10 Tips for Slammin’ Storywriting
- Initial Scenery
Set your scene with recognizable sounds that create the atmosphere of the location you are telling the story from. This could be music related to your setting or integral sounds in the area of your life. When listeners start listening to the piece, providing them with the sounds that create an atmosphere gives them the footing for the rest of the story. It creates a sense of something people can relate to.
2. Main Character
Think about how you want to be portrayed. How do you want to introduce yourself? When do you want to introduce yourself? All of the questions will help you add a depth to the story where you wouldn’t be able to add depth before. What parts of yourself do you want to be revealed in the story? Don’t go into the parts of your life that aren’t related to what you are explaining but think boldly about the information that should be presented even if you don’t want it to be.
In this Ted Talk, Chimamanda Adichie portrays an extremely effective and on topic image of herself as everything she talks about has a very considerate importance. She uses every story about herself to show her relatability and express the points she is making.
3. Overall Structure
Your story should have an engaging structure with an introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, and conclusion. Ideally it would be smooth transitions but having an abrupt change could help with adding feeling to the story. Know where you are going when you start out and plan things out based on every sound you know to record. It is best to look at your story all at once rather than from start to finish because that way, you can focus in without losing sight of what you want to fully accomplish.
Martin Luther King Jr shows a great example of ideal structure with his “I Have a Dream” Speech. He effortlessly ramps up the speech by starting with some background info and then going into his argument. Though you are not arguing something in your story, you can still use this structure.
4. Accompanying Characters
Once you’ve introduced your main character, you should be thinking about how you will introduce your accompanying characters. You should be introducing them in a way that doesn’t put them in a situation where they look like the main character but make sure that the listener understands their importance. Their importance should be relevant and utilitarian, don’t put in people who don’t need to be there.
5. Engagement
A good story keeps the listener engaged with elements of mystery or suspense. The listener will be far more invested in the story if they learn about the events of the story as if it’s happening to them. One way to keep the engagement high is to make the radio documentary sound like a conversation between you and the listener.
Terry Gross and John Green keep the story engaging through natural conversation. Natural conversation with such a broad topic is engaging because it relates to the lives of the listener while contrasting the typical topics of conversation. This cross of familiarity and dynamic topics draws the listener in.
6. Colorful Sounds
Dramatic changes in the sounds that are heard help keep listeners interested. Sounds can show change in the scene and the mood of your story. Sounds can be used very effectively to guide the listener into feeling the emotions that you want them to feel. When it’s time to get serious or when a lot of time went by in the story, the listener should know. You need to introduce your ideas with the sounds you put in and then support it with the following words.
Jimmy Fallon’s section of his show were he writes thank you notes utilizes specific music to signify the start of a card writing. This is a good example of using money to give the listeners an idea of what is going on.
7. Heavy Focus
Attention to detail is the most important part of creating a masterpiece, anyone can create a story while taking shortcuts, this results in a low quality composition that is easily overlooked and not memorable. Every relevant detail has to come out but the focus of the story should always be directed towards one goal, building towards the story you want to tell. It is easy to fill in parts of your story with unnecessary content by running on tangents or repeating yourself but an effective story draws what it is supposed to without letting any part of the topic go.
8. Revealing Storytelling
The difference between an essay and a story is fluidity. In an essay all the information is given at once and while an essay can tell a story it certainly isn’t as effective as a dynamic or fluid composition. If important details are revealed through the duration of the story listeners are far more likely to be interested in your characters and the story they tell.
S-Town by This American Life is a prime example of revealing storytelling; many of the events in the story unfolded as it was being recorded, then edited to reflect the recording, while it is a commitment to listen to in its entirety it is definitely worth it.
9. Feel Something
A story becomes much more impactful when the person telling it is personally affected by the topic being discussed. You can do this by raising and lowering your voice and general variation in your intonation. The connection between reader and writer that so many writers seek to find can typically be accomplished by honest feelings.
“War of the World” radio broadcast- October 30th, 1938
This radio story, disguised as a news broadcast convinced many people that aliens had invaded the earth. Many people believed this fabrication and listeners were struck with fear.
10. Spontaneity
Many of the best moments in radio stories are unplanned. These moment are genuine and sincere. People can tell immediately when something is scripted on radio and it is disengaging. Keep the recording going and edit later, you never know when something great will happen.
NPR Teen Diaries- Juan’s story: A dead body floats down the river while they are recording. Juan has never seen this happen and didn’t know it was going to while he was recording but it directly adds to the bleakness of his circumstances.