Writing Audio Drama: From Plays to Podcasts
Learn to write gripping audio drama with an intensive week-long course on story, structure and technique – and take a look at the growing market for this exciting form.
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Explore a new medium for your writing
Audio drama is cutting edge. The BBC is still one of the biggest suppliers of radio and audio drama in the world and actively seeks new writers, giving them more freedom than in TV or film – and now the expanding market for drama podcasts makes it possible to bypass all the gatekeepers and get your work out to completely new audiences.
This five-day course will introduce you to the world of writing audio drama. It'll develop your pitching, plotting and scene-writing skills, and arm you with a keen eye for structure in your fiction going forwards.
Is this the right course for me?
Although the focus of this course will be on audio drama specifically, we'll be developing the analytical concepts we need to make scenes and drafts progressively better. As a result, the course is not only for people wanting to focus solely on writing radio or audio-drama: it’s for anyone interested in honing skills vital to all narrative forms, including prose fiction.
During the five days, we will be aiming to develop ideas from scratch. Students are welcome to work on existing drafts but must be prepared to put them through the same process of development, or in this case, redevelopment, from proposal/pitch to scene-plan, as if they were completely new ideas. This will help you discover why you never finished that draft, how to finish it now – and how to make it better if you did finish it but not yet to your satisfaction.
Over the course of the week, we'll cover planning, from ‘proposals’ and ‘pitches’ to more detailed outlines, treatments, and scene plans, then move on to character creation, thematic exploration, dialogue, and scene writing. Every session will include short informative lectures, practical exercises, work-sharing, and discussion, as well as individual tutorials on your work-in-progress.
By the end of the week, you will be better equipped to rewrite and finish drafts, either as a radio/audio drama or in any other narrative form, because you'll know what to do, why, and where you’re heading. We'll conclude with an examination of the business side of things, including the expanding market for podcasts and other non-broadcast dramas and drama docs.
‘…Mike Harris’s adaptation (actually, more of a masterclass in filleting and repurposing) took Trollope’s major characters and plot lines, shook them about, jettisoned everything dispensable, and grippingly refashioned them for the 21st century.’ (Daily Telegraph)
The course will run from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m., Monday to Friday, hosted via a mixture of Zoom workshops, structured writing time and via participation on Faber Academy's bespoke online classroom. Each day will be divided into two-hour sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, with a two-hour break for lunch and for completing exercises – which will then be discussed after the break.
Each taught session will be a dynamic mixture of short theoretical/explanatory lectures, followed by questions and discussion, practical exercises, and sharing of work-in-progress. Individual tutorials will take place in-session while the rest of the group works on writing exercises, as well as outside the session slots.
Course Programme
Session 1
Monday 25 August, 10.00–16.00
Fundamentals...
Session 2
26 August, 10.00–16.00
Drafting...
Session 3
27 August, 10.00–16.00
Structure...
Michael Harris’s Audio Drama course was by far the best of the ten or so creative writing courses I have attended...
Tutor
Mike Harris
Mike Harris is a script writer, dramatist, director, and experienced creative-writing tutor. He has written more than 150 single...
More About This TutorThe Faber Academy Scholarship Programme
There is a scholarship place available on this course for a writer who otherwise could not afford to attend. We particularly welcome applications from writers of colour, working class writers, disabled writers and LGBTQ+ writers.
To apply, please email a covering letter and a 10 page sample script (as Word docs or PDFs) to academy@faber.co.uk, with the subject line ‘Scholarship Application: Writing Audio Drama’. Your sample script needn’t be audio drama. The deadline to apply is Sunday 10 August. The full terms and conditions and more information about our scholarship programme can be found below.
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