I only hope it isn’t a scam – there aren’t many well-heeled clients who cross the threshold of my low-rent establishment, and I could really use the fee.

With…

1. JOHN: I set the table and take the roast out of the oven, depositing it on the kitchen bench.

The first example describes a glance but takes far longer to listen to than the action itself.

The second involves description that is completed far more quickly than enacting it would require.

Both are delivered in the present but are actually distortions of time as it is usually experienced.

In audio drama, most conversations take place in real-time; the audience assumes the speech is being given as they hear it.

Concurrent time is a concession to our inability, as an audience, to experience time in anything other than a linear fashion.  In a story that has different characters acting in different places simultaneously, we need a way to reset the timeline to allow a scene to unfold at the same time as a previous scene.  It is, in practice, a form of flashback, but only for a short period in order to bring the story back into the present.  In prose narrative, this is accomplished by the use of the phrase “meanwhile”, but often requires no introduction at all.  Many times, the audience will assume that a change of scene to focus on the activities of new or different characters implies “meanwhile”.

SCENE 1: GANG’S HIDEOUT

1. …
2. BOB: I sent Jenny to the ammunition store twenty minutes ago.  She’ll be back any minute.
3. MUSIC: SCENE ENDER

SCENE 2: AMMUNITION STORE

1. SOUND: BELL OVER DOOR AS IT OPENS AND CLOSES
2. JENNY: Hey, Marty, how’s business.
3. MARTY: Oh, no.  I told you before, I don’t do business with you people no more.  You gotta leave, now.
4. JENNY: Is that anyway to treat an old friend?

Above, we could have included a narration at the opening of scene 2 to suggest the timing of the scene…

1. NARRATOR: Meanwhile, across town…

…but it really isn’t necessary.  The scene reads as concurrent without extra explanation.

Disjointed (or flexible) time (usually in the form of a flash-back or flash-forward) renders time non-linear and disrupts the timeline of the story.  It is a helpful way of providing information from the past or future to the audience “just in time”, at a point where the context makes the events relevant.

Writers achieve this in many ways.  A character may introduce the story from a vantage point in the future (Doctor Watson reminiscing on the years he spent with Sherlock Holmes). 

1. OLD WATSON:  As I think back to the Summer of 1886, I can’t help but remember my friend’s voice raised in irritation…
2. HOLMES: Watson!  Watson, where are my cartridges?
3. YOUNG WATSON:  I’ve hidden them, Holmes.  Gunfire inside the house is no longer something I or Mrs. Hudson can tolerate.

Narration can be used to set the time. 

1. NARRATOR: Three weeks ago, in Soho.

Vocal and/or sound cues can be provided.

1. DETECTIVE ROB: I can’t remember seeing this much blood at a crime-scene before.  And the smell…  (BEAT) Bill, what are you staring at?
2. BILL: That blood spray on the wall.  It’s not random.  I’ve seen it before.
3. MUSIC: SCENE ENDER – FLASHBACK CUE
4. SOUND: LOTS OF MURMURING
5. DETECTIVE JOHNSON: (TO SELF) Why do I always get the crazy ones?  Hey Rookie, take a look at this.
6. YOUNG BILL: What is it, boss? (BEAT) Whoa.
7. JOHNSON: You said it.  What’s that look like to you?
8. YOUNG BILL: Well, it’s clearly blood.
9. DETECTIVE JOHNSON: Don’t be an idiot.  Of course it’s blood.  What else?
10. YOUNG BILL: Like a letter maybe.  Chinese or Japanese?
11. DETECTIVE JOHNSON: Yeah, I think someone was leaving us a message.

Elided time is time that is skipped in order to achieve a purpose.  We don’t need to know everything that characters do and see at every moment of the day.  Eating, sleeping, breathing, so much of life is uninteresting to the spectator that skipping it is necessary if we intend to keep the attention of our audience.

Narration can be a very efficient way of managing this…

1. NARRATOR: Shortly after midnight…

1. NARRATOR: Moments later…

1. NARRATOR: Six years later…

Sound effects and dialog can combine effectively also…

1. JIM: Thanks for lunch, Bill.  I’ll see you at five.
2. SOUND: CLOCK STRIKES FIVE PM – FADE IN.

Or dialog alone can achieve the effect.

1. JIM: See you at tonight’s meeting. (BEAT)
2. M.C: I call this meeting of the Venerable Lodge of the Albino Caribou to order.

Sometimes we want to quickly elide time in order for our characters to gain new skills.  In movies this is often achieved through a training montage.  I recently polled some friends for advice on how to achieve something similar in audio.  The following suggestions were made…

The narrator can describe the passage of time…

1. NARRATOR: Over the next few years Herbert and his brother were trained in the art of pugilism, knife fighting, pistols and improvisational combat.

The characters themselves might reveal it in conversation…

1. BOB: I hear your dad spent the last few years training you to handle yourself.
2. HERBERT: Yeah.  My brother and I learned small arms, knife fighting, hand-to-hand.  You name it.

An audio montage could be possible as well…

1. FATHER: If they make another attempt on your life, I want you boys prepared.  We start training tomorrow.
2. (BEAT)
3. FATHER: Hold the pistol with both hands and sight along it. Now, don’t pull the trigger… squeeze.
4. SOUND: TWO SHOTS – LET IT FINISH.
5. SOUND: CROSS FADE INTO CLASHING STEEL – UNDER
6. FATHER: Keep the sword up and the point forward.  Never give your opponent an opening.
7. SOUND: CROSS FADE INTO BODY BLOWS AND HERBERT AND MITCHELL GRUNTING
8. FATHER: That’s it.  Don’t forget your footwork…
9. HERBERT: Ungh!
10. SOUND: BODY DROP –
11. FATHER: Damn it, Oscar.  I told you to keep your guard up.  Your brother’s got a wicked left.

The suggestion that appealed to me most was to build some story into the montage; Herbert tries to learn the skill, fails, considers quitting, presses on, and finally achieves success.  This is especially appealing if it can be used to reveal character and add conflict to the overall story (Herbert butts heads with his father, Mitchell is jealous of his father’s attention to Herbert).

1. FATHER: You boys are going to learn to do this.
2. HERBERT: But why?
3. FATHER: They’ve made two attempts to kidnap you so far.  I need you boys to be able to protect each other.
4. HERBERT: Is that really it?
5. MITCHELL: Come on Oscar, why do you have to treat everything he says like it’s suspect?
6. FATHER: Your lessons start tomorrow.
7. (BEAT)
8. SOUND: TWO SHOTS – LET IT FINISH.
9. FATHER: Now it’s your turn, Herbert. Hold the pistol with both hands and sight along it. Steady. Now, don’t pull the trigger… squeeze.
10. SOUND: TWO SHOTS – LET IT FINISH.
11. FATHER: Damnit, Herbert.  You missed the target completely.  Try again.
12. MITCHELL: At least I got one shot on.
13. FATHER: Yeah, well.  You’ve got a better grip than he has, Mitch.  We’ll see how well you compare once your brother masters some basics.
14. SOUND: CROSS FADE INTO CLASHING STEEL – UNDER
15. FATHER: Keep the sword up and the point forward.  Never give your opponent an opening.
16. SOUND: SLIDE OF BLADE ALONG BLADE TO THUMP ON HILT
17. HERBERT: (BRIEF PAIN) Argh!
18. SOUND: SWORD CLATTERS ON FLOOR – LET IT FINISH.
19. FATHER: Pick it up.
20. HERBERT: Dad, we’ve been at this for hours.
21. FATHER: I said, “Pick it up”
22. SOUND: CROSS FADE INTO BODY BLOWS AND HERBERT AND MITCHELL GRUNTING
23. FATHER: That’s it.  Don’t forget your footwork…
24. HERBERT: Ungh!
25. SOUND: BODY DROP –
26. FATHER: Damn it, Herbert.  I told you to keep your guard up.  Your brother’s got a wicked left.
27. HERBERT: Dad, I hate you!
28. FATHER: Good.  Maybe you can use it to help you win!
29. (BEAT)
30. MITCHELL: (FADE UP) At least he seems to care about your progress.
31. HERBERT: Care.  All he does is ride me all day.
32. MITCHELL:  Well he ignores me.  Every time I do well, nothing.  If I do something badly, still nothing.  What makes you so important?
33. HERBERT:  I don’t know.  I’m not sure I can keep this up.  I need to get out of here.  Away from him.
34. MITCHELL: It wouldn’t be safe… and you know it.
35.  (BEAT)
36. FATHER: Try again.  Like we’ve been practicing.
37. SOUND: TWO SHOTS – LET IT FINISH.
38. FATHER:  That’s it.  You’re hitting the target at least.
39. SOUND: CROSS FADE INTO CLASHING STEEL – UNDER
40. FATHER: That’s the way.  Don’t let the point through your guard.  If you can just start to take the offensive…
41. SOUND: PUMMELING, GRUNTS, ETC. – COME TO A STOP– THEN PANTING
42. FATHER: Good.  Again.
43. (BEAT)
44. HERBERT: Dad, it’s been years.  We’ve moved three times.  They’ve got to have forgotten about us by now.
45. FATHER: We’re not going to let our guard down now.  They’re never going to give up.
46. HERBERT: But Dad…
47. FATHER: Come on.  You know the drill.  Steady, aim, fire.
48. HERBERT: (SULLEN) Fine.
49. SOUND: TWO SHOTS.
50. FATHER: Bulls eye! (BEAT) Mitchell? You ready to have a go.
51. MITCHELL: I’m done.  I’ve had enough for today.
52. SOUND: CROSS FADE INTO CLASHING STEEL – UNDER
53. SOUND: SLIDE OF BLADE ALONG BLADE TO THUMP ON HILT
54. FATHER: Argh!
55. SOUND: BLADE CLATTERS ONTO FLOOR – UNDER.
56. FATHER: (TRIUMPHANT) Yes!  You disarmed me.  Well done, Herbert.
57. MITCHELL: (FURIOUS) To Hell with this!
58. SOUND: BLADE THROWN TO FLOOR.
59. SOUND: DOOR SLAMS
60. HERBERT: (BEWILDERED) Mitchell?
61. SOUND: CROSS FADE INTO BODY BLOWS AND HERBERT AND MITCHELL GRUNTING
62. SOUND: FIGHT BELL
63. FATHER: And the bout goes to Herbert on points.  Well done.
64. MITCHELL: No! (ONE LAST GRUNT OF EFFORT) Ugh!
65. SOUND: BODY BLOW
66. HERBERT: (IN PAIN) Ungh!
67. SOUND: BODY DROP – HERBERT FALLS
68. HERBERT: (BEAT) What the hell?  The bell’s rung already.
69. MITCHELL: (UNREPENTENT) Sorry.  I guess I just slipped.
70. FATHER: (ANGRY) Mitchell, get out of the ring!
71. HERBERT: Stop it, Dad.  I’m fine.
72. MITCHELL: I don’t need you to fight my battles, Herbert.
73. HERBERT: I wasn’t.  I was just…
74. MITCHELL: Taking the chance to pick another fight with Dad.  Right.  To Hell with you!

Copyright Philip Craig Robotham © 2022 

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

Am I an artist?

A question on a facebook page recently got me thinking – “Do you think of yourself as an artist?”

It’s a pretty simple question and it should have an easy answer. But it doesn’t.

That’s because answering it out loud (that is, publicly) gives reign to all manner of insecurities.

If I say “yes”, will I be seen as arrogant?

If I say “yes”, and people think my art is bad, what does that make me? Deluded?

If I say “yes”, and I think my art isn’t up to scratch, am I being a fraud?

Who am I fooling, if I say “yes”. Myself? Others? Anyone?

And can I call what I do art anyway?

This little essay isn’t about what makes a person an artist (though I am going to provide a definition, probably in the next paragraph, so that we are all on the same page – at least regarding what I mean be the term) but instead, is about the psychological baggage many of us carry around that makes answering the question hard.

Here’s my definition… An artist is someone who makes art. That’s it. In this definition the art doesn’t have to be good or bad… it just has to exist – and whoever makes it is, by definition, an artist. Whether the art was made by Og the Caveman scrawling on a cave wall, or Leonardo DaVinci, if the product is art, then its maker is an artist.

So if I make art, then I am an artist.

See what I did there? Did you notice? I still didn’t come out and say it. I added that little “if” in there – a little wriggle room to back out of categorising myself. I think I better close up the loopholes a little.

Here’s my definition of art… Art is any creative product (in digital or physical form) that can be shared with others – a painting, a sculpture, a play, a film, a piece of music, an audio drama, a television shows – that find its origin in the human imagination and is made open to perception by human effort.

As a definition it probably has limits (I’m hedging again) but it will do for this discussion.

So here goes… I write plays, therefore I am an artist.

There, I said it. And my stomach sank as I did so. Right now I want to step back and qualify that statement in about a thousand ways with comments like “and, yes, I know some folks don’t think my plays are very good”, and “I’m still learning” and “there are plenty of folks who are better at writing plays than I am” and “it’s still true that some folks think I’m a hack (and I half agree)” etc. Why?

Well, the simple answer is that most of the time I feel like an imposter, and that feeling, apparently, is VERY common. So common that it has a name: Imposter syndrome.

Imposter Syndrome

“Imposter syndrome” is a term that was coined in the late seventies by a pair of clinical psychologists (Pauline Clance and Suzanne Imes). It describes the feeling of just not measuring up, that secret fear that, if you dare to label yourself competent, someone is going to expose you. It is the secret belief that you are a fraud and that someone could expose you as a fraud any minute. And worse, it is the fear that, once exposed, you’d have to agree with the judgment. Essentially, it is insecurity writ LARGE!

Not everyone feels like an imposter. In fact there is a psychological effect (the Dunning-Kruger effect that describes those who OVER-estimate their own abilities) but, it is suggested, imposter syndrome effects about 40% of the population (so 1 in five people – a fairly sizable minority).

There are some personality traits that are closely related to the experience of imposter syndrome.

Perfectionism – Perfectionism is a curse. You always know you could do better – that what you’ve achieved isn’t quite there yet – and so, you feel like a fraud.

Fear of failure – Fear of failure is crippling. It encourages us to just give up. It causes us to plateau in our abilities. And, like perfectionism, leaves us painfully aware that we are not yet all that we would like to be.

Overwork (workaholism) – Folks who overwork, obsess over the details, over-prepare, etc. can sometimes do so out of fear that, if they don’t, someone is going to “realise” they aren’t really all that good at what they do.

Minimising accomplishments – A function of old-fashioned insecurity, sometimes perceived as false-modesty, can also be driven by the fear that you might be exposed as a fraud.

The common thread in all of this is, of course, insecurity – an unjustifiably low opinion of ourselves coupled with an unreasonable fear of the opinions of others. And artists are particularly prone to it.

The vulnerable artist

The artist has a great deal to fear. Art is something the artist creates for others to appreciate. Conceivably, art can be created for our own enjoyment. It can be locked away, true. But for most artists there is a tiny spark of ego at work that drives us to put our work in front of an audience. This invites judgment and we can be powerfully afraid of those judgments. No matter how welcome a favourable judgement from an audience member is, the fear of an unfavourable judgement is also very real.

This is further complicated when our identity and self-worth is tied up with producing our art. It is true to say that every artist puts a piece of themselves into every work they create, and that having done so, every harsh word about that work can be difficult to distinguish from a personal attack.

I sometimes wonder if reviewers have any real idea of just how devastating their judgments can be. In recent years I’ve noticed a trend away from objective reviewing of material towards a self-aggrandizing personality based form of review that judges its success on the basis of how entertainingly they can mock the targets of their reviews. That’s not to say that reviews can’t be entertaining to be good, only that when a review serves the ego of the writer and not the audience through an objective evaluation of the pros and cons of the work, it has left the path of wisdom… but that’s another topic for another day.

The point I’m making is that artist’s make themselves vulnerable to the opinions of others and often have a lot at stake because a certain amount of their identity is wrapped up in the works they produce.

This is both a strength and a weakness. The personal investment of the artist adds power to their work, but makes them vulnerable to fear.

Fear is the enemy of the artist

One of the most revolutionary insights I have ever been granted came from the book “Art and Fear” by David Bayles and Ted Orland. I’ve written elsewhere about how perfectionism and fear of failure hold us back from developing as artists, so rather than repeat myself here, I’ll let just include this wonderful anecdote from the book…

“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

And this quote clarifying its meaning…

“To require perfection is to invite paralysis. The pattern is predictable: as you see error in what you have done, you steer your work toward what you imagine you can do perfectly. Your cling ever more tightly to what you already know you can do, away from risk and exploration, and possibly further from the work of your heart. You find reasons to procrastinate, since to not work is to not make mistakes.”

But I promised to talk about defeating insecurity in order to keep on writing, didn’t I? So, what helps us do this?

Before I suggest some helpful strategies, there is one more point I need to cover (so I hope you’ll hang in there with me just a little bit longer).

We’ve looked at some of the sources of insecurity (fear, self-doubt etc.) and some of the ways that insecurity manifests itself (perfectionism, avoidance, workaholism etc.) but it’s also important to discuss a little about the way the brain deals with these things.

Giving the brain a good talking to

A lot of us have a very erroneous and damaging belief about our feelings. We think they are triggered by events. If I were to diagram the common perception it would look something like this…

EVENT –> EMOTION

I know this looks like common sense, but it is actually quite wrong. Let me explain.

I’m a teacher and as such I spend, at least, some of my time supervising kids in the play ground. Imagine for a moment that I am crossing the school yard when a ball comes flying out of nowhere and strikes me in the back of the head. That’s a triggering event, right? One that could conceivably result in an emotion (anger, embarrassment, etc.).

But lets look at it a bit more closely. If I turn around and see a terrified primary school child looking apologetic and horrified that they accidentally kicked the ball and it hit me, am I likely to feel anger? Of course not. But if I turn around and see a kid sniggering and pointing at me to his friends so that I believe the kick was on purpose, well, anger is a very likely result.

You see, events don’t lead inexorably to emotional responses. The interpretation we place on those events and the thoughts we have about them do. A more correct diagram would look like this…

EVENT –> THOUGHT –> EMOTION

And this is the final understanding needed to begin talking about dealing with insecurity as an artist.

Beating insecurity – Seven key techniques

1. Understand where your insecurity comes from and how it manifests.

“Know yourself” is always good advice. If you know your insecurity comes from fear of the opinions of others, or low self-esteem, you are already well on your way to addressing the issue, even more so if you know that your insecurity manifests itself in an inability to accept praise or a crippling perfectionism etc.

1. Test your understanding of reality

Unrealistic beliefs about ourselves and our work are counterproductive. Our emotions follow our thoughts and beliefs, so it is important that we be objective in our understanding of ourselves and our art. Apply the “reasonablesness” test to your thoughts. Is it reasonable to expect perfection? Is it reasonable to discount your achievements because of the flaws you are aware of? Is it reasonable to tear up that manuscript because it didn’t achieve everything you were aiming for?

1. Adopt a new perspective

When you uncover unreasonable perspectives. Replace them with realistic ones. “Yes, I can always do better, but given the time available I have done a good job”. “Yes, it isn’t perfect, but it never will be and each piece I produce brings me closer to the perfection I’m seeking”.

1. Challenge negative thoughts

Our negative self-talk is a major obstacle to our ability to see the world (and our own work) clearly. Often our self-talk has become a habit, entrenched through long years of repetition. “You’re no good”. “You’re a fraud”. “You’re not a real writer” etc. These thoughts must be challenged and replaced… and it will take some effort and practice – particularly if the negative thoughts have been established by long habit – and it may be a slow process.

Have you ever been feeling low and had someone try to cheer you up? Have you ever wondered why most people find it incredibly annoying when someone, with the best of intentions, tries to do that?

As human beings we are addicted to strong emotions. We often don’t care that the emotion is a negative one. If it is strong enough, we are content to enjoy it and wallow in it.

As a result, it often isn’t easy to challenge negative thoughts and emotions when we have been captured by them in the moment.

For this reason, it is important to practice positive self-talk when things are quiet and going well. Think of it like practicing a fire drill. You don’t wait for a crisis in order to practice the drill. You do it over and over when things are safe so that when the crisis occurs you can reach for the strategies you have been practicing without panic and survive.

1. Embrace your identity

Practice voicing your identity. I create art, therefore I am an artist. I write plays therefore I am a writer. Tell yourself these things. They are objectively true. Try not to shy away from them.

1. Seek out challenges (and never stop being a student)

One of the key things that I have had to learn about myself (and come to accept) is that I will never be the writer I want to be. There is always more to learn. And the only way I will ever learn the skills I have yet to master is if I seek them out. I need to seek out challenges, criticism, feedback and (dare I say it) opportunities for failure, if I am to improve. It’s how learning takes place, so I must resign myself to failure as a necessary tool and teacher. It takes courage, but if you can celebrate your failures as milestones (and even look forward to them for what you will learn) on the road to greater mastery of the craft of writing, rather than as a source of shame and self-loathing, your skills will grow faster and faster.

1. Make more art

And of course, make more art. The person who never succeeds is always the person who stops trying. Keep making art, and with every piece you will grow into your self-understanding as an artist.

Conclusion

The simple question that opened this piece “Do you think of yourself as an artist?” does in fact have a simple answer – but one that required a lot of unpacking. I am an artist, and so are you if you have courage enough to put pen to paper and make the result known.

Insecurity is your enemy, but it can be vanquished with healthy doses of reality and a determination to press forward to become better and better at your craft.

The post How to shout down your insecurities and keep on writing appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Why Reading matters

Good writers read. It’s a commonplace truth in the world of prose fiction and non-fiction writing that to be a good writer you need to immerse yourself in the written word of your fellow writers (both past and present). All writers read, for pleasure and for profit, yet lots of audio script writers fail to recognize that reading has a critical place in the writer’s tool-box.

No novelist would denigrate the importance of reading novels for their craft. Stephen King reads other horror writers. Peter F Hamilton reads other scifi writers. Romance and adventure writers read each other avidly.

But audio script-writers can occasionally be heard to boast about how they don’t listen to or read the works of other producers (particularly producers from the past). This may simply be a feature of the immaturity of the craft in the face of its modern day revival, but it, nonetheless, indicates a significant misunderstanding regarding the value of reading scripts. Lots of folks are coming to the art of audio drama script writing as if it is being invented brand new from whole cloth (rather than as the product of a long history of practice, experimentation, and industry knowledge). Hopefully, they will learn better quickly.

By way of illustration, there was a (rather hit and miss) TV comedy I saw a few years back called “Garth Marengi’s Dark Place” about a fictional writer who attempted to adapt his stories for television. It was a great illustration of the mistake involved in avoiding reading. The show was produced in the form of a mockumentary series with lots of interviews with the fictional author etc. One comment stood out to me in particular. Garth announced proudly to the camera that “I’m one of the few writers who’ve written more books than I’ve read.” This comment was obviously intended to highlight to the audience just how ignorant an individual the character was. But in audio drama, it happens from time to time that someone will make a similar statement without any sense of irony.

If you’re a script writer who doesn’t read scripts… well, you’re missing out on one of the primary means at your disposal to improve your craft.

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write.

Simple as that.” – Stephen King

“The person who won’t read has no advantage over the one who can’t read.” — Mark Twain.

“Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You’ll absorb it.” – William Faulkner

“You can learn from textbooks about the writing craft, but there’s no substitute for discovering for yourself how a writer pulls off a trick.” – Roz Morris

Reading and writing are two sides of the same coin. Writing relies on reading for it’s impetus, improvement, and inspiration.

Why Reading Scripts Makes Us Better Writers

Reading is the writer’s primary means of self-education. Reading is the means by which we come to absorb the power of words. By immersing ourselves in the written word we provide our brain with the fuel it requires to learn and master new techniques, improve style, and generate new ideas. Aside from multiplying the connections in our brains, reading shows us how good writing (and bad) is done.

We absorb a vast amount of what we read unconsciously. Rules of spelling and grammar, while still requiring conscious effort to be consciously recalled, are absorbed and become part of us through reading.

Via reading our understanding of vocabulary, our critical appreciation of what constitutes good and poor quality writing, and our intuition of the nuances of language improves.

The Benefits of Reading Other People’s Scripts

By reading we gain inspiration. Creativity is as much a feature of being exposed to a variety of ideas and approaches as it is a matter of locking ourselves in a room and brainstorming. New thoughts inspire new thoughts, and exposure to a new idea, technique, or experience can prompt a veritable storm of new thoughts. Reading is a window onto new experiences and ideas from which our own unique ideas can be born. Exploring the world from a variety of perspectives and approaches makes us better problem solvers and more creative individuals.

By reading we gain insight. If you want to become a master of characterization, and a genius at exposing the inner workings of personality through your writing then you need to give yourself as many opportunities as possible to develop a deep understanding of people. By reading the portrayal and actions of as wide a variety of characters in written work as you can, you gain greater empathy, insight, and understanding of what makes people tick and how they behave.

By reading we improve our technique. The more we read the richer our knowledge base becomes. We learn from the tips, techniques, and tragic mistakes of others. If we tap into the experience of others, there is no need for us to make the mistakes that have been made in the past. All of this and more is available to us through reading.

And lets not forget that reading is fun. Very few areas of human endeavour are as enjoyable to learn as writing. Why? Because the primary and easiest means of learning the craft of writing comes from a practice that is inherently enjoyable and entertaining; reading.

Why Reading a Wide Variety of Scripts is Important

As writers we tend to reflect what we read. The influences we absorb come back out unconsciously in the things we write.

As a result it is important to read widely. If we read lots of textbooks our writing will be economical and informative. If we read history and biography our writing will be analytical and personal. If we read poetry our writing will be lyrical and fluid. If we read novels and stories of adventure our writing will be fast paced and action oriented. If we read thrillers our writing will be tense and suspenseful. If we read best-sellers our writing will have a contemporary feel. If we read classics our writing will have a mature feel and one with a strong sense of style and mastery of language. By reading from a wide variety of genres and styles we absorb a wide range of skills and styles that are then integrated into our own repertoire.

If you are a horror writer, or a scifi writer, then, by all-means, read within your chosen genre. Learn from the masters in your chosen field. But always remember that reading outside your chosen genre diversifies and expands your skills and allows you to bring new techniques and methods into your writing. It also helps to keep you from becoming stale and formulaic.

A Characteristic of the Successful Writer

If you intend to master the writing of audio plays, you can’t afford to ignore the huge resource available to you in the scripts provided by your forebears and contemporaries.

Scripts can show us how to achieve all manner of effects; technical, narrative, and emotional. We can analyse them to break down specific techniques and tricks. We can see how the limitations and strengths of the medium are exploited by a variety of writers to create great stories.

Most of us learn by example and audio scripts are full of examples we can learn from (both those we wish to follow and those we wish to avoid).

Many producers of audio drama already share their scripts with the world. A huge library of material from the past and present can also be found online. As much as we should be listening to a wide range of audio drama in order to improve our craft, we should also be reading as much as we can (from the past and present). If we wish to develop as audio writers we should be building a library of scripts that we read regularly, from a wide variety of times, styles and genres.

Don’t count yourself among those who mistakenly believe the work of others is of little value. There will always be egotists who believe their uniqueness requires that they keep themselves unsullied from the influence of others. Laugh at them if you must, but don’t follow their example. Allow them to go ahead and repeatedly make all the mistakes that others have made before them. Allow them to stagnate within the narrow confines of their limited experience. But don’t be that kind of writer, yourself. Give yourself permission to learn, and room to grow, by seeking out masters and mentors for yourself from the written work of those around you (past and present).

Given that the reading of scripts is so obviously helpful to audio writers, it is a huge surprise that there are still audio-dramatists who refuse to invest much time in doing it.

One of the most important characteristics of the successful writer is a commitment to continuing improvement. Read scripts to improve your writing practice. Seek them out, absorb them, immerse yourself in them, analyse them, and take them seriously as a means of self-improvement. In the process you’ll discover just how much fun there is to be had in growing your skills and ability.

Great Free-To-Read Script Resources

100+ Great Free Audio Drama Scripts

This collection of great free entertainment includes genres such as Pulp Adventure, Gaslamp Mystery, Fantasy Noir, Space Opera, Tales with Twists, and other imaginative entertainment – all at the click of a button – and with many more on the way.
http://www.weirdworldstudios.com/scripts/

BBC’s Script Library (Comedy)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/search?genre=comedy&platform=radio&orderby=recent

BBC’s Script Library (Drama)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/scripts/search?genre=drama&platform=radio&orderby=recent

Simply Scripts (OTR Script Resource)

http://www.simplyscripts.com/radio_all.html

Miscellaneous OTR Scripts

http://emruf.webs.com/

http://www.oocities.org/emruf6/

http://www.oocities.org/emruf7/

http://www.oocities.org/emruf8/

http://www.silentuniverse.com/

http://www.quietplease.org/index.php?section=listepisodes

http://otrsite.com/jackmann/scriptpage.html

http://www.oocities.org/daggerofthemind2000/Radio/CairoScriptLibrary.html

https://sites.google.com/site/microphoneplays/home

http://www.icon.co.za/~whyle/RejoiceWS4.htm

http://www.radiowork.com/?page_id=89

Scripts from Radio’s Black Legacy

http://www.jfredmacdonald.com/rddf/index.htm

The post Read Scripts to improve your Writing appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

This is a long post, so here’s the tldr (Too Long so Didn’t Read) version;
Writing for kids is the same as writing for adults (requiring the same skills, plot structures, and character depth etc.) and only differs in that it requires the writer to place hope at the heart of their story telling. I write specifically for my own kids (who are autistic and have special needs) and the parents of kids like mine. All kids benefit from good stories, but autistic kids get some really important benefits from reading radio plays and taking on roles within them. What follows unpacks this in some detail.

KID’S DRAMA DOESN’T EXIST

Kid’s drama is an especially relevant topic for me because writing for kids is what I do with every play I put a pen to. The thing is, though, while every play I have written has been written with my own kids as the primary audience, I’ve never once written a children’s play – not even my version of Rapunzel (written for schools).

If that seems a little confusing, then let me explain (or at least attempt to). I’ve been reading kids books all my life… ever since I was a kid myself. When I was a kid I read lots of adult fiction too. And as an adult I read lots of kid’s fiction. Why? Because the classification of child and adult as it applies to stories, doesn’t mean a lot to me. I just like stories, and a good story aimed at kids is as good a story (if well told) as a good story aimed at adults.

I actually think it is a mistake to try to create a “children’s” story as if it is a special kind of story, different from all others. When it comes to writing for children all that is really required is that you create a “good” story and make it accessible to children.

THE AUDIENCE OF CHILDREN’S DRAMA

Another thing I’m deeply aware of is that children are only part of the audience for children’s stories.

When I prepare a story, I have some specific kids in mind as the audience; my sons. And I recommend that anyone writing for children should have some real life children in mind when they write. But I am also aware that I will be reading the stories I prepare to and with them. I want the stories I give my kids to be stories I want to read and enjoy. All children’s fiction writers need to be aware of this secondary audience for their materials; parents. Pixar cottoned on to this for their movies. Children don’t go to movies on their own. If you want to make money producing a kids’ film, you don’t create a film that parents won’t enjoy. This is just as true for writing. If there is a household where the kids are avid readers, then there is a strong chance it is because the parents are reading with and to them. Materials that bore adults to tears are not going to get onto a child’s reading list easily.

So, I write my plays for my sons, but I also write them (perhaps primarily) for people like me; people who want to read plays with their kids and enjoy a good story in the process – and that means I don’t write “just” for my kids. Instead I write the best story I can, one that I, and adults like me, are going to enjoy, but I make the story, in terms of language, and themes, as accessible to kids as possible.

THE STYLE OF KID’S DRAMA

And when I say I make my stories accessible to children, I absolutely don’t mean that I talk down to kids. I use whatever vocabulary I think is necessary and I trust my story to be compelling enough that kids will use the context (and a dictionary, if necessary) to ferret out the meaning and keep following along.

Of course, I may not be typical in this. When my kids were babies I would read them whatever I happened to be interested in at the time. My wife came home one day to find me with my three month old youngest son lying on my chest as I read to him from Alexander De Toqueville’s, Democracy in America. 

But by and large, it is a good idea to keep the ages and stages of child development in mind – not slavishly, but in mind nonetheless. Again, this is not a hard and fast rule. Good stories are things kids will come back to over and over again. The story that goes over a child’s head today (in terms of the concepts and themes it contains), if it is compelling enough to maintain their interest in spite of those elements, will become very accessible tomorrow (and will reward that later reading by seeming fresh all over again). Sometimes a writer simply has to trust the story.

I remember being entranced by The Wizard of Oz as a kid (btw not a great book to read out loud to your kids as an adult – the sentences are frequently too long to read easily out loud). Baum has his little girl protagonist wandering around assassinating witches and otherwise doing some pretty hard-core things. The comedian Rick Polito described the plot this way; “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first woman she meets, then teams up with three complete strangers to kill again.”

The violent nature of the story wasn’t lost on its initial audience either. Frank L Baum received lots of complaints. In subsequent stories no-one ever died and the childrens’ speech became increasingly stylized and, well, dumb. Needless to say, the later stories never had the same appeal as the first.

I’ll talk a bit more about self-censorship later, but I want to emphasise that I always aim to tell the story I want to tell (even when it is the story of a dentist taking a grisly revenge upon a drunk driver who killed his daughter). But I do so, in a way that is accessible and entertaining for my kids (now and, hopefully, later on as well).

CONTENT WARNINGS

On that score, I’m a strong believer in content warnings. Content warnings aren’t censorship. They don’t “limit” your audience. The make it possible for your audience to find you and make an informed decision about what they want to expose themselves and, in the case of children’s fiction, what they expose their children to. I get annoyed when material doesn’t come with a suitable content warning. Personally, I love creepy stories with supernatural themes. I like fantasy and horror. I find action and fight scenes exciting. But, I don’t like gratuitous swearing, overt sexuality, and acts of sadism, in the stories I listen to. I’m always grateful when the producers give me a head’s up before I waste my time on something that I’m not going to enjoy.

DO CHILDREN NEED CHILD CHARACTERS TO RELATE TO?

The short answer is no. Children are used to living in a world where they don’t have child characters to relate to. In fact children will relate to anything – frogs, pigs, spiders, you name it. Kids love superheroes, Bilbo Baggins, Frodo, Gandalf, etc. Every once in a while studio execs go “wouldn’t it be better if we provided some adventures with characters closer to the age of the kids in our audience so that they’ve got someone to identify with?” The question itself fails to recognise something fairly obvious about stories.

Characters must serve the story. When they are invented for another purpose (to serve as a point of identification for a demographic for example) they invariably fail. It’s been tried, way to often, and, as an experiment, has been shown over and over to be a bad idea.

Readers don’t ask “is this character my age?” Instead they want to know “is this character asking the kind of questions of his/her world that I am asking?”

Kids identify with old people, young people, men, women, and magical talking frogs, all on the basis of whether the character is asking the questions they want answers to. The character who does this can be a peer or a Titan. It’s not the physical wrapping that counts so much as the questions, hopes, and fears inside the character that are being revealed.

HOW DO CHILDREN SEE THE WORLD?

It’s often forgotten that life just happens to children. They are brought into the world without being consulted and carried from place to place by their parents. They are sent to school, fed whatever their parents can afford to provide and told where and when they can use the bathroom and go to sleep. Children are the most powerless and vulnerable people in our society (though my own experience of parenting tells me that children fight for power in that powerlessness tooth and nail). They experience life more than they assert control over it.

My father died when I was eleven, he had been sick with cancer for nearly seven years before he finally lost the fight. I didn’t question this, ask why, or rail against the fates that left my family on the bread-line, struggling to get by, as a result of his extended illness. Life was simply what happened to us. Childhood allows us to accept the bad with the good in a way that an adult can’t truly approach or get inside, precisely because, when we are children, we are powerless in everything.

But life is also full of wonder. We forget, with age, just how much the early part of our lives was a non-stop stream of firsts. Every day was fresh and new. Enjoying sunshine and flowers and tasting the rain, and feeling the wind in our faces was “wonder”-ful. It evoked a sense of wonder. We would discover earthworms, and bugs, and caves in the hedgerow, and forts made of boxes and so-on (and yes, I had a suburban upbringing with parks nearby for playing etc.). It was far easier to imagine and believe in things (like heroism, and goodness, and magic, and monsters) in the years before political scandals, and greedy pharmaceutical companies, and rapacious insurance companies, and bullies, and dishonest bosses, and self-centered teachers, and famines, and terrorist bombings, and self-serving opportunistic governments chipped all that optimism away.

Despite the wonder, children see the world quite clearly. They haven’t learned to filter things and will state what they think with honesty and enthusiasm. They are cruel and selfish, utterly impulsive, often lack conscience about a lot of things, have little fear of consequences, and will take enormous and foolish risks without counting the cost.

Adults come in two flavours, friendly adults (those you trust) and dangerous adults (those that threaten or hurt you in some way or are strangers). Likewise, they see other children the same way. The world is very binary. Of course a lot of people never quite grow out of seeing the world in terms of “black and white”, us and them, friends and enemies. Shades of gray are hard for adults and very tricky for kids. Friendship tends to be all or nothing (hence the panic of parents who see their kids falling in with the “wrong” crowd).

Adults, when they stray into the kids’ space, are oddly stupid. A kid is being bullied on the street corner and an adult yells “Hey, leave that kid alone”. The kids go around the corner, but the adult never follows to see that the victim isn’t bothered further and the bullying continues not five feet away. It’s as if the world of children is an alien country when viewed from a different height, rather than the same world we all share. It’s a writer’s job to overcome this artificial demarcation.

DOES THERE HAVE TO BE A MORAL?

A common mistake people make when writing a story for kids is that they think it needs to have an overt moral to it. Now it is true that Kid’s fiction isn’t morally neutral – it does have moral implications (and I’ve written elsewhere about how I think all writing has moral implications). But beating kids over the head with a moral lesson is an act of propaganda rather than story telling. The act of embedding moral lessons in kids’ stories is as old as aesop’s fables, but that doesn’t mean I particularly like it. So what am I saying? All stories are moral stories. Characters act in stories and those actions are subject to our moral judgments. Kids are capable of judging Voldemort’s behaviour vs. the behaviour of Sirius Black vs. the behaviour of Severus Snape. Complexity, moral ambiguity, and shades of black and white and gray, exist in all stories. We don’t have to shout “THIS PERSON IS GOOD” and “THIS PERSON IS BAD” and “YOU SHOULD TRY TO BE LIKE THIS” and “YOU SHOULD TRY NOT TO BE LIKE THAT” in order to make a moral point – and we really shouldn’t. It’s both patronizing and insulting to children to do this.

WHAT’S THE ESSENCE OF WRITING FOR KIDS?

If there’s one solid conclusion I’ve come to about writing for kids, it is this. It is actually no different than writing for adults (except with regard to some thematic issues – see later). All the writing fundamentals are the same. You still have to pay attention to plot, character, conflict and tension. Plots need to be just as carefully structured, characters need to be just as carefully developed, and the world requires just as much conflict and tension in it to be interesting. Children’s stories are adult stories where a little more concern is shown towards the audience. Most of us know where the boundaries lie – in that most children’s writers will think twice before writing a graphic scene (for example, where a baby is boiled to death) for children. But otherwise, it takes the same craft, effort, and sense of story to produce a piece of literature (play, prose, whatever) for children.

There are numerous experiences that children know intimately. They understand powerlessness, cruelty, shame, and fear from the inside. It is part and parcel of their existence that the adult world and their peers can render them powerless, can inflict (and can have inflicted upon them) great acts of cruelty, and can fill them with embarrassment and shame. To the inhabitants of such a world, stories of resilience, kindness, friendship, love, and courage are especially significant, but the way they are approached is also important.

Fiction that is suitable for kids needs to be, in my opinion and for want of a better word, ennobling. While stories for adults can be gratuitously cruel, violent, sexual, or horrific, I think it’s safe to say that this cannot be the case when preparing stories for children. That doesn’t mean stories can’t deal with adult concepts and topics, but they can’t be presented in all their stark hopelessness. In works for children, at least as applies to my own writing, while evil is real, it has to be faced with courage and compassion, and where evil carries the day, it must still be overcome in the personality and psychology of the protagonists. In the end, if children are your audience, hope and healing is essential, even if your protagonists face the worst that world can dish out.

WHAT DRAMA DOES FOR KIDS

Drama and literature have a special purpose when it comes to kids. They help children to appreciate the past, to critique and think critically about the present, and to take warning and inspiration for the future. Even where the stories are highly speculative they can give kids insight into life and human nature. Honesty is therefore an essential element of writing kids fiction and drama.

DRAMA AND KIDS WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

I’ve mentioned before that I have two sons who are autistic. Both of them were born with brains that are far from normal. They have a lot of trouble interpreting social situations and people. The rules of social interaction, personal space, what’s polite and what isn’t; these things don’t come naturally to autistic kids. Where a neuro-typical kid absorbs social rules without effort, an autistic child has to be taught them explicitly. Understanding the “otherness” of the external world and other people is really hard for autistic kids. As such, empathy is not an easy skill for them to pick up.

When my kids were young it occurred to me that drama might be a way to help them recognise the separateness of other people and develop empathy by putting themselves in other people’s shoes. I started reading Peter Pan (the play) with my kids, getting them to take on the characters’ roles. From there we quickly graduated to other plays but quickly discovered that there aren’t an abundance of plays around that are written for, or interesting to, kids. It was the thing that prompted me to start writing them for myself.

Audio drama is particularly good, because it doesn’t require props or other visual cues. We could read them together at bedtime, without the need to prepare anything in advance, and it was a lot of fun. Unfortunately, I’m not the fastest writer in the world and I started looking around for audio drama scripts. Numerous people in the audio-drama community helped me out by supplying scripts that I could read with the kids – in particular I owe a huge debt to generous folks like Gregg Taylor of Decoder Ring Theatre and Pete Lutz of the Narada Theatre Company. Reading radio drama, taking on roles, and talking about the characters and their motivations etc. has made a huge difference to my kids. My youngest, who struggled the most in terms of social development, changed markedly as we read plays together. At school, a new child arrived and he introduced himself, and showed the boy around. The boy’s mother came to us (almost crying) to thank us that Ben had been so kind. Ben said he “thought the boy would be very lonely at a new school and needed someone to help him out”. To say this is not typical of autistic kids is putting it mildly. When the psychologist noted the progress he was making and asked us what we had been doing with Ben, we explained about the play reading. He thought about it for a minute and then responded, “yep, that would account for it”.

It turns out that reading plays (specifically adopting roles within plays) helps autistic kids create new connections in the brain, helps them develop insight into the psychology of those around them, promotes empathy, models social skills for them, improves their social intelligence, and helps autistic children imagine themselves from the outside (as other people might see them).

While people can buy the plays I write (and I’m always happy if they do because it helps me to pay for the website, and professional editing, and artwork etc.), I give them away for free to people, and the families of people, with children on the autism spectrum. As much as I love audio drama in and of itself (and have done since I was a kid) my primary motivation in writing audio-drama is my kids and the way audio drama can be used to help them with their social and brain development.

And there you have it; some musings, and possible insights, on writing for kids from someone who has been groping around in the dark trying to do just that. I’d love to hear what you agree with, disagree with, and just think in general about writing for kids.

The post Tips and Suggestions for Writing Audio Drama for Kids appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

A TEMPLATE FOR ROMANCE?

More from the side project this week… but first, an admission. There are numerous kinds of scenes that I struggle with. I find romance hard to write. I find action scenes devilishly difficult. Comedy is not my strong suit… and neither is tragedy. That’s whole areas of dramatic expression that I know I’m weak at. It’s the reason my experimental project exists. On my PC I keep a folder full of writing where I am trying out scenes and techniques that I’m weak at, not because I want to pursue them in any particular work or project, but because I want to keep on learning and get better at writing.

Here for your consideration and comment is some advice I found helpful on writing scenes in one of my weak areas; romance. I’ve included a link to a scene from my experimental folder to illustrate its use (added to my website this week) and an analysis of how the scene implements the advice that follows.

I’ve long forgotten the source of this advice on building romance in a story. It certainly doesn’t originate with me. It is however an interesting structure for framing a typical romantic story and one I refer to when I have a romantic story-line or sub-plot in mind.

1. Introduce the characters

At the heart of a romance are two strong, appealing, sympathetic and three-dimensional characters.

Dialogue, rather than action, is the key tool to giving life, energy and pace to romance writing.

The protagonist (in a weakened state) meets the potential partner – but the relationship is uneven (not yet an equal partnership).

2. Introduce the conflict

There is a barrier to them being together (a conflict).

There are two types of conflict: internal and external:

Internal conflict is the romance writer’s main focus: defined by either character — the opposing forces within a personality, motivations and aspirations — or by an emotional situation within a relationship — for example, an unexpected pregnancy or an arranged marriage.

External conflict provides additional support to the developing romance and plot. External conflict is defined by misunderstandings, circumstances or a secondary character’s influence.

The conflict must be believable and must lend itself to being sustained over the course of a whole story — ideally two or three conflicts that unfold and are resolved in the course can be used. Conflict doesn’t mean endless arguments and should be layered in with emotional highs and lows.

3. Love unfolds despite the central conflict…

The attraction must be made obvious (even if being resisted by the characters themselves) and trust must be built and expressed.

4. But then the conflict forces them apart…

The characters must separate as a result of the conflict coming out into the open.

5. Introduce the reversal and the protagonist’s character growth…

The protagonist then loses everything and is forced to find new strength (overcoming the weakness revealed at the beginning of the story).

6. Rapprochment…

The potential partner is encountered anew and repents of the split – the conflict is finally overcome.

7. Denouement…

The protagonist is now strong enough to enter the relationship on equal footing and the relationship is formalised.

EXAMPLE (Amy and Maynard – A tale of young love)

http://weirdworldstudios.com/amy-maynard-old-fashioned-tal…/

ANALYSIS

Here’s how the above play attempts to hit all the beats of the Romantic plot.

1. Introduce the characters

We are introduced to Amy and Maynard, our protagonists.

We establish the unevenness of the relationship when Nikki points out that she knows Amy has been in love with the clueless Maynard forever.

2. Introduce the conflict

Pam, returning from her holiday, makes a play for Maynard threatening the relationship of all of them.

3. Love unfolds despite the central conflict…

Amy tags along like a jealous and lovesick puppydog.

4. But then the conflict forces them apart…

Pam monopolizes Maynard, keeping him to herself, while Amy’s sense of independence and fair play keeps her from stooping to the same tactics.

5. Introduce the reversal and the protagonist’s character growth…

Amy falls in the pond and punches the otherwise clueless Maynard in the nose.

6. Rapprochment…

Maynard seeks Amy out and apologises, asking her to the cricket.

7. Denouement…

Nicki helps Amy see the symbolic importance of the date.

Let me know what you think. Is this a good working model for presenting romance? Do you use a different one? What techniques do you use that aren’t mentioned here? I’d love to hear from you.

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

The post Tips and Suggestions for Writing Romance in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

I’ve mentioned before that I have a side project where I write short pieces (scenes and stories) to explore different script writing techniques. I thought that this week I’d share an example in which I explored some ideas around building suspense.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS

Here are some general observations on building suspense…

Suspense is a result of worry. If we don’t care about the character we won’t feel it. Therefore, the first rule of suspense is – make the character relatable.

Suspense usually requires the listener to know more than the character (the character is unaware of the danger but the listener knows and is worried) and it is therefore harder to create in the first person. We have to shift the perspective around a bit. This can be difficult to pull off regardless.

Suspense is created when the writer poses a question that the reader wants to know the answer to (will the protagonist be discovered by the villains who are hunting him/her?)

Suspense is sustained by deferring the answer to that question, by adding complications, and by continually increasing the peril and introducing new questions (What will happen to the innocent backpackers who, knowing nothing of the danger, are heading right into the area being searched by the villain?).

Suspense requires revelation.  At a certain point the protagonist must become aware of the peril. If they remain in the dark, most audience members will feel cheated.

Suspense is increased by focusing in on the protagonists senses (narrowing the focus to the racing heartbeat, the sweating palms, and the shaking hands). People in peril don’t stop to notice the gorgeous pattern on the wallpaper, so remember to narrow the focus of the audio (fade out the background and fade in the protagonist’s breathing and heartbeat etc.).

Suspense requires a payoff equal to promise implied in the question.

THINGS TO AVOID

Don’t expect the peril faced by your protagonist to create the maximum amount of suspense (your listenerer is likely to assume the protagonist will come through fine – even if they wont – and therefore won’t invest as much in the outcome). Make sure you have companions, and bystanders to care. Kill someone off early and the audience won’t be quite so sure that the other supporting characters will make it through alive.

Don’t put strangers in peril – no-one cares. Provide enough information for the listener to want these supporting characters to succeed, while not knowing if they will. Uncertainty regarding someone we care about is the key.

Don’t overdo the obstacles – beyond a certain point the listener will think to themselves “this is just getting silly”, at which point they will switch off the play and get a good night’s sleep.

Don’t subvert the promise of the question posed at the beginning of your attempt at suspense. If it turns out that the noise was simply that of the neighbour’s cat, the listener will feel cheated.

EXAMPLE

Another Day in the Jungle – A Tale of Suspense/

ANALYSIS

I’ve tried to (very quickly) create some relatable characters. Our hero, Jake, is a guy who is willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of others (if a little world weary). Paul exists only to watch and interact with Jake (so he’s particularly two-dimensional). I’ve also tried to reveal (in super quick sketch form) that the corporal is a decent guy and that M’Kenga is the breadwinner for his family. Not a lot to go on in a short space, but hopefully enough to make it matter when they are placed in peril.

The question of the piece is “who will live and who will die when the bomb goes off?”

In this case our characters are all aware of the danger, though there is a moment where the boys don’t realise their peril.

I’ve chosen to defer answering the question of the piece repeatedly…

• the first monkey grabs a grenade
• the other monkeys do likewise
• the corporal opens the door onto the scene
• the local boys come to take a look
• the jeep arrives blaring its horn.

I’ve attempted to use sound to focus in on the details and intensify the suspense (the crunch of each of Jake’s careful steps, in particular).

I’ve placed bystanders in peril along with our protagonist.

I’ve tried to pay off the question of the piece with the explosion at the end.

So, does it work? Are there other principles of suspenseful scene design that I’m neglecting?  What have I missed or overlooked in this analysis of the horror genre? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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

The post Suggestions for Writing Suspense in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Quick disclaimer: A model is an abstraction. It’s an artificial way of simplifying and organising ideas so that they can be applied in some practical way. Models are useful so long as we understand their limitations and don’t try to put too much weight on them. They all have their limits and this model – a mixture of loose thoughts, speculation, and borrowed ideas distilled from a lifetime of enjoyment of scary stories – is no different.

So, as already stated, I’m a big fan of scary stories (not unlike most audio-dramatists) and I was recently thinking about what makes us scared in fiction, drama, etc. so I hope you’ll excuse me if I engage in a bit of armchair analysis.

At base I’ve been wondering what story elements can be used to make us feel afraid (rather than simply the use of monsters to add atmosphere to an otherwise action-oriented story). Think Ridley Scott’s “Alien” as opposed to James Cameron’s “Aliens” (both fun films btw).

Here’s my personal take on a general model of the scary story. Not every story has all these elements in it, but I’ve been experimenting with using them, both as an analytical tool, and as components in a model for story design, and I feel reasonably confident that, in just about any scary story I can think of, some or all of these elements will appear.

STRUCTURE

Here’s the model…

In an unfamiliar place or a place rendered unfamiliar by circumstances and fear we discover there is something with antipathy towards us. It is half seen and difficult to define or describe, but we know it is there. It may appear familiar and benign at first but it is alien to our experience and wants to eat us (our relationships, our bodies, our minds). It undermines our faith in the things we trust and strips away our networks of support. Over and over we find the evidence of its passing but not the thing itself, glimpses only. By persuing it we become victims of its activity (blamed for its crimes, placing ourselves in increasing danger of (self) destruction, etc.) and we come to its notice. And just when we think it is defeated or gone we discover we have been marked as targets – it is now hunting us! We try to escape, our weapons and resources gone, and when safety seems almost within reach we at last come face to face with it and learn that it was smarter, stronger, faster, than we thought, and that it likes to gloat, and that we are trapped and as powerless as children. We may in the end defeat it, but the price will be unbearable (costing us our lives, our relationships, our health, our sanity, our worldly goods, our reputation, our future). In winning, we lose and in losing, we despair.

That is, I think a pretty good model for the development of the archetypal scary story. Each element contains one or more key emotional themes; fear of the unknown and/or immersion in the unfamiliar, the sense of a hostile presence, confusion and a sense of betrayal (by life) in the face of an unrelenting antagonist’s heartless purpose, isolation, loss of support, powerlessness, the sense of being hunted and chased, the feeling of being trapped, and, finally, despair.

THEME

A fundamental theme of the scary story is, I suspect, isolation and the betrayal of trust. Life just shouldn’t be like this, we think (or more accurately feel), as we react against the unfairness of the unnatural events being recounted. The unreasoning outer gods of the Lovecraft mythos were far more scary in the past because they undermined the widespread faith of the day in an orderly universe and loving God. The unstoppable zombie virus and plagues of modern story-telling similarly undermine our widespread faith in the power of science and progress. Good scary stories attack and take away from the audience, at least for the length of the story, those things that the audience-members rely upon for comfort, support, and protection. And in doing so, such stories render us deathly afraid.

A story doesn’t require the supernatural in order to be scary in this sense, either. Personally, I find Orwell’s Animal Farm, Golding’s “Lord of the Flies”, Steinbeck’s “The Grapes of Wrath”, and Takahata’s “Grave of the Fireflies” terrifying in their depiction of the results of cruelty (all of which use many of the elements of the above model – particularly the slow removal of trusted social protections – in their exposition). This is particularly true if I imagine, for a moment, the cruelty in these stories embodied as an invisible predator that is remorselessly hunting the protagonists; A predator that slips away at the end, secure in it’s achievements and invisibility, awaiting its next apportunity to stalk across the stage of human experience.

Before I finish, here’s a quote from Stephen King on the things we are afraid of…

“The 3 types of terror:

The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it’s when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm.

The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it’s when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm.

And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It’s when the lights go out and you feel something behind you; you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there’s nothing there…”

– Stephen King

If you have any other thoughts or elements that could be added to the model I’d be really interested.

BONUS

Here’s some great Youtube links about the use of sound to create fear.

What have I missed or overlooked in this analysis of the horror genre? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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

The post A Generic Model for Writing Scary Stories in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

I’ve been doing some thinking about writing comedy for audio drama; both its attractions and its dangers.

I like to use humor throughout my plays (though none of them are, strictly speaking, comedies). I do this because the audience finds it a welcome release from both the more expositional sections of a play and the more intense and dramatic moments.

I also do this because, in my work, I am writing specifically for amateurs and, often, kids as part of a dinner-party product. Frankly, overly serious fare does not a fun dinner party make. It’s important that my plays communicate from the outset that there is nothing about my stories to get overly precious about. Nothing helps my intended audience relax into performing a play, live around the dinner table, more quickly than a humorous “nod” to everyone involved that everything is “all in good fun” and not to be taken too seriously. The presence of humor achieves this better than any other technique I have tried.

DEFINING COMEDY

But coming up with jokes is actually hard work. And trying to define what is funny is even harder. Like trying to grasp water in your hand, any attempt at defining humor slips away the moment you close your grip. Still, there are probably a couple of features of humor that, if not universal, are at least very common. Humour tends to catch us by surprise, it tends to involve a shift in perspective, and it tends to make the audience feel clever.

Now, this isn’t always true. Sometimes hearing the overly familiar groaner of a “dad” joke that telegraphs its punchline well ahead of its delivery is, in context, still very funny (possibly because it makes us feel clever for seeing it coming). But generally speaking, we laugh when we are surprised. Likewise, there probably are jokes that don’t shift our perspective so that we see things differently to the way we normally would, but they are rarer than one would expect. Take the old gag involving Fred the builder and his assistant. Fred says “I’ll hold the nail in place and when I nod my head, you hit it.” The deliberate misunderstanding of the line that results in Fred getting hit in the head by the hammer forces the audience to shift their perspective away from the way the sentence is typically understood.

But, with regard to the last point, that comedy makes the audience feel clever, I think this is universally true. Frankly, I just can’t see a joke working that makes the audience feel stupid, but, hey, feel free to prove me wrong.

MEANS OF GETTING A LAUGH

There are lots of ways to get a laugh. This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, just something to think about.

Comparisons can be funny, particularly when they take us by surprise – “The boss came into work furious at the world. She was snapping at everyone like a Chihuahua with tonsillitis”.

Metaphors, likewise, can be funny, particularly when employed in “insults” – “Jake, you’re an ugly little virus, a form of amoebic dysentery eking out an existence on the edge of the toilet seat of society.”

Hyperbole or exaggeration can be funny – “Damn it, a paper cut. I’ll never play the piano again!”

Malapropism, where someone makes use of the wrong word, can be funny – “I want money, wealth, riches! Damn-it, I want to be effluent.”

Puns can generate a nice “groan-worthy” laugh – “Knowing sign language is really handy.”

Literalism can be very funny – The “When I nod my head, hit it” gag above.

Misunderstandings can be even funnier if we make them infectious. The foreman comes in and hits the still reeling Fred. “I thought everyone was having a go and didn’t want to miss out”.

The non-sequitur in which the totally unexpected happens can be funny – A woman is about to sit on a freshly painted seat at the zoo. The zoo-keeper yells “look out”. She sighs with relief at her close call only to be mauled by the escaped lion”.

Travesty, where weighty or emotional issues are treated lightly, can be funny because of the shock they cause – I don’t personally have a lot of time for these kinds of jokes, but they include dead baby jokes and the jokes that emerge after major disasters (such as the jokes which did the rounds after the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster).

THE STRUCTURE OF JOKES

All jokes follow a basic structure of setup and punchline, but the best jokes follow on with two more punchlines (riffing on the theme). Grouping jokes in threes are among the most tried and true methods of warming your audience up to laugh.

The first joke will get an acknowledgment from the audience (but is usually tentative), by the second the audience is ready to start laughing, and by the third joke the audience has relaxed, is warmed up, and is invested in the material.

In the parlance of professional comedians, the three joke “bit” is constructed as follows…

The setup – in which the audience is introduced to the subject of the jokes and any necessary context is provided.

The punchline – in which the joke is revealed. Comedian’s deliberately put the word or words that will bring on the laugh right at the end of the line, just before a pause (so that the audience isn’t laughing over the top of important information).

The topper – in which the second punchline is delivered (perhaps with another short setup).

The second topper – in which the third punchline is delivered (perhaps with a short setup again).

Here’s an example…

2016 has seen the loss of a lot of celebrities, including one of my favorite actors, Mr. Alan Rickman. It’s been like some kind of dark celebrity fashion; as if the entire lemming community got together and went “when I die I’d like to come back as someone famous”.

And it’s got to the point where it’s infecting the whole community. People are afraid to leave the house. My next-door neighbor barricaded her doors and windows for over a month because her last name shared three of the same letters as Alan Rickman’s. They removed her body on Thursday. Starvation.

People are genuinely scared of this stuff. But seriously, we shouldn’t worry. All these facebook posts that say “Made it to 2017: feeling lucky to be alive”? I’m just not convinced. Have you ever considered that we’re not actually lucky to be alive? That in fact, we’re just not famous or important enough to be dead? It bears thinking about, doesn’t it?

This three joke “bit” is unlikely to age well. It’s tied to a specific set of circumstances (the large roster of celebrity deaths in 2016) so it has a little more setup than is strictly required. I’ve tried to future proof it slightly by recounting what happened (loss of a lot of celebrities) and identifying who Alan Rickman was (for those in the future who may not remember him). This provides sufficient context to “get” the gags.

For a three joke “bit” to work you want to aim for variation in the jokes. To the extent you can, you want each of the jokes to come as a surprise.

The first joke uses comparison (celebrity deaths compared to lemmings).

The second death uses irony and surprise (by avoiding death, the neighbor dies).

The third shifts perspective (we’re not important enough to die).

PRESENTING JOKES IN AUDIO DRAMA

Audio drama isn’t stand up comedy. This means that jokes in general, and the three joke “bit” in particular, will usually be presented as dialog.

Here’s the above three joke “bit” worked (admittedly artificially) into a scene.

SCENE – LOCAL PUB (JAKE, JIM, BARKEEP) – A LITTLE BEFORE CLOSING

SOUND: MURMUR OF BUSY PUB – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.

JAKE: Hello Jim. Just arrived? You’re looking a little the worse for wear.

JIM: A little too much New Year’s Eve cheer, if you know what I mean?

JAKE: Ah, of course, that explains why you’re so late in. Sleeping it off, I s’pose?

JIM: Something like that.

JAKE: Well, I’ve got the first round. Here’s to seeing the back of 2016. It was a right little sod.

JIM: I’ll drink to that. I can’t remember a year where we lost so many celebrities. It’s like the entire lemming community got together and went “when I die I’d like to come back as someone famous”.

JAKE: I still can’t believe we lost Alan Rickman. He’s such a great actor. My next door neighbor barricaded the doors and windows for over a month because her last name shared three of the same letters as his. They removed her body on Thursday. Starvation.

JIM: You’re joking? People are getting genuinely scared by this stuff. Still, we shouldn’t worry. All those facebook posts I’ve been seeing that say “Made it to 2017: feeling lucky to be alive”? Personally, I figure we’re pretty safe.

JAKE: How’s that?

JIM: It’s obvious. None of us, who’ve seen in the New Year successfully, were famous or important enough to be dead. It bears thinking about, now, doesn’t it?

JAKE: I guess so.

BARKEEP: Last orders, gents.

JIM: Here let me get in a final round and we’ll head over to Mick’s place. He reckons he’s got a job for us.

JAKE: Great. There’s nothing I like more than the chance at a few extra dollars to line my wallet… even if that chance comes from a grade-A nutter like Mick.

SOUND: SCENE ENDER – LET IT FINISH

THE PITFALLS OF HUMOUR

Topical comedy (humor tied to particular times and places – such as the 2016 bit above) dates quickly. This means that, while it will get a laugh today, tomorrows audience may be left scratching their heads and wondering what was going on. If the audience is left puzzled, they certainly won’t be laughing.

Not everyone finds the same things funny. In fact, some humor will be found offensive to some audience members. If it is important to you not to offend, then it will be important to avoid potentially offensive jokes. The 2016 jokes are right on the edge of acceptable for me personally. Generally speaking, I avoid humor that earns a laugh at the expense of any particular group or individual (celebrity or otherwise). Each writer must make their own choice here (and take responsibility for the result).

The success of humor is often as dependent upon the delivery (and its timing) as it is upon the words of the joke itself. Nothing will kill a joke dead more effectively than a bad delivery, so knowing your actors and their ability to carry the weight of a joke is important if you are going to use humor in your drama. My own drama, written as it is for amateur performance, is designed to be easy to deliver, but it is essential that participants enjoy reading aloud and are willing to get into the spirit of the thing. It just won’t work to have a bunch of non-readers, or folks with little sense of fun, at the table.

Any further thoughts on using humor in audio drama? I’d love to hear them.

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

The post Tips, Thoughts, and Wild Speculation about Writing Comedy for Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

A friend of mine and I were talking recently about creating Noir stories. This is a summary of my understanding of how those old thrillers and detective tales are constructed.

Noir isn’t necessarily reliant on the 30’s and 40’s setting. One of my favourite modern audio dramas is Harry Strange. It’s basically neo-noir (a noir character with a noir code, fighting evil in the modern world). Harry Dresden, likewise. Likewise, Veronica Mars does a great neo-noir – complete with computer hacking. Blade runner presents us with future-noir. I’m actually pretty sure most of us are pretty familiar with the genre (enough to experiment with it) if we think about it a little.

From my perspective the key to noir is in the characterisation.

Noir characters are isolated loners and the key to understanding them is realising that they are displaced in time. Noir uses the same tropes as certain cowboy stories that involve an out-of-place medieval code of chivalry that lands in the middle of lawless frontier life (see any of the Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns starring Clint Eastwood – as well as Once upon a time in the west).

When the Knights of the old west are dumped in a gritty city (hard boiled, cynical, yet sticking to their code because it’s who they are and it can’t be abandoned because it would be a betrayal of self) that’s what we understand more traditionally as noir (see the Maltese Falcon in particular). When these Knights of the Forties land in the present or future it’s still noir – essentially because of the character having that sense of being displaced in time and place – misunderstood, mistrusted, and alone. The voice-over patter is helpful but not essential and the classic noir metaphors can easily be updated. What matters most is the unyielding core of the character’s self-defined morality and a story that challenges that core at every possible turn.

The character arc of a noir character is far more important than the plot itself and typically adheres to the following pattern.

It begins with the character down-at-heel and waiting for trouble to walk in.

The arrival of said trouble follows along with the presentation of a dilemma.

Dangers and setbacks follow – accompanied (most importantly) by repeated temptations to abandon his/her personal code and not see the situation through to a resolution.

Resisting these temptations exacts a heavy price usually costing him/her any advancement or benefit that may have been on offer. Essentially a high cost to the hero is exacted for choosing to stay true to oneself.

This results in the character coming full circle back to where they began (but stronger for not having betrayed their own conscience) and in the denouement we see them waiting once again for the next round of trouble to walk through the door.

Further thoughts on the essence of noir? Have I missed the point, misinterpreted the genre, or otherwise trampled over what Noir truly is? If you’ve got any thoughts on what makes a noir tale tick, then please, add them here. I’d love to hear them.

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

The post A Template for Creating Noir Stories in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

One of the most interesting things about truly good stories for me is the extent to which they are independent of setting. In the previous two articles of this series I’ve been commenting on some skills that I find helpful with regard to adapting stories for audio (adding sounding-board characters, and telescoping the events in the story). Today I want to talk about one last technique that I rather like: shifting the setting.

Time, Space, and Genre

Archaic language can be difficult for the modern ear to interpret. Shakespeare’s “bare bodkin” is more likely to be understood as a reference to nakedness by modern audiences than the unsheathed dagger that it actually is. As a result, simplifying and updating the language of a classic story is not uncommon when adapting period source material (though some find the notion sacrilegious in the extreme). By updating the language we are, in effect, shifting the story in time (at least linguistically), but there’s no reason we can’t shift a story around even further; in terms of time, place, and genre as well.

Anyone who has seen ‘The Seven Samurai” and “The Magnificent Seven” would be aware that a truly great story doesn’t necessarily have to be kept in its original setting to maintain it’s greatness. The Seven Samurai worked just as well as a western as it did in the setting of Feudal Japan. Likewise “Romeo and Juliet” and “West Side Story”, “MacBeth” and “Throne of Blood”, “Yojimbo” and “A fist full of dollars” (and “Last Man Standing”), and “Pride and Prejudice” and “Bridget Jones’ Diary”.

Sometimes a story doesn’t work when the setting is shifted (The musical Chess failed terribly when it was updated to remove the cold war elements of the story). But by and large, shifting the context of the story in time and/or space, can add some freshness to it.

Giving Jason and the Argonauts a futuristic space-opera setting, putting MacBeth in a stone-age context, and re-telling the legend of King Arthur as a Noir Mystery are all ways to inject new life into pre-existing source material.

By changing up the story in terms of time, place, and genre, the adapter of the source material can insert some extra creativity into the process of adaptation. This “re-imagining” of much-loved source material can be great fun as well. Personally, and for a very long time, I’ve wanted to adapt MacBeth as a space-opera in which the Birnham Asteroid Belt is brought to the Planet Dunsinane as a form of planetary bombardment at the story’s climax. It’s on my (ever lengthening) to do list.

ADDENDUM (January 2020):  I did eventually write my Macbeth Space Opera.  “Macbeth among the Stars” is free-to-read in the Draft Scripts section of this site.

Deciding When to Shift

What makes it possible to shift the setting of a story? The story has to contain a universal theme or themes. Love, hate, conflict, jealousy, prejudice, self-sacrifice, etc. are all, thematically, independent of time and setting. We will recognize them whether the story is set among the stars, or found in the heart of a magical kingdom at the dawn of time, or presented to us in the microcosm of the day-to-day functioning of a high-school classroom.

What else is needed? Relatable characters – specifically, characters in whom we can see ourselves (with both strengths and flaws). It won’t matter that Romeo is presented to us as a Dragon if his generosity, impulsiveness, gift of the gab, and hot temper are communicated. We can present our characters in any kind of mask (robot, dragon, ghost, captain of industry, teenager, domestic servant etc.) and so long as the character is recognizably “human” and relatable, the superficial elements of the presentation won’t matter.

Further, the plot must contain elements that lend themselves to effective parallels – who would stand in for the Capulets and Montagues in a magician’s guild (alchemists versus enchanters), the civil war (a family from the North versus one from the South), a space-opera (two rival companies mining an asteroid belt), a segregation story (a black family and a white family) etc.?

Lastly, you have to decide what to leave out. Even where strong parallels exist between the elements of the source material and the setting into which you want to transplant it, not everything is going to be a good fit. Don’t be afraid to add to, subtract from, and otherwise modify the source material to make the adaptation work.

Conclusion

In lots of ways adaptation is a form of legitimized creative plagiarism (assuming permission to adapt the source-material has been obtained). As a result we shouldn’t feel too constrained when we seek to modify it – even when we are trying to adapt it faithfully and with due respect. Ultimately we aren’t aiming to produce a copy of the material but a “rendering” of it that tells the story effectively in the format of audio drama.

If you’ve got any other thoughts on adapting original material for audio, then please, add them here. I’d love to hear them.

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

The post Simple Techniques to Help You Adapt a Story to Audio Drama – Part 3/3 appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Between any two scenes in a work of fiction lie an infinite number of possibilities, or maybe I should say this is true between any intention and outcome expressed in a story.

Scott McLoud used to (perhaps even still does) engage in a thought experiment called “Virtual Carl”. His character Carl grabs his keys with the intention of driving to the bottle shop for some beers and in the next scene we see his gravestone (an intention and an outcome). Between those two moments, an infinite number of other moments can be inserted without destroying the integrity of the story itself.

For example, Carl grabs his keys with the intention of driving to the bottle shop for some beers, walks to his car and finds the tire is flat. He then decides to walk to the bottle shop but takes a short cut through the park and is mugged. Jump to gravestone.

Alternatively, Carl grabs his keys with the intention of driving to the bottle shop for some beers, walks to his car and finds the tire flat, changes it, and drives to the bottle shop. He gets talking with the proprietor and decides to have one for the road before drunkenly driving into a lamp post on his way home. Jump to gravestone.

Alternatively, Carl grabs his keys with the intention of driving to the bottle shop for some beers, walks to his car and finds the tire flat, decides it’s not worth the bother, and goes back inside. He lives a long and uneventful life. Jump to gravestone.

Between any intention and outcome in the source material for a story being adapted there lies an infinite number of creative storytelling possibilities. We can add a lifetime of adventures, vignettes, and episodes to a story being adapted without doing violence to the story as originally told. Okay, that’s not really true; if, between the party scene and Frodo’s departure for Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings, we were to add a series of scenes where Frodo is kidnapped by aliens and becomes a galactic hero saving the multiverse before returning to continue the story… well, we’ve probably left the path of wisdom. But my point is this; an author really “could” (not “should” but “could”) do this and leave the story that is being adapted intact. It can be helpful to recognize we have the freedom to expand the moments between intention and outcome in order to adapt a story if we need to.

Likewise we can truncate stories (almost) infinitely and still be telling the story. All we need do is identify an intention and an outcome (from the story we are adapting) and remove everything in between. Using The Lord of the Rings as an example once more, we could tell the story in two scenes; Gandalf tells Frodo the ring must be destroyed in scene 1 and in scene 2, Frodo covered in grime after his long journey tosses it into the crack of doom. This is an extreme example of course, but the “story” survives (just).

Beyond taking dialog and recreating it in a form that works in audio drama, this telescoping of the plot (contracting and extending it using the story markers of intention and outcome as landmarks) forms another of the chief tools of adaptation.

Of course, it is possible to apply the principle of telescoping to adapting a story and utterly ruin it. Both examples provided here (with regard to the Lord of the Rings) fail to do justice to the material being adapted, ultimately ruining, in my view, the story… and this is the reason for so much dissatisfaction with film adaptations of much loved works of fiction. We’ve all heard it said that “Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit while wisdom is NOT putting it in a fruit salad.” There is a great difference between knowing what we can do and knowing what we should do. With regard to deciding what is enough and what is too much… well, each writer has to decide this for themselves, but there does come a point where the changes made during adaptatiion make the work unrecognizable and it would be fairer (and more honest) to go back to the beginning, change the characters’ names and tell an original story instead. Perhaps a useful check on this process is the following pair of questions…

1. “Does the change advance the plot?”

2. “Does the change develop/reveal character?”

Answering yes to either or both these questions isn’t a guarantee that we won’t go too far in our adaptation, but it might help us to place some upper limits on the worst excesses we are tempted to try.

For those who are interested, some time ago I prepared a series of scripts adapting the Brothers Grimm story, Rapunzel, as an audio drama for the kids in my English class. It includes writer’s notes on how the plot was developed, planned, and implemented. The scripts are available for free as well. Sadly, my attempt at recording the plays ended in disaster (the recording quality was heartbreakingly awful despite the quality of the performances by the local actors who volunteered to help me out), but I’m still really happy with the scripts themselves.

Rapunzel for Schools

If you’ve got any other thoughts on adapting original material for audio, then please, add them here. I’d love to hear them.

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

The post Simple Techniques to Help You Adapt a Story to Audio Drama – Part 2/3 appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Some of us enjoy adapting stories for audio production… but frankly, it’s not an easy task. Today I thought I’d talk about one technique (among the many a writer might try) that I find helpful for adapting a prose piece to audio. Ready, here it is… invent a sounding board character or two.

Now, the purists among us are already screaming in horror at this suggestion. After all, those who love the source material are bound to hate the introduction of new characters to a beloved story (warrior-elf-maiden-love-interest appearing in the Hobbit anyone?). But here’s the thing… Audio is, well, an auditory experience. We have to hear things to know what is going on… and that means we need dialog… between characters. So, judiciously used, this technique can help.

DRAMA IS DIALOG

The BBC did a murder mystery play a few years back where there was no dialog at all – a great experiment, and interesting to listen to, but there’s a reason it didn’t catch on as a mainstay of auditory story-telling. Dialog is the undisputed ruler of audio-drama. It is our main entry into the story. Sound, music, and narration all support this, but dialog is primary for the telling of the story. If your story is all sound, well, that’s an interesting experiment, but it isn’t generally sustainable as a means of dramatic storytelling. All music? That’s a concert. All narration? That’s an audio book. But if your piece is all dialog it would still be an audio drama. It mightn’t be as good as if it included music and sound effects etc., true, but it would still be audio drama. Audio drama depends on dialog, and dialog, by definition is conversation… and conversation requires a conversation partner.

The voice-overs of the noir era are flavorful and fun, but they’re basically a form of narration and get old quickly. It’s just easier (and more interesting for the audience) to have a second PERSON there to talk to. And it doesn’t have to be a person. It can be a corpse or beach ball or a shrunken head or even the audience itself (if you’re comfortable with breaking the fourth wall). Anything to give the character a reason to speak, think out loud, or communicate to the audience.

In film we’re fairly familiar with these devices. Ferris Bueller talking to the camera in the shower is a way to get dialog happening. Rick Deckard providing voice-over in Blade Runner is another (though I personally prefer the version where all that voice-over is cut out). Film isn’t a great example of course. Jeremiah Johnson, is a (masterful) film where there is very little dialog for a very long time, and the visual storytelling allows this to take place, but even here, we need the presence of others to give the story voice (and eventually we get some, admittedly short and simple, dialog).

Interestingly, it was a film that helped me find a solution to the adaptation problem in audio drama. I had been struggling to adapt a short story I had written about a single character. The character was moving through scene after scene, reacting to events, thinking etc. and, while it worked as a prose story… it kind of failed as an audio drama. The self-talk of the character got old quickly and ended up being a form of stream of consciousness narration. That was a solution, but I didn’t like it. Then I watched Castaway, starring Tom Hanks. It’s where we watch a guy stuck on an island alone for four years… without spending a lot of time in voice-over and internal monologue (though these techniques are used as well). But the moment of revelation, for me, came in the invention of Wilson, the blood soaked volleyball. The ball gave Hanks “someone” to talk to… and made the writing of the script a thousand times easier.

I thought about it for a bit and went back to my adaptation, adding a character for my lead to talk to, a companion to comment on his actions, question him, oppose him from time to time, etc. The adaptation worked. Not long ago I adapted a prose story of mine about a detective who finds himself trapped alone inside a coffin. Internal monologue and voice-over weren’t working for me… so I added a corpse inside the coffin with him. Talking aloud to the corpse may not have been a perfect solution, but I’m a lot happier with the result. Short stories in particular are short on characters and therefore harder to adapt. Shifting time around so that characters discuss the action in flashback, or providing new companion characters to talk to as the story progresses can overcome the problem created by, otherwise difficult to dramatize, stories.

I’d like to demonstrate the value of adding characters to scenes in adaptations by reference to a story some friends of mine were discussing on another fb page recently. It was just a passing comment or two on how difficult it is to adapt O’Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” and how much narration was required to support the story. Since it seemed topical, I’ve chosen the first scene (and only the first scene) to work with.

Here’s the prose from the first scene from O’Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi”.

ORIGINAL TEXT – THE GIFT OF THE MAGI (OPENING SCENE)

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to $20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling–something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.

AUDIO ADAPTATION – THE GIFT OF THE MAGI (OPENING SCENE)

And here’s my adaptation using an invented character as a sounding board to assist in communicating the scene…

SCENE 1: INT – DELLA’S FLAT – MORNING (DELLA, MAGGIE)

MUSIC: OPENING THEME – LET IT FINISH.

SOUND: (WALLA) TINNY PERIOD RADIO MUSIC IN THE BACKGROUND – ESTABLISH AND UNDER

DELLA: (SIGHING) One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That’s all. And sixty cents of it is in pennies.

MAGGIE: Don’t look so downcast. I’d never have saved so much. You’re such a miser.

DELLA: Don’t say that. Even as a joke. It was hard to save this money. Embarrassingly hard. I had to dicker and fight and bulldoze the vegetable man and the grocer and the butcher week in and week out to save it. They all run for cover when they see me coming now. I just… (STARTS TO SOB).

MAGGIE: Easy, Della. I’m sorry, Ok. I was just teasing. I know how hard you’ve found it. I was here the day you moved in. This old flat of yours came furnished at $8.00 a week and you’ve looked after it as if everything in it were a treasure since the very first day. You’ve paid your way and kept yourself respectable. Nobody judges you for it. In fact, I admire you.

DELLA: (SNIFFING) Thanks Maggie… it’s just…

MAGGIE: I know. Tomorrow’s Christmas and all you’ve got is a dollar eighty-seven.

DELLA: I never really understood how good we had it before. Thirty dollars a week was a long way from rich, but we got by. And Christmas is tomorrow and it has always been such fun. Jim loves it. But now that Jim’s had to take a pay cut, well, twenty dollars a week never seems to go far enough, and expenses are always more than I calculate… I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear all this.

MAGGIE: It’s okay, Della. Here, dry your eyes on this. Look at you, you’re a sight.

DELLA: (LAUGHS A MOMENT) I can imagine. Just a second while I look in the glass.

SOUND: A COUPLE OF STEPS – LET IT FINISH.

DELLA: (LAUGHING MORE) Oh my. I do look a fright.

MAGGIE: Perhaps, but even all puffy from crying you’re still beautiful. You’ve got the most beautiful head of hair I’ve ever seen. Everyone says so. It’s to die for.

DELLA: (HAPPY) It’s true isn’t it. If there are two things we Dillingham’s take pride in, it’s Jim’s watch and my hair.

MAGGIE: Now see. You can still count your blessings. That’s something.

DELLA: (QUIETLY TO SELF) Yes… my hair. I’ve always been so vain about my hair… (SUDENLY LOUD AGAIN, TO MAGGIE) Maggie, I’ve got to go!

MAGGIE: Wait, what? Hang on, I’ll grab my coat and come with you!

SOUND: WOMEN LEAVING FLAT – LET IT FINISH.

MUSIC: SCENE ENDER – LET IT FINISH.

CONCLUSION

So, that’s enough of that. It was churned out fast so I’ll be the first to admit the above is not great art. As a technique, inventing a new character like Maggie won’t satisfy the purists, and it can be put to very poor use (see the elf-maiden-love-interest in the Hobbit for example), but it can help bypass the need for excessive narration or clunky internal monologues.

Anyway, some other folks in this community have just released a complete adaptation of “The Gift of the Magi” this week; one that uses, you know, real actors and stuff (makes me envious just thinking about it). Right now I’m going to go and give it a listen.

For those who are interested, here’s a link to that BBC play with no dialog that I mentioned above…

If you have other techniques that can be useful for adapting tricky stories, please share them in the comments. I’d be really interested.

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

The post Simple Techniques to Help You Adapt a Story to Audio Drama – Part 1/3 appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Ultimately, the cast you need is the cast necessary to tell your story. That said, there are a number of practical considerations that should be taken into account when writing for audio.

MANAGING MEMORY

This week I’m throwing in some quick thoughts regarding how many characters we can populate our stories with.

There are a couple of small issues I believe are worth thinking about when introducing characters. And there are at least two limits that we come up against when introducing regular or recurring characters.

The first relates to short term memory. Human short term memory has an upper limit of about 7 +/- 1 items that can be held in mind. That means, we can only keep track of about 6 to 8 new characters (at the outside) in any given scene before we will run up against this limitation in our brain and start thinking “who was that again”.

Four or five, generally speaking, is a pretty safe number.

KNOW YOUR VOICE TYPES

When the characters are established enough that we don’t need to keep them in short term memory any longer (we’ve gotten to know them) the brain will chunk them as a group and allow us to add another 5 to 7 characters to our short term store. Once they are established enough that we don’t need to rely on short term memory to remember them as well, we can treat them as a second group and, theoretically, add a further 4 to 6 characters etc. Notice that there is a law of diminishing returns at work here and, for another reason (below), the upper limit on recurring characters may be struck much sooner.

The second limit is one based on our ability to distinguish between human voices. In the days of OTR casts were kept to around 6-8 in order to keep the voices distinctive and easily differentiated. They would cast voices according to 7 easily distinguished voice types.

• Bass – elderly male,
• Contralto – elderly woman,
• Baritone – leading man,
• Mezzo-soprano – leading woman,
• Tenor – juvenile male, Soprano – ingenue,
• and Trebble – child)

This didn’t mean that the main cast was all there was, but attempts were made to avoid castng recurring characters with the same vocal tone, and when introducing bit and throw-away parts, trying to differentiate the voices of those actors from those of the main cast.

Accents would allow for further differentiation of characters but generally speaking, scenes were designed to have an upper limit of no more than six or seven characters in them at any one time. This meant that no one was likely to become confused by the presence of similar voices in conversation (something that happens quite easily if you happen to cast actors with similar voices).

You can extend this limit by preventing actors of similar vocal tone from interacting and/or by having certain characters limited by context so that they remain identifiable (Joe, who sounds a bit like Pete, is always at the drugstore for example), but I suspect with a large cast of recurring characters this will place a limit on how many the audience can follow without confusion much sooner than the issues around short term memory will.

KEEPING CHARACTERS “ALIVE” IN THE MINDS OF LISTENERS

The more characters added to any given scene, the more lines they all have to have just to stay alive in the minds of the audience. In listening to more than a few shows I’ve found myself going “oh yeah, I forgot he/she was there” when they’ve suddenly spoken up after a long silence.

Do you have any other advice regarding casting? Tell us in the comments.

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

The post How to Decide on the Optimal Cast Size for your Scripts appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

The scene is written. Your characters pursued their goal, encountered obstacles, faced a dilemma, and settled on a course of action to take in order to move forward. The scene is over and it is time to move into next the scene. So how do you do this?

This week I thought I’d share some techniques, lifted from Erik Barnouw’s brilliant “Handbook of Radio Writing” (1947), that I find helpful.

These are a variety of devices that can be used to transition from one scene to another. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

THE PAUSE:

The last few words of the previous scene are faded out, a pause occurs, and the first words of the new scene fade in. Generally the new scene is suggested in the closing words of the old scene.

A scene fade-out should be spread over four to fifteen seconds and, as a rule, the last few words in the fading of a speech should be confined to words of no importance to prevent important information being lost to people with their audio set low – words like good-bye, or repetitive phrases are good.

Likewise the fade in to the next scene should begin on an unimportant phrase.

The pause-transition works best at a moment of suspense, relying on anticipation for the next scene to maintain dramatic interest over the dead-stop of the pause.

It can also be a helpful device when there is a very close connection between the material faded out and in – as where an individual begins reading a diary in one scene and fades to the voice of the original writer narrating the events in the next.

Disadvantages

A pause doesn’t announce the end of the scene in as obvious a manner as music does.

Many speeches do not make good fades (do not provide suitable unimportant words at the end to make the fade effective).

The dead stop of the pause can come at the cost of the listener’s continuing dramatic interest.

Advantages

No music or sound effects are required to achieve the pause-transition. This makes it cheaper and less effort to accomplish.

It can create a more natural feel in a show (since it doesn’t introduce any non-natural elements such as sound and narration).

NARRATION:

Sometimes the transition from one scene to another is handled by a narrator saying something like “Meanwhile, three miles out of town camping in a dried up creek bed the Dalton gang plan their next move”.

Narration doesn’t quite provide the effect of a curtain on its own so the fade out of the old scene is usually still needed. Generally only a three to five word fade is required (unlike the pause transition which requires a longer fade).

Advantages

The story doesn’t need to halt when a narrator aids the transition. The pause between dialogue and narration can be almost negligibly short.

Narration-transitions come in at full volume and do not needed to be faded in.

Narration also allows the writer to introduce fast and frequent changes of scene.

Disadvantages

The narrator can be used in a clumsy manner if a proxy-listener character must be brought to the foreground. Transitions are better handled by the narrator alone rather than the narrator in dialogue with a proxy-listener.

Some folks feel narration breaks the sense of immersion built up by the dialogue. This is not necessarily the case since the listener participates actively in maintaining the illusion of being present on the scene.

The above point is very controversial for some folks (many producers of modern audio drama are highly vocal in their dislike of narration in general). Personally I enjoy it, even if I don’t use it much in my own scripts.

SOUND EFFECTS TRANSITIONS:

Particularly useful in action drama, the sound effect makes a great means of shifting the scene. As with the pause transition, it works best when the setting of the new scene is foreshadowed by the concluding words of the old. It is also more effective where the sound background is repeated/repetitive (as such sounds can be faded out easily without creating confusion).

For example, a protagonist ends a scene by mentioning the need to catch a train (fading out), the sound of the train is introduced (fading in), and the conductor asks for tickets or calls “all aboard” as the sound is faded into the background.

Advantages

Where the fade-in has been handled by the sound effect, dialog can come in at full volume and get right down to business.

The sound effect transition is also a very quick transition. In some cases it can even overlap a scene (particularly useful for flashbacks)

Disadvantages

The sound effect transition tends to work best in action stories and doesn’t lend itself particularly well to stories with a home atmosphere.

The sound effect transition also works best where the effect is created through an ongoing background noise (such as an engine, background babble of a theater or restaurant etc. that can be faded in and out).

MUSICAL TRANSITIONS:

This is probably the most common form of transition used in audio drama. It is probably the clearest form of auditory “curtain” used between scenes

Advantages

A musical transition is easily recognised as a curtain by the listener.

The musical transition can be varied to communicate a particular mood (anger, joy, triumph, despair, etc.) as well as signal the end of a scene.

Bridging musical transitions can move the audience from the feeling of one scene into the mood of the next (assisting in the narration).

A musical transition can be used without requiring the old scene to be faded out.

Dialog in the new scene does not need to be faded in.

Music can transition into the sound of the next scene where the sound effect carries a similar rhythm.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of the musical transition is the cost of commissioning the music itself. However, there are large libraries of free and public domain music that can be approached for pre-recorded music.

COMBINATION TRANSITIONS:

A combination transition is a complex transition in which sound, music, and narration are combined to curtain the scene.

Advantages

By combining transition techniques the shift between one scene and another can be made much more immersive and dramatic.

Disadvantages

Complex transitions of this type, if not directed carefully, can be very confusing for the audience.

A note on consistency in transitions

Never feel constrained to use one and only one transition. Non-naturalistic transitions (like music and narration) should probably be established early, but transitions are tools and should be selected for their contribution to the telling of your story and not for the sake of consistency.

CONVENTIONAL SYMBOLS:

Some sounds have taken on a conventional meaning over time. The slide-whistle and chime both can indicate a magical occurrence. The Chinese gong or cymbal crash often indicates a dramatic transition. A harp glissando often indicates the shifting of time (into the past and back again) for flashbacks etc. Be careful of using these conventions, however. Their very popularity has made them into something of a cliche.

DIALOGUE ON THE MOVE (simulating movement in audio)

Characters can move from place to place while engaged in dialog. There are two techniques which can help to sell the idea that movement is occurring during conversation.

FADE OUT AND FADE IN:

One way to achieve this is to fade the conversation out and then back in to suggest the movement (the actors moving away from, and then back towards, the microphone). The audience members identify themselves with a fixed point in one location, listening to the conversation depart, and then with a fixed point in the new location, listening as the conversation approaches.

THE MOVING MIKE:

The second way to achieve this effect is to use sound effects to give the impression of movement. Going from inside to outside one might keep the actors voices level in the foreground but include the sound of footsteps, a door opening, and fade in the sound of bird noises etc to indicate the outdoors are being approached.

And there you have it, a set of simple transitions. Are there any techniques you particularly recommend? Let us know in the comments below.

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

The post 9 Great Techniques for Scene Transitions in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Twist endings are the result of a sudden reversal that thwarts the outcome a character has been working towards. There are five common types, three that depend on a surprising revelation and two that depend on the intervention of a surprising event.

In the first three, the desired outcome is thwarted because of

A REVELATION

Mistaken Identity: A woman plans her revenge on the man who cheated her. She crashes her car into him only to discover it was the man’s twin brother who was responsible.

Deceit: A man thinks he is buying an elixir of life but has been lied to by a huxter and it is actually poison.

Misperception: An old man, housebound by age, wants a final look at the world around him only to discover the environment he roams each day is actually a pen in an alien zoo.

AN EVENT

Accident: A bookworm succeeds in a plot to get locked in a special collection of books at the library for one night… and breaks his glasses.

Competing goals: A couple are unhappily married and wish a divorce. Each wants to get the bulk of the assets so would rather the other pre-deceased them. The woman tries to kill her husband with poison, while he rigs the light switch to produce a fatal shock. He dies first but when she goes in to check on the body she turns on the light and kills herself.

With regard to process, and as a general guide, short plays stick to a handful of characters (two or three if possible) and take place in a minimum number of locations (one if possible, but a few more if required).

ONE ACT STRUCTURE

In terms of story structure, I use a model that, roughly, implements half of the scene/sequel model discussed in some of my other posts.

1. Set the Scene
2. Introduce the character goal(s)
3. Introduce an obstacle to the achievement of the goal(s)
4. Introduce a disaster (the result of a twist if your story has one)
5. Let the character(s) react
6. Resolve the story

AN EXAMPLE

Because a story with a twist isn’t dependent on characterization for its success, it can be told very quickly indeed using this model. I’ve mapped a quick adaptation of the misperception plot mentioned above onto the suggested structure…

[SETTING THE SCENE]

NARRATOR: Some say Hell is other people. Today’s story focuses on one such man, old and frail, and just now questioning whether his self-imposed life-long isolation has been worth it. We join him as he pushes his wheelchair around his yard on his bit of daily exercise.

SOUND: OUTDOOR AMBIANCE – BIRDS, A SLIGHT BREEZE, ETC. – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.

SOUND: SQUEAKING OF WHEELCHAIR – UNDER.

BOB: (MUTTERING) I hate bein’ old. I hate pushing this chair around. Time was, I hated the world more, though. Built these high walls so’s I could keep it out. (SNEERING) No “junk mail”. No “TV”. None o’ them blasted “sales-folks” hangin’ on the bell. I thought life was better without seein’ people. Just me ‘n my books…

[GOAL]

BOB: (CONTINUING) But now? Now I want to look outside. Jus’ one las’ time. Not for long, mind you, just for a little, and say goodbye. I’m too sick and too tired for any lies about wantin’ to be remembered. My passin’ won’t even get a notice in one o’ them “newspapers” people used to be so fond of. But I still want to look.

[OBSTACLE]

BOB: (CONTINUING) If it weren’t for this chair it’d be easy… and that blasted grate! I put the grate in across the entry to my property long ago. Didn’t want my neighbour’s cows wandering in. Nice wide grate. The gaps are too wide for cow hooves to navigate. And too wide for this chair to manage. I’d look pretty undignified if the folks who deliver my groceries each week found me lying in the yard with my chair stuck in the grate. (LAUGHING) Heh! They’d love that. They’d finally get to see the mysterious old man living in Chesterfield Lane. More entertainin’ than leaving the groceries on the steps… assuming I weren’t dead of exposure. They only come once a week.

But what do I care o’ dignity? I’m old. There ain’t much dignity in that… and life works hard to steal what little dignity I’ve got left. Just going to the bathroom in this chair’s a major production. Yeah, what do I care about dignity? I’ll do it! I’ll crawl if I have to. My arms are still strong. I’ll crawl, dignity be damned, I’ll see the outside of this place one last time.

SOUND: TIPPING OF CHAIR. THUD OF BODY DROP – LET IT FINISH.

BOB: (IN PAIN) Aaaah. That hurt. Too old. Too old for falls. Still I can move. I can crawl…

(INTERMITTENT GRUNTS AS BOB CRAWLS) Ugh… Argh… Mmmpf… Aaah… Nnnng… etc.

(PANTING) Here’s… the grate… Should’ve got a bit closer before ditching the chair… ah… well… Live and learn.

INTERMITTENT GRUNTS AS BOB CRAWLS) Ugh… Argh… Mmmpf… Aaah… Nnnng… etc.

(PANTING WITH EXERTION) What’s happening? There’s a slope. It feels like it’s curving upwards… and it’s smooth, like glass… Let me just… clear some of this dirt off.

SOUND: RUBBING SOUND – UNDER.

[DISASTER/TWIST]

BOB: What’s under here? It’s… what? No? This can’t be right. It’s a window… a window to … to the stars!

[REACTION]

BOB: (CONTINUING) (PANICKED) Where am I? It… it looks like my house… my yard… but, it ain’t. How long? How long has it been like this? I’m in space, a bubble… a zoo! I’m… (PAIN) My heart! My… Ugh.

[RESOLUTION]

SOUND: BOB COLLAPSES – LET IT FINISH.

ALIEN: (CHITTERING ELECTRONICALLY MODULATED) Oh well. It was getting old. Still it will be hard to find another one to last so long. They tend to be so self-destructive when they find out they’re no longer on earth. I’m surprised this one lasted so many years. I guess we’d better flush the body into space.

NARRATOR: And so ends our little tale. We all know that peace and quiet is a good thing. But when was the last time you had contact with another person? It’s grown awfully quiet while you were listening to this, hasn’t it? Bwahahahaha.

You can also find a set of eight short scripts (available under a creative commons license) that make use of the twist forms discussed in this article at http://weirdworldstudios.com/experimental-plays/ .

What are your thoughts on stories with a twist ending? Do you enjoy them? Why? Why not? What’s the secret of a great story twist? Let us know in the comments below.

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

The post 5 Common Twists and a Model for Writing Short One Act Plays appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

At the outset I should acknowledge that there are numerous conventions in use for script production and presentation. The ones I am writing about here are the conventions that I, personally, use most frequently. They are not original to me, having come by way of the very talented Tony Palermo (google him, his website is a great permanent resource) and Erik Barnouw (whose hard to locate “Handbook of radio writing” is in my opinion, yet to be surpassed – and among my most treasured possessions).  So, without further ado, here are the guidelines I employ…

To make it easy to find and keep your place within the script all the lines should be numbered consecutively (as should scenes). I like line numbers because they make it easy to reference sections of the script in rehearsal and performance (especially if you can’t get people in the same room at the same times or need to record or rehearse out of order).

“Let’s pick it up from line 196” is just a whole lot easier than “Let’s go from JIM’s line half way down the third page of Scene 3”.

Numbers which are to be spoken aloud should be spelled out (e.g., thirteen, three hundred and twelve).

Sound effects should be underlined and capitalized to reduce the chance that they will be mistaken for a line that needs to be read out.

Sound effects are cued with the word SOUND and underlined. MUSIC should be cued likewise.

Sound effects should be accompanied by a square bracketed number (e.g., [31]). These numbers should correspond to a sound effects list included in the Appendices following the end of the script for the sound designers. They should also be placed at the beginning of sound directions so that they can be found and referred to quickly and easily.

Sound effects should be described as efficiently as possible presenting the description first followed by a hyphen and any direction for the sound effects team eg. SOUND: [31] PLANE FLYING – ESTABLISH AND FADE OUT.

Sound effects should be described as simply as possible (to be read quickly – this is especially important in live performances) eg. SOUND: [12] (WALLA) CROWD MURMURING – ESTABLISH AND UNDER rather than SOUND: [12] THE SOUND OF A LARGE GATHERING OF PEOPLE CAN BE HEARD MILLING ABOUT – ESTABLISH AND UNDER. Sometimes a long sound description (particularly for something unusual) is absolutely essential.

As already stated, I include an appendix for the sound folks (that allows me to add more detail to sound descriptions than appears in the script), in the form of a numbered list keyed to the script. I find that creating this master list lets the SFX folks identify and gather the required sounds (whether practical or recorded) prior to performance/recording (or for post production) without risking them missing any of them because they accidentally overlooked a particular sound cue buried in the script itself.

Speakers are indicated by the character’s name appearing in capitals followed by a colon (e.g., TOM: ).

When introducing a character for the first time the cue should utilize the full name. It may be shortened thereafter but should remain capitalized throughout.

Occasionally, directions regarding the delivery of a line will appear. These are capitalized and bracketed, e.g., (NERVOUSLY), and appear at the beginning of the delivered line (or section of line) to reduce the chance that the direction will accidentally be read aloud.

Difficult-to- pronounce names and words should include a guide to pronunciation in order to make pronunciation easier, e.g., Cartagena (KARTA–HAIN–YA), and should appear after the word itself.

Each scene is numbered and identified as being either an interior (INT.) or exterior (EXT.) scene to assist the sound production in setting the right amount of echo and ambiance.

Usually some indication of the time of day is provided, e.g., NIGHT, again to assist the sound designers.

The scene’s title should always be followed by a short bracketed list of the characters required for the scene. This lets the actors know they are going to appear in the scene so that they are ready when called upon to deliver a line. Eg. SCENE 1 – INT – SAM SPADE’S OFFICE – MORNING (SAM SPADE, SALLY WILSON, MISS WONDERLY)

Try to avoid splitting dialog between two pages. It’s better to start a line on a new page than risk recording the sound of pages turning in the middle of a speech. A long speech may, of course, be forced to cross pages. In that case, break the text on the end of a paragraph and include the words (CONTINUED OVER), capitalized and in brackets, at the end of the line.

I also set up my preferred word processor with styles for dialog, sound, and music, and to handle the automatic numbering of lines (so that I don’t have to worry about renumbering when I insert new dialog or sound directions during revision etc.).

The term [CUE] is used at the beginning of some lines to inform the actors that there is no sound effect or music to indicate when a line should be delivered and that the actor should look to the director to indicate when to begin speaking.

Commonly encountered descriptive terms and directions found in audio scripts include:

(BEAT) — A momentary pause for the count of one or a single beat.

(BRIDGE) — Music played between scenes — the audio drama equivalent of raising and lowering the curtain on a scene.

(CALLS OUT/SCREAMS) — Achieved by raising the head and mouth to shout or scream to the ceiling.

CONTINUE UNTIL — Let the sound or music play until a particular line number or symbol (such as * ) is reached.

[CUE] — The actor should wait for the director to indicate it is time to begin delivering the line.

(DISTANT, OFF MIC) — In traditional radio broadcasting this was achieved by having the actor step away from the microphone before delivering the line.

(ENTERING/EXITING) — Approaching or moving away from the microphone.

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 lowering 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.

(STAGE WHISPER) — A loud whisper uttered by the actor, intended to be heard by the audience but supposedly unheard by other characters in the play.

(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.

(TO ROBIN, TO ALL) — Dialog to be directed to one or a number of characters in the scene.

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).

British and American script writing conventions differ somewhat and there are significant differences between the conventions applied in the golden age of audio-script writing and those used today.

My own preference is to use the conventions of the past… the conventions used at the height of audio drama production arose to make the job of producing a script easier in the incredibly high volume production environment of the 30s, 40s, and early 50s. I personally feel the older conventions are a lot more efficient than the ones in use today (and they were the conventions I learned first, so they are also more familiar to me).

Modern script writing conventions (particularly in their American form) tend to be ported across from screenplay writing, a form that is similar to, but doesn’t fully meet the needs of audio production.

That said, when submitting work to be considered by producers, it is essential that you identify and use the format they require. In my case this requires me to adjust the format of my scripts when I submit them to U.K producers and do so again when I submit them to American producers. The adjustments aren’t large, but to submit a script that doesn’t meet the formatting requirements of the organisation to which it is sent is a sure way to guarantee it doesn’t get read. If you have only one market for your scripts then identify the formatting requirements of that market and stick to them.

Have I left out any important conventions? Do you have any advice or alternatives for formatting audio scripts? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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

The post A Guide to Basic Script Conventions in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Subtext is the message beneath the message. The meaning beneath the surface that, indirectly communicated, either amplifies, modifies, or contradicts the words that are spoken.

It can either be subtractive (where you remove explicit dialog to hint at meaning) or additive (where you add extra meaning to the text). The aim is to convey meaning indirectly and deeply.

Five Suggestions

Subtext can be tricky to pull off convincingly so I’ve put together five suggestions, exercises really, that can help us get a sense of how subtext works. I’ve also thrown in examples of a couple of exchanges without and then with the use of subtext to illustrate some of these ideas.

Create two characters and put them in dialog together.

1. Now, have them discuss a topic that they both want to discuss but neither of them can bring themselves to refer to directly – perhaps they are prisoners and it is their impending execution that they will not refer to directly, perhaps they are children and are avoiding mentioning mum and dad’s impending divorce, perhaps they are a married couple who are discussing funeral arrangements without bringing up the topic of the cancer that one or the other of them has been diagnosed with. You get the picture.

2. Now, take the situation and rewrite it. This time have one of the characters be desirous of a direct conversation while the other avoids it.

3. Now, rewrite it and have one character hinting at what they truly want to say, while the other remains clueless (accidentally or deliberately so).

4. Now, rewrite the situation again with both characters in overt denial.

5. Now, take the scene and add more layers of meaning to it. Modify the dialog so that various/multiple character traits, beliefs, and opinions are brought into prominence. Add meaning to the lines rather than hint at the meaning. For example, bring a character’s pride or short-temper or fear into sharp relief. Emphasise the character’s intelligence, or ignorance, or humor. Put what they value or believe center-stage.

Examples

Here’s a scene that has no subtext. It’s about an elderly couple. George has cancer and sounds noticeably sick, but is still able to get around. Martha is his wife.

SCENE 1 – AT THE MAILBOX

GEORGE: Hiya , Sam. Nice day to be delivering the post. Is that letter for me?

POSTMAN: Hi George. Sure it is. Here. On a day like this it makes a man feel good to be alive. Sun, a fresh breeze and… Great Scott, George! Are you okay?

GEORGE: I’m fine.

POSTMAN: But George, you look so sick.

GEORGE: Yes, I’m sick but I don’t want to talk about it. The cancer’s my business, not yours.

POSTMAN: Okay George. I’m sorry things aren’t going so well.

GEORGE: Yeah, me too. Enjoy your day, Sam.

SCENE 2 – IN THE KITCHEN

GEORGE: (CALLING OUT) Mail’s in. It’s that letter from the funeral parlour that I sent away for.

MARTHA: Thanks George. It’s just so horrible, but I guess we have to face it and make some preparations. Maude, from two doors down, got a good deal from them when Michael passed.

GEORGE: Yeah, she did, and the price is something we can manage. It’s better we prepare while we’ve got the time.

MARTHA: What are you planning on doing today? I’d like to talk to you about the cancer, George, if you can manage it. This is tough on both of us, and I want to be able to help you.

GEORGE: I can’t deal with that right now Martha. I want to spend some time in the garden. I’m afraid we may not get another spring out of those begonias and it makes me feel my own mortality even more keenly. If I can just bring them back to health, well, that’d be something.

As a script it’s not completely awful (well, maybe it is a little). It’s a typically pedestrian scene. Nothing is hidden or hinted at. The audience can’t miss what is going on, and, frankly, it’s rather dull as a result.

All the thought and feeling broadcast so ham-fistedly in the above script can be communicated just as effectively, and with a good deal more interest, as subtext.

SCENE 1 – AT THE MAILBOX

GEORGE: Hiya, Sam. Nice day to be delivering the post. Is that letter for me?

POSTMAN: Sure George. Here it is. A day like this makes a man feel glad to be alive. Sun, a fresh breeze and… Great Scott, George! Are you okay?

GEORGE: I’m fine.

POSTMAN: But George, you look…

GEORGE: I’m alright, I said.

POSTMAN: But…

GEORGE: Damn it, Sam. Don’t you have a job to do?

POSTMAN: Okay George. Sorry. Have a better day.

SOUND: BICYCLE DEPARTS – FADE OUT.

GEORGE: (SADLY) Yeah. Thanks, Sam.

SCENE 2 – IN THE KITCHEN

GEORGE: (CALLING OUT) Martha, the mail’s in. It’s that letter from the funeral parlour.

MARTHA: That’s great George. There’s nothing like being prepared for the future. You know, Maude from two doors down, got a good deal on pre-paid funerals for herself and Michael?

GEORGE: Yeah, she did, and the price is something we can manage. They reserved ‘emselves those two spots on the side of the hill, overlooking Summer’s Creek. Shady too. And they’ll get to be together when they pass.

MARTHA: You’re such a romantic, George. It’s better to make decisions while we’ve still got the capacity, you know, before things overtake us. (PAUSE) What are you planning on doing today, George? I’d like to talk to you about the oncologist’s report.

GEORGE: I want to spend some time in the garden. The begonias are looking poorly.

MARTHA: (PLEADING) George, I need to…

GEORGE: They probably won’t last the winter.

MARTHA: George…

GEORGE: They look done-in. The roots look rotted and they’ve got a fungus. If I can get rid of the fungus, dig out the roots, and get ‘em back to health, they’ll still be around in the spring.

MARTHA: Please, George…

GEORGE: You know how they look. They’re gorgeous when they bloom. (PLEADING) Don’t you want to see that?

MARTHA: (GENTLY) Sure George, I want to see that.

In this second version, clunky as it is, the content at the heart of the scene is preserved but there is a lot more conflict and interest. The use of subtext makes the content far more engaging for the audience. It is clear that George’s disease, the preparations required by it, and the couple’s attempts to deal with it are still at the heart of the exchange. But here, the dialog pulls a lot of extra duty, revealing George’s frustration at being ill, his opposition to receiving sympathy, and his desire to achieve a symbolic victory over his disease by working in the garden. Martha, likewise, expresses sympathy, grief, and willingness to accommodate George’s need to deal with the garden in her side of the dialog. The closest they get to discussing the disease directly comes in Martha’s brief reference to the oncology report.

Are there other tips and tricks you’d like to share about building a subtext? Add them to the comments below.

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

The post Five Suggestions for Implementing Subtext in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

A while ago I took some heavy fire in a conversation because I like using archetypes in my fiction… and while I’m happy to take it on the chin for not using them well, I remain pretty committed to the idea that they constitute a useful tool in my writing toolbox. Here’s why.

What is an archetype?

Archetypes are recognizable “stereotypes” that help us immediately plug into a story.

I’m sure you’ve heard of character archetypes. They appear regularly in all manner of popular film, television, stage-plays, radio, and  literature.  They have been used in story-telling since time immemorial (from Cinderella through to Bugs Bunny, to name but a famous few).  At the very least, you know them when you see them.

They include such notables as…

• The Rogue – Han Solo
• The Princess – Leia Organa
• The Mentor – Obi Wan Kenobi
• The Evil Sorcerer – Darth Vader

They may also include the rebel, the scientist, the wise woman, the healer, the wise king, the trickster, the exile, and many others. We know a lot about them as soon as we encounter them (because of the rich history of story we’ve inherited via movie, television, radio, and literature) and this familiarity helps us enter the story at a run.

What do archetypes achieve?

A shorthand way to establish a character…

A story (particularly a serial story) that is populated with archetypes is going to be accessible to an audience much more quickly than one that is full of unpredictable, complex characters who it takes us time to get to know.

…while allowing for great depth

“But isn’t that an invitation to lazy writing?”

The person I referred to erlier obviously thought so. In actuality, it’s not, though at first glance it sounds like it is. Characters based on an archetype can be easier to write, true, particularly if they are left as two dimensional caricatures, but they needn’t be. They can also be highly complex and nuanced figures, full of inner conflicts and unpredictabilities.

What? Didn’t I just get through saying that I thought unpredictable, complex characters were hard to get to know? I did, in fact, say just that. But that is only part of the picture. When you introduce an archetype to a story, it lays down an immediately recognizable foundation upon which you can start to build a more complex character. With the foundation in place, some of the heavy lifting has already been done for you, but you can then go on to layer in all the complexity your heart desires, revealing more and more over time. You can even subvert the expectations that are built into the archetype if you want.

When first we see Darth Vader he is immediately recognizable as a two dimensional evil villain. We “recognize” and “understand” him immediately. We are then taken much further. He is, in fact, Luke’s father (and Leia’s also). He is conflicted about his own descent into the dark side and his assigned task of finding and destroying his own children. There is still good in him etc.

People love archetypes in stories. They love the mental shorthand involved, but an archetype does not have to be employed in a shallow manner.

The “hook me now or lose me as an audience member” approach of our modern “short attention span” lifestyle presents a serious obstacle to writers competing for attention. It is a sad fact. But it is also a feature of modern audiences that writers ignore at their peril. Characters presented initially in terms of archetypes are going to draw in a modern audience faster than those who aren’t.

That isn’t to say you should never engage in the slow scratch-build of your characters, only that you should be aware of the trade off you are engaging in and the advantages presented to you by the wide range of stock characters available to our culture as a result of our long literary history.

The Exception

That said, there is, however, at least one character who should almost NEVER be presented as an archetype. This is our central protagonist; the character who’s thoughts, emotions, and viewpoints we share and are invited to follow, the character with whom we are expected to identify. Ursula Leguin referred to this character as Mrs Brown. Luke Skywalker is the Mrs Brown of Star Wars, often referred to as the everyman character, the figure who represents the audience in the story. Luke is not an archetype of bravery, or cowardice, or wisdom, or industriousness, or cunning or anything else. He is a person from the outset, one who daydreams, fears responsibility, is prompted by dreams of adventure, wants to goof off with his friends etc. In many ways he is the audience he represents and because he is fallible (and, dare I say it, ordinary) we identify with him, and his story becomes our story.

I agree with the person who was arguing with me about this much; the most important characters in a work of fiction tend not to be archetypes – they are Mrs Brown.

Archetypes may help hook an audience, but Mrs Brown is the reason we keep on paying attention all the way to the end.

Conclusion

Archetypes are a great tool available to the author to create immediate recognition with the audience member. They allow the story to begin at a gallop because little exposition is required regarding the characters’ natures. But they become boring quickly and should always have a deeper level of character layered in as the story develops. Further, the characters with whom the audience is meant to identify should almost NEVER be archetypes, or if they are, only superficially so. Like all tools, archetypes serve a legitimate purpose, but like any tool, they can also be subverted and used in new and novel ways. And they should always be laid aside when the aim changes or some other tool achieves the aim more effectively.

Are there other tips and tricks you’d like to share around creating characters? Add them to the comments below.

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

The post How to Use Character Archetypes in Audio Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Wow, now there’s an arrogant headline. Or at least it would be if I thought I’d arrived at the destination rather than saw myself as a fellow traveller on the path.  This article is my own take on the mindset and character traits necessary to improve as an audio drama scriptwriter.

THE IMPORTANCE OF LEARNING

I have always been a student. I love to learn. And I love to share knowledge. This love of learning, and this love of sharing knowledge, led me into teaching as a profession. It also helped me to develop a healthy understanding of how people become experts in their various fields.

One of the easiest ways to identify an amateur in any endeavour is to ask the question “what books do you recommend for learning how to do this?” and wait for an answer along the lines of “Oh, I’m self-taught, I don’t pollute my creativity with the ideas of others”.

I don’t know why some people choose to wear their ignorance as a badge of honour, or why they value independent discovery over learning from the folks who have been there before them, but I do know that it is the mark of an amateur.

Reinventing the wheel is not without value as a learning technique. And sometimes we simply don’t know what we don’t know until we try. But, it is incredibly inefficient.

For this reason, incidentally, I am always surprised by those in the Audio Drama community who have little or no time for Old Time Radio.

While all insights are only ever guidelines (to be observed or rejected according to need), it is only ever a sign of our own myopia that we would reject the lessons to be learned from a period in which more audio drama was being produced at a higher rate than at any other time in history.

THE CHARACTER OF THE WRITER

Digressions aside, there are two key traits that assist us in becoming good at something; ambition to learn and the humility to be teachable. There are a corresponding pair of traits that will destroy any chance of improvement we may have; pride (a satisfaction with where we are at and a belief that we have arrived, or, at least, that we have little to learn from others) and fear (of looking stupid, of appearing ignorant, and of needing help).  One additional character trait I want to mention that helps us develop as writers is generosity.

POSITIVE TRAITS

Ambition to learn is not the same as pride. It is a permanent lack of satisfaction with the degree of our own expertise. It is a hunger for improvement that never leaves us. It is a recognition that the ability we have today is only a shadow of the ability we might have tomorrow if we can just learn a little more, master another skill, and/or push through our current limits.

My favourite authors are all openly dissatisfied with their current abilities – Stephen King, Jim Butcher, Alastair Reynolds, and many more – and all of them look back on their early work with a certain amount of embarrassment. But all of them share an equal recognition that the early work that causes them some embarrassment now, was an essential stepping-stone towards their more mature writing. They all see themselves as perpetual students, always learning, and always in search of more learning and expertise.

Humility is not the same as fearfulness.  My favourite authors are also very humble. They are willing to learn from any source. They learn from their peers, from books, from extended study (formal and informal). They learn, even, from those who are well below their ability because they recognize that nobody knows it all and that anyone can have an original insight that could help them become better.

Generosity is a also a key characteristic for improving as a writer.  Some folk see other writers as competition to be destroyed and guarded against.  I’ve never understood this since writers are unique in that they have a monopoly on their own stories.  The fact that I am the sole worldwide source for my stories gives me the freedom to share freely with others.  And in sharing what I have learned, in particular, I have been able to clarify and hone my own thoughts on technique and writing skill.

As a teacher, I have seen this many times. Every teacher will tell you that the act of teaching others is an act of self-education. Good teachers see themselves as co-learners with their students. Each new investigation and exploration of even the most familiar subject provides new opportunities to learn, often from the students themselves, but also from the act of re-examining the subject matter with fresh eyes.

NEGATIVE TRAITS

Of course it’s hard to give well-known examples of those who demonstrate the flaws mentioned above. And the reason should be obvious. Those flaws have kept them from becoming experts (and so becoming well known).

Pride really does come before a fall, or, at least, before stagnation.  The person who believes they have somehow become the paragon of all knowledge NEVER improves. They have no reason to. Such a person stagnates at their current level of ability and will NEVER get any better. If that level of ability is particularly amateurish then it is little wonder that no-one will ever hear of them.

Fear is equally crippling.  The person who is afraid of showing weakness, of seeking help from others (in case it bursts their bubble of fragile ego) is also doomed to NEVER improve. It takes deliberate courage to acknowledge the need to learn and to accept instruction from others. It takes courage to rewrite that passage we are happy with in order to try and achieve something better (especially in light of the risk that we might make it worse).

A KEY INSIGHT

In Ted Orland and David Bayles magnificent book, Art and Fear, the following passage appears and proved to be one of the greatest insights into producing art that I have ever been given.

“The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot – albeit a perfect one – to get an “A”.

Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes – the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

Perfectionism, whether motivated by an internal fear of failure, or by an external fear of appearing foolish, is the enemy of learning and, therefore, of improvement. When I am afraid or self-satisfied, the motivation to improve is removed.

A PERSONAL ANECDOTE (OR TWO)

One of the things which brought this home to me most strongly was my participation in a writers group a few years back. It was pretty straight forward, really. Each month we would submit one piece of writing. We were required to comment on each piece that was submitted that month BUT the following rule was to be observed. We could criticise whatever we thought was appropriate in the piece, but we had to identify a minimum of one thing in the piece that we thought was genuinely good. This struck me as a good way for us all to remember that we were sharing our work both for encouragement and critique and it worked to take the sting out of a largely negative critique when it came our way.

I also added a rule for myself. I would implement every piece of advice I was given regardless of how valid I thought it was or wasn’t. I reasoned that the piece in its original form would continue to exist no matter what changes I made, so, at the very least, it couldn’t hurt to implement the recommended changes.

The time I spent in this group had the most powerful impact on my writing of anything I have ever done – largely because of that second rule. Of course it meant that I had to be willing to risk, over and over again, producing bad work – and I produced plenty of bad work in that forum. But I learned more than I could possibly have anticipated through treating ALL feedback as an opportunity to experiment and try ideas I might never have thought of (or might otherwise have vehemently opposed). Through a deliberate choice to check my ego at the door and submit my writing to the critique of others for the sake of learning, I benefited in ways I have never had cause to regret.

We had plenty of folks come through who couldn’t handle critique and left after their first submission. I had, and still have a certain amount of sympathy for this.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer VERY badly. We had a family friend who was a professional writer and I gave him a story of mine to read. I waited in terror and hope for his opinion. When he’d finished reading, he looked down at me and said “you’re just not cut out for this, kid. Put your pen away and find something else to do with your life”.

I was eleven years old at the time and so devastated that I didn’t pick up a pen and try to write anything again for another thirty years. Of course I came to realise later that he was, family friend or not, a mean spirited individual that never missed an opportunity to crush those around him and, unsurprisingly, never achieved more than a mediocre level of success as a writer.

The arrival of my kids (and their special need for stories due to their austism) got me writing again – a fact for which I will be eternally grateful. I have regretted nothing in my life so much as the years wasted not writing. Given how much I have improved since picking up a pen again, three and a half decades of consistent extra practice and learning would have put me well ahead of my current position.

But that isn’t my point. My point is that I never want to discourage anyone from writing, ever. I always look for as much encouragement as I can possibly give while looking at other people’s work without being dishonest about the work’s weaknesses. And I never miss an opportunity to read and think about the work others are doing. It is fundamental to my own learning that I read anything I can get my hands on that others are writing in order to see what I can learn from it (and there is always something to learn).

We all need encouragement from time to time (though these days my skin is thick enough that I actually don’t care if all I get is criticism) and I’ve certainly lost any need to feel validated by other people with regard to my identity as a writer.

CONCLUSION

Maybe that is what professionalism amounts to, a realization and coming to terms with the fact that I am not, today, the writer I will be tomorrow, so long as I continue to seek opportunities to learn and so long as when they arise I do not allow myself to be dissuaded by fear and pride from taking them.

The path to improvement, regardless of whether the end of that path is reached, is the same for me as it is for anyone else. We keep the goal in mind, put one foot in front of the other, and walk forward consistently, with humility and courage, and with a recognition that there are others on the path with us with whom we can share and from whom we can learn and draw encouragement and instruction. The key is not to stop or turn back (in either discouragement or out of a false sense of having arrived).

So, what specific things do you look to, or recommend, as a means of improving your craft? Add your comments below.

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

The post The Path of Continual Improvement as an Audio Drama Scriptwriter – A Personal Reflection appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

I’m unlikely to make any friends with this week’s comments… and they probably belong more properly to a discussion of production rather than scripting – though I think writers need to understand some of these production issues in order to write effectively for the medium.

To give them some context, I’m deaf in one ear so there are features of audio that just don’t “read” for me. This means that, if you don’t like what I have to say here, you can easily write it off as the ramblings of someone disqualified to speak because, well, I can’t hear properly anyway.

So, taking it under advisement that I am fully aware that I am talking from my own (and very non-typical) experience, you should probably treat this as an opinion piece… and yes, everything I post is my opinion, but I usually feel that I am standing on more solid ground when I post than on this particular occasion.

Okay, disclaimers dealt with. I want to talk about immersion in audio drama and how I think it is achieved versus how it is subverted by our attempts to achieve it.

In the past when I’ve talked to people about immersion in audio drama, I’ve found the conversations moves very quickly to how to create dense, sound rich, audio soundscapes. After much thinking and listening, I’ve come to the (possibly controversial) conclusion that the density of the soundscape is only a minor factor in immersion and can, in fact, work against its intended outcome.

SPOTLIGHT ON PSYCHOLOGY

There are some very important concepts from the world of psychology that have a lot to say about how immersion is achieved. These include closure, cognitive load, and cognitive equilibrium. The idea of cognitive equilibrium suggests that where we are receiving sensory input that fails to match our expectations (for example where the input is so ambiguous that the environment does not seem realistic to us) our brains get thrown into a state of dis-equilibrium and we adjust by either “waking up” out of the illusion all-together (like in a movie or book where the illusion of immersion is broken because a scene is too unrealistic to maintain our willing suspension of disbelief) or we become confused (losing our sense of place). Likewise cognitive load theory, which suggests that an unrealistic overloading of sound cues (where too many sounds are layered together or presented in an unrealistic manner) has a similar effect.

Audio has its own form of spotlight. That spotlight is volume. It tells the audience what is important in the audio story… and what’s important is the thing that is most clearly audible. That being the case, one of the most important techniques for managing immersion is the fade. The human brain acts naturally via the mechanism of the Reticular Activating System (RAS) to shut down our conscious recognition of background noise. In our day to day world, our brains filter noise all the time. We don’t notice the background hum of the traffic, or wind, etc. until we stop and consciously attend to these sounds. They have been turned into silence by our minds unconscious capacity to decide what is and isn’t important. In audio drama, our brains won’t filter out the background and we need to consciously control this for the listener. As a result, greater realism is created (and thereby a greater illusion of immersion) by mimicking the behavior of the RAS through the relative control of volume (fading out background sounds once established etc.). Failure to effectively use volume as a means of focusing listener attention also results in the dissonance that leads to disequilibrium.

This lesson has been very forcefully brought home to me by my youngest son’s disability. The RAS in his brain doesn’t work properly. His brain simply doesn’t filter the stimuli that he encounters. This means that for his entire life every part of his environment has been shouting at him at full volume. It makes it very difficult for him to learn in a traditional classroom (despite his IQ being pretty much off the chart). The world is a very confusing place for him to navigate and he is constantly having to scan everything he is receiving as input, sort it, and try to focus on what is important… consciously… all the time… everyday. Those audio dramas, which in the name of immersion, layer in too much stimuli and fail to use volume to properly separate figure (that which is important) from ground (that which is not) or fail to control focus and remove distraction, create exactly this experience for their listeners. Too much sound is merely noise, and because our brains don’t process artificial soundscapes in the same way they process sound in three dimensions (the real world) we have to be especially careful about controlling the soundscapes we construct (by fading and de-emphasising background from important foreground).

I mentioned earlier that I am deaf in one ear. This isn’t a problem most of the time. I usually have to have you in my field of vision to know I am being spoken to but generally it’s fine. The one time that it is not, is if I am at a restaurant. In a restaurant, if the background noise reaches a certain level, all the stimuli sort of blend together and I get the auditory equivalent of snow on a television screen. It leaves me feeling very isolated despite having a large crowd of people around me. I’m told by friends who are not hearing impaired that this experience is not unique to me, but tends to set in at higher levels of overload – say when a jack-hammer is going on a busy roadway outside a music store with speakers blaring into the street. At a certain point, the stimuli we are trying to separate and make sense of exceeds our brain’s capacity to do so and it all becomes noise.

TECHNIQUES FOR CREATING IMMERSION WHILE AVOIDING CONFUSION

Managing Ambiguous Sounds

As a general rule, sound needs to be “readable” or it results in listener confusion. Many sounds are ambiguous (crumpling cellophane can read as rain, fire, and waves on the beach depending on how it is used). The audience must be given cues to make sense of these sounds or they will not understand them and we risk having the illusion of immersion broken. To keep sounds from being ambiguous we need to identify them before we introduce them. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this.

Here’s an example of the wrong way (an ambiguous sound is introduced without cueing).

SOUND: FLAMES – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.
JACK: Do you hear that? I think something is on fire.

Here’s an example of the right way (the dialog explicitly cues the sound of fire).

JACK: Do you hear that? I think something is on fire.
SOUND: (FADE IN) FLAMES – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.

Here’s another example of the wrong way (the ambiguous sound of rain is introduced without cueing).

SOUND: RAIN – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.
JACK: Damn but it’s started raining hard.

Here’s another example of the right way (the readily identifiable sound of thunder cues the rain).

SOUND: THUNDER – LET IT FINISH.
SOUND: RAIN – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.
JACK: Damn but it’s started raining hard.

It may seem counter intuitive, but for ambiguous sounds to “read” properly, they must be cued before they are heard, either by dialog, or by self-identifying sounds (like the thunder) that provides the auditory clues needed to decode what is happening in the drama. If they come after the sound is introduced we run the risk of having lost our audience members to confusion… and confusion will instantly break the immersion we are trying to achieve.

Setting Scenes

Another place that sound is often mis-used in audio drama, arises in the establishing of scenes. At the beginning of the scene we want to establish a sense of time and place. As often as not, we do this with sound, making the scene come to life by giving it proper ambiance. But, it is common for amateur audio drama to overdo this, and it often stands out with regard to footsteps. Footsteps are very hard to get right (usually because they are very distracting). The fact is, most of us don’t hear our footsteps as we walk around in our day. When we enter a new environment we notice them for a moment (because a transition has taken place and our brains need to sort out whether the change in sound is important or not) but then they fade from consciousness once more. Too many audio dramas maintain their background sounds and footsteps for far too long. We need to establish and fade our sounds to create a sense of reality. Footsteps should only register consciously for a few moments. As a general rule, background should be unobtrusively faded as soon as the dialog begins. Our brains register the continuing noticeable sound of footsteps under dialog as something that is not part of our natural experience and it becomes distracting. This is true of all our establishing sounds.

I know lots of folks hate narration as a tool in audio drama. I’m aware of all the reasons (we’ve talked about them elsewhere) and I won’t go over them all again here. I maintain that, for all the criticisms that can be leveled at narration, it is still a helpful tool in any audio dramatist’s toolkit. I’m just going to focus on one use of narration today that is directly relevant to the discussion so far.

There is a psychological principle called closure (again discussed elsewhere, and with many thanks to Jack Ward for giving me the name to call it by) that is of huge benefit to the audio dramatist. It is that feature of the audience that creates entire worlds around the cues (sound, music, and dialog) we provide them with. We mention a lawyer’s office and the audience supplies all the details with their imaginations. We don’t have to suggest a desk and chair etc. The audience can be relied on to construct an entire detailed set on our behalf. BUT… the more complex a scene, the more likely the soundscape that establishes it will “read” ambiguously to the listener. A few words of context can make all the difference.

Compare

SOUND: (WALLA) DISTANT CARS LOW IN BACKGROUND – ESTABLISH AND UNDER
JAKE: (YAWNS).
SOUND: TELEPHONE RINGS – CONTINUE UNTIL PICKED UP.
SOUND: CHAIR CREAKS – LET IT FINISH.
SOUND: TELEPHONE IS PICKED UP – LET IT FINISH.
JAKE: Stephano Detective Agency, Jake Stephano speaking.

With

NARRATOR: In the office of Jake Stephano, private detective…
SOUND: (WALLA) DISTANT CARS LOW IN BACKGROUND – ESTABLISH AND UNDER
JAKE: (YAWNS).
SOUND: TELEPHONE RINGS – CONTINUE UNTIL PICKED UP.
SOUND: CHAIR CREAKS – LET IT FINISH.
SOUND: TELEPHONE IS PICKED UP – LET IT FINISH.
JAKE: Stephano Detective Agency, Jake Stephano speaking.

The above isn’t a great example and I probably wouldn’t bother using narration here, but there is no denying that the scene decodes for the listener faster with the narration than without. Being forced to do a little bit of decoding never hurt anybody (we do that with sound in the real world all the time) but where listeners are forced to work hard to decode the soundscape in order to work out where and when the action is taking place, we are actively working against their sense of immersion. You simply cease to be embedded in the story when you have to consciously stop and decode the soundscape in order to understand the scene.

Pacing to Provide Greater Focus

Pacing is also important for decoding sound. Fights cannot be lengthy without creating confusion. In fact it is essential that they be fairly short (or that they are broken into chunks with explanatory dialog) otherwise they become confusing to the listener and fail to decode. That isn’t to say that confusion (for example, the background noise of an out of control brawl) has no place in an audio drama – but the foreground soundscape MUST decode easily for the listeners. A masterful example of this took place in one of Decoder Ring Theatre’s Black Jack Justice episodes. The scene took place in a casino where a shoot out was taking place. The background soundscape was one of ongoing shouts, shots, and mayhem, but the foreground was a masterclass in short, sharp, controlled action and dialog involving the protagonists. Despite all the confusion in the background there is nothing ambiguous about the foreground action and the scene “reads” perfectly.

Below is a simple example of a quick fight interaction that decodes easily for the listener.

JAKE: I have been hunting you for some time, Fletch. There is no way for you to escape.
FLETCH: Oh,yeah? We’ll see about that.
JAKE: Don’t try to run. I don’t want to hurt you Fletch, but if you make me… Damnit.
SOUND: SMACK… SMACK, SMACK – LET IT FINISH.
FLETCH: (GROANS) Ugh.
SOUND: BODY DROP – LET IT FINISH.
JAKE: (SIGHS) Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

MINIMALISM VERSUS DENSITY OF SOUND DESIGN

If it’s not obvious to you, I’m something of a fan of a certain amount of minimalism when it comes to sound design. But as I said earlier, this may be because of my own deafness – I admittedly have a lower than typical tolerance for crowded sound-scapes. But this preference isn’t universally observed. The OTR show, Gunsmoke, contained the richest, most layered use of sound that I’ve heard and I absolutely love it… but that’s because they used dense sound-scapes so well and mastered the art of decoding them for their listeners.

Probably the best minimalist use of sound that I am aware of is Decoder Ring Theatre’s Red Panda Adventures – Gregg Taylor is a master of clear and accessible action. At the other end of the spectrum with regard to sound design is Gunsmoke with its dense use of sound. In both cases, however, clarity is the key.

Anecdotally, there appears to be a “sweet spot” for audio production that allows maximum immersion (with some variation due to individual differences in listeners). This sweet spot seems to exist as a continuum in which minimalist sound design and heavily layered sound can equally contribute to an increased sense of immersion so long as their use effectively mimics the real world experience of hearing and matches a listener’s expectations for the environment. That is, silence is actually fine so long as the listener expects the environment to be silent, while a large amount of noise is also fine if the environment is expected to be noisy. But noise will become distracting if it doesn’t fade realistically and silence will fail to be convincing if sound fails to intrude sufficiently on the empty background when it occurs. Some recent research suggests that we can add to our list of realistic audio cues the spatial (or reverb) characteristics of the sound. In the context of what we already know regarding how to create the illusion of immersion, it also makes perfect sense that the spatial characteristics of sounds need to match listener expectations in order to be convincing.

Anyway I’d love to hear your thoughts on sound design, scripting, creating immersion, and how to help your audience decode what is taking place in your dramas. Add your comments below.

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

The post How to Write Immersive Audio-Drama that your Audience can Decode Easily appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

I’m not particularly good at doing action scenes so a while back I did a bit of research and thinking in order to improve what I do. Here are some general principles for designing action scenes that I arrived at. They help me to be a bit more deliberate about what I want to achieve when I write one – but they shouldn’t be seen as a prescription (more suggestions to think about).

1. Find a story to tell within the story.

Action scenes must serve the plot. They are wasted text if they do not advance the plot in any meaningful way. If an action scene can be deleted without affecting the story at all, it is unnecessary and shouldn’t be there.

A good action scene is a movement from intention to outcome, but like all scenes, must be one that would diminish the story if it was absent.

2. Make it subjective and personalize it.

The scene should focus on the experience of the combatants. It should be a dialog between them that reveals character in some way. It should also include stakes that are genuinely high; that is the participants should have something genuinely important to lose as a result of the outcome… and the outcome must be genuinely uncertain.

3. Decide on a mood.

Is the action short and brutal (like in Unforgiven)? Is it extended, civil, and swashbuckling (like in The Princess Bride)? Is it realistic? Is it stylized? Is it desperate etc.?

4. Have a broad outline of the action.

Plan the scene (goal, obstacle, disaster, reaction/choice, outcome) in broad terms. Because the pace is intentionally quick, don’t worry about rehearsal of options and anticipation of outcomes – they belong to more leisurely scenes. Don’t choreograph every move… that isn’t going to work. Let the audience choreograph the fight by harnessing the listener’s own ability to supply the detail. Give the audience enough detail (via sound cues and dialog) that it is easy for them to imagine the detail without confusion.

5. If possible, heighten the emotion.

Use the protagonist’s point of view, sound and dialog to provide reactions to being in the midst of the action. Confusion, pain, surprise, fear, anger etc.

6. Keep the action fast paced.

Use short sentences of dialog. Make sound cues short and evocative. Resolve the action quickly – don’t let the audience start to wonder if/when its all going to end. It’s better to leave the audience wanting more than bored by too much.

7. Surprise the listener.

A fight or action scene is a story telling opportunity and cliches and predictability should be avoided.

8. Don’t fill the scene with uninterpreted or uninterpretable sound.

Incomprehensible soundscapes create confusion in the mind of the audience and destroy any sense of immersion that the audience might have.

9. Don’t over narrate.

Use supporting characters and your protagonists to keep the action clear. Have them speak to each other about what they are seeing etc. But don’t overdo it. You don’t want your action scene to sound like a prize fight commentary (unless it happens to be a prize fight commentary).

Example

Here’s a quick example scene…

SCENE 1: INT – CAPTAIN’S CABIN ON THE PIRATE SHIP THE FLOATING SAVAGE – NIGHT (FIRST MATE, PIRATE KING, PIRATE 1, PIRATE 2, PIRATE 3)

1. SOUND: BOAT RIGGING, WAVES, ETC. – ESTABLISH AND UNDER.

2. SOUND: A KNOCK, DOOR OPENS – LET IT FINISH.

3. FIRST MATE: ‘Evening Captain. There’s four of us as would like a word if it’s all the same to you.

4. PIRATE KING: Well, lads, come in and gather round. I’ve word of a fat ship heading to the West Indies with a payroll for the plantations. What do you say? A worthy target?

5. SOUND: DOOR CLOSES, PIRATES SHUFFLE IN – LET IT FINISH.

6. FIRST MATE: Well, Captain, it’s like this. We’re feeling a little concerned… Ye’ve led us into one disaster after another recently and we were wondering why we should keep on following you?

7. PIRATE CAPTAIN: Are ye thinking I’ve led ye wrong then?

8. FIRST MATE: Aye Captain, we are. Begging your pardon, but we’ve seen no decent plunder these past months… and come close to capture more’n a few times.

9. PIRATE KING: So what would you have me do? The pickings have been meagre, true, and the King’s navy has dogged our every step. But I defy you to show me anyone who could have done any better.

10. FIRST MATE: I reckon “some of us” think perhaps we could do a better job.

11. PIRATE KING: Then call a vote. Let’s see how many this “some of us” amounts to.

12. FIRST MATE: Well, Captain, that would be the way to do it, right enough, but I think a quicker and more straight forward solution be presenting itself.

13. PIRATE KING: Ah, it’s like that is it?

14. FIRST MATE: Aye, ‘tis.

15. PIRATE KING: And that’d be why you brought these three lads with you. You never were one to face a man squarely.

16. FIRST MATE: Oh they ain’t going to interfere. They’re just here to make sure no-one else does either. (BEAT) What say you to my challenge, Captain? How will ye answer?

17. PIRATE KING: Like this…

18. SOUND: SMACK OF FIST ON FACE – LET IT FINISH.

19. FIRST MATE: Ugh. Your sneaky reputation is well earned, Captain. But it will take more’n that to fell me.

20. PIRATE KING: Something more like this then?

21. SOUND: SMACK (BEAT) SMACK, SMACK – LET IT FINISH.

22. FIRST MATE: (DISCONCERTED AND WORRIED) Aye. Something very much like that.

23. PIRATE KING: So why are you smiling?

24. FIRST MATE: Because of this…

25. SOUND: KNIFE UNSHEATHES – LET IT FINISH.

26. PIRATE KING: A knife? Really?

27. FIRST MATE: It’s the least I could… do!

28. SOUND: SWISH OF KNIFE – LET IT FINISH.

29. PIRATE KING: … and I didn’t bring anything for you. (BEAT) I guess it will have to just be this…

30. SOUND: SMACK – LET IT FINISH.

31. PIRATE KING: And this…

32. SOUND: SMACK – LET IT FINISH.

33. PIRATE KING: And this, and this, and this…

34. SOUND: SMACK, SMACK, SMACK – UNDER

35. PIRATE KING: And this!

36. SOUND: SMACK – LET IT FINISH.

37. FIRST MATE: (GROANS) Ugh!

38. SOUND: BODY DROP!

39. PIRATE KING: (SLIGHTLY OUT OF BREATH) Now… are any of you other wretches inclined to add your weight to this cur’s challenge?

40. PIRATE 1: (SCARED) No!

41. PIRATE 2&3: No, no!

42. PIRATE KING: Good. Then I suggest you get this maggot ridden carcass off my floor and over the side of my ship.

43. PIRATE 1: Er, yes Captain. Right away Captain!

44. PIRATE KING: … and then get something to clean the blood out of my carpet. His nose appears to have bled all over it.

45. PIRATES 2&3: Yes, yes, Captain!

46. PIRATE KING: Well, get going!

47. SOUND: HURRIED ACTIVITY, JOSTLING, DOOR OPENS AND CLOSES – LET IT FINISH.

48. PIRATE KING: Damnit! I’ll need a new first mate after this.

49. MUSIC: SCENE ENDER – LET IT FINISH

Analysis

In the above scene I’ve tried to keep the action simple and easy to follow (a few short sharp blows and the swish of a knife). From a story point of view this brawl is an exercise in dominance, the Captain is being challenged for his ship and meets it decisively, reasserting control over his crew by beating the challenger down. His skill is demonstrated in the dialog and his courage is demonstrated by facing down his First Mate with just his fists when the coward produces a knife. The fearful reaction of the crew and the reference to blood on the carpet are intended to help sell the violence of the moment. Structurally, the scene establishes the captain’s goal (to assert his right to be Captain), the obstacle (a challenge from the First Mate), the disaster (the First Mate pulls a knife), the captain’s reaction (bravado), and the captains choice (to defeat the First Mate with only his fists).

What techniques do you employ to write action scenes? Tell us your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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

The post 9 tips to Help Write Action Scenes in Audio Drama Scripts appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Here’s some general advice I’ve pulled together from a variety of sources to help me manage the pacing in my scripts.

Pacing is concerned with the way we control time in a narrative (both time as it passes in the story, but also the way we control the audience’s time as well). We control the speed with which the narrative passes over time (speeding up and slowing down the narrative for dramatic effect, skipping hours, days, months or years of narrative time at one point while lingering over a single moment far in excess of it’s real-time equivalent at another) in order to create various dramatic effects. We also (often inadvertently) control the audience’s perception of time through our pacing. If the story seems long and drawn out, frenetic and quickly over, etc., this is an impression we create as authors. Different dramatic effects require different approaches to pacing. Moments of reflection are naturally slower than moments of action (which resolve at high speed). Likewise, the pace slows down for suspense, but quickens for conflict.

PACING IN THREE ACT STRUCTURE

There are natural rhythms of pacing in an overall plot.

In a typical three act structure the pace is quick getting from opening scene through the inciting incident of the first act (since we are trying to hook the audience as quickly as possible).

In the second act we have more time to alternate between fast and slow pacing. The first half of the second act generally sees a gentle back and forth escalation in pace until the point of no-return is reached.

The point of no return is one of two places where the characters are generally required to engage in some significant reflection and the pace slows down to heighten the drama. Something has happened that burns the characters’ bridges behind them and the pace slows to allow the impact of the event to settle in.

Following this we see a second sharper escalation of pace through the rising tension of the second act.

The reversal that concludes the second act is another point at which the pace slows. Generally speaking it is the moment that the characters’ experience their lowest point, feeling all is lost. Once more the pace slows down to allow them to reflect on their situation and give the event a chance to make an impact.

The third act picks up the pace for the final confrontation.

Confrontation over, the story slows down for a gentle landing during the denouement.

PACING IN THE SCENE

The structure of a scene tends to have its own pace as well.

There is a slow build through the setting of the scene and establishment of the character goal through to the reveal of the obstacle that stands in the characters’ way.

From here the pace picks up as the characters attempt to circumvent the obstacle until disaster strikes.

When the disaster strikes the pace slows as the characters react, anticipate the consequences of future choices, and decide what to do next.

Pace tends to rise and fall, wave like throughout the story along with the tension – and pace is one of the key techniques of creating tension in a story.

TECHNIQUES FOR INCREASING THE PACE

Leave out everything that isn’t essential to the scene and the action within it (especially descriptions and thoughts).

Use rapid-fire, short sentences in dialog.

Keep the action central and avoid reflection and pondering. Instead use conflict and confrontation.

Though it may seem counter intuitive, interrupt the expected outcome. This may appear to lengthen the story but in fact increases the sense of pace. Cut on cliff hanger moments and moments of revelation or threat to build listener expectation and eagerness for what will follow.

Foreshadow future conflicts to increase listener curiosity.

Place incidents/events in rapid succession without giving the characters time to think.

Use short scenes that present easily digested short segments of action.

Elide time. Jump over periods of time without explanation or with a quick summary of what intervened (eg. “Two days later…”, “Five years later…” etc.).

Trim all unnecessary words from sentences, even using sentence fragments and extra short paragraphs), and use harsh sounding words, attention grabbing verbs, and words with unpleasant associations (crash, lunge, scavenge, slither, hiss etc.). Words like these tend to force the listener forward.

TECHNIQUES FOR SLOWING THE PACE

There are times when you want to slow the pace down.

Add setting details and narrative exposition, explore the characters’ thoughts and feelings.

Extend conversations so they are more leisurely and rambling.

Bring characters into accord with one another, defuse conflict and tension so that everyone has a chance to take a breath.

Take your time moving from one event to the next, explore each thoroughly and allow the characters to react to and reflect on what is taking place.

Use flashback to extend the scene.

Introduce narration.

Allow sentences to flow with soft sounding words and sensory and emotional descriptors.

Slow moments don’t need to lack intensity. The anticipation before the crash as the car goes into a spin allows the writer to slow down and focus on the heartbeat, the last frenzied thoughts, the sight of the trees spinning past as the car twists and skates across the ice etc.

Whatever you do, and wherever you attempt to employ one of these techniques, remember to do so deliberately, for a purpose that moves the story forward or reveals important character in some way. Otherwise, your writing will be pointless filler (and the audience can always tell).

What techniques do you employ to pace your drama? Tell us your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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

The post How to Manage Pacing in Audio Drama Scripts appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

How we begin matters. The beginning of the story needs to establish two essential things. Firstly, we must introduce our protagonist/s in terms of the life they experience as normal (I’ll explain that in a minute). Secondly, we must introduce an event that upsets and overturns that sense of normal; presenting the character/s with a problem that it will take the rest of the story to resolve.

Establishing normal life

Give your audience a snapshot of your character’s normal life – the life they lead every day – before the story starts. It’s showing us Luke Skywalker daydreaming about joining the Academy while doing his chores before the droids arrive; it’s showing us Neo in his day-to-day job while hacking in his spare time prior to meeting Trinity; it’s seeing Will Turner’s skill at sword-smithing being overlooked while he can’t bring himself to acknowledge his feelings for Elizabeth Swann. When you introduce your character and their typical experience of life, do so as quickly as possible. Don’t waste words.

This doesn’t exclude setup, world-building, and backstory. In the movies referred to above, there are scenes of backstory and setup that appear prior to the key moments above. Just don’t make the mistake of spending unnecessary time on them (emphasis on unnecessary) or forgetting to reveal what the characters’ normal life looks like. Give the backstory time, by all means, but don’t waste time on it. Make sure it is as economical in its presentation as possible so that you can get to the main event – introducing the protagonist/s and introducing the event that presents the protagonist/s with a problem.

Presenting the problem

It is the presentation of the problem that provides your audience with the most interest. This is the place where the story actually begins and where the story begins to grab attention.

The day-to-day, normal existence of our characters – the uninterrupted “nine to five” routine by which they live – is of little interest. We need to see it, but only briefly, so that we can recognize when the unusual events, that form the story overall, begin.

The event which starts the story (for each significant character) must be one that derails the familiar (if not necessarily comfortable) routine in which the characters find themselves when the story starts. Luke must be given responsibility for some droids his uncle purchased that are, unbeknownst to him, wanted by the Empire. Neo must receive a cryptic message on his computer about following the white rabbit. Will Turner must learn Elizabeth Swann has been kidnapped by pirates.

Note that these “inciting incidents” – these events that push the characters out of their routine lives, tend to be present for MOST of the characters in the story.

• Darth Vader loses some droids that may be hiding plans to the Death Star.
• Princess Leia is arrested by the Emperor’s chief henchman.
• Luke’s new R2 droid runs away from the farm.
• Han Solo and Chewbakka discover a bounty has been placed on their heads by a local gangster and need to find work (fast) to pay it off.
• Obi Wan Kenobi receives a message from a princess begging for his aid.

Despite this, there is usually one character – a character who stands in for the audience, and with whom the audience is expected to identify – for whom the inciting incident carries extra weight. Their story is the one we will follow to its conclusion, and it is typically the inciting incident for this character that is most important (and therefore, should be presented as quickly as possible).

Example

The story hasn’t truly begun until we see the effect or impact of the problem (and its consequences) upon our protagonist/s.

1. NARRATOR: [backstory] Vega Station, like most of earth’s deep-space mining outposts, is isolated and rarely visited, except by the great ships that haul the ore and supplies between the asteroid field in which it is situated and earth’s major industrial concerns. On the command and control deck of the station, Captain Marcos is compiling his end of day report.
2. MARCOS: [Character introduction – establishing “normal” life] Captain’s Log, Authorisation Code GH2763a, Captain Antonin Marcos speaking. It’s been another slow day. The diggers are bringing up ore at capacity and we’re well on our way to meeting this month’s target. Welby is griping about not having found another source of Uranium yet. He always gets antsy when the current veins start to run dry. And with some of the veins already depleted I estimate we’ll probably only get another three months out of our current dig site before we have to locate more. I’m not worried though. We’ve hardly begun exploiting this asteroid field and there’s bound to be plenty more ore to dig out when the current mine plays out. I just need to ride this out for another year or two and I’ll be able to retire comfortably with…
3. SOUND: BLARING PROXIMITY ALARM – DUCK UNDER AND FINISH.
4. MARCOS: What now?
5. FREIGHTER CAPTAIN: (FILTERED TO SOUND LIKE RADIO) This is Captain Velerion of the Freighter Tiberius calling Vega Station. We have an on-board emergency. Do you copy?
6. MARCOS: (TO SELF) Aw hell!
7. MARCOS: Captain Valerion, this is Captain Marcos of Vega Station. You don’t appear to be on any of our logged flight plans. What is the nature of your emergency?
8. FREIGHTER CAPTAIN: (FILTERED TO SOUND LIKE STATIC) We are a freighter out of Cardosia 6, looking for permission to dock and make repairs.
9. MARCOS: Cardosia? Isn’t that planet up to its armpits in civil war?
10. FREIGHTER CAPTAIN: (FILTERED TO SOUND LIKE STATIC) [Inciting incident – introducing the problem] It was. The Centrovian rebels, with support from the Outer Galactic Alliance, took the capital two days ago. Under statute 47 of the Trans-Galactic Treaty we request political asylum upon your station for Princess Tilde Irmingarde, formerly of Cardosia 6, the only surviving member of the Cardosian royal family.
11. MARCOS: (TO SELF) Oh no. No, no, no! This is a headache I just don’t need…

Again, and just to emphasise, you can take your time with the start of a story. You can begin with an action scene in media res (just like a Bond film) if you wish, or spend time acquainting your audience with the world in which your story is situated. But the story itself doesn’t begin until the protagonist/s have been introduced and the problem that starts them on their journey has been encountered. Until these two things happen, all is backstory and prologue. And that is fine. But the audience will not invest in the story until the story itself begins. The more prologue and backstory you provide before the story itself starts, the greater the chance that you will lose the attention of your audience (especially in these days of increasingly short attention spans).

But, as usual, these guidelines are just that. If you have a good reason for delaying the introduction of your characters and their dilemma, then do so. As a general rule, however, to start a story well…

• Introduce your characters and their typical routine.
• Introduce an event that forces them out of that routine and kicks off the story.
• Do this as quickly as possible.

What techniques do you employ to begin your drama? Tell us your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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

The post Beginning – How to Begin a Script that Grips appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Remember when you were a kid and you knew you were going to visit the local fair or carnival or circus and you just couldn’t wait and you’d speculate on all the things you’d do there and what kind of day you’d have and what the weather was going to be like and what you’d do if it rained and how crushed you’d be if the hay-fever you were suffering turned out to be a cold and you missed out etc?

Every kid has a gift for drama and one of the keys to heightening drama is “anticipation”.

By anticipating all the good and bad possibilities pregnant in an upcoming event we heighten our investment and excitement. As kids we’d instantly make an event more dramatic through our anticipation of it.

It stands to reason then, that when writing a script we can increase the investment, excitement, dread, and anticipation of the listening audience by doing the same. When we use our characters to spell out the consequences of choices, events, etc. we increase the drama.

Here’s a simple exchange.

ASSISTANT: (CRYING OUT IN PANIC) Dr Sumner, we’ve detected an asteroid heading directly for the earth!
DR SUMNER: Good Lord, that’s a catastrophe! Call the president!

This is pretty pedestrian. A disaster occurs and our lead character (Dr Sumner) responds.

We could add a little more interest by articulating the options available to Dr Sumner as follows…

ASSISTANT: (CRYING OUT IN PANIC) Dr Sumner, we’ve detected an asteroid heading directly for the earth!
DR SUMNER: Good Lord, that’s a catastrophe! Don’t just stand there blithering. What are our options?
ASSISTANT: Protocol suggests we need to get in contact with emergency and relief services… and the military… and the president.
DR SUMNER: Call the president. I’ll grab the emergency plan from the safe.

But it’s still not very dramatic. If we really want to up the drama we need to include some anticipation.

ASSISTANT: (CRYING OUT IN PANIC) Dr Sumner, we’ve detected an asteroid heading directly for the earth!
DR SUMNER: Good Lord, that’s a catastrophe! Even a moderate sized asteroid striking the ocean will result in massive flooding. Thousands of lives will be lost. Not to mention what will happen if it makes landfall. The detonation will be huge. Enough earth and rock will be thrown into the atmosphere to create years of extended winter. Crop failures. Starvation. The death toll could be unimaginable. (BEAT) Don’t just stand there blithering. What are our options?
ASSISTANT: Protocol suggests we need to get in contact with emergency and relief services… and the military… and the president.
DR SUMNER: Call the president. I’ll grab the emergency plan from the safe.

By anticipating the results of future events and choices the drama is increased. As a writing technique, this one provides a big payoff for a relatively small investment.

What techniques do you employ to heighten drama for your audience? Tell us your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.

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

The post How to use Anticipation to Heighten Drama appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

A SIMPLE WAY TO UNDERSTAND CHARACTER ARCS

It’s been fun using this forum to think out loud about the craft of story-telling and story-telling structures. I’ve recently been thinking about character arcs as they apply in audio drama and I thought I’d share the results…

Whereas the plot contains a series of external events and obstacles that are placed in the path of the protagonists in a story (to which the characters react), a character arc, by contrast, is generally a map of the inner journey of the characters in response to the events they are a part of.

I’m going to talk about Star Wars (since it contains very clear illustrations of what a character arc is) and look at Luke Skywalker and Han Solo (but it would be just as easy to use Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice or any number of others). Luke begins as a naive, day-dreaming farm boy and ends up a rebel fighter pilot. Han solo begins as an amoral, murderous (yes, he really did shoot first), smuggler, and ends up a hero of the rebellion.

The basic elements of a character arc are as follows

DEMONSTRATING EXISTING CHARACTER

Here we meet the character for the first time and see them living their ordinary life in its ordinary routine.

Example: Luke is a daydreaming, idealistic farm boy. Han Solo is an on the run smuggler who shoots first and asks questions later.

CALL TO CHANGE

Here we see them respond to the event that upsets their routine existence and calls them to make adjustments.

Example: Luke is asked by Ben Kenobi to come to Alderaan. Han is asked by Luke to help rescue the princess in the detention centre.

RESISTANCE TO CHANGE

Here we see the characters resisting change, trying to re-establish the status quo.

Example: Luke explains why the harvest etc. prevent him from taking part in the rebellion. Han points out that breaking into an Imperial detention centre is insanity.

COMMITMENT TO CHANGE

Here we see the character committing to the changes required of them, deciding that it is worth the effort and valuable enough to risk everything for.

Example: Luke responds to the death of his uncle and aunt by committing to Kenobi’s cause. Han responds to the offer of riches by committing to Luke’s plan.

TESTING OF COMMITMENT

Here we see the character’s commitment to change being tested. Will they hold true, or will they fall back into their old ways? This usually involves one final test in which they could lose everything.

Example: Luke needs to use the force and embrace his new life as a Jedi. Han, though reluctant to be a hero and wanting to leave and pay off the bounty on his head, flies in at the last minute to help Luke get a clear shot at the death star.

DEMONSTRATION OF CHANGED CHARACTER

With the final test passed we see the character living differently, life settles into a new routine that embraces the change they have gone through.

Example: Luke and Han are now members of the Rebel Alliance, having undergone a baptism of fire, and receive medals before the crowd.

The power of the character arc, like so many writing tools, comes, in part, from its familiarity. It creates a strong sense of identification with the character. A story can be full of ray guns, dragons, spaceships, dragons with rayguns flying around in spaceships, and other elements that we have no real connection with in daily life… and it will still be relatable if the characters are going through common human emotional experiences. We’ve all had the experience of being comfortable only to be confronted about a behavior that’s a problem. We’ve all experienced the anger that can arise, the sense of injustice, the initial tendency to say “hey, that’s your problem; I don’t need to change” and so, resist the call to change. We also recognize the experience of realizing a change needs to be made, setting out to make that change, and how testing it is to try and make that change successfully. Lastly, we all know the experience of succeeding or failing to make changes. In day to day life these experiences tend to be around little things (trying to break bad habits, managing our weight, deciding its time to get a new job, etc.) rather than the saving of universes etc. But their familiarity makes it possible for us to identify with characters who are, indeed, trying to save the universe.

Most major characters in a story will undergo change as a result of the events that unfold in a story. When they do, the audience feels a certain amount of satisfaction with the story – even when the change is for the worse. Some characters successfully navigate the call to change, others fall at the last hurdle, but none are the same. Some become better adjusted and more mature capable individuals, others become bitter failures, etc. etc.

We seem to find even the failure of a character to navigate change (often the lot of villains) compelling.

Flaws allow characters to grapple with change (to the point that watching that conflict unfold is its own form of drama). We want to see if they will succeed or fail. I suspect that when we see the psychopath rescue the drowning kitten, it is more than the fact we’ve found something relatable in the character (kindness to kittens) that makes us want to keep following the story (though I’m not dismissing that either). I think we also want to see what difference this makes to the character from that point on.

We will even want to follow the story of a character who repulses us if a compelling enough question (or series of questions) can be raised about the prospects for change. The “call to change” (above) brought about by the challenge of the story (and the subsequent challenges to the character’s attempts at change) have a huge impact on how much we want to follow what is happening to any given character.

Will looking after the kitten alter the psychopath? The curiosity to find out gives us one more reason to remain tuned in.

The character arc model is a useful shorthand for creating a satisfying story out of the internal world of the characters. It isn’t a substitute for the plot, but takes place in parallel with it, and different characters each have their own arc and move through it at different rates (Darth Vader’s arc took three films to complete).

There is one caveat, however. While most novels, self-contained stories and films contain complete character arcs, there is one place that the full character arc tends NOT to find expression. Serial stories tend to have protagonists who do not change greatly, or change very slowly, as they pass from book to book, episode to episode, or film to film. This slow growth tends to defy the formula above. Xena, MacGuyver, and the A Team (yes, I’m a child of the 80s) all had very static characters. The peculiar fixety of characters in serials that used to be the norm tends to be less common now, but even so, dramatic character change is far less common in serial story telling than in the self-contained story. Character change, though slower in a serial, can still add immense interest as the audience follows that growth and change over time.

A character arc is clearly not an essential of story-telling, but it is nonetheless a very common and useful tool to employ.

What techniques do you use when you are creating characters? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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

The post Character Arcs Made Easy appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

CONTINUITY, PSYCHOLOGY, AND THE AUDIO WRITER

The brain is an amazing thing, and it is easy to immerse our brains in a story. Try this little thought experiment.

Here is the word TREE. The word is a signifier and it signifies an idea. That idea, in a typically functioning brain, tends to be a picture. You hear or read the word TREE and there in your mind, instantly, a tree appears. And what’s more, it is a tree unique to you. No-one else sees quite the same tree you do. It might be an oak, or a maple, or a eucalyptus, or any kind of tree, real or imagined. Furthermore, your brain doesn’t just create a tree, it creates the entire world around that tree; the ground, the backdrop, the sky, the entire environment. The word TREE is taken by your brain and amplified far beyond its existence as four letters on the page or the sound used to express the word. Your brain does this instantly and without any conscious effort. Totally amazing!

But doesn’t that create a problem for me as a writer? Won’t it be jarring for the audience if I say TREE and the members of the audience imagine a maple tree only to find out later that the tree is a fir tree? The short answer is Nope. And here’s why.

Look at this sentence…

It was a beautiful tree, a majestic fir standing one hundred and fifty feet tall.

When the brain processes this sentence, the word tree creates an image in our minds the moment it is encountered, and then as more details are provided the brain AUTOMATICALLY redraws this image. It does this without us even being aware of the fact. We don’t feel any jarring sense of discontinuity. The brain recognizes that the words we are encountering are just abstract place holders and approximations for communicated meaning. They adjust these approximations in light of new information without us having to think about it, stopping at the point that no further information is provided, but fully ready and willing to do more adjusting the moment further information comes to hand.

In response to the sample sentence provided earlier, your brain will have added location and weather and other information. Perhaps you see the fir tree as being in a forest. Perhaps against a clear blue sky. It doesn’t matter that the sentence can be expanded to invalidate that picture as follows…

It was a beautiful tree, a majestic fir standing one hundred and fifty feet tall. The drivers in the cars passing it little wondered or cared why such a tall tree had come to stand so close to a major highway. Their attention focused far more on the storm that currently brought cascading sheets of rain against their windshields.

Of course all bets are off, once a fact is consciously established. The brain will rewrite the unconsciously chosen details of our mental images to accommodate new information without a murmur, but it will ALWAYS notice information that contradicts what has consciously been established.

For example, while the passages submitted above layer on details without creating any sense of discontinuity, the following passage does not…

It was a beautiful tree, a majestic fir standing one hundred and fifty feet tall. A car careened off the road into it, bringing down a shower of eucalyptus leafs.

The eucalyptus leafs violate the conscious mental imagery established by the words themselves and that results in a jarringly noticeable continuity error. The details the mind creates around the words in a sentence are malleable until fixed by the words themselves. Once fixed however, we generally need to avoid violating that sense of continuity. I’ll come back to why I say “generally” before I close this little post.

Right now, however, lets look at how this applies to Audio Drama.

When I write for audio drama the mental immersion of my audience is achieved in exactly the same way. Each revelation builds upon the last and the audience collaborates with me in the task of world building.

Look at the following example.

1. SAM: I walk into my office about half past eleven and begin going through the mail that had been slid beneath the door. (SIGHS) More bills.
2. SOUND: TELEPHONE BEGINS RINGING – THREE RINGS THEN PICKUP
3. SAM: Spade Detective Agency. Sam Spade speaking.

Did I need to describe the office and everything in it? Nope. The audience heard it was an office and immediately created it in their minds. Did it matter that they didn’t necessarily imagine a telephone in the office? Not at all. Whether by sound or word, the telephone comes into existence at the moment it is needed and, as far as the audience is concerned, it has always been there.

That’s a pretty neat trick and allows a writer to let the audience do an awful lot of heavy lifting on his/her behalf. In fact, there is a sense in which the experience of listening to audio is more immersive, the more it relies on the audience to supply the detail of the scenes it seeks to portray.

Jarring continuity errors still occur, however, whenever established information is contradicted. This, as was stated earlier, is generally to be avoided. But it can also be harnessed deliberately for comic effect.

1. SAM: I walk into my office about half past eleven, exhausted and very glad I’ve never installed a telephone to interrupt the nap I intend to take.
2. SOUND: TELEPHONE RINGS.

Or, as a more ludicrous violation…

1. SAM: I arrive at the No-tell Motel, camera in hand, ready to snap some candid shots of Mrs Ligetti and her latest fling. It’s not glamorous, but divorce work pays the bills. I try to look through the window but I’m just not tall enough. I (GRUNT) climb (GRUNT) up onto my own (GRUNT) shoulders for a better look before losing my balance and collapsing onto the nearby garbage cans.
2. SOUND: BODY DROP AND CLATTER OF CANS – LET IT FINISH.
3. BUSTER: (AT A DISTANCE) Hey, what was that?
4. MRS LIGETTI: (CALLING TO BUSTER) Come away from the window, darling. Those blinds are drawn. You know they’re not real.

The brain is an amazing thing. It creates entire worlds, some of them completely impossible, from small amounts of information, and this capacity is one of the key reasons audio drama is such an immersive experience. As writers we need to be deliberately looking for ways to harness this feature of human psychology. Knowing the audience is on our side in this makes our work both better and easier.

What methods do you use to increase the engagement of your audience? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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

The post How to Increase Engagement in Audio Drama by Writing Less appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Four Basic Foreshadowing Techniques

There are several ways we can foreshadow plot points.

Here are four simple techniques that range from the implied through to the explicit.

Firstly, we can use suggest future events through hints, symbols and omens. Eg. The weather was unseasonably cold that day. There was a dead bird lying on the bonnet of his car, frozen solid.

Secondly, we can foreshadow by explicitly drawing attention to a person, mood, or thing within the story that would otherwise be overlooked. If we have our protagonist break-off from what they would normally be expected to see and hear in order to notice the furtive looking figure on the street corner, or comment on the beauty of the gun inside the glass case as they are led into the study, or get a vague sense that something feels off about the old house, on one page, then the audience will expect these digressions to be paid off somewhere further down the track – the house must have a dark secret, the gun must be used, or the furtive street-corner lurker must become important in some way.

Thirdly, we can provide a smaller version of a larger scene. The plane flight is bumpy on the way into the airport, but on the way out it must fly through a thunderstorm. The protagonist watches an aggressive guy push ahead in the line at the local store only to discover later that this is his competitive and ruthless new co-worker.

Fourthly, we can explicitly tell the audience that something is coming through external or character narration – The storm would reach town about 9.00 pm…

The first two are examples of light foreshadowing, while the latter two are examples of heavy foreshadowing.

When should foreshadowing be used?

Foreshadowing should certainly not be used for anything trivial. Foreshadowing should be used to emphasize important plot points. Remember that if you try to make everything seem important, then nothing will be. It’s a good guideline (but it’s only a guideline) to reserve the foreshadowing for the major turns in the plot; the inciting incident, the point of no return, the reversal, and the final confrontation.

Heavy foreshadowing occurs early in your narrative (the larger the gap between the foreshadowing and the event foreshadowed, the heavier the foreshadowing needs to be).

Light foreshadowing occurs closer to the events.

Try to get the heavy foreshadowing out of the way in the first 25% to 50% of the story. Then use light foreshadowing to lead into the payoff of each significant event.

How do you foreshadow events in a story?

To foreshadow an event requires two things; a setup and a payoff.

The setup is where you provide your audience with hints about the future (using the methods discussed above or others of your own invention). It’s usually better to be subtle (even when engaging in heavy foreshadowing) so that you don’t spoil any surprises you have in store for your audience.

The payoff occurs when you deliver the event that you were foreshadowing. It’s important that this event be dramatically and emotionally satisfying to your audience or they WILL feel cheated. That noise in the alley can’t turn out to just be a cat rummaging around in search of scraps – not if you’ve made a big deal of foreshadowing it. Mess this up and you are guaranteed to alienate and anger your audience.

The Most Important Rules

That which you foreshadow cannot be trivial. You have to pay off the foreshadowing with something surprising, dramatic, or emotional. This is why it is usually best to foreshadow your story’s major turning points.

Whether you are a planner who outlines your intended use of foreshadowing prior to writing, or whether you are more organic in your process, letting the moments present themselves to you intuitively, you will want to carefully examine your final draft to ensure that both setup and payoff are present for every element of foreshadowing you use and to ensure that nowhere is the foreshadowing you have employed trivial.

What methods do you use to foreshadow the major events in your story? Are there other techniques that you use? Share your thoughts and opinions below in the comments.

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

The post The Basics of Foreshadowing appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

SO, THIS GUY WALKS INTO A BAR…

Have you ever wondered why comedians choose the active voice for their routines? Or why someone telling a story at a party is so enthralling when they use the present tense? Have you even noticed that this is what they do? There’s a reason for it; and that reason is immediacy.

When telling a story, a memory that is shared in the past-tense is never as powerful as an event taking place in the moment (unless maybe the memory belongs to a ghost). Statements in the past tense lacks mystery – they just don’t evoke as much curiosity in the audience as statements firmly grounded in the present.

“I walked into the bar” is about the past. It happened, and it promises the audience little, being complete in itself.

“So, I walk into this bar…” is far more immediate, engaging, and intriguing. The audience is brought directly into the moment being re-told.  The words chosen imply the story isn’t over yet and invite curiosity about what will happen next.

Narration with immediacy

In audio drama if you’re going to use the famous Sam Spade style voice over, add immediacy by making sure it is spoken in the present-tense.

Here’s a past tense phrase…

SAM: It was a dark and stormy night as I walked down the alleyway…

There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, right? But here’s the same phrase brought into the present tense…

“It’s midnight and I walk down a darkened alley as a storm rages about me…”

It’s easy to see which one engages the listener/reader more.

Story telling with immediacy

Here’s another example, this time an exchange between a hard-boiled police detective and his lieutenant…

LIEUTENANT: So, what happened out at the McCabe Farm?

DETECTIVE: It’s the craziest thing. I arrive around nine, see, and head up to the farmhouse…

The present tense is always the better option whenever you have a character acting as the narrator or telling a story… BUT even better still, transitioning the story into a flashback creates the most immediacy of all…

LIEUTENANT: So, what happened out at the McCabe Farm?

DETECTIVE: It’s the craziest thing. I arrive around nine, see, and head up to the farmhouse…

SOUND: TRUDGING UP DIRT PATH, ONTO WOODEN VERANDAH. KNOCK ON DOOR – LET IT FINISH.

MRS MCCABE: (CRANKY) Who’s there?

DETECTIVE: Sorry to bother you at this time of night, ma’am. I’m Detective Rogers of Star City P.D. We’ve had a complaint about something howling in the woods just west of your property. A man was found there earlier, pretty torn up. I was wondering if you saw or heard anything that might be able to help us?…

Of course adjusting the tense is just one tool that can be used to create immediacy.  And it’s important, also, to acknowledge that immediacy isn’t necessary in all instances – every tool a writer employs needs to fit that particular writer’s purpose and should be laid aside the moment it doesn’t do that.

So, what techniques are you aware of that help create immediacy in your scripts? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

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

The post How to Apply Immediacy to Improve Audio Scripts appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Today I’m being a bit controversial. Lots of people really hate three act structure (like the guy who wrote this, for instance… https://filmcrithulk.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/hulk-presents-the-myth-of-3-act-structure/). Some even go so far as to say it doesn’t exist (because all stories have a beginning, middle, and end). That’s fine. But I’ve always found this structure a helpful model and tool – one which, like any tool, we’re free to lay aside if it doesn’t suit our purpose.

I was only a kid when Star Wars – A New Hope hit the big screen. Its runaway appeal was not something anyone expected at the time and many have been trying to capture (or recapture) its appeal ever since.

I use it as a model when I talk to kids about writing in the English class I’ve been teaching at school because it is one of the most formulaic and also one of the most creative of stories.

George Lucas deliberately built Star Wars around a storytelling formula, the Monomyth. A lot has been made of the monomyth over the years but for those who are unfamiliar with it, the monomyth (sometimes called the Hero’s journey) is something of a universal story structure. From classical myths to fairytales to modern novels, the monomyth is detectable in a large number of stories. It tells the story of a person’s journey from ordinary life into the world of adventure and back. If it sounds a little like the beginning, middle, and end of familiar three act structure, then that’s largely because it is.

Here are the basic pieces of the story (abandoning the mythic language in favour of the language used to describe three act structure and using Luke Skywalker’s journey to illustrate).

ACT 1.

Inciting Incident

This is the call to action. Characters don’t go out looking for a story to be part of. They are magnets for one. The story finds them. An event occurs that brings the story to them..

Example: Luke Skywalker is living quietly on a farm (dreaming of adventure) and his uncle buys two droids that are fleeing an evil galactic empire and charges him with their care. Here Luke discovers the message from the princess calling him to adventure.

Initial obstacle (minor)

This is something minor that gets in the protagonist’s way.

Example: R2D2 runs away and Luke is forced to follow after him in order to bring him home.

ACT 2.

Raising the stakes – (moderate obstacle(s))

The characters encounter new and somewhat more difficult obstacles. This scene is usually where the antagonist is identified (at least in part – enough to make the objective clear and the antagonist concrete).

Example: Luke encounters the Sandpeople, an event that leads directly to his encounter with Obi Wan Kenobi, the individual who will become his mentor, and who invites him to join the larger quest.

Point of no return

This is where the character’s bridges are burned. It is where the characters are set on a path that will lead inexorably to the final confrontation. It provide them with a compelling reason why they cannot turn back now.

Example: Luke initially resists the call to adventure, but when his aunt and uncle are killed there is no longer anything to keep him on Tatooine.

Rising Tension

The characters encounter even more and increasingly difficult obstacles as the story leads up to the reversal

Example: Luke encounters new allies to aid him on his journey (such as Han Solo, Chewbacca and the Princess Leia Organa) as he encounters increasingly difficult obstacles – escaping Tatooine, stowing away on the death star, rescuing the princess, escaping the trash compacter etc.

Reversal

This is the moment where everything goes wrong. The characters find themselves trapped by their circumstances, find their goals blocked, and victory appears to be granted to the antagonist of the story. The reversal leaves them feeling all hope has been lost only to find a solution at the last minute.

Example: Obi Wan Kenobi is killed in the escape from the death star. All seems lost. This moment is a key one in Luke’s transition from passive participant on the journey to active hero. The mentor has to be removed in order for the hero to stand on his own two feet and embrace his destiny.

ACT 3.

Final confrontation and victory(?)

The characters confront their adversary and attempt to achieve their goals. It is here that the day is won or lost (though victory may not come in quite the way the character hoped or expected).

Example: Luke performs the canyon run against the death star and embraces his destiny by using the force to deliver the torpedos that destroy the giant space station.

Denouement (and optional twist)

Whether the story is concluded or is being transitioned into a brand new story, the characters need a moment to catch their breath and see the fruits of their efforts. Who got the girl? What consequences have flowed from the characters actions? What friends and enemies have they made, etc?

Example: Luke is now a member of the rebel alliance, he receives a medal and joins his new friends in a larger conflict. As a twist the last scene shows Darth Vader’s ship spinning out of control into space. The death star has been destroyed but, clearly, the villain is still alive.

Star Wars is a very formulaic story and also very creative. It blends the familiar elements of a near universal plot structure with absurd technology, alien worlds, and mysticism and magic. It demonstrates that the use of a formula need not lack in depth and creativity. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. English uses a very limited number of letters to create all the words we use to communicate. A small set of components can be used in a huge variety of ways.

Three Act structure can help tell the story of a cosmos spanning galactic adventure or an intimate little boy-meets-girl romance. It can be embroidered and expanded in lots of ways (the outline of Luke’s journey is in no way the sum of all the story elements in Star Wars). And like any tool it can be subverted, employed in novel ways, or laid aside completely.

One variation I quite like introduces a redirection after the rising tension. The protagonists discover that the villain they are pursuing is not actually the villain at all, but rather someone else is behind it all, or they learn that rather than saving the macguffin they have been persuing, they must destroy it. Usually this resets the rising tension so that a new rising tension leading up to the reversal can occur. This is a particularly neat way to overcome the problem of a dragging second act as it tends to revitalise the story at what is, perhaps, its weakest point in terms of pace.

Most of my stories use three act structure as their launching point. Though plenty of writers object to it, feeling it is highly restrictive, I like it, not least because it gives me an accessible form to wrap my stories in, but because it is also a very satisfying way to tell a tale. When I come away from a story feeling unsatisfied, it is usually because the writer has neglected one of the key elements of story structure. And often, in the writing of those who claim to reject the three act structure (as narrowly defined) or substitute 2, 4, 5, 7 and 9 act structures as being more suitable, you can discern the elements of the standard structure I’ve outlined here. Pick a few of your favourite movies or novels and see if you can’t chart their plot points against the structure provided. It makes an interesting and eye opening exercise.

What’s your view regarding 3 act structure? Are there other structures that you use? Share your thoughts and opinions below in the comments.

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

The post How to Make the Most of Three Act Structure in Audio Script Writing appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

This article was prompted by an excellent blog post by Jack Ward, on how an audio drama can lose an audience. I’ve expanded on those thoughts here to help us look at the slightly different topic of why some audio dramas are so easily forgotten and how this can be avoided by carefully employing Audio Drama’s three tools (dialog, sound effects, and music) and its spotlight (volume) to effectively control the focus of the audience.

“Why can’t I remember what was going on?”

That is a question we don’t want the members of our audience to be asking after they have listened to or read one of our plays.

One of the core benefits, one of the real selling points, of audio drama is that it is so immersive. Audio dramatists have ALWAYS been able to achieve scenes that film-makers, until very recently, have only dreamed of showing to an audience. A million battleships floating in the inky blackness of space, exploding stars, monsters that defy description. Audio drama has been able to bring these things to life. And in ways that are, often, superior even to novels.

Sound is an amazingly powerful medium. Sounds enter the brain directly by a path that bypasses most of the pre-processing that the senses of touch, and sight require. Our instinctive responses to sound (such as the jump that follows the sudden “boo” scare) are hard-wired into us for our own survival.

Sound and story together, teaming up as they do with the human imagination, results in a massively immersive experience. So why is it, then, that sometimes we are unable to recall the stories we have heard?

The Michael Bay Effect

For lots of reasons I call this the Michael Bay effect. Take a moment, right now, if you have seen any of the Transformers films, to try and remember the plot of any one of them. Even if you are a huge fan of the franchise in terms of its spectacle and special effects wizardry, you are going to be hard pressed to accomplish this.

Lindsay Ellis, who was recommended to me by one of the great folks over at the Audio Drama Production Podcast facebook page, has put together a great little video (see the end of this article) on this that makes some of the points I wanted to cover really clear.

Another great unpacking of this has been done by Every Frame a Painting (also linked at the end of this article).

The short version is that our brains use a variety of cues to identify and sort between the relative importance of what we need to pay attention to. Attention is the key to memory. If we aren’t able to pay attention, we won’t remember. Memory (particularly short-term memory) is also limited. Experiences and events pass through short-term memory in rapid succession and most are discarded. Those we deem important are moved into medium and long-term memory. Of course, this is only successful where we can genuinely distinguish important from unimportant information. In a visual medium like film this is achieved through focus. Whatever has the focus of the camera is important, and cinema uses a variety of techniques to emphasize the relative importance of elements that have the focus.

The thing about Michael Bay’s Transformers movies is this – in his films everything is treated as if it is EQUALLY important and so nothing is separated from the mass as being RELATIVELY more important than anything else. Short-term memory is unable to accommodate the great mass of material it is being presented with and, because information passing through short-term memory must be “flagged” as relatively more important than the passing stream to enter medium and long-term memory, the majority of the material is forgotten.

The Limits of the Brain

How does this apply to audio drama? The cognitive limits of our brains place far more constraints on what we can do in audio drama than any of the limits created by lack of resources and technology in film.

Listen carefully to a wide selection of audio drama and you are going to come across some of the masters of the form. In the modern era some of the big names are, in no particular order, Greg Taylor (Decoder Ring Theatre), Dirk Maggs (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy v.3-5, Good Omens and many others), John Finnemore (Cabin Pressure), and K.C. Wayland (We’re Alive). From the past, names like Carlton Morse (I Love a Mystery), Arch Obler (The Chickenheart, Johnny Got His Gun, The Devil and Mr O), Lucille Fletcher (Sorry, Wrong Number; The Hitchhiker), Norman Corwin (We hold these Truths; On a Note of Triumph), Marian Clark, John Meston, and Les Crutchfield (collectively Gunsmoke), are bound to resonate.

All of these have an intimate understanding of the three tools of audio drama; dialog, sound, and music. Dirk Maggs is a much-imitated designer of deep, immersive, and layered soundscapes, the likes of which haven’t been equalled since the days of Gunsmoke. Greg Taylor has achieved extraordinary things with a relatively minimalist sound pallet. Arch Obler and Norman Corwin were innovators and have a great modern equivalent in the equally innovative sound work of K.C. Wayland. Among many pieces, Lucille Fletcher wrote some of the most famous intimate little tales of suspense ever broadcast. While John Finnemore’s gift for situation and sketch comedy harkens back to the golden age of Fibber Macgee and Molly, Our Miss Brooks, and The Great Gildersleeve.

Dialog

The imitators of these greats, however, have often failed to grasp the structure that underlies their genius. Firstly, these masters chose and wrote great scripts. But beyond that they made good technical choices. Casts were kept to around eight regulars with well-differentiated voices. Our limited capacity to distinguish voices combined with the limits of our short-term memory made it essential that casts be kept small. Scriptwriters and producers who require large casts are putting themselves into direct conflict with the capacity of listeners to maintain a clear conception of each of the characters. Without signature voices, confusion becomes inevitable where the cast extends beyond roughly five adults. The Old Time Radio formula was to cast according to seven easily distinguished vocal types;

Bass			Heavy/Elderly male
Contralto		Elderly female
Baritone		Leading man
Mezzo-soprano	        Leading woman
Tenor			Juvenile
Soprano		        Ingénue
Treble			Child

This they would then change up with the use of accents and contextual cues if necessary.

I’ve written elsewhere about the dangers and techniques of writing for a large cast so I won’t repeat myself further here. Suffice to say that the more voices we have to distinguish, the greater the strain we place on our memories.

It has become fashionable recently to overlay dialog in order to increase the realism of a scene. But again focus and contrast matter. The way the dialog is constructed is critical. Important information should never be obscured so the overlaps must occur on top of unimportant words and phrases (and the danger in creating redundant dialog should be obvious). The voices on either side of the overlap must contrast well for this technique to work. Two overly similar voices delivering dialog over the top of each other does not “read” well. If they are too similar the result will be noise, indistinguishable to the listener, and, as a result, contributing to more of the story failing to enter memory.

Sound Effects

Likewise when building soundscapes, many imitators of the greats fail to pay attention to how a good soundscape is actually constructed. They layer sound on top of sound in the mistaken belief that a wall of effects will increase the sense of immersion experienced by the listener. But not every sound is equally important and the auditory focus must shift between the most important elements of the soundscape we are building. This focusing of attention must be purposeful, establishing a sense of time or place for the listener. It must contribute meaningfully to the narrative or it is little more than distracting noise. A soundscape is not immersive simply because it is full of sounds. Greg Taylor has demonstrated just how effective a minimalist soundscape can be. Sounds are immersive because we can “read” the sounds easily and because they provide cues for our imaginations to build the world.

The capacity of our minds to build entire worlds around minimal cues demonstrates that crowded soundscapes are not necessary for world-building to occur in the imagination of the audience. After all if I mention a detective’s office, you can build the entire space in your imagination right down to the furniture, outside traffic noises, doors, walls and ceiling, without me saying a further word.
Another important constraint comes from the Reticular Activating System (RAS) in the brain. The reticular activating system is a built in part of the brain that functions to filter stimuli in order to limit the amount of sensory input we pay attention to. This is a very important element of human perception for audio-dramatists to understand (even if it does seem a little counter-intuitive the first time you encounter it). Again, it’s a matter of focus. The brain shifts our focus naturally, scanning the environment for new and novel stimuli and filtering them on the basis of how important it deems them to be. When we put on our clothes first thing in the morning we are aware of the sensation of cloth against our skin, but our brains quickly filter that out as an unnecessary/unimportant stimuli to be paying attention to. Thereafter the sensation of clothing against our skin becomes, to all intents and purposes, invisible to our conscious selves.

Good audio dramatists filter the environmental noise for their listeners so that only the important things receive focus. In this very real sense, less is more.

Music

Music is also another element that must be deliberately focused. Music can establish mood, contribute to the sense of time and place, set the scene, and emphasise both the emotion and drama of a scene. But again, the focus must be controlled so that it doesn’t compete unnecessarily with other important elements of the play. At any given moment, the audience must be aware of what is important. There should be no confusion about whether the audience should be paying primary attention to the swelling music, the dialog, or the sound of approaching shoes on the tiles.

One Important Reason Good Dramas Fail to be Memorable

In an environment where there is too much sound competing for the audience’s attention we create confusion. The audience must work to understand the action and separate the important from the unimportant. The mind doesn’t know which sound elements (dialog, music, sound effects) to pay attention to without the focus very deliberately provided by the audio production. As a result the majority of the audience members’ experience of the play is going to pass through short term memory without being retained.

Regardless of how clever, dramatic, and moving, our script is, if the production fails to focus audience attention properly, the play will be confusing and fail to be memorable.

Exceptions to the Rules

I should add that there are times when we actually want to create confusion in the minds of our listeners. We want to create moments where the audience experiences and shares the disorientation of our characters, moments when the story becomes surreal, and moments where the sounds and events are ambiguous and difficult to “read”. When we do this deliberately in order to achieve a specific dramatic effect we are actively giving the focus to the confusing in order to make a specific point. The confusion is, in such circumstances, important – but only for a time. We never want to be confusing when it is not our deliberate intention to be so.

The Techniques that Achieve Focus

By this point in the proceedings, I hope it’s clear why controlling the focus of the audience is so important. Without clear focus, the story is buried under a wall of auditory stimulation that results in it failing to enter our memories.

Three suggestions

Here are three suggestions…

Firstly, dialog, sound and music must be carefully planned and crafted so that each element contributes to the telling of the story rather than obscuring it. One of the early playwrights of the radio age tells a story of being reduced to tears because the orchestra conductor played more and more loudly over her play when it was being performed. When she asked him what he was doing he responded with “why should my orchestra’s beautiful rendition of that piece be missed by the audience just because some people are talking over it?” It can be easy to forget that the brilliant soundscape or score we’ve constructed will actually damage the production if it overwhelms and distracts from the story. We must plan and construct each element of our audio plays so that they receive audience attention only when they are actively supporting the story telling.

Secondly, we also need to use the elements of the drama to constantly keep our audience oriented to what is happening. This means that a good script needs to, when necessary, provide additional dialog to keep characters alive in a scene who might otherwise fade from the audience’s memory, regularly use and reinforce character names, provide exposition to identify and explain ambiguous sounds, emphasise moments of drama with music, draw attention to key sounds at key times, and so on.
That sounds easy enough to say, but how is this done in practice? So long as the fundamentals of a well-planned script are all in place, the control of focus can be achieved very easily (as the next and final point reveals).

Finally, focus is controlled by controlling volume. The spotlight of audio drama, if you will, is volume. We give focus to the most important element of the script in any given moment by our control of volume. We fade the background soundscape under the dialog to give the dialog focus, we fade the dialog under the sound of approaching footsteps to emphasise the importance of the new arrival, we punctuate the discovery of a dead body with a jarring chord of music, establishing and fading sound from foreground to background as required. Volume is the master key to controlling what the audience will focus on. It is essential, therefore, that we are not timid in distinguishing foreground sounds (whether dialog, sound effects or music) from the background. To read clearly, every important sound element must receive clear focus through control of volume and all others must diminish in importance (by fading or halting). At any given moment, only one thing at a time should ever have the spotlight. Control of the audience’s focus is maintained through the control of volume. Where the focus moves continually, and unambiguously, without competition, from sound effect to dialog to music (even where overlap is used as a means of transition) the play will “read” as a continuous narrative and the human brain will be able to sort and retain it in our memories.

Do you have other tricks and tips to help the audience to “read” and remember the audio-drama they listen to? If so, post them in the comments below. I’d love to hear what you think.

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

Lindsay Ellis on Michael Bay

Every Frame a Painting on Michael Bay

The post Tips for Keeping Your Audio Drama From Being Forgotten – Memory and Audience Focus appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

Scene and Sequel Structure (the structure of scenes)

The Scene and Sequel structure is a useful writing structure from the world of narrative fiction. While just one tool among many, this structure is used to add and heighten dramatic interest in a scene. Basically, it is a six-part structure (two sets of three elements) made up of the following parts to assist in the design of dramatically satisfying scenes…

The Scene

The goal – the protagonist in the scene pursues a clear goal (one that the audience MUST be made aware of).

The obstacle – the protagonist encounters an obstacle to the achievement of the goal

The disaster – a disaster strikes that frustrates the protagonists’ chances of achieving the goal

The Sequel

The reaction – the protagonist experiences an immediate reaction to the disaster – in an emotionally satisfying and authentic way.

The rehearsal – the protagonist works through the available options (and their potential consequences) in responding to the disaster.

The choice – the protagonist chooses from the available options and establishes a new goal that leads directly into the next scene

This structure is repeated until the story reaches its conclusion.

Some writers argue that the disaster of the scene should result in alternating up and down beats that advance the story towards its climax.

Example Scene and Sequel (A fishing trip)

Basic plot:

Returning to his home town after ten years, John discovers his favourite fishing spot has dried up because the river was diverted. He heads to the library to find out why.

First try (without using the structure):

JOHN: Basil, I’m going fishing!

BASIL: Sorry John, I’ve got some bad news. The river’s dry.

JOHN: What? When did that happen?

BASIL: About ten years ago. It was diverted for use in the mill.

JOHN: Well that’s no good. I wonder what was behind it?

BASIL: The library could probably tell you.

JOHN: Good suggestion. I think I’ll head on over.

Revised version (using the structure to add drama to the scene):

JOHN: Basil, I’m going fishing! [Goal]

BASIL: Don’t be ridiculous, it’s far too hot!

JOHN: I didn’t say you had to come with me. I simply said I’M going.

BASIL: But you can’t. Ivy took the trolley-car into town this morning and your fishing gear is still in the boot of the Bedford.

JOHN: What’s that got to do with it? I can see the Bedford sitting on the lawn outside.

BASIL: She also took the keys with her. [Obstacle]

JOHN: Oh, for goodness’ sake. I’m sure I can get it open with a screw-driver. I think I saw a toolbox out behind the shed.

BASIL: Are you planning to fish off Cutter’s bridge?

JOHN: Hmmm? Yes, that’s the plan.

BASIL: I hate to tell you this old boy, but the river’s dry. Has been for two years now. [Disaster]

JOHN: (SHOCKED) What? [Reaction]

BASIL: Don’t look so forlorn [Reaction]. It’s been a decade since you last visited up here. Things have changed.

JOHN: That river has been flowing under Cutter’s bridge since I was a boy. It can’t be dry.

BASIL: It is. The river was diverted for use in the paper mill about five years ago.

JOHN: (ANGRY) Who’d let them do such a thing? I’d like to wring their necks [Reaction].

BASIL: You remember Carl Rickett? He got himself elected to the local municipal council and pushed through some new by-laws. Most people figure he was in the Mill’s pocket. He bought that house up on Tarlow Hill shortly after.

JOHN: Aw hell. What am I going to do now? I’ve been looking forward to doing some fishing off Cutter’s Bridge since Ivy told me we were coming up here to visit.

BASIL: Sorry, John. Kylie’s got some old records up stairs. We could break out the phonograph. Or maybe you could try the library. That hasn’t changed much. I saw you had a book or two with you when you unpacked [Rehearsal of options].

JOHN: (WEARY) That’s all right Basil. Don’t mind me. (BEAT) Actually, I might go into the library, at that. Do they still keep all the municipal records in there?

BASIL: Sure do. Like I said, the library hasn’t changed one whit.

JOHN: Then I might head on down and see if I can take a look at how the Mill actually got their greedy hands on the town’s only source of recreational fishing. [Choice – new goal].

Conclusion

Well, I guess even a thwarted fishing trip can be made a bit more interesting when a little dramatic structure is applied to it.

So, do you have any special tricks you use to add interest and tension to a scene? I’m really keen to hear any thoughts, ideas, tricks, techniques, suggestions and advice you might have. Tell me about them in the comments below.

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

The post How to use the Scene and Sequel Structure to Improve your Audio Drama Script appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.

The problem of Ageing

You know how a random thought occasionally strikes you, and then grows over a few weeks until you find yourself giving it quite a bit of attention? Well, that’s happened to me just recently on the topic of ageing. These are just some things I’ve been thinking about that others may find interesting or helpful (but if you’re young and fit and healthy, well, there’s a chance you won’t relate too much to this)…

I’m getting older. And I’ve been a little careless with my life. The fact is, despite plenty of warnings regarding where life will eventually lead, I keep letting it drain away at the rate of twenty four hours per day. I keep ageing whether I want to or not. And, as a result, time continues to run out.

Jokes aside, I’m beginning to notice my age. As I get older I feel my mind and body are increasingly at war. I’ve never really gotten along well with physical activity (I was the last kid picked by the captains of every sporting event ever held in my primary school… and I got to watch them fight over which team would get stuck with me on numerous occasions). But it never bothered me particularly. I’ve always had a pretty sharp mind and so figured my uncooperative and uncoordinated body could go take a flying leap… so to speak. These days however, my mind is struggling a lot more to stay sharp. Where once I was able to work late into the night, and from early in the morning, on my writing, these days I just don’t have the energy for it. I actually feel my brain getting foggy and losing its edge. I start recycling stale ideas where once creative ideas just seemed to flow. I get tired. My command of language starts to dip. Fatigue sets in. And I get VERY frustrated by it. After all, there’s still SO MUCH I want to accomplish. My best hours in each day are devoted to earning a living as a teacher and trying to be a good parent. Having only the next best hours left to devote to my writing has always been a frustration, but never more so than since I’ve started struggling with fatigue at the end of a long day.

Meeting the Needs of the Body

Suddenly, the needs of my body have become significant (in a way they never were when I was younger) for keeping my mind in condition to write. These comments may be “old-hat” to those of you who have always taken physical health seriously and haven’t, like me, taken that physical health for granted, but I’m going to put them here anyway.

Diet, exercise, and sleep are as important to the brain as they are to the body… especially as we age. There’s no reason a human being can’t function, mentally, at an increasingly high level throughout their lives (alzheimer’s and dementia etc. not withstanding). The brain continues to develop as we age and our learning and wisdom continue to increase. But our ability to function efficiently and quickly can certainly deteriorate. When I eat well, exercise, and rest appropriately my ability to write is far superior to those times when I eat poorly, fail to exercise, or burn the candle at both ends. This is far more noticeable now than it has ever been. Even five years ago, my general health and fitness (in terms of diet, exercise, and rest) had almost no impact on my writing. Now, it does. I have to eat well to write well (plenty of greens, low carbs, moderate amounts of protein). When I eat too much fat or sugar (or binge on take-away) my writing suffers measurably. I need to exercise for the sake of energy. And I need to rest to stay sharp. The late night I give myself when caught in the grip of inspiration just isn’t worth it anymore – especially if the result is two weeks of inefficiency because I let myself get run down. The price tag for indulging myself (with regard to poor lifestyle choices) is now noticeably high. I just can’t afford it.

Meeting the Needs of the Mind

But it isn’t just physical exercise I need. I also need mental exercise. I need to read, and soak around in, well crafted prose. I’m a huge fan of pulp-era writing. The creativity expressed in these old tales is great – but the expression? Well, lets just say there are reasons that very few of these writers ever won a literary award. That’s not to belittle them particularly, but they aren’t, necessarily, great examples of style. A writer who wants to improve, can’t get by on a diet of poorly written material, however fun it may be. I have to read widely and deeply if I want to learn. So, I try to fit regular reading from a wide variety of genre’s into my schedule (classic literature, literary fiction, best sellers, and pulps). My preferred genre for writing is radio fiction, so naturally I read as many plays as I can get my hands on. I read screenplays, stage plays, and, though they are harder to come across, radio plays. I never pass up an opportunity to read the plays of my peers either (there’s just too much good stuff to learn from with regard to what my peers are writing).

As an aside, it’s interesting to me, and a little sad, that there is a good deal of contempt shown by younger audio dramatists for the radio dramas of the past (particularly the drama of the golden age of radio). I get it. Lots of the drama of those days was churned out on a gruelling schedule that resulted in large amounts of cheesy serial writing produced in high volume and without a lot of craft – a kind of fast food entertainment. But to only see that is to miss the point. The sheer volume of material produced resulted in the development of a large body of technique, method, skill, and style, when it came to writing. The better shows, in particular, are a treasure trove of inspiration and education. Gunsmoke stands out as a towering testament to brilliant writing (regardless of how you feel about Westerns as a genre).

As well as the need to maintain a steady diet of high quality reading (from a variety of sources and genres) I also need to practice generating creative ideas. Exercises, like brainstorming (generating as many ideas around a particular theme as possible in as short a time as), part changing (switching the parts of a thing around or making substitutions), adding to existing ideas (expanding on what is already there), Three Reasons Why (coming up three new reasons that motivate a character’s action and change the trajectory of the story), Genre switching (Telling the same story as a Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance, Family Drama etc.?) and many more, form an important part of my writing practice.

And of course it is important to keep practiced at writing itself. I make it my aim to write every single day (but I don’t beat myself up when life intervenes to prevent it). I write letters. I write stories. I write plays. I write non-fiction articles. I write lessons. I write blog posts. And, of course, I write radio drama.

Final Keys to Staying Sharp

Probably, the most important thing that I do is I try to keep taking risks. I don’t want to stagnate as a writer. And I know I will if I am not getting feedback, learning new things, and trying out new ideas and changing things up. The minute I start to feel comfortable – as I have started to do a little just lately – I know I am at risk. When I get comfortable I start to fear what making changes to my work might mean. Fear is the thing that guarantees my ability as a writer will plateau. The moment I become afraid to modify what I am doing (in case the result is worse than what I have already accomplished) is the moment that I stop learning and stop improving. I may never publish my crazy experiments, but they are essential to my development as a writer. Attempting creative new ways to write (whether by attempting stream of consciousness, playing with the chronology or reversing the order in which the story is told, swapping characters around, stripping out dialog or adding it, attempting to tell a story completely with sound effects and zero dialog, etc., lets me add new tools to my writing tool-box (regardless of how happy I am with the result).

The best way to improve at creativity is, like everything else in life that I want to improve at, hard work, persistence, and regular practice.

Lastly, I need to rest, even in my writing. I need the distance that rest allows. Part of the reason I regularly switch between types of writing is that it gives me a chance to get that distance and to engage in effective critique of my own work. I may not be the writer, yet, that I want to be, but I know what good writing is and I have a far greater capacity to analyse my own work and move it incrementally closer to what I want it to be when I deliberately put completed work away in a drawer for a few days before coming back to it to analyse and revise.

If I want to continue to work creatively at my writing until my body, at last, fails me entirely and my heart stops beating (and I can’t think of a better way to go) then I need to maintain a proper diet, exercise, and rest (both physically and intellectually).

So, how about it?  Do you have any useful tips to share on keeping yourself sharp and creative as you get older?  I’d love to see them in the comments below.

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

The post How to Stay Creative While Ageing – An Audio-Dramatist’s View appeared first on Host Your Own Old Time Radio Drama.