How to Audio Drama: Your Concept

Last updated on March 18th, 2020

The first place to start when thinking about your audio drama is your concept. What kind of story will you be telling? How will you be telling it? What resources will that story require? This week, we’re going into the very surface level of your audio drama, your concept, and thinking about it practically way before we start diving any deeper.

You might have a concept that’s burning in your heart to be made already. You might have no idea where to start, but just really love audio drama. Both of these have pros and cons–don’t feel like you’re ahead of the game if you already have an idea, and don’t feel embarrassed if you don’t have one yet.

Let’s pick apart what to do in both of these situations, with the hopes to lead you towards a solid logline (we’ll talk about that in a minute) versus the nitty-gritty details we’ll get into in future editions of How to Audio Drama.

No concept yet? Great!

If you don’t have a concept for your audio drama, it might feel like you’re at a huge disadvantage. This isn’t necessarily the case, though. Let’s look at some pros and cons:

Not having a concept means you’ll potentially have much more work than those who have already spent time coming up with a concept, a plot, the characters, the setting, etc., but what you lose in that time, you’ll likely get back down the line when it actually comes to production.

As someone whose first audio drama was their dream project, take it from me: you don’t want to make your passion project first. Instead, I highly recommend making your first audio drama something small, contained, and cognizant of your production constraints up front. This will help you reel in your ambitions to suit your skills if you haven’t made an audio drama before. Use your first audio drama to make something you love, definitely, but also use it to learn. Make something with your constraints in mind first versus setting lofty goals.

Consider your constraints

Before you come up with a concept you’re interested in, think about the constraints you will have on your production. To think about what concepts will work for you, you have to first figure out which concepts won’t because of the clash between the concept and the constraints.

If you’re at all like me, thinking about money stresses you out enough to put a halt to any creative brainstorming. Unfortunately, your funding is the first and most important thing you should consider when figuring out your podcast’s concept. You don’t need to make a full on budget yet, but you should have a general concept of your plans. Here are some questions you should ask about your funding before taking the next step:

• What podcast equipment, resources, and knowledge do you already have? Do you have a quality mic? Do you know how to use a digital audio workspace (DAW)? Do you act?
• How will you be funding your podcast? Will you be paying out of pocket? Are you planning on crowdfunding?
• Will you be able to pay a cast of actors?
• Will you be able to pay an editor and/or sound designer?

With your constraints in mind, you can start to rule out some possibilities. Are you worried about paying a cast, but have some experience or excitement to learn sound design? Maybe you want to consider a concept that’s single-narrator but set in a rich environment, like 2298.

Don’t know how to do sound design but have a ton of friends who want to help you create something for fun? Maybe go for something with a full cast but minimal sound design (at least initially), like Wolf 359.

If you want to write an audio drama that’s action heavy, fantastical, and will require sounds you have to make yourself (thing magical attacks, alien voices, etc.), maybe shelf that concept for now, unless you feel comfortable with sound design, or at least excited to put hours into learning. If you want to write an audio drama with a huge, sprawling cast, but you’ve never directed actors before, maybe shelf that one for when you’ve had experience with a smaller cast. Even if you have the budget to afford a sound designer and a team of phenomenal actors, try to think of a concept that will require as few recordings in the audio as possible.

This is one of the reasons plenty of podcasts are set in space: you can do a great deal of storytelling with a small group of characters (sometimes even just one, like how Girl in Space started) and a small amount of sound design (maybe an airlock opening and closing or the hiss of an engine). This is, I believe, one of the reasons fantasy podcasts are a much less saturated genre: dealing with rich soundscapes, magic, swordfights, and fantastical creatures takes a lot of work on top of managing a Game of Thrones style huge cast.

You can make an amazing audio drama even if your concept comes from your constraints instead of some deep creative urgency to tell one specific story. Minding your constraints will help you make sure you’re making something that’s low-risk, but still high-reward.

Already have a concept? Hold up.

You might think you’re head of the game. You already have a concept; you don’t need to spend the time worrying over things like funding and your limitations. You can think of that down the line!

Well, let’s look at your pros and cons:

There’s been plenty of writing on how your first creative endeavor should not be your passion project. The Complete Creative (branded as The Business of Art when the episode debuted) made an episode on this very subject:

Their associated blog post rehashes some of these ideas:

Fail on smaller projects you don’t care about. Fail where it doesn’t matter. Fail where you don’t have a massive emotional stake in what you are making. Don’t fail on the project that sets your soul on fire.

Russell Nohelty

Save your passion project for later. You will be thankful to have spent your formative audio drama years on something with lower emotional stakes for yourself. Now, go and read the previous section for creators who don’t have a concept, and start fresh.

But I’m no fool. I know that creators will almost never listen to this advice. I was given it time and time again and I still didn’t listen. So, if you’ve decided that your passion project will be your first audio drama, let’s prepare you for the process of making your concept feasible for an audio drama.

Edit down your concept for your constraints

I created VALENCE not just with a concept, but with 2.5 books under my belt. I thought I had so much done. I was so cocky about how easy writing scripts would be. Then we started writing scripts, and we wound up keeping maybe 25% of the first book for our first season. We cut entire B-plots and at least 90% of the scenes from the primary plot. We cut at least half of the characters.

And the audio drama was better for it. If we had written the episodes like I’d written the book, it’d be too long, too cluttered, and too hard to follow. If you are used to working creatively in another medium, take some time to consider your constraints and edit your concept as much as you can.

But as The Write Practice explains, killing your darlings doesn’t always mean killing them . . . forever. Instead, think of the process like sending your darlings on a little vacation that you can come back to later:

Feeling especially bummed about certain scenes needing to go? Remember that you can always publish them on a blog, on your Patreon, or even as mini or bonus episodes later on.

Writing a logline

So, what is a logline? A logline is screenwriting jargon for a one-sentence explanation of your concept. A logline is not a summary; instead, it gives a very, very brief overview of your concept instead of explaining much about the details. Often, a logline is written after a work’s text is completed, to be used in marketing. I would argue that a logline is a great place to start before writing any scripts, especially if you’re working in a new medium. Your logline will become your beacon as you start filling in your new creative endeavor.

When writing your logline, focus on punchy, evocative phrasing instead of drawn-out explanations. Your logline should be quick and direct. You shouldn’t use character names or any other proper nouns. You should focus on short descriptions, using common archetypes to your advantage for conciseness. Loglines often follow a formula:

[Type of character] must [actions against obstacles] against [antagonist].

There are plenty of other logline formulas, many of which you can find on StudioBinder’s blog on loglines, but this is one of the most common. StudioBinder uses this handy example as a logline for Star Wars: A New Hope:

Luke Skywalker, a spirited farm boy, joins rebel forces to save Princess Leia from the evil Darth Vader, and the galaxy from the Empire’s Death Star.

AJ Unitas

Once you have taken all of your constraints into consideration and figured out a general idea for your audio drama, you should be able to craft your logline. This is all you need to take your next steps in the creative process–no character names, no in-depth plot. Just a type of protagonist, a main goal, and an antagonist. And just like that, congratulations! You now have a concept for your audio drama.

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.