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Writing for Drama

Guidelines for Short Story Writers

Introduction

Radio New Zealand broadcasts about eighty new short stories by New Zealand writers every year. That makes us New Zealand's biggest buyer of short stories. We take stories that deal with a broad range of subjects, issues and interests. Variety is good. We are particularly keen to receive more stories from New Zealand writers who can give a different cultural/ethnic perspective so that we can better represent the cultural diversity of our community.

Most of these stories go out during the Nine to Noon (weekday) programme. We also schedule them on long weekends and public holidays when our normal programming is suspended.

The following statements are generally true, but there will always be the odd brilliant exception that breaks the rules. It is up to you whether you choose to spend your life trying to write the brilliant exception or just write a good, strong, compelling story.

Writing Your Story

Third-person narrative usually works best. Bear in mind that we broadcast a great deal of first-person interview material in other programmes.

Our listeners will generally expect that a story told in the first person is a 'real' or ‘documentary' experience retold by the actual participants.

If you're very keen on doing a first person story, you might like to consider whether you'd be better off writing a documentary drama or an essay or monologue as opposed to a short story. But, as mentioned above, there are exceptions, and yours may be one.

The beginning of a radio story is especially important. You need to grab the listener’s attention very quickly. This doesn't mean that every story has to start with an explosion, but the story does have to 'sell' itself from the start. Get the listener into the middle of things as soon as you can. This can be done a number of ways: by action, through description, through cleverly chosen language or, indeed by all of these in combination. Otherwise by the time you've done an extended, subtle, exposition the listeners may have switched off or, worse, you may have left yourself very little room to get things happening and tell your story!

There are ways you can release more information later in the story, so don’t be over-concerned with setting things up completely before something happens. First we need to be intrigued, hooked, drawn in by the action.

Simplicity and clarity are essential ingredients for the opening of a radio story.

Avoid using too much direct speech. As a general rule, the most effective short stories for radio advance mainly through a narrative rather than a dialogue style. Bear in mind that your story will be read aloud by one actor, and it's asking a lot of even the most brilliant actor to maintain differentiation between a large number of voices; it's also asking a lot of the listener!

Of course, a certain amount of dialogue at key turning-points in the story may be just what's needed. And again, there are always exceptions.

A fairly straightforward, unadorned style works best on the radio. Listeners don't have the luxury of going back over a bit they haven't quite understood - so the texture needs to be reasonably straightforward. This does not mean that you need to write in baby talk - but Finnegan’s Wake would probably make for exhausting radio, whereas Under Milkwood and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy …

A lot of the adjectives and adverbs we'd accept when reading silently become redundant when an actor reads a story. We spend a lot of time trying to explain this to writers!

Remember that the reader’s voice adds a significant element to a story. This means that overuse of adjectives and adverbs comes out as severe overwriting – as if you are a beginning writer ‘pushing for effect’.

Please, please, please read your story aloud, slowly and carefully, before sending it in! Making a rough recording and listening back a couple of days later is a really good idea. And be honest about what you hear!

Other useful information

Lyric/Poetic/'mood' pieces are generally a bit of a dead loss on the radio - they certainly don't fit in with the National Radio ambience. The 'story-free' story is probably more suited to the printed media. A radio story has to get progressively more interesting, and have some sort of conclusion.

We DO love to get stories that are appropriate to special events and occasions (such as Christmas, Easter, Labour Day, Anzac Day, Waitangi Day, World AIDS Day etc.) Bear in mind there's quite a long lead time between purchase and broadcast - so if you've got a Christmas/Summer story for us, get it in by September at the latest.

We do not readily buy unpublished non-fiction.  (This means reminiscences and memoirs like 'what I did in my holidays', 'how I overcame depression’, anecdotes about pets, etc.) Occasionally we will adapt a published book of memoirs, or an essay – again, usually for special events or occasions.

Regarding content. We are pretty open-minded, but by law our broadcasts have to conform to standards of 'good taste'. Our audience tends to be post-adolescent, and a number of them are upset by anything too shocking - in particular, they have a low tolerance for four letter words and the use of the names of religious figures as expletives.

The optimal length for a short story is 14 minutes - any longer, and we cannot do it. That means a maximum of 1900 words. Anything under about 1800 words is probably too short for us. Checking the timing is another reason for you to read your work aloud! But allow for pauses and changes in tempo and pace . . . and for music at the beginning and end.

How to Submit Your Story

Always keep a copy of your story in case it gets lost in the mail. A computer copy is best.

We do not accept submissions by email.

Unless you indicate otherwise, your story will be returned to you (unless we wish to produce it)

Please include a title-page with the following information:

1. Your name
2. Your address and phone number(s)
3. Your email address
4. The TITLE of your story
5. The total word count

Please staple pages together

After Submission

When we receive your story, we'll send you an acknowledgement within a couple of days.

We receive a lot of material. A LOT. This means that it can take 8 weeks, or longer, to assess your script - please don't panic, we're working as fast as we can.

Each story is generally read by two readers, sometimes more.

Unfortunately, we do not operate as a writing school or a script development agency.

If we think a piece of work is nearly right, our producers are happy to help writers develop their material to broadcast standard.

Occasionally, if time permits, and your story shows promise, we will make general comments in a letter to you and then you can choose to rewrite and resubmit (or not).

There are a number of courses and script development agencies available to writers in New Zealand. Most of these can be found through the Web.

Again, we simply haven't got the time to provide substantial, ongoing feedback to writers.

Send your submissions to:

Radio New Zealand Drama
Radio New Zealand
P.O. Box 123
WELLINGTON