I think I’m gunna need some practice writing (and performing) for sound…And I’m a little nervous about my audio script because I tend to favor long complicated sentence structure. But I can understand the need for simple, unpacked, visual sentences. Sentences that offer repetition. Sentences that are in the active voice. Sentences that kinda look a little like this (wait, can I not add all that alliteration?…And these are definitely all fragments).

I’m curious what happens to a textual essay that is transformed to audio and I’m curious what specifically is lost or gained in the process…So far I understand writing for sound as writing for dramatic effect. Judith Sloan’s audio essay is a great example of the dramatic performance of written sound- playing multiple characters with her voice and sharing whispers with her listeners, as if giving secret asides to the audience. I’m not sure how to build this theatrical performance, but in these audio pieces, I found that repetition, pacing, visual adjectives, and conversational language seem to be used over and over again to create a scene.

David Atkin’s piece showed clear pacing with the visual pause. A brief gap of silence. He also started sentences as if just continuing to carry on one long conversation (but, so, now, and, still, but maybe). The fragments were also short enough to be comprehensible and digestible by a listener.  I just kept wanting to say all of it out loud while reading it. I imagine it might be more difficult to read than to hear.

I also think it’s interesting that the audio essay allows you to emphasize things in many different ways. The all of a sudden somber tone of your voice, the slowing down of a sentence, or the trailing off of a word. These can all draw attention to a point in an audio essay in different ways than it can in text. These can be performed in the audio essay, where in text it may not be interpreted the same way by your reader (like a text message being misinterpreted as opposed to talking to someone over the phone?) I definitely want to record a few attempts with different pacing of my script and play them back to see if they come off comprehensible. I’m thinking I should also look at a few transcripts of some audio pieces first, and see how they worked in sound.