Easy audio writing tips for first-time podcasters and audio storytellers

Most podcast episodes, radio shows, and narrated news you listen to are partially or fully scripted by one or more writers and editors. The audio industry is growing, with nearly 135 million Americans reported as daily spoken content listeners in 2023.

With more audio creators hosting and distributing their podcasts and talk shows on platforms like Jamit, YouTube, Instagram, and Spotify, it’s time to take writing for sound more seriously.

Before you script your first podcast episode or talk show sound bite, you must consider several factors, such as pronunciation, enunciation, cultural nuances, audience interests, and clarity.

Let’s take a closer look at cultural nuances: If you are writing for a primarily young and politically uninterested audience and frequently reference American politics on your podcast or news show, are you likely to confuse or educate your listeners? Most likely, the former.

The great thing about people turning to audio as a source of information and entertainment is that journalists and storytellers can tell stories using diverse audio formats, effects, and platforms.

Simple tips for writing for the audio format

When you want to write for a listening audience, here are a few best practices and things you can do to keep your listeners pinned in their cars until the episode or show ends (according to NPR, this is known as “driveway moments”):

1. Your writing must be clear and free of verbiage, ambiguity, and cliches (“from the dawn of man”, “throughout history”, “the grass isn’t always greener on the other side”, etc).
2. Use short and simple sentences because your listeners are most likely scrolling through X, Instagram, Breal, and other platforms while listening to your show.
3. Write for people’s ears, not their eyes. Your words should sound natural and pleasing to the ear.
4. Opt for words that you can pronounce easily. You don’t have to dumb down your vocabulary, but avoid words that might trip over your tongue.
5. Try to sound like a natural person by reading your sentences out loud before you write them down or after you’ve written your script.
6. Before you finish an audio recording, ask yourself: Would I say something like this regularly?
7. Use the active voice to help your listeners create a mental image as they follow your words.
8. Practice saying foreign words and names until you feel confident to tell them in a live recording or pre-recorded episode. When in doubt, search how to pronounce the word/name/place in Google or on Youtube
9. Write as if you are talking to one person, who is sitting across from you in the recording room. If you adopt this writing technique, you will sound natural.
10. Unless you are recording a poetry chapbook or album, your script does not need to read like a chapter from a Jane Austen novel.
11. Proofread your script before you record— this will help you catch basic grammatical errors and poor syntax. If a sentence sounds wonky, you can move things around.

Thank you for reading our simple guide to writing for the audio format.

If you are an author, podcaster, or journalist who needs help scripting your first audiobook, radio show, news show, or documentary, email [email protected], and our audio content manager will schedule a consultation with you.