Podcasting Tips and Tricks

Roscoe Considers Recording a Podcast by zoomar, on Flickr

Now that everyone has had their chance to create a podcast (their first.ever.) and reflect on its creation....here are some notes we might want to keep in mind for future podcasts or any narratives we craft. I found a few articles that were very helpful. Feel free to add in (in the comments) ones that you found helpful.

"We can all think of famous first lines in literature, lines that continue to resonate long after the novel has been put back on the shelf. The classic “Once upon a time…” may be considered cliché, but it does a lot of work in just four words:

• It lets the reader know that a story is at hand.

• It eases the way for suspending disbelief.

• It sets the story in a different place and time.

• It awakens curiosity and raises questions.

These are the kinds of things you want your own beginnings to accomplish."

"Open your story with the voice of a narrator we can instantly identify with, or one that relates things in a fresh way.

• “As I begin to tell this, it is the golden month of September in southwestern Ontario.” ~Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief

• “I am ninety. Or ninety-three. One or the other.” ~Sara Gruen, Water for Elephants"

"A script should be invisible. When delivered, it shouldn't sound like a script. If it sounds like
a script, your program won't sound spontaneous and won't sound friendly to your audience.
The invisibility of your script depends on how it's written and how it's presented."

"And when we talk about active versus passive verbs, you’re talking about instead of having an action done to something, someone is doing an action. So where it would say, “The dog was kicked by that man,” it would be just a simple inversion: “The man kicked the dog.” So yeah, talking about Ernest Hemmingway, I just remember reading it, such a simple sentence structure. Basically it was just subject and verb.And I think that as far as we’re talking about, like ways to become better at this, is practicing writing that way. Simple sentence structure. Subject, verb."

Podcast by Peter Lakos, on Flickr