Welcome to the Creative Studio podcast, where we conduct experiments with podcasting! Throughout this season, we have explored how to create a narrative or journalistic style podcast. This is the tenth and final episode in this series.

Today, we will hear from several of our special guests regarding resources to help you create narrative audio. We’ll also hear some general tips from them that will also help throughout this process. Today’s guests are:

• Bryan Orr
• Corey Coates
• Daniel J.  Lewis
• Doc Kennedy
• Jessica Rhodes
• Jessica Abel
• Dave Jackson
• Erik K. Johnson
• Rye Taylor

I also want to thank Else Escobar and Geoff Woods for being guests this season as well.

As we wrap up this episode and series, I want to invite you to get a free gift. I have put a detailed PDF together with everything mentioned in this episode. To get this, you don’t even have to enter your email address – just click the link to download the PDF right away. I know that this episode and corresponding PDF doesn’t have everything we covered in this series, but if you’d be interested in getting something with all of this either in written form or video, please let me know!

I really want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. If this series has helped you, I really want to hear from you. You can go to the contact page or send me an email directly to joshua@podcastguy.co.

Now, as we are wrapping up season 4, I am working on some things for season 5. The tagline for this podcast is “podcasting experiments,” so I’d like to follow that vein and interview podcasters that are creating podcasts that are different from the “standard” podcasts. Maybe it’s the format that they use. Or the combination of formats they use. Or maybe it’s how they record the podcast. Or maybe it’s the way they combine niches to create a new niche. I’m going to be on the lookout for such podcasters, but I’m open to suggestions. If you or someone you know is creating a podcast that you think is a little different from the rest, please let me know.

Listen to really great narrative podcasts

• Radiotopia podcasts
  • 99% Invisible
  • The Memory Palace
  • The Allusionist
  • The Kitchen Sisters
  • Lost and Found Sounds

Listen to podcasts that tell you how-to do narrative

• How Sound hosted with Rob Rosenthal
• Out On the Wire with Jessica Abel
• Book: Out On the Wire
• Third Coast Festival in Chicago for Audio Storytellers

Blogs

• Transom.org
• AirMedia.org
• Here Be Monsters

Just Do It (even if you don’t publish it)

• Start by telling stories about yourself or your family

Don’t outsource

• Learn how to do everything yourself
• Cutting own tape
• Doing your own logging
• Write your own narrative
• Edit music

Do raw interviews

• “Art of Non-doing”
• Hunt for your own music - work with composers
• See what happens
• Oversaturated with information online, get back to the basics

Listening to what other people are doing with narrative

• Listen to War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
• Take what you learn from these people and put your own spin on it
• Understand it is going to be a lot of work

Scour YouTube

• Freesound.org - sound effects

Connect with right people to get the right voices for your show

Make it the best that you can

Don’t let the deadline dictate the quality!

• Telling the story is more important than meeting the crunch time

High-production quality

• Putting some thought into your story

Check out the “How-to Podcast” section in iTunes

• The Podcast Producers
• Podcast Answerman
• The Audacity to Podcast

Podfly Productions

Interviewconnections.com

Honing skills on the mic

• Communication Skills
• Practice talking
• Do a lot of podcasts and interviews
• Hear how you sound and improve

Look for high-quality podcasts

• Listen and learn how to be a better interviewer/podcaster
• Terry Gross of Fresh Air
• Marc Maron of WTF
• Interviewconnections.tv

Just start making it - start making audio

Put on a pair of headphones and stick in a mic and talk about something you’re interested in

Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte

Radiolab

Look into great Storytelling and Movie-making

• How ideas are brought from plot concept, to storyboard, to actually shooting the film

Look beyond the scope of the medium that you’re trying to create - look outside of podcasting

• Save the Cat
• Screenwriting

Power Your Podcast with Storytelling with Alex Blumberg

Storytelling resources

• Learn how to give a good presentation from Toastmasters
• Book or video series on Storytelling

Listen to the podcasts out there that do it well

• Serial
• StartUP
• Reply All
• This American Life
• NPR spinoffs
• Gimlet Media

Listen, learn, & put your own style to what you find is good/inspiring

Learn new methods from other podcasts

Challenge yourself by deconstructing what you find when you listen to these podcasts

So this is Joshua Rivers wrapping up season 4. The Creative Studio podcast is a production of Podcast Guy Media, LLC. If you’re looking for help with the editing, show notes, or other aspects of the post production of your podcast, check out PodcastGuyMedia.com/cs to schedule a short free consultation.