How to Audio Drama: Do Your Homework

March 2, 2020 11:29 am

Last updated on March 9th, 2020

Ever since high school, I’ve taken creative writing classes. There’s a certain pattern you see with creative writing students the more often you take these classes: fresh students come in, excited to write, and are furious to find that most of the coursework is actually reading. They’ll ignore the assignments that don’t put their own creative work first, and when they do those creative assignments, they’ll be shocked when they receive poor grades. A common misunderstanding with creative writers is that they can learn to write better just by writing more and more. Usually, though, this isn’t the case; a good amount of the skill is acquired through close analytical reading, picking apart what great writers do well.

One of the greatest misunderstandings of creating an audio drama is the same: that you improve simply by creating, and that you don’t need to take a deep dive into your medium. If you’ve decided to make an audio drama, the first piece of advice I can offer is to do your homework and listen to other podcasts like a creator.

There are two major ways doing your homework before you even finalize your project’s concept will help:

It will help you hone the creative aspects of your podcast
It will help you understand the business aspects of your podcast

Both of these aspects are equally important. Let’s look at how listening like a creator will help each, and how you can begin the process of doing your homework.

Creative

How it helps

The philosophy of reading like a writer is something I initially came across in a high school creative writing class (which, to note, I was only able to take because I went to a well-off high school in a well-off district) that was taught by one of my favorite teachers in my life (who, to note, I only encountered because of the sheer luck of my timing being at that high school). We were taught to pick apart writings we loved not to analyze what they meant, necessarily, but how they felt, and why they captivated us. This is a sentiment discussed Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. Goldberg comments on how most of analyzing poetry, for instance, is taught with explicit distance from the poem itself.

“What did the poet mean by the ‘red wheelbarrow’? Did he mean a sunset? A chariot? And why was it ‘glazed with rain’?” So many questions. He meant nothing so much as a wheelbarrow, and it was red because it was red and it had just rained. So much depends on it because poems are small moments of enlightenment–at that moment the wheelbarrow just as it was woke Williams up and was everything.

Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader’s job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels. Instead we should go closer and closer to the work. Learn to recall images and lines precisely as the writer said them. Don’t step away from their warmth and fire to talk “about” them. Stay close to them. That’s how you’ll learn how to write. Stay with the original work.
Natalie Goldberg

When people discuss what makes podcasts great, there’s so much emphasis on the story being told. Part of this is due to the largest portion of writing on podcasts being devoted to genres like true crime and investigative reporting. A review will talk about the fascinating story at the podcast’s core, and perhaps give a paragraph to the podcast’s sound design. Little consideration is given to the creative choices being made around the story being told.

This is helpful for people who want to work in those genres–and it can be helpful for people making an audio drama, but not by itself. We’re still in the stages of only just discussing the surface level in podcasts. If you want to understand why you become close to pieces of audio, reading technical how-to guides or reviews on the story of a podcast won’t cut it.

Because there’s next to no (or very limited, expensive) education on what makes a piece of creative audio tick. Audio dramatists can learn plot from narratives, chords and sounds from music, direction and acting from plays and musicals and film and TV. But none of those operate in the same way in those mediums as they do in great works of audio drama. You have to turn to audio drama if you want to learn how the medium operates.

The classic text on reading like a writer is Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer (shocking, I know), in which Prose writes:

Every page was once a blank page, just as every word that appears on it now was not always there, but instead reflects the final result of countless large and small deliberations. All the elements of good writing depend on the writer’s skill in choosing one word instead of another. And what grabs our interest has everything to do with those choices.
Francine Prose

If you want to hone your craft in creating an audio drama, you have to dive headfirst into the genre itself. You have to understand the closeness you feel to certain works, and then try to understand how those creators made those choices.

How to start

First, you should start listening to audio dramas closely. Take notes on what you like about them and what you don’t–and not just in the writing. Take notes on sound design, pacing, acting, plot structures, music, and anything else that catches your ear. If you love an episode, listen to it several times. Try to focus on a different aspect each time you listen. If you hate an episode, do the same, with as much care and consideration.

The world of audio dramas is vast, so it might be intimidating to know where to start. Luckily, here at Discover Pods, we’ve been doing some of the work for you. Here’s some of our best-of lists that focus on or include audio dramas to help you get started:

You don’t have to listen to every single audio drama being made (nor could you), and you shouldn’t just listen to the ones that seem the most popular. Listen to trailers and first episodes of the audio dramas that seem interesting, and start with the ones that catch your interest, whether or not they’re similar to the podcast you want to make. You should be aware of podcasts that are similar to your genre or concept, absolutely–we’ll discuss that in the “Business” section more down below–but you shouldn’t limit yourself to engaging with just those podcasts in meaningful ways.

In fact, some of my most important inspiration for VALENCE has come from listening to nonfiction podcasts that focus on tech news and data security, like Why’d You Push That Button and Darknet Diaries. Think about what themes and real-life scenarios your podcast might mirror, and seek out podcasts on those subjects, too. Take the same notes you’d take with audio dramas, as well as taking notes about the subject material.

And, of course, there’s a healthy dose of podcasts about writing. Your mileage may vary on these; personally, I’ve found that listening to podcasts about writing makes me feel like I’m doing the creative work instead of actually doing it. Meanwhile, some of my most creative and prolific friends swear by them.

When it comes to podcasts about making audio dramas specifically, there are two that come to mind: first, Scoring Magic, the documentary my team produces about the making of our fiction podcast; second, Start with This, a podcast about creative endeavors by the Welcome to Night Vale creators.

Business

How it helps

Standing out in audio drama is difficult. Print media is slow to show respect or excitement for new media, and only recently have there been many articles in wide distribution about podcasts at all, let alone fiction podcasts. If you want your audio drama to stand out, you have to do something that feels unique. It probably won’t actually be unique, and you shouldn’t claim that it is; instead, think of this as a way to add some intrigue versus making yourself a “first.”

This applies in both your creatives and your practicals. You want to make sure you’re not telling a story that’s already been told in the way you plan on telling it. You also want to avoid the search engine optimization (SEO) and intellectual property (IP) nightmare of having the same name or content as another podcast. You want your show to be as easy to find for new listeners as possible; you also want to make sure you’re not stepping on any toes by unwittingly making the exact same podcast as someone else.

How to start

Google. Google like the wind.

If you have any branding ideas about your audio drama, Google them before you settle on them. Does your prospective podcast share a name with an album, a book, a TV show, or–if you’re as unlucky as we were–a podcast company? You’re going to need to find a new name. Not only will your SEO be rough, you could be hit with some legal troubles down the line.

Google any character names that you’ve thought up. Are there any other fictional characters with that name? Any real people? How do you feel about those connotations? The same goes for locations, companies, and any other proper nouns in your show.

Then, start searching social media platforms. First, try seeing if your podcast’s name is taken as a handle on Twitter. If it is, try adding “pod” to the end: if your podcast’s name is Puppy, you’d be @puppypod. (If you’re making an audio drama about puppies, please let me know. Also, please do not call it Puppy. Think about your SEO, people!) Do this for every other social media platform you can think of, even if you might not intend on using those platforms.

How to Audio Drama is our weekly column documenting every piece of information you’d need to start your own audio drama (aka fiction podcast). The series can be read in full, or read volume by volume. You can use our table of contents to find each How to Audio Drama installment, and you can submit questions to our monthly How to Audio Drama advice column.