Manifesto pt. 1
Better Writing Through Radio, Part I
At a dinner party hosted by the head of a large public radio station, I overheard the host say at one point, "Writing doesn't matter much in radio stories, does it?" I thought: is this person drunk? Or do I need to get drunk because I've wasted the last several years trying to get better at something no one cares about? I mean, if the writing doesn't matter, then what's the difference between a good radio story and a mediocre one? Just the tape?
I would argue that a lot of flabby, barely-interesting radio results from expecting too much from the tape and not enough from the writing. Good writing can make imperfect tape good, and good tape better. It can create thoroughly satisfying radio scenes with no tape at all. It tells listeners why they should bother listening to the tape that's being played.
Writing for radio is also great discipline. I've always been a bit literal-minded, and until I started writing radio stories, I don't think I got what people meant by "voice" when they talked about writing. With radio, I had to stop writing the way I thought I should, and start writing closer to the way I think and speak; the words had to fit me, so that I could read them out loud.
I'd like to tackle, here, three aspects of radio writing: beginnings, writing into and out of tape, and writing a scene without tape. With those skills, a person can write a radio piece that lasts a minute or an hour. But first let me lay out a few things I find useful to do before I start to write and as I'm writing, because they make the writing process go more smoothly. In radio, I find that being organized and obsessive pays off.