How to Audio Drama: Your Outline

Last updated on August 24th, 2020

How to Audio Drama is back, and now, we’re diving into your outline! It’s time to take your plot and get into the nitty-gritty, episode-by-episode and scene-by-scene breakdowns.

Let’s talk about the importance of an outline, the tools I’ve used to make an outline, and what happens if an outline just isn’t working for you.

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Why outline?

Until about halfway through my undergrad degree, I absolutely hated outlines. Why say what you’re planning to say instead of just saying it? I’d had to go through so many busywork exercises outlining a standard five paragraph essay that outlines that the benefits of an outline blurred into nothing.

I felt like outlines were just another thing telling me what to do, and as little bratty Gemini punk with undiagnosed ADD, that didn’t vibe with me. It wasn’t until I started writing 40-50 page papers in college that I remembered what an outline really was. It’s not something that tells you what to do. It’s not even just a way to organize your thoughts.

It’s a roadmap to help you out when you get absolutely lost and don’t know where to go next. If you’re working on scripts for a serialized podcast, I can guarantee there will be at least one scene or arc you’re not sure how to resolve. This is where your outline can save you. With a well-made outline, you can connect the dots between points A and point B. You can look at parts of your story on both a macro and micro perspective.

How to outline

Start with structure

When outlining, I like to break things down into episodes, and then scenes within that episode. If I were outlining the first episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, I’d probably outline it like this:

• EPISODE 1: Exposition + foreshadow Aang’s backstory + start conflict
  • Scene 1: Katara and Sokka on canoe, Katara accidentally waterbends, introduction to Aang and Appa
  • Scene 2: Zuko sees light from Aang’s awakening, Iroh tries to dissuade but fails

And so on and so forth. For me, having clear breakdowns in a simple bulleted list is one of the easiest ways for me to process an outline. For others, though, having several columns of notes work better, especially if the work alternates perspectives. Other creators might need a flowchart structure, or something even more complicated, if the story doesn’t follow a linear timeline.

What’s important isn’t making an outline that would make your grade school teachers proud. What’s important is using an outline structure that makes sense to you, any co-writers we have, and your story. Having a solid structure in place means that your outline’s foundation will be solid, so don’t take this step too lightly.

Be brief and specific

Do not let yourself fall into the trap of writing any dialogue in your outline! Your outline will work best if it’s succinct. You want your outline to be a quick reference for structure, not for content. You should be able to see where to go next in just a few seconds of looking at your outline.

Because your outline is for you (and, hopefully, other writers), make sure to use the language that makes sense to you. What is the quickest and most direct way to communicate a specific story beat to you and your team? If you’re blessed with a team that fundamentally understands how your brain works, you’ll be able to write your scene descriptions like this:

(This screenshot was taken from my favorite outlining and organization tool, Airtable, but we’ll talk about that later.)

This scene has a lot more going on than what’s listed here, but because it’s a scene I discussed with my co-creators several times before writing, and because my co-creators know exactly what I’m talking about, I could get away with some pretty goofy shorthand.

This may not be the case with you or your team. You might have to be much more direct and specific–in which case, feel encouraged to even include tone directions for the scene. Make sure to list the characters in the scene and what purpose each character serves, and make sure to list the plot beat that is accomplished for each scene.

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Tools for outlining

With all of that in mind, it’s time to start outlining! But there are a surprising number of tools you might not be aware of that can serve more purposes than just an outline. To note, all of these tools are being suggested with the assumption that you can use a list-style outline, as demonstrated up above. If your work doesn’t work with a list-style outline, feel free to comment down below, and I’ll see what other tricks I have up my sleeve to fit your outline style.

I am also of the firm belief that you do not need a fancy program made specifically for planning and outlining. I know people who had success with programs like Evernote (rip), but for me, I will not consistently check software unless it’s something I use every day in many ways on top of having an outline.

Word processors

Word processors like Microsoft Word and Google Docs are the easiest and simplest way to write an outline. Making a bulleted list in a word processor is quick and intuitive, and usually allows several levels of hierarchy. Word processors are outlining 101, and they remain the standard go-to for a reason. No need to reinvent the wheel if all you need is something simple and straightforward.

Spreadsheets

A spreadsheet? In creative writing? You better believe it, and you better buckle in, because spreadsheets are for way more than just graphs and accounting. For writing Season 1 of VALENCE, our team used a spreadsheet to organize episodes and scenes:

Using a spreadsheet helped us assemble more complex information than a bulleted list would allow while still maintaining quick legibility. At first glance, this spreadsheet might not look too complex–but let me unpack all of what’s going on here.

First off, it’s easy to see that this spreadsheet isn’t just episodes and scenes. It includes which writer was in charge of which episode, and it includes the plot beat not just for each scene, but the episode at all. The color coding was how we indicated which scenes we wanted to record with the full cast all together (green), which scenes needed a mix of live recording and asynchronous recording (yellow), and which scenes could be recorded just asynchronously (red). On top of that, each cell contains a little list of every character in the scene when you hover over it.

And this doesn’t even cover the second half of the spreadsheet: our deadline tracking, important links, and workflow with our sound designer.

Using a spreadsheet, your outline can be so much more than an outline, while still serving the purposes an outline needs to serve. It’s immediately legible if you know the system. You can hide necessary information in places that are easy to access, but don’t add to visual clutter. And then, you can track deadlines, processes, and other information in a way that stays organized and cohesive.

Spreadsheets don’t have to be anathema to creatives! Open your heart to their power.

The Holy Grail: Airtable

So, what if spreadsheets acted as a database? And what if that database had robust filter, grouping, and sorting options? And what if everyone on your team could have their own view of the database, customized for what they need and how their brain works? And what if that database were totally free, with only some superfluous options behind a paywall?

Meet my best friend, Airtable. This isn’t an ad. I just really love Airtable.

Airtable is how my team outlined our entire second season, and it’s how we’ll outline our third. Here’s a quick view at what my primary view of our Airtable base (database, basically) looks like:

It’s not too dissimilar from the Google Sheets spreadsheet up above–until you start clicking on things. With Airtable, if you click on any of the character names listed, you can open the database record for that character.

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The character record brings up tons of useful information, like the actor’s name and every single scene they appear in.

Hypothetically, all of your information for any given scene could live in an Airtable record. You could store the actual audio files from your actors in Airtable. You can include photo references, links, due dates, song choices–pretty much everything. And it’s a dream for working with co-creators. You can @ anyone with an account in the Airtable case to give them an alert, and there’s plenty of places for a comments section.

Airtable isn’t for everyone, and it absolutely does have a learning curve. If you’re okay with that, though, it’s one of the single most powerful tools I’ve ever used for writing, and its uses for an outline are plentiful.

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What if the outline just isn’t working?

So, you’ve tried everything, and an outline just isn’t working for you. Whether you can’t get yourself to make an outline or you’ve strayed so far from your outline that you feel defeated, my advice remains the same:

Accept that maybe an outline just really isn’t for you. It’s okay. It’s not a bad thing. Some people just don’t work well with outlines, and sometimes, a creative endeavor like a podcast just doesn’t work with an outline either. There’s nothing wrong with that.

When I think back to myself as a punk kid who hated authority back in school, it’s clear to me that an outline really wasn’t for me back then. I didn’t really need one for the essays I was writing. My brain didn’t parse them well, because I had untreated ADD. Any understanding of why they were useful in general was blurred because they genuinely weren’t helpful for me.

And that isn’t to say that you have to be a punk with ADD to not work well with outlines. An outline should not be a hindrance to your writing. An outline should be a helpful tool to get you back on track when you get lost. If it’s not doing that for you, it’s more than okay to leave an outline behind. You can return to an outline if you want to. You can try starting from scratch. But whatever you do, just remember it’s okay if your creative processes isn’t exactly what people think is correct.

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How to Audio Drama is our weekly column documenting every piece of information you’d need to start your own audio drama (aka fiction podcast). The series can be read in full, or read volume by volume. You can use our table of contents to find each How to Audio Drama installment, and you can submit questions to our monthly How to Audio Drama advice column.