So You Want to Write Radio Drama?

A practical guide to writing radio drama and getting it produced, by a leading radio dramatist and a hugely experienced radio drama producer who have both created award-winning dramas for the BBC.

For writers, radio drama offers a remarkable degree of creative freedom, a unique relationship with an audience listening at home or on the move, and a wealth of opportunities to earn a living. But writing for radio is also a very particular craft, with its own distinctive conventions, techniques and pitfalls. And you need to know how the industry works to stand the best chance of getting your play commissioned.

This book, written from the dual perspective of a writer and a radio drama producer, tells you all you need to know about what works well on radio and what doesn't, how to hook listeners from the start, and how to keep them listening, how to format your script, how to research and contact the right producer for your play, what to expect after you've received a commission, and what happens when you're in the recording studio.

Full of practical advice, tips and invaluable inside information about the industry, it also includes extracts from many outstanding radio dramas and a series of writing exercises to help put ideas into practice.

So You Want To Write Radio Drama? is an essential guide for anybody who wants to write a radio play, whether you're a ?rst-time writer or one currently working in a different medium. It will also be of help to those already involved in making radio drama, or who simply want an insight into how it is written and made.

About the Author: Claire Grove was a Sony Radio Academy Award-winning radio producer who created over three hundred dramas for BBC Radio 4, Radio 3 and the World Service, including Classic Chandler, a landmark series dramatizing all eight Philip Marlowe novels, and The Complete Ripley. She died in 2013 after a battle with cancer.

Stephen Wyatt is the only writer to have won the Tinniswood Award for best radio drama script twice - for Memorials to the Missing in 2007 and Gerontius in 2011. He's written over twenty original scripts for radio and numerous dramatizations. He's also written for television (Doctor Who and Casualty) and his theatre work has been seen everywhere from London's West End to the Bubble Theatre's touring tent. In conjunction with New Writing South and the University of Sussex, he created the UK's first online radio drama course in 2009. His first novel, Big Dipper, was published in 2012.