Young Writers Society

One of my newest writing projects is a podcast. I've had the idea for it for months, but I'm only just beginning to iron out all of the major details regarding the plot. The one thing I haven't figured out yet is the style of writing that I should go for. I want to make my podcast similar to the ones I love, while also making it something that a large percentage of podcast listeners would enjoy. So what exactly do you look for in a podcast?

(As an aside, the podcast is a fiction one that frequently references real facts. Sort of like TANIS, actually.)

I look for well-written stories, mainly. Good flow both narratively and from the voice actors. The choppier it is to listen to, the more I'm likely to check out of it. Some of my favorite podcasts -- Welcome to Night Vale and The Beef and Dairy Network -- are focused around one central narrator (in these cases, an actual radio announcer) who may take the time to interview other people.

Podcast listeners are wide and varied. A bunch love comedy podcasts wherein everything is off the cuff (think of My Brother, My Brother, And Me), a lot of other listeners enjoy the news (Up First), even more people like people just talking about specific subjects (Opening Arguments [law], Sawbones [misguided medicine], Reply All[internet stuff]).

My point being (other than namedropping a lot of good podcasts) is that you're probably not going to find something that a large percentage of podcasters would enjoy. Honestly, one of the things that I like about podcasts is that you can have a very unique style and a very unique topic and still manage to cultivate an audience.

The Beef and Dairy Network is about a radio host on, you guessed it, The Beef and Dairy Network! It's a world wherein there are only four meats and people are on the search for the fifth meat. Wheat is banned. The podcast itself is incredibly unique, but it's still so incredibly lovable because of that.

If you're really worried about finding an audience, then I'd recommend reading Red Hot Internet Publicity. My biggest point of advice is going to be write what you want to see in a podcast -- you'll most likely find your audience through social media promotion.

But, to answer your question! I'm really a fan of podcasts where mysteries unfold with the listener. I like theorizing, being on the end of my seat, and large twists in the narrative.

I'm not sure how helpful this is going to be. I listen to three podcasts and like them for different reasons. I love the story in all of them, so I'm not going to include that in the reasoning.

In Welcome to Night Vale, I love the abundance of zany weirdness that's the podcasts signature thing. Not sure how helpful that will be in a podcast that references real facts.

In Alice Isn't Dead, I like the characters various connections with each other and the subtle and not-so-subtle philosophical parts of it.

The Adventure Zone is hilarious and D&D is amazing, which is reason enough to love it, but it's also incredibly successful collaborative storytelling which is cool.

One thing that I recommend applying to your podcast is to have a narrator or group of narrators who tell nearly all of the story. Use other voices very sparingly, preferably going several episodes between using voices other than the narrator's. I can't give a solid reason why that's a good suggestion, so it might be a good idea to take that with a grain of salt, but it's something that's held true through all of the podcasts that I like.

It's really cool that you want to do an audio drama! While they used to be really popular in the form of radio plays, as radios fell out of style for television and film, there's been a pretty harsh decline in the last handful of decades. But I think that audio dramas are a great medium that can be hard to do well -- and practice makes perfect!

You can even break the "narrator" style and have episodes or even a story with multiple main characters who all "play" or act out the drama itself, much in the style of radio shows, or even a regular stage play (with a few differences ofc).

My recommendation: Find your niche. Find what you want to write about and what you want to do as far as a drama goes. Find what makes your story different from the other audio dramas and hosted podcasts out there.

Spreading a wide net is useful for grabbing people's attention for a short amount of time. If you'd rather have a small but loyal audience, pick a more specific style, or story, or topic to feature. You can grow from there, but my advice is to start small and specific if you want to have listeners that stay with you the whole way.