Podcasts are easily one of the most increasingly popular forms of content that are coming from companies and organisations to everyday users and listeners, mainly thanks to how easily available they are thanks to music streaming platforms such as SoundCloud and Spotify.
However, if you want to succeed in your efforts of creating a popular podcast series, you’re going to need to invest time in writing a script to follow. This will detail the journey that you and your users will take every episode, enabling you to plan, research and, most importantly, not forget any details while recording.
Here to help you write this stellar script that will help you succeed are eight essential script writing tips to remember.
Do I Need a Script?
This is the first question that many people will ask themselves, and it’s one of the most important. While most people view the script as something you’re going to read from when talking, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to write the podcast word by word.
Instead, a script is a great way to note down and perfect the structure of the episode, even if you’ve just bullet-pointed the topic. It’s also a great way to manage time while recording. So, in short, yes, a script is a vital part of any podcast, even if it’s just used as a guide.
Figure Out Your Word Count
When writing a comprehensive script of your podcast, it’s important that you set yourself a word count, so your episode is not too long and not too short.
“As a rough guide, a 3,000-word script will last approximately half an hour (30 minutes), so you can use this figure to work out how long you want your podcast to be and how much content you’ll need to use to fill it,” shares Jennifer Goldenberg, a scriptwriter for Paper Fellows.
Write the Script for the Reader
It’s important to remember that, in most cases, you might not be reading your own script, but it will be someone recording it live. It’s vital that you keep this in mind when writing your script as you want it to be as easy as possible for them to read.
Research Your Script
One of the biggest benefits of writing a script for your podcast is the ability to research what you’re going to be talking about. Of course, if you’re recording a live show, you might be interviewing somebody, so you’ll have a lot of content to talk about.
However, even in this situation, researching and making notes on your script is a great way to lead and direct the conversation in the way you want it to go. Making notes also means you can remember any details, so you don’t miss out anything important and can help jog your memory if you find the script is ‘drying up’ halfway through.
Writing the Perfect Podcast Script
Let’s face it, you’ll be spending so much time on writing, editing, creating and promoting your podcast, there’s very little time to make it perfect, yet it’s still an essential task. If you’re strapped for time, here are some online tools you can use to help you;
These are two blogs you can use to improve and teach yourself essential grammar skills.
This is an online writing agency you can use to help guide you through the writing process, as recommended by the HuffingtonPost in Write My Paper feature.
These are two online blogs you can use to download writing guides that you can follow when writing your script.
This is a professional proofreading service you can use to ensure an error-free script, as reviewed by UK Top Writers.
A free online tool you can use to add professionally formatted references and quotes to your script.
These are two services that can provide writing assistance and help from professionals in the writing community.
A free online tool you can use to track and monitor the word count of your script.
Keep Things Fresh and Updated
The introduction and the end of your podcasts will typically be the same. In fact, they have to be, so they are recognisable and matches your personal branding and personality. However, the same thing you can keep is typically the music, or ‘jingle’. When writing your script, trying to talk and introduce your podcast in a different way every time to keep things fresh and interesting.
Implementing Calls to Action
One of the biggest aims of your podcast is to get people to like, share, comment and follow your account so you’re going to want to include calls to action in your podcast that gets them to do this. Nobody really means listening to these sections, in fact, it’s expected, by don’t let it interfere with the content itself. Instead, hold off until the end to stay sharing your social media links and information.
Test Your Script
Once you’ve finished writing your script, it’s absolutely essential to its success that you test it. You can do this on your own or with family and friends. Simply read your script out loud to see whether all the sentences flow together fluidly and whether or not you need to make any changes.
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