Exploring Podcast Writing7/22/2021 Podcasts are the most adaptive form of writing in the media. At least that’s how I see it. Lately, I’ve been looking much deeper into the commonality of podcasts in everyday media. This weird interest spike made me realize, podcasts are everywhere. Not only that- but because of their adaptive nature, there’s likely a podcast for anything you would want. In my last article, I recommended some True Crime podcasts and nonfiction in forms outside of novels such as documentaries and, well, podcasts. So today I’m focusing on the latter, the exploration of podcasts as a writer. Podcasts are a medium for everyone and every genre. If you’re interested in something there's a podcast for it. Now, I don’t know the technical obligations of a podcast, but I do know that my mentor had an assignment to create a podcast episode in a week. This tells me they can’t be that difficult under the writing umbrella. But, some authors publish novels multiple times in a year when I can’t even write one chapter, so take anything labeled “easy” with a grain of salt. Nonetheless, if you like writing conversations, short stories, or movie scripts, you’ll probably love podcast writing. From my understanding, podcasting writing is a mix between a movie script and a game of DnD. It takes a lot of planning, imagination, and either a lot of research or a strong concept of plot (depending on if you’re going the fiction or nonfiction route). Every podcast does have its style of writing, even if you don’t notice it. Take True Crime podcasts, for example, the discussion between people is oftentimes very free-flowing and unscripted. But still, the overarching topic of [said tragic incident] is guiding along with the episode where every unscripted line leads into a new scripted section. If you were to look at it in writing, it would follow something like a persuasive essay. Here, take a look at Castos’ “How To Write A Podcast Script“ example:
See what I mean? If you watch the 3 Peens in a Pod or Distractable with Markiplier, Bob, and Wade, they also follow this format. I remember sometimes they would have a screen where they would write out the topic they were talking about. You may have noticed it, you might’ve not, but the seemingly weird tangents are planned out and it’s genius how they act it out because it comes across as natural. Fiction podcasts, on the other hand, are not going to follow that format because fiction isn’t trying to persuade or inform you of anything, they’re there to tell a story. I see fiction podcasts as very similar to TV show episodes, one mini storyline per episode that builds upon an overarching plot. And sometimes this isn’t the case, for example, I am a big fan of the Magnus Archives and many episodes don’t actually build onto an overarching plot but instead focus on just the incidents the people experienced. Maybe someone else will resonate with this, but the more I try to figure out what I want to do in life, the more options appear. It’s both daunting and liberating. Podcasts are just a new form of writing I didn’t think much about, but that’s the case with a lot of mediums. If podcasts are starting to sound interesting to you, try writing one! It never hurts to explore an interest, and it might make a good extracurricular. Elena Sarigeorgiouis a high school sophomore with aspirations for digital storytelling. She always seemed to understand things better if she could read it, versus videos or lectures, so English and History quickly became her favorite subjects. She volunteers for both Juven and The Meraki Organization to tell stories.
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