Writing Fiction to be Read Aloud

Writing fiction that is to be read aloud is a unique type of writing. I don’t mean writing simple scripts for a tv show or a play, no. I mean the type of writing you’d hear from a story podcast like “Ethan Sees All” or the audio-only versions of “Danger Mouse.” Other examples of writing with this intention are “The Magnus Archives” and stories from Vincent Price such as “The Smoker.” While most of these examples are horror, they are some of the best examples I have heard.  

This type of writing goes a little further than script writing or normal fiction writing because the writer is telling a story through sound and words, with no visuals. Therefore, no stage directions are needed, so dialogue is more telling than showing when comparing it to dialogue for a regular script. The dialogue along with accompanying sound moves the story along and paints the picture for the reader. Instead of them seeing the story unfold. 

The difference between regular fiction writing in a book and doing so for a podcast or audio story is that in books, the writer has to tell and show what is happening solely through words. In order to do so there is much more narration or description of places, people, and things. With writing to be read aloud, the writer must also tell the story, but there is less direct description, or it is through the lens of a character more than in books. Meaning, the way it’s written is more natural sounding to the reader and easier to visualize as narration is also usually mainly through the character more than in books. Or like in “The Smoker,” everything is told through the narrator still in a different way from narration in books.  

This type of writing does storytelling in a way that brings the story alive more than any other medium I’ve experienced. It’s one of my favorite mediums because it uses words and sound to take the listener to a new place, while still upholding the full creative liberty that is the human imagination. 

-Robyn McCullah