I’m going to state the obvious; writing audio drama is not the same as writing a novel, short story, screenplay, or stage play. One of the most obvious ways this is true relates to setting. In a narrative, the setting can be described and brought to life for the reader. In a play or film, the setting is created visually. But in an audio drama, setting is conveyed, almost exclusively, through sound and dialog (and neither of these allow for a great deal of clarity and detail).
How important, then, is setting in an audio drama? How do we communicate it effectively? And how do we (and to what extent should we) research and develop the setting?
Setting is built cooperatively
The audio-dramatist has one of the finest set designers in the world available to him or her; the mind of the audio listener. It is possible to create a complete and thoroughly authentic detective’s office through a handful of words such as “I walked into my office and sat down behind my desk.” The audience on hearing those words builds a complete set for the character to inhabit, and each audience member’s set will be different from every other’s. Some will imagine a comfortable leather chair, invent a desk of teak or mahogany, and will cover the walls in academic looking bookshelves. Others will invent an uncomfortable high backed wooden chair, construct a rickety pine desk, and place some mismatched filing cabinets against the wall with some half-empty bottles perched atop them. The same story will play out in the minds of each audience member in a thousand different, yet similar sets.
Does that mean we don’t have to think as hard about our setting as other writers’ do? No, of course not. In fact, we face some challenges that other writer’s do not. We can’t, for example, rely on the visual sense to communicate for us. We also don’t have access to long narrations to build the setting (unless we are writing an audio-book – which I maintain is not an audio-drama, even if it involves a full cast). Since we cannot readily resort to the techniques used by other media, we need to find ways to communicate and bring our settings to life indirectly through sound and dialog.
Setting has a huge impact on audience interest
Firstly, we all wish to be transported by the stories we listen to. We want to be taken away to another time and place. Stories that capture popular interest and attention all have this in common, they take us out of our own existence and immerse us in a world that is unfamiliar to us. Most of us do not want a carbon copy of our own existence presented to us, instead we seek out that which is exotic.
For this reason alone, the choice of setting is important.
As well as wanting to be presented with a new and unfamiliar world (whether that’s an alien planet, or the experience of immigrant kitchen staff in the competitive world of five-star dining) we need to create a huge variety of individual scene-settings within that world. A good rule of thumb is to avoid using the same scene setting twice. Is it a hotel? Then create scenes in the staff break room, changing room, lobby, kitchen, dining room, elevator, bathroom, street entrance, car park, reception, state room, accountant’s office, meeting room, laundry, rubbish skips, janitorial closet, etc. A stage-play, governed by the limited space available for story-telling, might only have a handful of scene-settings, but an audio-play can have dozens and dozens. If they show us something unique (and interesting) that we haven’t seen before and attracts us, they will succeed in adding to the audience’s interest.
Our settings should be designed to be intriguing and compelling. Whether we are presenting a post-apocalyptic desert world, or a snap-shot of urban family life, the setting should invite interest. The details we supply, though limited in an audio drama, should be compelling. A snap-shot of urban family living could be quite boring on its face but, set in Hawaii during a dangerous typhoon, could be made quite compelling. A girl staring out the window, dreaming about boys, can lack interest, but if it is the fifteenth century and her thoughts turn to boys while she is looking down upon the burning of a heretic, the setting becomes much more compelling.
Setting also defines character
The opportunities and obstacles characters face are often defined by the setting. A headstrong young woman in an Amish community faces a different set of obstacles and opportunities to that of a headstrong young woman from Harlem who faces a different set of obstacles and opportunities to the wealthy scion of Boston blue-bloods.
Four kinds of exotic setting
Exotic settings are of four types; historical, contemporary, futuristic, and fantasy.
It is easy to see how historical, futuristic, and fantasy settings can immerse us in an exotic/different and exciting new world, but how is this achieved with a contemporary setting? By shifting culture, geography, environment, and by showing us the side of the world usually hidden to us we are introduced to a new environment.
Bringing the setting to life
To bring a setting to life, it needs to feel lived in. It needs a sense of history or past, a present, and the possibility of a future. The characters must relate to the setting emotionally. They must love or hate the place and these feelings must be expressed in action related to the location (attempts to escape or put down roots etc.).
The setting also comes to life when we activate the senses in regard to it; sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
Visualise the setting
Imagine the items, objects, furnitiure, vehicles, etc. that exist in the location. How str
Diagram/Map the setting
Don’t trust your memory. Record where locations and scenes are in relation to each other and the surrounding geography. This will be an invaluable resource as you write over time, particularly if you reuse and of your settings.
Invent location names that have poetry.
Put words together that sound good and have a strong resonance. Place names need to evoke curiosity and evoke associations (the name sounds like something else that communicates menace or safety etc.). Choose locations that are inherently interesting and evocative; places that an audience would want to visit.
Addressing character and setting
What barriers and opportunities does the setting create for the characters? Are the characters rebels? How does the society in which they live respond to rebels? To those who conform? How do people see the world? What ideologies and beliefs do they cling to? How are they challenged by the setting? What conflicts grow out of the setting naturally? What conflicts could potentially arise from the setting?
Creating an imaginary world
When designing a setting it is helpful to consider the vast array of elements that make up our society; language (and its history), politics, geography, biology and evolution, science, technology, systems of magic, cosmology, astronomy, geology, resources, economy, specialist knowledge, customs, societal rules, and laws.
Specificity
A setting should be as specific as possible. Where does your story take place? At the broad level, it might take place in 19th Century Africa, but Africa is a huge place and the 19th century was 100 years long. Does it take place in Nairobi, or on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, in Tangiers, or in Cairo? What day, month, and year does it begin? What was happening in the world at that time that was having an impact on that time and place? Be as specific as possible.
Research
Research should be specific. Generally speaking, a writer needs to do more research than will be used in the play. Libraries and bookstores, coffee table books, paintings, tour and travel guides, cook books, poetry and literature from the times, works of sociology, educational tv, and even google can supply images and information that can help us to bring a setting to life. But nothing quite beats the experience of the sights and smells, feel, sounds, and taste of a real place. The aim of the research is to explore a setting well enough that we feel we live in it. However, research has a point that transcends the accumulation of information. You want to research a setting with a view to bringing it to life. The setting must be alive enough to transport your audience into it. The purpose of research is to find those salient details that will make that transport possible.
Setting is a character
Setting is a character of sorts. It must be revealed a little at a time and it must live and breathe and provide helps and hindrances to our cast of characters. To write a setting well in an audio-drama, we need to drip-feed the details via the dialogue. Our characters, aided by sound effects, must comment on and live in a world in ways that hint at both its history and unwritten rules. A “fish out of water” character (or stranger) to this world is often particularly useful. They can overtly ask questions that, as an audience, we are looking for the answers to. By revealing only a little at a time questions can be raised that keep the audience engaged and interested.
Example setting
In this example I try to convey a little bit of information about an ancient stone circle and the rules of magic in an invented world.
SCENE: STONE CIRCLE
JENNY GREENTEETH: Alright. Ye’ve brought me here. Far from water and under the full moon. What is it ye want?
MARGARET: Jenny Greenteeth, I want you to explain the purpose of these standing stones to me.
JENNY: Explain what? Ye might as well ask me to explain the movement o’ the stars.
MARGARET: The standing stones are no mystery to you.
JENNY: Why say you? They are far from my country. I know nothing of them.
MARGARET: I can feel them. They hum and vibrate. They call to me and they terrify me. Rough stone, shivering, cold. The scent of honeysuckle and rich earth. What were they for?
JENNY: I’m a water spirit. What do I know of stones that stand on the hilltops?
MARGARET: You were here when the stones were laid. You knew the people of the hills. Surely you have answers.
JENNY: That was long ago. I don’t remember.
MARGARET: I didn’t call you forth to bandy empty words. I want to know. Tell me, their purpose.
JENNY: No. I shan’t. Ye put yer trust in yer book-learning and know nothing of the old ways.
MARGARET: I knew enough to summon you. And I know you must answer a question put to you thrice. So, I ask you again, Jenny Greentree, explain the purpose of the stones to me.
JENNY: Root and bough, but ye are impudent and persistent. What little I know, I will tell ye, then. But I doubt any of it will do ye any good. Ye or yer ark-ee-ology.
