What Is a Podcastable Story?
Filed Under: Podcast, SF Podcasting, Writing Advice
Greg Van Eekhout asks:
Thoughts on what kinds of stories translate well to podcasts and what kinds don’t?
First of all, full disclaimer. I am the managing editor at Escape Pod, the science fiction audio podcast. I’ve been doing this job for about 3 or 4 months now, and I am by no means an expert on to topic. I can only comment as to my personal tastes here. I reserve the right to change my opinion as I learn more about my job and what seems to work.
I can talk much more easily about what does not work well in podcasts. Here are a few things:
- Typographic weirdness, of the sort you would see in The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
- Fiction that plays with formatting in some way–fake news report, branching dialogue, and so on. This would be great if we produced audio dramas, but Escape Pod approaches production in a very straighforward narrative fashion. I’d love to do more radio-drama style readings, and we have one coming up that was recorded live by Steve Eley at a convention. But the production that goes into a regular episode is difficult enough.
- Stories that have a lot of very short scenes and lots of jumping around in time.
The last one is the one I’m least certain about, but I find that stories that go back and forth in time can be a bit more confusing in audio format. On the page, it seems easier to organize the events into a chronological order, but when listening to a story, it is harder to do this. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s definitely something I pay attention to.
Okay, so what works particularly well? Here are some general ideas:
- A strong, unique perspective or voice. It’s my experience that some of the most popular EP episodes have been from a very unique character, such as a bomb dog or the AI that resides in a soldier’s helmet. These stories are often in first person perspective. That’s not to say that I find first person better than third person. First person coupled with a really unique and orginal voice stands out very well. Like it does in regular fiction.
- All the other, usual things that make a story good.
Other than the few things I think don’t work that are specific to the audio format, I use basically the same criteria for selecting a story in audio that I would for selecting in print. I have some restrictions unique to Escape Pod, such as length. I can’t tell you how many times I remember what I think would be a great story fo rthe podcast, only to look it up and find out that it was a novella. It’s something I’d like to see us do more of in the future, but I’d want to pay more for them and possibly serialize them over the course of two or more episodes. It’s something I think about a little when I have time.
If you listen to podcast fiction, what do you think? What kinds of stories really work well for you in audio? Try to focus on the things you think work particularly well, and cite specific examples if you like. This will make up for my rather underdeveloped list. If you have something critical to say about a particular podcast story, share it on the forums over at the ‘cast or send it to our feedback email, as a favor to me, please.
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