Effective Audio Stories

Audio stories are just audible narratives, so in order to create an effective audio story one must simply employ traits of a successful narrative: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, crisis, climax, falling action, and resolution. Regardless of the medium, audiences desire to be entertained and drawn in by well-crafted narratives, and this is no different with audio stories. There are several ways to do this, but one of the most successful methods seems to be a semi-narration where live recordings are over dubbed with narration that explains the visual elements of the scene. For example, while an interview is being played back, a narrator will explain what the interviewee is doing or presenting so that the audience is not lost. This is effective because it allows you to use natural dialogue while still being able to inform your audience. Furthermore, ambient noise or Foley during narration further draws your audience into the scene you are creating. One thing that I have noticed that detracts from the mood is when audio with bad quality is used and is necessarily difficult to hear. Only good quality audio should be used so that the audience never has to struggle to understand what is being said.

The audio story I chose to analyze is from season four of Radio Lab. As I talked about above, the author does a very good job at perfectly meshing together interviews and narration into a coherent story that is easy to follow and comprehend. Furthermore, the author several times mentions the name of someone during his narration who immediately begins speaking, which serves as a very fluid and pleasing transition from narration to interview. Finally, the sound effects and ambient noise which accompanies the spoken word perfectly creates a mood for the listener. Indeed, without the background noise creating the mood, the story would be quite different and not nearly as enjoyable.