The Art of Podcast Scriptwriting – PCI 366

Speaker 0 00:00:00 I think it's always important to thank the audience, you know, thank the audience for being there. Thanks for tuning in. Thank you for their time, regardless of the, of the script.

Speaker 1 00:00:10 Yeah, it's, it's going back to what is your listener getting out of this.

Speaker 3 00:00:15 You are listening to Podcast Insider, hosted by Mike Dell, Todd Cochran, and Mackenzie Bennett from the Blueberry team, bringing you weekly insights, advice, and insider tips and tricks to help you start, grow and thrive through podcasting. With all the support of your team here at Blueberry Podcasting, welcome. Let's dive in.

Speaker 1 00:00:38 I'm Mackenzie Bennett, marketing specialist here at Blueberry.

Speaker 0 00:00:40 And I'm Todd Cochrane, founder of Blueberry Podcasting. Today we're delving deep into the world of podcast script writing, and I'll be honest with you, this is a topic or format that, uh, personally I haven't used much, but we kinda use a little bit here. So it's gonna be fun to, to get in this topic.

Speaker 1 00:01:06 It's a bit all over the place. It's how people wanna use it.

Speaker 0 00:01:10 Absolutely. So let's get into the definition. What is podcast script writing? You wanna start us off, Mackenzie?

Speaker 1 00:01:18 Yeah, sure. So I kind of did a little digging and put my own spin on it. So I, I think it's mainly an outline or a sketch or it can be much, much more of what your episode will include. So this is similar to prepping your show notes ahead of time. It can be bullet points, it can be an actual script of people going back and forth with specific sentences that they're supposed to say, but it all just depends on the person on the show.

Speaker 0 00:01:47 Yeah, I remember there was a, excuse me, a friend of mine who did a fully scripted podcast and that's one of the, of the types, I guess. So the fully scripted podcast is one that I would often caution people to do because he did a 30 minute show daily Monday through Friday, and there was a huge amount of production work. If you think about having to write, he had a format that he used 'cause he was a new show, so some of the stuff he could reutilize from day to day. But I think unless you have a super formatted show that is repeating and then talking about topics of the day and Right. Doing that full script is, that's just like writing a play or something. So it is, it is a, it is a lot of work and, and I think that someone that is doing a fully scripted podcast generally, and, and there are those that are out there, have a whole team that's helping them with people, with doing copy editing and, and it's almost like a part is acted out. I've seen some of, some live podcasts done where it was fully scripted and actually the people, the five or six people that were part of the podcasts were actually holding scripts, , and actually reading them as they were on stage, it was kind of entertaining. Yeah,

Speaker 1 00:03:15 I think doing a fully scripted a hundred percent like that you kind of have to already be a writer or have an interest in becoming one because that's what you're going to be doing. Like your friend that does the news one, there's news writers and then there's newscasters. The newscasters are getting the information out and so to compare it to podcasting, the host of the show may not be writing what the episode is either. So I think that's one of the benefits of if you're doing a fully scripted one, those could be two completely different people. You don't have to rely on yourself if that is what you want to do for your show. You could have someone on your team that is handling that totally out of your wheelhouse. So I think that's something that brings in a little bit of creativity there.

Speaker 0 00:04:09 Now he had a very successful show and made a lot of money with this show from advertising, but because he was the script writer and the script reader, you know, he burned out, you know, he kind of hit a wall. So I think if you're doing this fully scripted podcast, you have to really think about, right, what's my pacing, because the prep time on this is going to be significant, but at the end you could have the perfect show if you have the perfect cast, if you have maybe a co-host and you work good together. And I, I think it can work out very, very well. But also I think the, the challenge you run into is, does it, is it entertaining or does it sound monotonous? And if you look at like Saturday Night Live and, and some of those, they're scripted, but at the same time there's some ad-libbing that goes, goes on as well. So, but you know, they have a whole team of writers that are running for those, for the folks that are doing those as well.

Speaker 1 00:05:09 Well the, there's fully scripted and then there's semi scripted and finding the, the nice middle there can be great for people who, who are heading towards burnout or think that they would not be able to do that, something like that. Um, because it still allows you to stick to a format of here's what the episode's gonna sound like, but maybe we're just gonna come figure out on the fly what exactly it is that we're going to say. I'd say this show does basically like semi, we definitely do show notes ahead of time. We have specific things that we wanna hit and get to, but we don't plan out our responses to said topics. And I think this is kind of, kind of that one

Speaker 0 00:06:02 And that kinda where it leads to semi scripted and the middle ground of the art of improv mm-hmm. and really not doing improv from a comedy standpoint, but we're, we're definitely taking what we've known in the space and our experiences and what we've seen. And then for a better word, adding flavor or to the, to the conversation.

Speaker 1 00:06:25 Yeah. Yeah, that's a, that's a nice way to put it. And then we have some tips and best practices as well. And the first one that I think of is like create, if you're gonna do a full script every time, create a template for yourself because that's what we use for our show notes. And I mean, we leave it open-ended for that semi, but we still immediately get started within the template to know how to keep us on track.

Speaker 0 00:07:04 And I think that flow is important regardless if your show is completely improvised, having a, having a set set of sequences for your show, it builds habit into your show, builds habit into your listening audience as well. So I think that, that, I think that becomes important. And really it's, some shows probably are no more than an outline of a page or two of of notes. And I think it's a good practice to get into if you're really planning to have a super successful show is to have this, have this outline set up and in, in a sense you're doing a little bit of script writing, but again, it may be just talking points.

Speaker 1 00:07:46 Yeah. And go ahead and like do your own research of find out what your favorite practices are of your shows that you're regularly listening to and try to emulate those in whatever way you want. And then as far as actual writing, if you are not experienced in writing, this is something that chat g p t can really help you with. There is just so much AI out there at this point that can really get you started on this, give you ideas, help you figure out what flow do I actually wanna do. I think it's something that can be really utilized for script writing.

Speaker 0 00:08:25 And I think too, you could almost take, if you've, if you've done some episodes and you're not using any sort of a script or some sort of an outline, I, I think it's a good practice to, to do that and then to really look at that flow and say, okay, is this where I'm engaging the audience? Is there some sort of hook? Am I sending people over to do email or trying to get 'em into my funnel? Where's that placement at? And I even find in my own show that even though I have a, a pretty much a template, then what ends up happening is the, I find throughout the, the episode I'll find places to kind of put those hooks and say, you know, do you guys agree with what I'm saying? Or what do you think about this? Or what do you think what we just covered? And give that tie in to give feedback by the audience.

Speaker 1 00:09:17 That's a great way to keep your show going, to overcome something that might be stagnant.

Speaker 0 00:09:23 Yeah. I I I think that's the key too is, and also it's kinda interesting because sometimes a new listener will come in and they'll have almost this immediate comment, why did you do it in this format? And then if they listen to two or three episodes, they'll notice that the format stays the same. People will become more accustomed to it as well.

Speaker 1 00:09:44 So I think overall the fully scripted can be very, very well done, but can be incredibly challenging as well. Most podcasters I would say fall somewhat in the middle like we do of, they have an idea, they have something written down just on scratch paper of here's what we wanna get to. But the improv that the, the complete and utter improv of that is our outline of we are not scripting this at all. That I feel like, uh, is more difficult than people think that it is . That I think is like the, the feedback that you're gonna get of people being like, I don't know what to expect.

Speaker 0 00:10:28 Yeah. I think that's the way I do my show with Rob. We kinda have an idea what we both wanna talk about one or two topics, but it's not written down anywhere. But we've been doing this show long enough that we come to table and we kind of discuss a few things about where we wanna go first and we make a decision and kind of go. So I think the improv works, but it really works. If you've been working with someone for a while and you really know what they're gonna bring to the, have an idea what they're gonna bring to the table.

Speaker 1 00:10:59 It's a valid point.

Speaker 0 00:11:01 Improv isn't bad, but I think if the same point, there has to be a little bit of structure. 'cause what would, what can happen and what we've seen happen with us is that we'll leave a topic and we'll come back to the topic. We'll leave a topic, talk about something else, come back to the topic and it can become disjointed. And that's usually when the audience says, Hey, come on, wrap up the topic. Or talking about before moving onto the next, instead of jumping around like a pinging pong balls. I think audiences want to not be confused. I think they want you to wrap a topic and then go on to the next. Now if you find the topic that you talk about later, lead something back, well then maybe then you have to reopen the topic. But I generally you should try to, to wrap up a discussion.

Speaker 1 00:11:44 Yeah. Similar to the s n l example you used earlier, they're a well-oiled machine and so are you and Rob at this point, you've been doing the show for so long that you are able to work together and, and go off of that improv. That's something that we've been able to do on this show as well, is you just roll with the punches because we've been doing it for so long and we talk to each other every day. So we're gonna figure it out at the end sometime in the recording.

Speaker 0 00:12:12 And I think if you're planning for your next episode, I don't know if you know, I'd be curious to hear from the the audience, how many of you're planning 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 out? If you're planning your schedule, I think you can tease the next episode and share any upcoming podcasting news or whatever, you know, whatever it may be that you're, that you're gonna tease something that's coming. But at the same point, I think that you have to be careful. I was on a show recently and the individual told me, oh, this will come out in about a month. But he liked the interview so well, he dropped it the next day and I was kind of caught off guard because I was like, oh, he said this would come in a month and it's come today. And I didn't have the chance as the co-host or the guest to properly like prep to help promote the episode.

Speaker 0 00:13:01 It was like it was there and I had to like turn to, to make sure that the episode got promoted. So I think teasing something and then, well, you know, he didn't say that when we were doing the interview. He said it afterwards so the audience didn't know that it was coming in a month. But for me I was expecting a month. But if you tease something that you tease the audience and you switch up the game, and that might get confusing as well. So make sure you do what you say you're gonna do in the next episode if you tease it the previous,

Speaker 1 00:13:30 Yeah, some planned chaos is good.

Speaker 0 00:13:33 Yeah. Sometimes

Speaker 1 00:13:34 ,

Speaker 0 00:13:40 But I think it's always important to thank the audience, you know, thank the audience for being there. Thank you for their tuning in. Thank you for their time. And regardless of the, of the script.

Speaker 1 00:13:51 Yeah, it's, it's going back to what is your listener getting out of this.

Speaker 0 00:13:55 And I think too inviting listeners to give those, that feedback or maybe a review is, is important. And then of course, always inviting a new list. You know, if there's someone new that may be listening to share and to subscribe or to follow. I think those are always key elements that are, that should be in every podcast, no matter where you decide to place them. I, you know, I kind of get it outta the way right up front. I'm saying, Hey, if you're here, thank you for being here. We want you to follow or subscribe. We give 'em some, some place to go do that.

Speaker 1 00:14:28 It's really any kind of call to action that you wanna include. Yeah, yeah. Make sure that you're doing it every episode like this one, we include it in the show notes, every kinda link we say like who we are, what we're representing, that type of stuff. And

Speaker 0 00:14:44 I think too, if you've used resources or tools or you're, if you've referenced an article that's prompted the conversation, all that should kind of be in the show notes. 'cause what it'll do then is the linking out to those will reinforce the topics that you covered. So if you're audience say, oh yeah, I wanna read more about what he or she was talking about, then you can take 'em to the resource and you can give, they almost get the background of why you discussed what you discussed. And it, I think it's important. Not everyone's gonna do that, but they're not gonna go look deep, especially if you've covered it in detail. But some people are, they're gonna want to kind of go do a, a deep dive on themselves and come up with their own synopsis.

Speaker 1 00:15:26 I think we've covered it on every version of script writing that you can do for your podcast.

Speaker 0 00:15:33 Awesome. So if you're script writing, uh, let us know. Actually, if you're doing a complete script writing show, I'd, I'd really like to sample it.

Speaker 1 00:15:42 Yeah, we'd really actually like to take a look at that and see if we can give people more information on how to do it well.

Speaker 0 00:15:48 And if you have your own thoughts or suggestions, let us know. Contacts to follow.

Speaker 3 00:15:53 Thanks for joining us. Come back next week and in the meantime, head to podcast insider.com for more information to subscribe, share, and read our show notes. To check out our latest suite of services and learn how blueberry can help you leverage your podcast. Visit blueberry.com. That's blueberry without the ease. We couldn't afford the ease.