Introduction

This scriptwriting contest isn’t just an opportunity to win a digital audio recorder and help farmers cope with climate change. It’s also a chance to improve your radio writing skills.

To help educate your audience, you have to capture and hold their attention. Of course, you need good information. Good presentation and good audience research are critical as well. But you have to tell a good story too. Good writing sets the stage for telling a good story. If you can keep your writing simple and “write for the ear”, you are well on your way.

Please read through the tips below before you start your award-winning script! Which tips are you already following? Which do you need more work on? On this website, you can ask additional scriptwriting questions and read responses to questions from all participants.

ALL SCRIPTS TELL A STORY

• Storytelling: Remember that radio is based on the oral or storytelling tradition. All scripts tell a story, no matter whether they are dramas, interviews, two-host conversations, or any other format.
• What is a story? A story is a sequence of actions that occur when a sympathetic character encounters an obstacle(s) to his or her goal(s), which he or she confronts and resolves. There are four essential elements to a story. First, there is action. A story is not a snapshot, it is not static. If the listener is not wondering what happens next, it’s not a story. Second, a story has a central character and perhaps other characters. Characters are “sympathetic” in the sense that we can identify with them - and the script has to help us do that. Remember that people relate to people, not ideas. Listeners will care about the story not because they care about an idea or a fact, but because they care for a person and his or her predicament. One of the ways we relate to characters is by understanding their “goals”. Goals might be very basic (feeding the children) or abstract but totally understandable (preserving a culture). Third, a story has problems or obstacles. The greater the threat or risk, the more drama. Drought and starvation are bigger threats and more dramatic than a small loss of yield. Often, scripts simply fail to detail how characters are affected by obstacles. The drama, the tension, rests in whether, and how, the character will overcome the obstacles. Fourth, a story contains a resolution that is “satisfactory”. This doesn’t necessarily mean a happy ending. It does mean that the character goes some distance towards resolving the problem. If you just present a problem, you’re not telling a story.
• To build a story and to make it easy for the listener to follow, decide on the story line before you start writing. Use one sentence to describe the essentials of the story. Ask yourself: “Who is this story about?” “Who is the main character?” “What is he or she doing in the story?” Writing a story line helps you create the kind of “visual” story that listeners can “see”. A listener can’t see a new law, but he or she can see farmers demonstrating for or against that law.
• One of the fundamental rules of good communication is “show, don’t tell.” Don’t say that technique X works well or that a person Y is unhappy. Show the benefits of the technique; show how the unhappy person acts. For example, DON’T say, “he was happy with the crop”; DO say, “he looked at the harvest, the full bags of grain at his feet, and he danced around them …”. Another example: DON’T say “climate change has brought many changes to the environment”; DO say “Enu opened her front door and looked up at the sky. For the 50th day of the rainy season, she saw no clouds.” Because radio is an oral medium, description is powerful and necessary. When you help the listener form a mental picture, that picture is what often stays as a memory. Paint pictures.
• The verb to be is the only verb in the English language that has no action in it, e.g. “She is sick.” How do you know she is sick? Write about how you know she is sick, e.g. “She was lying on the floor. She was too weak to pull herself up.”
• The tools of a good storyteller’s trade include strategic repetition, humour, surprise, and variations in rhythm and timing. When listeners hear humour on the radio, they stop what they are doing and listen more carefully. The same applies to any emotion - anger, sorrow, tears, surprise, shock, etc. The emotion is always what is remembered.
• A good broadcaster does not read to the listener; he or she talks to the listener.
• For the most part, persons with information to share and a story to tell should speak in their own voices, rather than have their stories retold by experts.
• Many scripts are too conceptual - they talk about ideas rather than tell stories. Your script may have great ideas, but listeners may tune out unless you have real characters to tell the story. Sensory details also make a story real. Write what a character in a drama heard, saw, felt, smelled, etc. People being interviewed can talk about what they heard, saw, felt, and smelled.
• A good script should cater to the heart and the head, providing not only good information but also evoking an emotional response in the listener, usually through describing the reaction of the person being interviewed or of a character in a drama.
• If you want to do more than impart information and actually promote positive changes in your audience’s behaviour, it is not enough to tell them what they should do. This applies whether it is changing their behaviour to lessen the risk of AIDS, changing their farming practices to stop soil erosion, or any other kind of behaviour change. It is important to:

o Provide good evidence of the benefits of changing their behaviour, evidence that your audience relates to and finds convincing.
o Show a person to whom your audience can relate who has changed his/her behaviour and achieved those benefits. (The person could be real or fictional.)
o Write scripts that can be easily adapted to feature members of the local community. Hearing a local health worker, farmer or agricultural extensionist is more likely to attract the interest and trust of listeners than someone they associate with a more formal setting.

• Scripts should encourage motivated listeners to seek out further information by providing names and contact information for local experts or organizations.

GOOD INTERVIEWS

• Interviews should also tell a story - actions are taken, problems encountered, and (at least partially) resolved. They should not be speeches or opportunities for simply offering information. Rather, they should unfold naturally, like a story. For example, first we may learn who the interviewee is, what is his or her goal, what are the obstacles to achieving that goal, how serious a particular obstacle may be, and what he or she did to overcome the obstacle. This is a story in interview form.
• Interviews should sound like a conversation between two or more people who are genuinely interested in what they’re talking about.
• Make sure the host or narrator interacts with the listening audience and persons he or she interviews. Hosts should say hello and goodbye to the audience, and have some spontaneous interaction with them. The host should act on behalf of listeners who really want to understand the topic.

KEEP IT SIMPLE

• A radio story or message cannot be rewound like an audiocassette or turned like the pages of a book. The scriptwriter, therefore, must ensure clarity, simplicity, and repetition in the delivery of important messages or educational information. To keep it simple and clear:

o Generally, write short sentences with one basic idea in each.
o Never use a long word when a shorter and simpler one will do. Avoid jargon - use words that everyone understands. If you must use technical language, explain it in terms the listener will understand.
o Try to use active voice and active verbs rather than passive voice. For example, write, “The farmer milks 10 cows every morning,” instead of “Ten cows are milked every morning by the farmer.”

• The structure of most sentences should be simple, as in: “The farmer milked 10 cows every morning.” The structure of this sentence is: “subject / verb / object.” Try not to add too many other phrases, clauses or modifiers.
• When in doubt, leave it out. This has two meanings. First, if you are uncertain whether specific information is true, leave it out. Second, if you are uncertain whether specific information is necessary for the script, it’s usually best to leave it out.

WRITING FOR THE EAR

• As you prepare your scripts, always read them out loud to yourself. There is a big difference between what looks good on the printed page and what works on radio. If it does not sound conversational and natural when you read it aloud, rewrite until it does. This applies whether the script is an interview, a mini-drama, a public service announcement or spot, or any other format.
• We don’t usually speak in structured sentences when we talk; we speak in thoughts.
• After writing your script, make sure that it can be easily said by using the “mouth edit.” First, read two sentences silently to yourself. Then, try to say those two sentences again, exactly as they were written, without looking at the script. If you can’t repeat the sentences exactly, rewrite until you can.
• The words which or that are strong indicators that you are about to write a subordinate clause. An example is the sentence “The Members of Parliament debated the bill vigorously, which they thought was to their own political advantage.” Put a full stop in front of subordinate clauses and begin a new sentence: “The Members of Parliament debated the bill vigorously. Members believed this strategy was to their own political advantage.”
• Don’t confuse the listener with numbers. Keep only those that are absolutely necessary. “Two months ago” is better than “On October fifteenth.” “Just over a billion” is better than “one billion, one hundred three million, eight hundred and ninety-two.” If you need numbers or statistics to make a point, please place them in a context that listeners can understand and that is directly related to their experience.
• Avoid using lists whenever possible.
• The use of “or,” “and,” “nor,” “but,” and “so” in the middle of a sentence indicates you are linking two thoughts. Try to avoid or minimize this when writing for radio.

MORE TIPS

• Vary the lengths of sentences throughout the script. Don’t be afraid to use very short sentences.
• The role of the first line is to entice the listeners, to get them to listen. You should hint at what’s to come without giving everything away. The first line also sets the tone for the script.
• Use the following guideline: tell the listeners what you’re going to talk about, talk about it, then summarize what you’ve said.
• The ending should tie the content of the script together, if possible relating back to the beginning.
• When you have completed writing your script, ask yourself:

o Is the language appropriate to the audience?
o Does the script invite the audience to participate in finding solutions to the problems you’re talking about? Or does it just provide an expert solution which cannot be adapted to different contexts and which discourages community debate and participation?

• Create a focus statement before you write your story. A focus statement is a one-sentence description of the essential story you want to tell. If you write a focus statement, your stories will be clear, about people, and with pictures, action, and analysis.
• It is important to test each word you write. Watch out for repeating words in the same or consecutive sentences. If you can lose a word without changing the meaning of what you have written, then the word is not needed.
• Avoid a first sentence with the main verbs may, could, or seems.
• Don’t raise questions you don’t answer.
• State the positive, not the negative. Negative statements are usually harder for listeners to understand. Often, they will actually understand the opposite of what you intended, and hear that you want them to do the action, instead of NOT do it! For example: Poor: You will have greater chance of getting malaria if you do not use a treated net. Better: Use treated nets to prevent getting malaria.
• Recognize the objections that your audience might have to the new behaviour proposed in the story. Include a “voice of dissent” who raises the questions your audience will have, and address those questions in the script. For example, if the topic is agroforestry, one of the characters in your story could object that “trees attract too many birds, and birds eat my harvest”. Then show how this problem can be overcome.

PREPARING A SCRIPT FOR THE COMPETITION

The parts of a script

Each script should contain several sections: a title, the Notes to Broadcasters, the script itself, the Acknowledgements (who wrote and who reviewed the script), and Information Sources. For examples, please consult scripts on the Developing Countries Farm Radio Network (DCFRN) website at http://www.farmradio.org/english/radio-scripts/numerical.asp.

For the title, choose a phrase that catches the listeners’ attention and lets them know the main topic of the script. The Notes to Broadcasters is designed to orient broadcasters to the topic of the script and offer suggestions on how to adapt and use the script for local audiences. It should first describe the topic and explain why it’s important (for example, “desertification is defined as land degradation in arid or semi-arid areas, and affects X million hectares of sub-Saharan land”). The Notes should also offer suggestions on how broadcasters can use the script and adapt it to local situations.

In the Acknowledgements section, please include the writer’s name and the name of his or her radio organization.

Finally, in the Information Sources section, list all sources of information consulted for the script, as well as other useful reference material. Include the names of people who were the main sources of information as well as written documents.

Script formats

Scripts can use one of several formats. Examples of DCFRN scripts which use this format follow the descriptions (all scripts are available at http://www.farmradio.org/english/radio-scripts/numerical.asp).

The main script formats are as follows:

• An interview. Interviews can take several forms. In the simplest form, one host talks to one “interviewee.” Hosts can also interview two or more persons at the same time. Or a host can interview one person and then another (and perhaps another). Hosts can also introduce a guest (and the topic at hand) by playing a recording or “clip” of the guest talking about the subject.

o 81.7 Gender and HIV/AIDS
o 80.8 Legumes Make Their Own Fertilizer - With Help From Their Friends
o 76.8 Which is the most important tree of all?

• A mini-drama, typically with 2-5 characters

o 79.9 A Law on Bush Fires
o 78.8 Pass on the Message and Not the Virus
o 75.4 The slow march of the Kalahari

• A narrative - 1 person tells the radio audience about the topic

o 75.9 Catch rain from your roof
o 74.1 The fight between the big trees
o 73.9 Mummy Cheetah and her babies: A story to help orphaned children talk

• Spots - short and “catchy” announcements on a particular topic

o 74.7 Radio spots: tree planting
o 72.3 Radio spots: Can you control pests without pesticides?
o 65.5 Good nutrition for the whole family : radio spots

• A two-host conversation:

o 76.2 Is tillage really necessary? The benefits of Conservation Agriculture
o 75.8 Grow more food in drylands with planting pits
o 74.8 Farmers who use improved fallows must replace phosphorous in soils

REFERENCES

Academy for Educational Development and the Manoff Group, 2005. Spot on Malaria: A Guide to Adapting, Developing and Producing Effective Radio Spots. http://www.changeproject.org/pubs/spotonguide.pdf

David W. Candow, editor, 2004. CBC Radio Skills (working copy).

E-mail correspondence with Bob Carty, producer for Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC), November 28, 2007.

Esta de Fossard, 1996. How to Write a Radio Serial Drama for Social Development. Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. http://www.jhuccp.org/pubs/fg/3/3.pdf

Newscript.com webpages: http://www.newscript.com/index

KDRT Radio, Davis, California, undated. Writing for Radio. http://www.kdrt.org/resources/lpfm/writing-for-radio