Podcasting Q&A

Should you script your podcast episodes?

January 19, 2024 Buzzsprout
Podcasting Q&A
Should you script your podcast episodes?
Show Notes Transcript

Today on 5 Minute Mondays, we’ll discuss whether or not you should script your podcast episodes.

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Travis:   0:00
today on five minute Mondays will discuss whether or not you should script your podcast episodes. Welcome the five minute Mondays We're bringing the best tips and strategies for building your podcast in five minutes or less. So if you're new here, consider subscribing Now. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about three ways. Three approaches to preparing for your podcast episodes, and that is with scripts, outlines and freestyle. Now when you script a podcast, that means you're planning every word ahead of time. And that's similar to the script for a movie or television show, where the actors are literally saying the words that are given to them. And certain podcast formats actually do benefit from this approach. But it's not always the best strategy. What I see is that new podcasters often default into writing out every word so that they say exactly what they want to say. And it feels the safest right, cause when you write out every single word you're not gonna miss speak. You're not going to say something that you didn't really want to say. But the drawback. And there's a couple with scripting out every single podcast episode before you record it is that just takes a lot of time to prepare, takes a lot of time to write out 20 minutes of content. And then, in addition to that, instead of speaking how you would normally speak if you're reading from a script, you sound like you're reading from a script, and so it doesn't actually sound super authentic. It does sound scripted, if you know what I'm saying. But if you're creating an audio drama or you have a story ah, podcast that you are scripting out, then you should script your podcast ahead of time because that is really gonna help you make the best piece of content. But otherwise, unless you're in one of those specific instances where it really doesn't matter what you say and exactly how you say it, I would recommend one of the other two approaches. So let's talk about outlines now with an outline. You're just mapping out the general flow of your podcast episode to make sure that you cover everything that you want to cover. And rather than writing down every word that you want to say, you simply just jot down the main points, the questions you wanna ask your guest and maybe some filler reminders. Some sub points tell you have a solid plan in place. Now you may end up reading some of your outline verbatim like a script, but for the most part, the outline is just there to help you stay on track and to stay on topic. And this is the most common form of prep episode. Pre Episode prep is creating an outline. So if you're recording a solo podcast or if you're new to interviews or you just want to produce cleaner, tighter episodes than using an outline will serve you well. Now the third way to approach preparing for a podcast episode is with a freestyle approach, and that simply means that you aren't sure exactly how the episode will turn out before you hit record. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, because this does create space for a playful banter. It allows you to go off scripts and also, as the host of the facilitator, allows you to use your intuition to guide the conversation. So if you're more practiced as an interviewer, this would give you the flexibility of pursuing follow up questions to stories that you think would really value be valuable to your audience without feeling like I have to stick to your script. Uh, this is actually the approach that we use on the buzz guest podcast. Ah, we're 3 to 4 of us here at bus brought, H Q will sit around a table and discuss what what is going on in the world of podcasting for about 40 to 45 minutes? And so the day before we record the I will send out 3 to 4 topics that I want to make sure we cover, and then we all show up ready to chat. But that's it. That's all the prep that we do before each episode. So while this strategy does require the least amount of prep time, if you're not careful, it can actually come back to bite you in other ways, right? If the people involved in the podcast aren't seasoned podcasters of not super experienced, it's easy to get off track and be like, Wow, we just spent two hours talking about something. Hopefully, I can make an episode out of that, and when that happens, it actually increases your time. Editing the episode in post production now If you have a round table discussion podcast, then the freestyle strategy allows you to produce approachable content that doesn't necessarily feel overly produced. So which of those three strategies would I recommend that you use? Well, probably an outline. This is three approach we use for most of our podcasts. It's the most popular across the board, and it kind of has the best of both worlds. For help. You stay on track without spending hours of prep time scripting out each episode. But feel free to try your strategy to see which one works best for you. That's it for today. Hit. This was dry button. If you're watching this on YouTube, or you gonna describe to the five minute Monday's podcast in your favorite app, squeeze even more podcasts related content into your life. And if there's something you want us to talk about on a future episode, click the link of the show notes to submit your question. Thanks for listening and is always keep podcasting