How to write an audio drama. Part 4— Structure with a scene

Here are some universally agreed guidelines for you to play fast and loose with.

1. A new scene means there’s been a change of time or place. You have to think how you’re going to signal this to the audience — with music, a gap of a few seconds, a fade down on one acoustic and fade up on another or some very sharp cutting which leaves listeners breathless but perhaps interested. But if you leave them wondering: what is happening, where are we? too often, then you’ll lose them
2. You have to let the audience hear every voice in a scene near the top of the scene. If someone’s making an entrance later in the scene, that’s fine, because we hear them come in. But if four people are chatting in the pub, they must all have a line near the top of the scene so we hear all their voices.
3. Once you’ve familiarised the audience with their voices, you can’t then have one of them sitting quietly and saying nothing. Unless there’s a good dramatic reason like, he’s died and nobody’s noticed. If they don’t all have a role to play and some lines to deliver, lose some of the characters. Every character is an actor and every actor costs money so manage with fewer.
4. Which brings us to the interesting question, how many characters can you have in an audio scene? Hundreds, of course, but in terms of…