Character Breakdowns That Jump Off the Page
04/18/25 • 50 min
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Sarah and Lindsay explore how to craft character breakdowns that genuinely serve audio drama production, focusing on vocal qualities and core characteristics rather than irrelevant physical attributes and other animals.
• Character breakdowns serve many key purposes including concisely guiding actors/casting directors, showing character relationships, and informing technical production choices if deftly employed.
• Effective breakdowns include vocal qualities, status, relationships, and intentions rather than physical appearance
• Consider what "singing voice part" might match your character (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone) or orchestral instrument a character might be to instantly convey vocal quality
• Script clues like sentence length, punctuation, vocabulary choices, and verbal tics help create distinctive character voices
• Characters are distinguished by what they want and how they pursue it— objectives - some are direct "blunt instruments," others subtle and calculating
• Great characters may have internal conflicts between their public and private selves
• A character web showing relationships and conflicts helps visualize how characters interact
• Focus on what drives characters, their objectives, and the barriers they face
Links for ADWIT EP 303
John Yorke Into the woods - a five act journey into story
Hamlet to Hamilton - Emily C A Snyder
TUMBLR page - F**k yeah character development - worksheets a plenty
Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid - oxygen food shelter sleep...
Join our Discord community! Find the link in the show notes. Write to us at [email protected] with your thoughts and examples of effective character breakdowns.
Get the scoop on audio drama news, opportunities, creative resources and more with The Fiction Podcast Weekly newsletter. For more info, visit The Podcast Host's Fiction Podcast Weekly.
Want to get in touch? You can send us a text message with the link at the top, email us at [email protected], join our Discord server, or visit our website at adwit.org.
Share the love. Please write a review on Podchaser or on Apple Podcasts.
Thank you!
Sarah and Lindsay
Click here to tell us what you think!
Sarah and Lindsay explore how to craft character breakdowns that genuinely serve audio drama production, focusing on vocal qualities and core characteristics rather than irrelevant physical attributes and other animals.
• Character breakdowns serve many key purposes including concisely guiding actors/casting directors, showing character relationships, and informing technical production choices if deftly employed.
• Effective breakdowns include vocal qualities, status, relationships, and intentions rather than physical appearance
• Consider what "singing voice part" might match your character (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone) or orchestral instrument a character might be to instantly convey vocal quality
• Script clues like sentence length, punctuation, vocabulary choices, and verbal tics help create distinctive character voices
• Characters are distinguished by what they want and how they pursue it— objectives - some are direct "blunt instruments," others subtle and calculating
• Great characters may have internal conflicts between their public and private selves
• A character web showing relationships and conflicts helps visualize how characters interact
• Focus on what drives characters, their objectives, and the barriers they face
Links for ADWIT EP 303
John Yorke Into the woods - a five act journey into story
Hamlet to Hamilton - Emily C A Snyder
TUMBLR page - F**k yeah character development - worksheets a plenty
Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid - oxygen food shelter sleep...
Join our Discord community! Find the link in the show notes. Write to us at [email protected] with your thoughts and examples of effective character breakdowns.
Get the scoop on audio drama news, opportunities, creative resources and more with The Fiction Podcast Weekly newsletter. For more info, visit The Podcast Host's Fiction Podcast Weekly.
Want to get in touch? You can send us a text message with the link at the top, email us at [email protected], join our Discord server, or visit our website at adwit.org.
Share the love. Please write a review on Podchaser or on Apple Podcasts.
Thank you!
Sarah and Lindsay
Previous Episode
From Idea to Outline: Make Your Audio Drama's Story Sustainable
Click here to tell us what you think!
Ideas constantly surround us—emerging from single words, current events, or persistent questions. From Rajiv Joseph finding a newspaper article about a Bengal tiger killed by American soldiers (which eventually became a Broadway play starring Robin Williams) to Lynn Nottage crafting "Ruined" as a commentary on conflict minerals powering our smartphones, we examine how to refine these ideas into compelling fictional narratives using real-world connections.
While concepts like Space Pirates might initially excite us as creators, what matters is premise—the underlying message giving a story significance beyond its setting. We demonstrate how seemingly different stories (Star Trek TOS: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" and Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge") can share the same fundamental premise about understanding those different from ourselves.
We introduce practical tools like audio mood boards—collections of sounds, music, and contextual elements that help steer your idea toward an outline. We also tackle crucial questions about sustainability: Do you have the resources to write and produce your concept? Will the format work for audio? And we explain what it means when a story has "legs."
Connect with us through [email protected] or join our Discord server to continue the conversation about transforming your creative sparks into actionable outlines. Next episode, we'll dive into plotting versus "pantsing" approaches to storytelling!
Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Dramatists Play Service)
Ruined (Dramatists Play Service)
One Flea Spare (Broadway Play Publishing)
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield on Memory Alpha
A View From The Bridge from BBC Bitesize
Sample audio drama inspiration board on Milanote
Sound effects from freesound.org:
Guitars in Auditorium by kevp888
Soundwalk In Black-Forest Thunderstorm by RandomRecord19
Get the scoop on audio drama news, opportunities, creative resources and more with The Fiction Podcast Weekly newsletter. For more info, visit The Podcast Host's Fiction Podcast Weekly.
Want to get in touch? You can send us a text message with the link at the top, email us at [email protected], join our Discord server, or visit our website at adwit.org.
Share the love. Please write a review on Podchaser or on Apple Podcasts.
Thank you!
Sarah and Lindsay
ADWIT: The Audio Drama Writers' Independent Toolkit - Character Breakdowns That Jump Off the Page
Transcript
Hello , hello , welcome to . .. what are we welcoming them to today Lindsay ? . Today we're going to welcome them to ADWIT .
SARAH(Gasp) To ADWIT Podcast . We're in the right place , and so are you , to learn more about amazing techniques today , on the effective character breakdowns that you , too , can create , and also think about making your di
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