The key, therefore, to writing successful plays for radio is to realise that the listener can only understand what is going on by what the listener hears. The physical environment and the appearance of the characters depend on what they say and the images they create in the listeners' imagination by words and sounds.
A radio drama play has only one chance to be successful. Dissatisfied listeners only have to twiddle their dial or hit the off switch and the playwright has lost the audience. It is important to remember that a radio playwright cannot afford to bore or confuse the listener.
Radio drama is capable of capturing the imagination of the listener with very fine strokes of sound, and much can be achieved with a subtle use of effects. Silence in radio drama can be as dramatic as the spoken word or a devastating sound effect. Entire plays have been constructed without a single word of dialogue. BBC Radio has transmitted a radio play which consisted solely of the sounds of a man being chased.
But of course speech will normally be the dominant element. It is in the dialogue that the writer will provide most of the essential information, but this should not sound explicit or it won't seem natural. It follows that the art of dialogue on radio is, at its best, extremely sophisticated. In order to convey information without sounding artificial or stilted the writer must consider the structure of scenes and of individual lines with great precision. It is not a matter of stringing together conversations. A radio play may predominantly consist of dialogue but a radio that was "all talk" in a static conversational sense would be very boring.
A variety of sound is essential for holding the listener's attention and engaging their imagination. This variety can be achieved by altering the lengths of sequence, number of people speaking, pace of dialogue, volume of sound, background acoustics and location of the action. On radio, one room sounds very like another if they're about the same size, but the difference between an interior and an exterior acoustic is considerable.
1. Quality of characterisation. Can the listener imagine the experience of the character through the script? Is the character immediate to the listener and can they empathise with her or him? Do the characters undergo some significant change through the course of the drama and does that change encompass conflict?
2. Quality and Originality of Sound Design. Is your script uniquely suited to the radio medium? Have you created a sound atmosphere and 'sound set' that enhances and complements the mood of the writing, the characters and the plot? Is sound used symbolically, ironically, surrealistically, or satirically and does it form part of the texture and artistic fabric of the play?
3. Quality and Originality of Dialogue. Are the characters created by the idiom and speech rhythms of their lines? Are characters developed by effective and revelatory dialogue? Is there a sense of reality in the speeches? If you are writing about real people do they sound like them?
4. Quality and Originality of the Plot. Are you able to keep the listener on tenterhooks? Do you leave the listener determined to hear the play to the very end? How logical and believable is the story? Is the listener sure of what is happening in each of the developing scenes?
5. Effectiveness of the beginning of the play in making the listener want to continue listening. Remember that some drama producers insist that the writer has only a minute to engage the listener before they are liable to turn off!
"Radio can take you anywhere - from the top of Mount Everest to a submarine at the bottom of the sea. You can crawl inside somebody's head and listen to their thoughts, cross continents or travel through time. The setting for radio drama is just as flexible - your imagination is free to go wherever it wants to without being held back by financial or practical limitations.
The lack of visuals is a powerful advantage in radio - it allows the audience to create their own mind pictures which are invariably more realistic than any special effects on screen or stage. Listening to a radio play is therefore not a passive exercise: the listener's mind works with your words to create a dramatic experience. The intimacy of radio is also important in this, as your aim is ultimately to elicit a response in your audience.
A lot of my work is set in London and here, radio's unique ability to evoke mood and atmosphere come in to play. The desolation and eerie silence of London's Docklands inspired me to write 'Splendid Isolation', a story about a young woman establishing her independence for the first time. The location need not be exotic. My own rule is that wherever I set a play, I must make it real for the listener and entice them into hearing my story.
Obviously, radio also has its limitations. Everything you want to communicate to your audience must be done verbally or with sound effects whereas in a visual medium, one action may be enough to reveal character or show the audience something vital. Successfully conveying information without being clumsy or stilted is part of the skill of writing for radio and is something which will improve with practice and by listening to as many plays as possible.
Listening to radio drama, if you are familiar with it, is perhaps the first step in beginning to write for radio. Decide what you think works and what doesn't and bear these points in mind when coming up with ideas and writing dialogue. If you are unsure what to write about, my own advice would be to write the kind of play you would like to hear. When I first started to write for radio, I made the mistake of writing what I thought other people wanted to hear. Once I started to write about subjects and characters that genuinely interested me, I was more successful. Always remember the medium you're writing for and ideally, your play should rely on the strengths I have already mentioned.
Assuming you've got the most important elements in place and a director likes your idea, he or she will probably invite you for a chat about your script and perhaps suggest some rewriting. My first play was rewritten three times and each draft was a considerable improvement on the previous one. Eventually, I was offered a contract. I had to wait a few months for the studio recording which I found very exciting. I became more aware of the technical possibilities and kept this information in mind when writing subsequent plays.
Radio is sometimes well-known for producing a particular type of play which some sections of our society may well find interesting, but not particularly relevant to their own lives, experience or history. Barring certain radio-festivals, I had rarely heard a play on the radio with black actors in the leading roles or plays which reflected our multi-cultural society. So why don't I write one, I thought? If you listen to radio and likewise feel there is no voice to speak for you, why don't you become that voice?
I would say that directors are only too happy to receive scripts from all sections of the community, writing about subjects which concern them. What is important is that you wrap your theme in a good story with strong characters and exploit the advantages of radio. As a writer who is also black, I have had the pleasure of working with actors and directors from various cultural backgrounds to produce drama that is popular and accessible to everybody. Because of the number of original plays broadcast on radio every year, it is an excellent medium for allowing many different voices to have their say on air. So what are you waiting for? Pick up that pen and get writing!"
Angela Turvey was one of the winners of the 1991 BBC Radio 4 Young Radio Playwrights Festival. Her plays produced on radio include Splendid Isolation, A Place for Jenny and You, and Me and Twelve Thousand Geese.
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