How to Write Radio Drama Essay

Here are some horrible truthsMost piano tuner manoeuvre is very badly written. Radio drama is an endangered species. It has never taken a film of primary(prenominal)stream programming on commercial tuner in the UK. It used to be the mainstream in the States and Australia but preoccupied out to TV in the middle to late fifties. It is under threat within public radio receiver services including the BBC because of the pres reliable of monetarist ideology and the fact that authors and radio drama call forors have been too complacent. IRDP is a satisfying oasis and continues to support the principle of the original play.Ground rulesThe BeginningThe beginning is all(prenominal)thing. If this part of it does not workplace you are up shit creek without a paddle. Your listeners will desert you. You have failed. You do not exist as a dramatist. BoooThe Moment of ArrivalThis is how you drop your listeners into the story. Dont turn in them a warm bed with comfortable pillows and a hot water bottle. The background and sub-text of previous histories is repair explored through and through revelation in prominent action. So parachute your listener into a top dramatic moment. Not the climax. That would be premature. Find the MOMENT to join the story. Avoid the slow snails explicatory route. bam em into a high energy trip and whoosh them through the rapids.StructureSet upstruggleresolution. You can reverse this if the set-up is more(prenominal) dramatic and explosive than the resolution. Regard your play as a series of phasesThe PlotThis is the story with lots of twists and turns. The more the merrier. Most listeners like good exciting plots. Without a good plot youre eating a souffle that has gone flat. You need plot, more plot and more plot. Run at least both story lines. Two sub plots would be interesting. Keep the plots linked logically within the same play. The best system is a major and aminor storyline linked to one another. Get them to come together at t he end.SurprisePeople are esurient for entertainment. If they wanted boredom they would be filling out their tax returns instead of listening to your radio play. answer deal afraid, but also excited.CharacterYour main citation must have the sympathy of the hearing. Your audience has to identify with your main address. If this does not happen you have created a failure. BoooConflictDrama = combat = audience. in that localisation principle has to be an emotional, financial, serviceman, moral, physical struggle so your listeners can laugh or cry. Yes, you want your listeners to laugh or cry or laugh and cry. If you dont, give up.Polarities or ExtremesThe art of story telling is exploring the intense limits of our psychological or physical existence. To pitch one polarity against another.The ClimaxI apologize for the familiar metaphor. But t here(predicate) is something in this. The better sex has foreplay, development, sustained excitement, surprise and affection, nay love followed by an explosion of ecstasy. Good radio drama is not all that assorted. If you dont use it, you drop away it.DialogueThis is how we engage dramatically with the world. Characters inform, argue, amuse, outrage, argue through the ebb and flow of dialogue. When we do we talk and that is how groovy radio plays are made..by talking in dramatic dialogue.Atmosphere / AmbienceThis sets the emotional disembodied spirit of the play. It determines whether yourlisteners believe in the world that you have created. Worlds are not created by dramatic dialogue alone. there is attitude and atmosphere. This is determined by detail and relevant detail. It could be in a sound effect. It could be in the writing. It could be in the music. It could be in everything. But the result is that the fifth dimension of radio writing the imagination of the listener is stimulated to become a picture palace of the mind.EmotionGot to be there. You have to generate an emotional response from the audien ce.preferably to the main point of reference.also not so powerfully in relation to the other fictitious characters. Emotion = love, hate, admiration. Never mind about the type of emotion..concentrate on whether it is there or not. Emotional connection between the writing and the listener = good radio drama. residuum Character and PlotYou have to have both. You cannot trade. One can predominate over the other. Where they are balance equally.it can provided work if characterisation relates to plot development. If your main plot is character intensive, draw off sure that your minor plot is plot intensive.PurposeCrooks golden rule is that every word, every line, every scene must serve a dramatic purpose in toll of characterisation and plot development. Drop anything that does not have a dramatic purpose.Tension and HumourTo occlusion the listener dropping off or switching off, maintain the tension always and throw in the pettishness. Tension, humour, tension, humour, tension humo urlike the foxtrot.. bump off the emotional rhythm of the play dance on the listeners heart and mind. Charm and alarm, charm and alarm. But theyve got to be linked. Your character uses humour to react to the tension in the scene or play. Keep one character who uses humour to deal with difficult locations. Make sure the humour is verbal. Slapstick belongs to a differenttype of play or entertainment. Make sure you do not have characters taking it in turns to be funny. This is not stand up comedy or sitcom. Make sure that the character who uses humour has a concordant horse sense of humour.Get your listener inward the world of your play. How?a. Sympathy or empathy with the main character.b. A bloody good set up.c. A big, wicked antagonist or villain.d. Great PlotGreat Story.twists and turns.e. Crisis at the beginning is dramatic and a great start.f. Emotional intensity. Hit some high points.g. Escalating conflict so the structure climbs with tension and humour. h. impact the col ours with detail so theres an atmosphere, moodambience. I. Modulate charm with alarmhumour with tensiontension with humourfunny policeman nasty policeman. j. Surprise, surprisethats what you do to the listener, through the plot.The principle of developing scenes1.Introduction.2.Character onegoal and objective.3.Character twogoal and objective.4.Purpose of scene in overall plot.5.One of the characters achieves a goal.6.Link to the next scene by introducing or pointing to location of next scene or presence of character in next scene.Question marks in the mind of the listener. Always keep one, better two or threeThe Principle of Character1.Believable and recognisable.2.Purpose within the plot.3.Characters have to have function. Character has to be consistent with function.4.Characters have to be intentional.5.Start with a stereotype to ensure rapid recognition, then twist thestereotype. Challenge the homily that there is nothing new under the sun by making it new under the moon.6.Give each character a dominant physical or behavioural characteristic. Make the dominant characteristic purposeful. Make it extreme.7.Your main character must be active.8.Active character / urgent plot. The characters energy has to charge up the urgency of the plot and the urgency of the plot makes the character more energetic.The principle of Hero / Heroine1.Listeners look up to main characters, want to admire them because we all want wedgees and heroines in our lives. Lifes eternal illusion that transcendent people and transcendent moments conquer adversity. 2.If you are very clever you can transfer the hero from the obvious to the humble and make great the inferior or character who has greater potential for human dignity. 3.Charisma. Characters need intensity and conviction. They may not be perfect but they are attractive. You cannot identify with people who are unlike ourselvestoo perfect, no beliefstake themselves too seriouslylack a sense of humour..4.Give your characters privat e moments when they drop their guards and allow us into their minds and hearts. Make the listener privileged. Use this moment for revelation. 5.The main character has to change and has to be changed by the plot. 6.You must have a main character and secondary characters. Your main character changes. Your secondary characters are probably more singular in their characteristics. Your secondary characters are already committed. Your main character is still weighing up the options. 7.You must have characters who are extreme in relation to each othercharacters that are different make drama.Where are we now?Well, we should be here.a. The main character is in the middle of the story.b. Youve used dominant characteristics.c. The listener likes the main character.d. The listener cares what happens to the main character.e. The listener hates the antagonist.f. The main character is developing.Principles of Dialoguea. Dialogue must be a response to a situation, plot or action.b. Dialogue must be a response to each character in the scene.c. Dialogue must be comic relief.d. Dialogue must connect to the next scene.e. Avoid reflective, resistless and neutral. Go for active, and direct and emotional. f. Dialogue must be believable by being specificby being specific to the characters background and emotional state. g. If dialogue is reacting to action or situation then it must be dramatic and poised on polarities. The goals of the characters in each scene should be different. h. Dialogue should be continuous. Tipcharacters often take a tag by repeating the conclusion word spoken by the first character. i. Dialogue must relate to function.j. You can mix direct with indirect between two characters because they have different goals. k. Humorous dialogue is not a character telling a joke but a line or lines responding to the dramatic situation. l. Heightened dialogue vs representational dialogue. Heightened language is the language of the theatrehigh octane communicationpoetic, p hilosophicalcharged..the expression of the playwrightIt serves not only the development of the plot and character, but it also presents the view of the writer. Works well in radio. But there is now a tendency for more naturalism. Radio producers like to go out on location and explore realism. In these situations you must stick to natural dialogue.Principles peculiar to Radio1.The inner existence.2.The tension and conflict between the interior and exterior.3.More psychological.4.Easier to explore the real and the surreal and to delineate the line between the two.5.Have to work in the fifth dimensionthe energy of the listeners imaginative participation.6.The interior existence offers exploration of own(prenominal) thoughts, fantasies, emotions and conflicts.7.Alllevels of external conflict can be explored.8.The precipitating event through plot has to threaten the inner life of the main character. This is the kick-off in radio drama. 9.The end or resolution in radio drama is more deep ly rooted in the emotional equilibrium and insight of the main character. Changes are indwelling as well as external. 10.Time transposition and translocation are faster and more rapid and more complicated. Flashbacksflashforwards different ages. 11.Radio requires less rather than more characters. Characterisation needs to be strong and fascinating. 12.Maintain the focus of the main character and plot.13.Economy of words underlines subtextual surprise and engagement with the listeners imagination. 14.Wit is vital because language is so important cleverness with wordsenergy with words..humour with wordsWit is advanced by surprising the listenerbeing hard-hitting with the listener..being fast, short and clever with the listener. 15.Irony is pathos and bathos. Its conflict between the inner life and outer action. different radio drama producers in the worldNorway NRK kulturkanalen, P2 RODD- 0340, Oslo, Norway.Swedish Radio, SR S-105 10 Stockholm, Sweden.YLE Finnish broadcast caller- out Radio, PO Box 79 FIN-00024 Yleisrdio, Finland. HR, Hessischer Rundfunk Bertramstrasse 8, 60320 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. DR Danmarks Radio, Radio Drama Department, Ewaldsgade 3-9, DK 2200, Copenhagen N Denmark. first rudiment Australia, ABC Ultimo Centre, Level 5, 700 Harris Street, Ultimo NSW 2007. CBC-SRC, Radio Drama Department, Box 500, Station A, Toronto, Ontario, Canada MSW 1E6 SDR Suddeutscher Rundfunk, Neckarstrasse 230, 70190, Stuttgart, Germany. Radio Television Hong Kong, Broadcasting House, m 30 Broadcast Drive, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China. Other radio drama producers, SABC, South Africa, Los Angeles Theatre Works, LA, California, Public Radio, wise Zealand.