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Breaking up explanation monologues
and writing movement in your scenes

Recently I saw a post on the audio drama subreddit (are you on it? It’s great: /r/audiodrama) The person commented that they primarily only see sci-fi, horror and fantasy audio dramas and asked the question, “Do other genres not lend themselves to the audio-only format?” And I was shocked how many people said yes.  I already understand that the majority of audio drama consumers are completely unaware that old time radio existed.  So they have zero knowledge that OTR consisted of every genre, proving that the medium is not solely conducive to sci-fi, horror and fantasy. I’d even go further and say, those genres were the least popular genres of OTR. Simply because they weren’t mainstream at the time. So I wanted to examine why modern audio drama creators think other genres don’t work.

The first comment I read was “Drama is fine on screen because you can see the actors and through cinematography, the scene is made interesting. But in audio-only, it would be boring to have just two talking heads.” Tell me you can’t write interesting drama without saying you can’t write interesting drama. Of course drama can be interesting in audi0-only.  But too many novice writers fall into the trap of writing epic monologues.  Generally one character explains everything in a level of detail and insight that no human would actually ever say.  It’s because the writer is so excited about their brilliant idea, that they get a character just to spell it all out, and don’t know how to do it organically. And yeah, that is boring. You may even have an actor who can nail the delivery.  But you have created an empty scene.

In old time radio, there were times the shows would fall into having a character spell it all out in a monologue. I’m not talking the monologues that are used for scene transitions. I’m talking about the episode wrap ups. This is especially true in mysteries where the lead (usually a detective) in the last scene explains how he or she figured out the crime. Of course, these shows, much like modern network television, had time limitations, so it was a time saver to spew all the information out at the end in a monologue. In audio drama on podcasting platforms, we are not trapped in a time crunch.  So this is what I’ve been doing in the Madison adaptations since season one.

**SPOILERS FOR THE GREEN LAMA EPISODE!**

Firstly, avoid the scene feeling like it’s in a vacuum. If all you have are characters explaining everything, is there any sense of where they are? In our episode of “The Green Lama,” the original last scene was the GL explaining the entire mystery. It could’ve been set anywhere or nowhere. So I decided to put Madison at the hotel pool (a choice based on the party beside the pool that started our interaction between Madison and the GL).  This allowed for MOVEMENT. I am a big proponent of having multiple activities going on in the scene at once.  That gives a scene energy and action.  Movement.  So instead of the GL launching into a monologue to explain to Madison what happened and her listening, I break up his monologue with the action of the waiter, and Madison’s urgency to keep the GL from checking out of the hotel so she can cash in on a free lunch.  Then I introduce Filbert. Totally makes sense that he heard the GL needed a ride to the airport and came by. Now we have a conversation between multiple characters and not just one person explaining everything.

However, don’t mistake two people being in a scene as your avoiding the epic explanation monologue. I’ve heard several audio dramas now that think they have two characters having a conversation, when it is still just character one talking endlessly.  By interjecting the other character with things like, “Then what happened?” or “Why did you do that?” or the like, you aren’t fooling anyone.  Madison, Filbert, and even the waiter, interject, but they have motivation in the scene.  Madison wants to draw out the GL’s explanation as long as possible to cash in on the free lunch. Filbert wants to give the GL another ride for the bragging rights.  And the waiter is there to give great customer service to Madison who has given him a huge tip.

So the answer is NO.  You don’t need space battles, gory murders, or outlandish monsters to create an interesting audio experience.  A small scene between two characters can be engaging as well.  But you need to make sure you have a setting that your characters interact with to keep it alive, and you need all of the characters in the scene to have active motivations that serve the scene and the overall piece. And please, weave the information from a monologue throughout the storytelling, and not just stop all the action for one person to speak on behalf of the writer.  No matter how clever the ideas may be.

Check out other Madison’s Musings!