As with most advice you receive on any creative subject, there are often divergences of opinion about the best way to do something. In writing for the spoken word and for the spoken word that appears as audio on radio there are some general principals, many have found if they follow, make the listeners’ listening a better experience.
The Written Word / The Spoken Word
The words may be the same, but once the words are down on paper, there the job is largely done for the day for the written word. For the spoken word, however, the writing is only part of the process. Much depends on the voice delivering the words, the intonation of each, any apparent accents, the strength of the delivery, and if the original author is not reading the piece, the meaning the reader may have found in their reading of the piece.
With the written word, it’s easy for the reader to look back over what they’ve read and re-read what they perhaps didn’t grasp the first time round. The listener generally only gets one chance listening to the spoken word, so any writer, writing for radio especially may want to bear in mind a few simple guidelines, which many radio writers have found to work for them:
- Talk directly to the listener as if they were sitting in front of you
- Use everyday language, don’t try and impress
- Make the first sentence interesting and grab the listener’s attention
- Then keep their interest, with something equally as strong
- Get straight to the point. A listener’s attention will easily wander
- The spoken word is read ‘Out Loud,’ so be the first to read it out loud
Think of the Listener
Anyone who’s performed in public knows how important it is to keep the audience on the side of the performer. There are some venues it may be physically disadvantageous not to do so. Gunfire is a sure sign! Happily a radio performance is not quite so dangerous and although the audience may not be present, once the audio is broadcast the effect may be similar.
Whilst it may be impossible to envisage every unique listener, the type of listener the particular radio station may attract or be aimed at, will alter the way the script is constructed. This is an easier task than it sounds. Think of the listener who may be listening, write for them, talk to them and the script will follow as normal conversation follows.
Writing for the Ear
Words written well and spoken well can conjure up sights and sounds of course, but also smells, touch sensations, and feelings. The combination of a good reader, and well chosen words is dramatic as many great orators past and present have demonstrated. Listen to Richard Burton, or Dylan Thomas himself, reading his famous Play for Voices, “Under Milk Wood,” for perhaps the finest example.
General Hints and Tips
- Get straight to the point, generate interest
- Keep that interest
- Always read out loud what’s written even as a work in progress
- Always be unambiguous and don’t try to be clever
- Use punctuation when it helps the reader to read it out loud
- Use the medium and paint pictures
Radio Scriptwriting, done well, can create wonderful pictures in the listeners own imagination that are all the more precious because they are the listeners own generated pictures.
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