How to Script a Podcast Without Sounding Scripted

We’re diving into how to script a podcast without ever sounding scripted so you can get the clarity and structure of a written plan while still keeping your natural voice!

We break down the difference between scripts and outlines, which parts of an episode are actually worth writing word-for-word, how to prep guests without over-rehearsing them, and why reading your script out loud is one of the best ways to spot stiff language and tighten your message so you get to the point faster.

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Why Scripts Matter (Even If You're Not A Scripted Podcast)

Jordan 0:06

Welcome back to Buzzcast, the podcast about all things podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. So today's episode, we actually based the entire topic on a family message that we got from Sarah, who is the host of Wich I Know The Men, which she added a podcast for indie writers based on my last episode with uh Courtney Elmer. So thank you, Sarah. She said, I love to get your thoughts on podcast scripts, which perfect. This is my wheelhouse. I love it. So it's gonna be just Alvin and I today. Kevin is out. And uh, Alvin, you have a lot of experience with writing scripts for like videos and various things like that. So I feel like you're gonna have a lot to bring to the table too.

Alban 0:51

I well, when you first sent it, I went, Jordan, we just did this and I sent you the episode that we did on outlining. And you said, no, I really want to have an episode about scripting where it's like verbatim, word-by-word level scripts. And mostly we work best with outlines. You convinced me after we started talking about all the things we write verbatim, and for me, it's not podcasting, it might be a talk that I give somewhere, it might be a blog or something, or a video script, or something that I'll write that's to be read verbatim later on. It is a different type of prep. It's much heavier on the front end production, you know, actually the writing part, but you save yourself a ton of time in the edit, or sometimes it you're performing, and so there is no edit that's even available.

Jordan 1:42

Yeah.

Alban 1:42

So yeah, I think it's it's an interesting topic. And I was surprised as you started putting it together, how many ideas that we had and you know, tips that we'd want to give to our podcasters.

Jordan 1:53

A lot of podcasters don't realize how much scripting actually goes into the podcasting process. Even if you're not a scripted podcast, you know, you might have to at least preemptively script out what you want your intro to look like, your outros. Uh, if you work with sponsors or advertisers, you have to script ad reads because you can't just go willy-nilly with ad reads. There's a lot of stuff that you have to have verbatim included in the language. Um, there's also going to be things like um, if you need to script out direct quotes or direct facts that you want to get correct. Uh, and a huge one for me is transitions between segments. That was something that I always struggled with. And so scripting out these things can help so much with keeping up the energy of your episode because if you're constantly fumbling through an episode and you don't really know where you're going, I know that an outline kind of gives you like guideposts, but scripting can kind of help get over like speed bumps or things that you struggle with. And they are different, but they're not like mutually exclusive in the realm of podcast planning. An outline is kind of more of like a structural thing. It's it's the ideas that you have and the order of how the episodes should go. So this is like the segments, the topics, questions, like examples that you have, or just little bullet points of things. And scripting is giving you the exact words that you want to say. Like I mentioned before, like with ad reads, you have to read certain things verbatim.

Alban 3:29

Yeah, you're you're absolutely right, Jordan. And I think when I imagine a script, I imagine the daily. You know, I know the beginning of the daily is written like verbatim. And there've been times where they'll actually post the script on social media so you can see the every single word is selected, even the ones um they might feel impromptu, at least for that inter that first segment, it's exactly uh you know, set aside. And I imagine that the daily does that, but I don't think a lot of other podcasts do that level of scripting. But then I was listening to the No Agenda show last night. Uh Adam Curry, uh John C. Dvorak. Um I don't know if you heard this, this is really sad. John C. Dvorak passed away in the last week. Um really kind of a I mean, worked with Adam for 20 years. So has this podcast they've been doing for well over a thousand, maybe even close to two thousand episodes they've done over the years together. Uh really popular show. Yeah, I guess I wouldn't want to miss. I have a story about their script, but I wouldn't want to miss the opportunity to say, you know, we're thinking of his family. I know he has he survived by his wife and children, and he's just important to a lot of people in the podcasting space.

Jordan 4:42

It was a huge loss.

Alban 4:43

Yeah, our thoughts and prayers are with their family. But what I what I was thinking about that show with scripting was how when I'm listening to it, just because I want to hear the last episode they put together, um, I noticed how often they are quoting exact quotes because their prep, while it was an outline, they have stories they want to go through. Um, they pulled so many quotes and they pulled so many news clips and segments, and they're all have to be because they're quoting, you know, political figures or news stories. They want to get it exactly right. And when I thought, okay, that actually is a type of scripting, you know, these are verbatim words. It made me realize there's so many more shows that rely heavily on getting exact quotes right.

Jordan 5:32

Yeah. I mean, we do it all the time with like fan mail, you know, even if we are condensing down the family messages, because sometimes our listeners will write us like a little novel. And though we appreciate that, to read that out loud on the episode would take up too much time. And so for time's sake, a lot of times we have to sort of rework and rewrite and re-script what the family message is to make sure that we're embodying their question or their feelings while still making it a little bit more concise, which we're gonna get into a little bit later. But you bring up a good point about like how you don't realize how much of certain podcasts are scripted.

How Much Of An Episode Should Be Scripted?

Jordan 6:14

And I think it brings up a really good topic that we should cover, which is like how much of an episode should be scripted. And I think that that's really going to depend on what kind of podcast you have. Because, you know, obviously, if you have a fictional storytelling podcast, you're probably going to be scripting pretty much the entire thing. You might do a little bit of improv when you are just kind of going through like maybe the podcast intro or thinking, you know, subscribers that are supporting the show or, you know, whatever. You can do some stuff kind of off the cuff, but then when you get into the actual meat of the episode or the narration of it, you're going to stick to the script pretty heavily, unless it's an improv one, obviously. Um, and then if you have a podcast that you have guests on and it's more like relaxed, you're probably going to have an outline, maybe, um, but it's probably not going to be scripted as much.

Alban 7:09

You you wrote this in the outline. This is kind of the difference between a preparation script and a performance script. So a preparation script is we need to get from A to B. Here is probably some of the things we're going to say. And you're like, we need 80% adherence. Um that's probably how if I'm ever going to speak in public, I have written a version that has every word, but I only am expecting 80% of it to be the exact right words. And the other side is, I mean, there's Hollywood uh directors who are like, I want the exact word I wrote to come out of your mouth. There's like, there's no space for you to improv this, like nail these lines. Yeah, there's different ways of structuring the episode. I would imagine a lot more podcasters end up, even the ones that are heavily scripted on that preparation script side. There's something written, but we're hoping for 80% of it to come out this way. It's really more we want a highly structured episode.

Jordan 8:13

I listened to Gimlet Academy some years ago, and they actually talked about this. I think there's an episode called like getting good tape or something like that. And what they talked about was there's sort of a pre-interview script that you can write. And um you write the interview that you hope to get. So these are like the usable moments that you're gonna go into the interview looking for. There's certain things that you want the person to say. There's there's tips or like what kind of um evidence or decisions did they make? What kind of memories or stories would further your the purpose of your episode? And then what you do is you write the questions sort of working backwards to figure out how do I get them to say that? And then you might even have some backup questions. So if you ask them a question and they tell a story, but they don't actually get to the point that you were looking for, how are you going to redirect that? What kind of follow-up questions would you ask? Like, how did you reach that decision to do this? How did you like what made you decide to go into this? Or how are you feeling in this moment? How did that affect you? Um, and so it's a really good method used by reporters and documentarians. When you write out this stuff and you write out what you're hoping, it's almost like you're manifesting the interview that you're wishing to get. It makes you so much more prepared and more prepared to pivot when things don't go exactly as planned.

Alban 9:42

Years ago, I uh did an interview with Jordan Harbinger, and I listened to a bunch of episodes about how he prepared for interviews. And I would not have thought of that as scripting in any way until I realized like he was putting in 40, 60 hours of prep for a single hour, hour and a half of interviews. And when I talked to him, I was like, you know, it's I know what this is. This is deposition prep. Like, this is the way that lawyers will go read a ton of documents and then we'll write questions that they know the answers to. And the interview is not as much I'm trying to learn new facts. It's I'm trying to get you to tell the story that I already know is in there. And so he would write questions like, tell me about the time XYZ happened. And then would have follow-ups if they weren't a if they couldn't remember it or he needed to refresh their memory again, something you would do in depot prep. I I you wouldn't think of interviews as having any level of scripting, but it really does lead to a really good interview because you get people to share uh the exact right story in kind of a clippable bite-sized format rather than it being kind of a meandering story where you kind of have to redirect three or four different times to get the important pieces.

Jordan 11:04

Yeah. And I it's one of those things where it's a lot of front work, but it's going to save you so much heartache in the long run. Because I think we've all been there where we've done these interviews and you try to make it work, you try to keep it on track. It didn't quite go exactly as planned. And maybe you didn't touch on the thing that you really wanted to touch on. And then after everything is said and done, you look at the interview and you realize that you have like an hour and a half of pretty much unusable audio. Like it's it's just not, you're not proud of it. It's not what you were hoping for. And then it feels like you left a lot on the table.

What To Share With Guests

Alban 11:39

In her request, Sarah also asked us something like how much of the script would you share with a guest if you are doing some scripting with interviews? And I feel like the best answer there is if you're kind of fishing for particular stories, it's kind of the ethical thing to do to tell the person you're interviewing, here's where I want this interview to go. It doesn't feel good to me to have like, I know what I want to talk about, and I kind of want you to be caught off guard and share it. If that feels almost like I'm trying to do something dishonest, I'd prefer share. I'm really excited to talk to you about these four things. Here are some of the questions I want to ask. Here's some of the stories I'd love for you to tell. And you're gonna get a such better interview if they're interested in sharing these things. Um, but you're gonna get a much better interview from them because they're going to be able to think through, okay, that, you know, I haven't thought about that in 20 years. Uh, but then they can start thinking through, you know, what stories they would want to tell. And so the story will just come out so much cleaner.

Jordan 12:42

I love that idea of sharing with them, like, here's the things that I'm looking for. Here's the answers that I'm looking for, here's uh the thinking behind the questions, because a lot of times we will just send people questions. I would never send a guest your podcast script or your planned like episode script because they don't need to see your like, hi, welcome to Buzzcast. This guest today is a like award-winning blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They don't need to see all that. I would keep that private. Um, just perform it to them during the interview. Um, but I do think it's good to send them the questions. And then I actually really like the idea of following the you like maybe each question with like your thinking behind the question or what you're hoping they're going to answer, like what you're hoping to get from it, because then you are both on the same page. Another thing that you should script out when you're podcasting is the stuff that you want to get right.

Speaker 3 13:36

Yeah.

Jordan 13:37

And you had talked about this earlier with like the no agenda show. They are speaking on specifics, they have to have facts straight or quotes straight. And there's a lot of podcasts like that where you have to have everything kind of lined out and make sure that you're you're accurate because there's nothing worse than accidentally misspeaking on a podcast, and then you just get like an influx of like messages like, this is incorrect and false news.

Alban 14:07

Yeah,

Hybrid Scripts With Planned Improv

Alban 14:08

we got that at some point. Yeah. There's a good quote, a note from the team at Radio Lab, and where they talk about how they can script things and improvise kind of the banter. So they want to have the looseness that includes banter and it seems friendly and it feels organic, but also a script as well. And so they uh they have this quote that I pulled our studio scripts are a hybrid beast. Much of the script will be a list of loosely written plot points, kind of like a real script, but a little bit sketchier. And those parts are meant to be improvised, but will also mark some passages which have to be read word for word. Like we're dealing with a passage that contains lots of technical writing. There's no way to improvise it and get it right. But particularly these places where the story turns or the hosts are to take different sides of an issue, these moments are always improvised. I read that and went, oh, that's exactly how curb your enthusiasm does the show. Really? It's not scripted. These are all comedians who are improvising, and they're just they do improv a few times. They're like, here's the beats we need to hit, here's the things that need to happen in the plot to move it forward. Go. And they do it a few times and they nail it and it's funny, and they go, that's the take, and they're just building the episode. Um, but it's a combination of like you get the fun of improv and you also get the aspects that need to be kind of hit 100% for the story to even make sense and move forward.

Jordan 15:44

I like the way that they're attacking this because this sort of hybrid model, it gives a little bit more structure to something that can go off the rails pretty easily because what they're doing is they have this narration, they have this uh, they have interviews and stuff like that. And what they're doing is they're taking beats to sort of react to it, but they're reacting to it in a structured manner. It's like controlled chaos. And so giving yourself like in your script, in your outline, you can have like the scripted part. And then after the scripted part, you can have a beat for reaction or opinions or conversation about this. A lot of podcasts will do this. I think, especially of true crime podcasts really come to mind, uh, paranormal podcasts or even um television recap podcasts. They will often read from a script to tell the story, to tell what is happening. And then they will pause after a section when there's something notable that was said, and then the host will kind of like banter on it and say like their thoughts behind it or why things were going, and then they'll go back into the story again. And I actually really like that. I think it breaks up something that could be a very monotonous story.

Alban 17:00

Hearing you say it now reminds me of some scripting advice I got from my dad. Uh, I wrote a eulogy for somebody a few years ago, and when I shared it with him, he goes, You don't want a fragile script. It was something like you don't want it to be fragile. He goes, Some speeches are fragile because if you don't say the precise word, it doesn't work. So if you're writing a metaphor and like the words have to line up to make the what metaphor work correctly, and you're on stage and you get nervous or you get emotional because it's a eulogy, it all falls apart, and now you're looking at the script going, oh, I pretty much have to go into verbatim reading mode, which is just not a good speech of any type. And so what he his recommendation was write the script so it's not fragile. And instead, you can use different words in the moment, you can get a phrase wrong, and it still flows. But there always will be a few transitions that you just have to nail the exact words. And when you have to nail the exact words, like those are highlighted, they're in bold, you've practiced them over and over. You know for a fact that they come out of your mouth in a way that they're written on the page, you know, like you just have to nail it. And there's such a temptation when it's scripting to be like, oh, I know what a final script looks like. It looks like, you know, a script that I get for a movie. You know, you read a movie script. I could just get Chat GPT to give me a script for this podcast. But if I read that ChatGPT script, it doesn't sound like me at all. I can't even come close to reading it in a normal way. And so it has to be written like as your own voice with some level of flexibility

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Alban 18:49

in there.

Jordan 19:19

I think that that is a really good point. And one of the things that you mentioned was transitions, like having them like highlighted, bold, to

(Cont.) Hybrid Scripts With Planned Improv

Jordan 19:27

like help you get through those things. Because a lot of times I have a hard time finding like the through lines that are going to like bring us into whatever the next segment is, especially if there's like a hard pivot. That is hard. And so it's so funny because um it makes me think of this clip that I saw of Amy Poehler from her podcast Good Hang. And she has a guest on there. It's Will Farrell, and they are talking about Saturday Night Live, and then she's trying to hard pivot to a completely unrelated topic. I bet I could probably play a clip of this because it's so funny.

Speaker 3 20:05

Okay, I want to talk about some stuff that you've done. I'm so bad at transitioning. By the way, did you see a clip of the phone? That was rough. I was like, thank God it wasn't. I said, okay, stop. Okay, stop.

Alban 20:22

But you know what? I think that is a great transition.

Speaker 3 20:27

It's super clear. I said, okay, stop. Okay, stop. Okay, I want to talk about something else. I'm gonna turn this page.

Jordan 20:36

I empathize with Amy Poehler so much in this clip because she is me. We are the same. And I love get that I get to see someone who is a, you know, arguably a very professional speaker and improviser stumble and fall in something like this. And she's just like, God, I'm so bad at this. Like, Amy, if you just scripted out your transitions, it'd be really easy for you to like find those through lines and then like pull it into the next segment.

Alban 21:05

You know what I love about this clip is I look at it and I go, oh, that's the same background we have in the Buzzprout Studio. Oh, that's the exact same fake plant we bought off Amazon for the BuzzProut Studio. Will Farrell is like overlit in this clip, just like I am in a bunch of our clips. And I was like, oh, you know what? Even somewhat like the best podcasts out there, there's room for improvement. Or maybe some of the stuff they're doing is exactly the same as ours. Oh, it's uh that's great.

Jordan 21:38

Another thing that people might struggle with is figuring out like what your intros should sound like, your outros, you know, who are you gonna thank at the end

Why You Should Script Your Call-To-Actions

Jordan 21:46

of the episode? What kind of call to actions are you going to have? I think that call to actions, especially, don't get scripted by a lot of people. And I think they should be. If you are kind of talking in circles about what you want listeners to do, what your call to action is, it's not as effective as if you just give them like a 30-second elevator pitch. Okay, hit pause. I want you to go do this, go do this. Here's how you do it. And it's very clear like instructions are clear. They know what they're doing, like they got their marching orders. Go. I will listen to a lot of podcasts and I will hear them kind of stumble over their call to action. It's almost like it's it makes it feel awkward, like, uh, I. Hate asking you to do this, but you know, if you could, I mean, you know, it's whatever. And then they like never actually get to the point. I'm like, I I don't know what you want me to do.

Alban 22:36

Right. So somebody recently sent me this clip. It's like a bunch of commercials from where he grew up in like the 90s. And it was like a husband and wife who have a kind of scratch and dent um discount appliance store. And every one of the ads has the two of them closing the door on all the like the dryer and the the fridge. And they're like opening and closing all of them and saying over and over, come see it in person and save a lot of money in every ad. And my friend was laughing because he's like, I can't believe they keep saying this, see it in person, save a lot of money.

Speaker 3 23:16

Yeah.

Alban 23:16

Or see it all save all this money. And I was like, it's because I mean, that's why this is on a YouTube clip 40 years later. And it's why it's in your head 40 years later. Because over and over they knew we only get one ask. And the one ask we have is we've got all the stuff here. We know it's scratch and dense. You gotta see it in person, and you're gonna save a lot of money. So they go see it in person, save a lot of money, see it in person, and they say it so many times that at the you can't watch it and not even repeat it because you're like, ah, I know you told me to do one thing and you scripted it perfectly. And it even sounds goofy because they do it over and over, but they nailed the script. And then I get on and I'm like, hey, you know, if you want to send me a fan mail, you're like, you could do it, you know, one of the things, and then we just go on and on. And eventually people are like, uh, something they kind of asked me to do something. I'm not really sure what it was. Come see it in person, save a lot of money. Like, nail it to that level of simplicity and just keep going because people need to hear it multiple times if you really want them to take action.

Jordan 24:22

And I think that's actually a really good example, too, of like having your voice and tone. You understand who they are as people. Like they're casual, they're approachable, they want the best for you. They're go-getters, they're they're getting to the point. I think that that is something really important for podcasters to learn, especially in the age of AI. Majority of people are not writers. Creative writing is hard. It is strenuous, it takes a lot of bandwidth, it can be a

Read Hide Talk For Natural Delivery

Jordan 24:48

whole thing, you know, especially if you're writing out an entire uh episode. And some people even struggle with writing out like their intros. Okay, how do I pull all these like elements together? How am I going to really hook the listener? I'm not a good writer. And so they will use AI a lot of times. But the problem with AI is AI.

Alban 25:11

It sounds like AI. It sounds like everybody else's AI.

Jordan 25:14

It's not just that, it's also AI doesn't write for like the human tongue and teeth. And so you'll get this kind of like tongue-twistery word salad that is so hard to say when you finally say it out loud, which I think brings us to our next point here, which is like you have to read everything out loud. And I actually found a really good um example of this method. It's called the read hide talk method. This is such a good exercise. Anyone who reads any sort of scripting should do this. So there was an interview that I saw, and it was the production team of You Didn't See Nothing. And in it, they asked Johans Lacour, I think that's how you say his name. I'm probably butchering it, but we're gonna go with it. Um, about like what the actual recording process was like. And so he said that when it was time to actually piece together the interviews and do the narrative that was pulling this documentary series together, he said, I'm a writer, right? I sat down to write. And to be honest with you, I was proud of what I wrote. And then I sat down to read out loud, and it sounded like masterpiece theater, which, you know, this is a guy who was in prison, and then he's out on the streets talking to all these people, like about like their very rough environment and like culture and stuff like that.

Alban 26:40

So the tone is just totally off.

Jordan 26:42

It's way off. It's way off. You know, you're you're speaking, it just didn't sound like him at all. It didn't read as authentic. And so one way that you can figure out how to deliver things naturally is this read, hide, talk approach. And so his production team told him, okay, I want you to read this part of the script, and then you're gonna put it down, and then you're gonna tell us what it is.

Alban 27:07

Yes.

Jordan 27:08

Yes, yes, okay.

Alban 27:10

I I'm with it now. I I hear where this is going.

Jordan 27:12

This is so good. And I have learned that this is the best way to fine-tune your scripts because you can read things and be like, oh yeah, this totally sounds like me. And then the second you get on the microphone, you start tripping over words, and then you can't take a breath because sentences are running on way too long. So it's like, it's hard to breathe, it's hard to speak, and you don't sound as eloquent as you were hoping. And so it's much easier to, you know, read a paragraph and then put it away and stop and be like, okay, like this is basic reading comprehension. What did I just read? What are we talking about? What is the point of this? And a lot of times when you do that and you actually say it out loud, what you're trying to say, what the paragraph is trying to get across, it's much easier to then go, okay, so now I can identify the things that need to be fixed in the script.

Alban 28:05

Honestly, that's the only way I know to write. This is a bit from a blog post I wrote a few months ago, I think. When I write, I write in loops, and it always hurts. This is about like I've always loved being a writer, but I it's never felt good. So this is what it's like. Um I write something small. No, that's not it. Delete. Write something again. Okay, that's kind of good. Let's keep that. Write it again. Different parts sounded good. Now new version. Okay, this one's worse. Okay, actually, that's the same as the part that I liked earlier. I guess I'm throwing that out. Again and again, I rewrite the same piece ten times, finding fragments of the final version, but they clash and they don't fit into a coherent whole. You can move them around, but I can never copy-paste my way there. And there's still something I can't articulate that has not shown up in a single version. I start again, I write it in notes, I write it in paper, I say it out loud, I write like I'm writing to a friend, it gets worse and worse. One chrome tab away, Chat GPT whispers, How can I help you today? The escape hatch is unbearably tempting. If I keep banging my head against this, eventually it will all happen in a single instant. The piece will take shape, and I'll think, oh, I can write the whole thing right now, and it'll just pour onto the page in one go. Um, it'll happen straight through with the clarity of transcribing something that's already complete. I write it and I'm throwing stuff away over and over and over. And I've never seen a path to okay, I know I'm 20% there. I pretty much just stay in like I am 10% of the way to complete on this writing project. And I will be at 10% max until the moment I'm at 98%. Like it just it jumps. You know, it's like a it's like you're downloading a file over old internet or something. Like it just doesn't gradually get there.

Speaker 3 30:05

Yeah.

Alban 30:06

And there's something too, you have to write over and over and over till you it comes into your voice. And then once it's there, it's just done. So I love to hear that there's podcasters kind of that that maybe this is a real approach that other people use. Read, hide, talk. And it's a great way to get things to sound like you wrote them and a great way for it to authentically express the thing that you want to share with the world. We do this a lot on our marketing writing too, where the first draft of anything you write for marketing just sounds very salesy.

Speaker 3 30:43

Yeah.

Alban 30:43

It's like upgrade today if you want to get access to these amazing features on Buzzprout. And if I read that, I'd feel like gross. I'd be like, I'm not signing up for whatever this thing is. We will sit there and be like, say it like a person, and you'll say the exact same thing. And I'm like, all right, think of a specific friend and just say it to them. And then we all start talking totally normal. We're like, you know, there's some real benefits to upgrading um that works for people in these scenarios. And that's why I wanted to share with you. That is so much more convincing because that's how humans talk. It's not how commercials talk.

Jordan 31:19

I'm actually going to pull the curtain back a little bit on like our working relationship, Alban, because there is something, there's an exercise that you

Keep It Simple

Jordan 31:27

have done with me that was the most infuriating thing for me.

Alban 31:34

I don't know what this is, but this is good.

Jordan 31:36

It put me through my feels, but I'm so glad you did it because now it's just like ingrained in me. And I actually like Wait, what's the exit?

Alban 31:43

What's the thing that puts you your feels? What's this?

Jordan 31:47

When you do these exercises that are like very painful, you come out of it on the other end like so much better, just out of the gate. And so I feel like my writing has improved, especially for like copywriting and things like that. But what you would do is I would read a paragraph or a phrase or a sentence to you, and you'd be like, okay, what does that mean? I'm like, what do you mean? What does that mean? You'd be like, Well, what does that mean? What you just said, what does that mean? I'm like, it means, you know, da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And I'm just repeating back the sentence to you. And you're like, Yeah, but what does that mean? And it drove me crazy because I'm like, I'm speaking English. I can't be any more clear. It's very much like that um Schitt's Creek episode where um fold it in. Fold in the cheese. So it's like Moira and David, he's like trying to like do the thing. She's like, Well, you fold in the cheese. He's like, How do you fold in the cheese? She's like, I can't be any more clear, David. How you just fold it in. You fold in the cheese. And there's like, it's so funny because sometimes you have to go, like, okay, is there a simpler way for me to say this? How else can I explain this? If I were to explain this to somebody else and they didn't understand what I was saying, what is the more simplified or like broken down version of it? Because I think a lot of us want to be perceived as very like intellectual on our, I mean, especially like on podcasts. This is going out to the world. I want everyone to think I am so smart and so I'm going to be very like verbose and use flowery language, but really it's just word salad. No one understands what I'm saying. And I find that a lot of people who can explain concepts in a in more simplified terms to me appear way more intelligent because I'm like, oh wow, they were able to explain that so well. Like they're they're so knowledgeable.

Alban 33:32

Yeah. You can either sound like uh Richard Feynman, the physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, who could explain physics really simply and was a famous professor, or you can sound like a LinkedIn post. Not you, but like we as people, like you, those are both available. And LinkedIn posts, it's like the most transparent. I want you to think I'm smart so that you will follow me, so that you will hire me to be a VP at your big tech company. And it makes my skin crawl reading it because it's so transparent. And like underneath it, there's nothing there. I'm like, you barely shared a story, and like 85% of it was like, I was a bit of a super genius today at work because I had a problem and the problem was somebody else, and I solved it. And you're just like, dude, I can't believe you posted that online. But so much writing really is you just can you have to interrogate it over and over and over to find like what is the thing you're actually trying to say. And eventually it boils down to something. You know, we really we wrestled a lot when we launched uh video for Apple Podcasts. And I was like, it came down to, oh, you know what it is? It's upload one file, distribute everywhere. And we were like, that's what we wanted the whole time. That's the only thing we wanted to say was hey, there's all these cool capabilities. But the main thing we're doing is you give us one file and we distribute it everywhere. And now your listeners, they can listen, they can watch, or they could read your podcast. But you don't have to do any more work. And it took us like hours just fighting those like one sentence. But the minute it comes out, then you're just like, God, that was kind of obvious the whole time, and you totally forget how painful it was to get there.

Jordan 35:25

So speaking of painful exercises, I actually pulled another anecdote for this episode, and it's about 99% invisible.

Can We Get Here Faster

Jordan 35:33

And for their 15th anniversary episode, they were pulling uh listener like messages in and answering them on the show. Instead of talking about like design, they would talk about their show. And uh Rowan Mars read a question about like how they write and script their episodes. And he said that sometimes we do these long histories and you just feel like you're plodding along. And it just captured something that I felt for a long time but never put words to it. That sort of sense of just like, oh, but if I skip from 900 AD to 1800, I have to put like three things in between, but you feel that they're unnecessary. And sometimes we just free ourselves from this idea. And instead of being relentlessly chronological, just do the parts that are important and fun for the story and stop being so relentlessly chronological. This is another thing that AI will do. It will include way too much information. And I love this exercise. And they said that when they do their meetings and they're reading through what the script is, these are two things that show up in every single meeting. And it's CWGHF, which means can we get here faster? And relentlessly chronological, which is meaning that you are just relentlessly going through a chronological order of things without just for the sake of like keeping things plotted along. And they talked about how painful it was. It was so frustrating because they felt like, you know, I have to have all this information. They're like, no, no, no, it's too much. Like, we got to get here faster. Can we skip a hundred years? Can we get to the point quicker? Do we need all this nuance? Do we need all this context? And it's a really difficult exercise that they have to do, but it makes their writing so much better and it makes things a lot more exciting for the listener because they're not having to sit through all this information just for information's sake.

Alban 37:30

Right. And you're condensing these long passages. So the the pacing is up, people are engaged, people are dropping off. A good story doesn't have tons of extraneous detail. A good story is like meticulously crafted, that everything is nudging you towards this final realization and where the whole story kind of locks into place.

Jordan 37:52

And I know that these are exercises that are kind of like big picture sharpening the axe. But if you are actually in the process of editing a script right now or editing an outline or whatever, and you're struggling with making writing a little bit more human, there's some tips that I got actually from uh Kate, who is on the BuzzProw support team. She was a guest on Happy to Help. And she talked about writing more casually. And I really feel like this actually applies

Write Like People Talk

Jordan 38:24

to scripting for speech as well. Um, one of the things that she talked about was like definitely adding in contractions into your writing because a lot of times we will write everything out. Like, where did you go? Is it in the thing? It is not this. And we don't, we don't speak that way. And it can actually make reading and speaking more to our natural tone a lot more difficult. And so you have to use contractions. You have to say, Where'd you go? instead of where did you go? It just sounds like a lot less AI, right?

Alban 38:59

You want to be using normal language, you're using contractions, you've got kind of the fault stops of normal conversation. You have kind of a cadence of normal conversation.

Speaker 3 39:08

Yeah.

Alban 39:09

And that is possible to script, but I think it has to to script it, it has to be running through, reading it out loud, listening for rhythm, and then merging that back into the document itself.

Jordan 39:22

And there's like there's another tip I saw from this woman who wrote for uh dialogue for like screenwriting. And she said that one of the ways to write for speech is to speak directly to the audience. So saying you, like just actually saying you instead of like, I would like to ask the audience or I'd like to ask my listeners. It feels very much to me like Bridgerton, like dear gentle reader. It's just like a little too proper as opposed to just saying, like, oh, for this episode, I wanted to ask you to write in and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it feels more casual, it feels more intimate with your listener, and which we always want. We always want to develop deeper relationships with our listeners. And that's like a little trick that you can do to kind of engage more and make it sound more casual.

Alban 40:13

So to land the plane, let me read from the script you wrote for our conclusion. The big takeaway is that you

The Big Scripting Takeaway

Alban 40:21

can script while still sounding natural. A script is just a tool. It can help you decide where the episode is going, protect the details you want to get right, and give you something to fall back on when the words aren't coming natural. But you don't have to read every word you write. The best script isn't the one you follow to a T. It's the one that helps you sound like yourself and maybe a little bit more clean and concise. And as always, it's gonna be even better if you have someone like Jordan who edits out all of your fault starts. All right, it's time for our fan mail where we read the messages you sent in to us and maybe we talk about it.

Jordan 41:04

Maybe.

Fan Mail

Alban 41:05

All right, we got some fan mail from Colette who wrote in and said, I have a question about national versus local sponsorships. I recently made my first attempts to get an event sponsor, and I went to national companies who mostly said no. But they did recommend that I reach out to their local branches. I didn't want to waste my local branches' time because my audience is not local. But now I'm wondering, did I miss a big opportunity? I wonder what you all thought. I appreciate the show and all of you and look forward to your answer. I would be interested to know a bit more about um what the relationship is between these national brands and the local brands. You know, the first thing that jumped to my mind is like car dealerships, where car dealerships are associated with like an international umbrella company, but then there's regional companies that do different ad packages, and then the local um dealers all do their own level of ads. And it makes sense because like you buy a car locally, you know, you buy it from a person. And so there's some things that do need to be that you can try to work with national brands, but some things where really all the money is kind of down there at the local level. Um, do you have a take on this? I I think it for me it really depends on what type of um what type of product she was talking to.

Jordan 42:31

Yeah, I I agree with you. And I think that Colette maybe answered her question a little bit within the question, saying, um, I don't want to waste my local branch's time because my audience is not local. I mean, if your audience is not local, it doesn't make business sense for that local branch to sponsor your podcast. And I mean, I I personally would feel a little bad for securing a sponsor that was local for an audience that is never going to like, you know, step foot inside of their brick and mortar door. But if you have someone who is a creator or office offers a service and they're located locally, yet their services extend beyond the local area, absolutely go for it. Um, for uh Dreamful, one time I had it was like a Sherlock Holmes episode, and I partnered with this boutique tea company based out of Portland, Oregon. And I know a bunch of people that like bought their teas from them because you could order it online. And so, yeah, it was a small boutique place, but they were able to get business from outside because they had an online shopping and I was able to give listeners, you know, a product code or whatever. So things like that, absolutely. But I think if it's a brick and mortar, like they only do things in person, probably not. I I don't think I would reach out to like local. And I want you to know that it sounds like you have done many attempts to get other companies to sponsor your podcast. Sponsorships are really difficult to secure and they take a lot of effort, but it's not impossible. So sometimes you have to get told no like 20 times to get one person to finally say yes, but you really just need that one yes. To get a little bit of momentum under your belt and be able to show people how awesome your ad reads are and things like that.

Alban 44:35

Yeah, I completely agree. It kind of segues nicely with this next fan mail we got from Utah, uh family history drama podcast. And they said, I hear recurring taglines or jingles at the end of some podcast episodes, and they will mention who hosts or distributes their podcast. I think of um there's some I used to listen to that would always be like, This is a headgum podcast at the very end. And they said, Would you consider creating something universally recognizable like that so we can give homage to Buzz Sprout with each episode? Maybe even giving us a small discount if we opted in and included enough episodes. And I read that and I went, that's kind of like what an ad is, right? The idea would be that people could say, uh, we host this show on Buzzsprout. And if you click the link in the show notes, you will get uh you could sign up for Buzzsprout and join me, and we'll both save $20. They could use their refer a friend code, or we could even add just a really, really, really big ad buy into Buzzsprout ads so that anybody who uses Buzzsprout Outs could accept the ad and put it into all their episodes.

Jordan 45:41

That's fun.

Alban 45:42

It feels like an easy win. It feels like something we should have done. Um I I like this, it's a good idea. Uh, we do always plan everything that we work on at Buzzsprout six weeks in advance. And we just launched our cycle today. So it's this is at least two months out before we made any headway on it. But I do really like this idea. Um, it makes sense. We say that podcast advertising works. Why don't I put some real money wherever my mouth is and buy a bunch of podcast ads?

Jordan 46:13

I love that idea. And also, I want to say that you can get started right now on this because in your Buzz Sprout account, you can go down, you can find your uh referral code link that is specific to your podcast. And it's really easy to record uh dynamic content promoting that you host on BuzzSprout and like include your referral link in the link provided in dynamic content, and you can insert that into all your episodes, and that sort of works the exact same way, and then you get a kickback.

Alban 46:44

We got another message from Tampa, Florida from Sarah, uh, who actually inspired this whole episode. And she said, I was wondering about the tags and keywords field. How does that impact search? Some directories might use that. I cannot tell you any that do.

Jordan 47:00

I don't think so.

Alban 47:01

The one area that it actually is used is we use those with our embed players. So if you have a recurring thing, you know, maybe on BuzzCast, we have you know a whole group of episodes that are all about podcast growth, and we have a whole nother group that are all about podcast monetization. We might put the tag podcast monetization in a bunch of episodes, and then somewhere we embed a player that has all of the podcast monetization episodes and it's useful there. I think it used to be so much more used in the industry for different purposes, and it really has not become less valuable over time that there have been times where I've actually advocated internally maybe we don't take this totally away, but we hide it down in kind of advanced uh settings and make it not as important because I don't want people to take a bunch of time and fill out a bunch of keywords thinking maybe these keywords are gonna get picked up by Apple and Spotify. But Apple and Spotify say, no, we actually like the transcript so much better. It's a way better representation of the content. So we're looking there. I'd rather focus people's attention on the thing we know moves the needle, really good titles, good description, and a high quality transcript.

Jordan 48:22

Yeah. And I will say that I've seen people use these keywords and tags in very creative ways. I've seen people make um sort of like collections on their website where when they talk about a certain topic. So, Sarah, let's say that we write a that you you have a topic that is writing techniques or technical writing or something like that. And then um you add those keywords to each of the episodes uh that touch on that topic. And then on your website, you create like sort of a course, and then you have a playlist at the top of that course that has all the episodes that are on that. Um, you could do it if you have a um mythology podcast. Let's say that you have a page dedicated to like Greek mythology and all the episodes that you have on Greek mythology, you can do a playlist there. And then all the subsequent episodes that you upload, you can add that same keyword and then it'll toss it into that same playlist on your embed player on the website. So it's a really cool way to kind of gather together uh episodes that have like the same themes and topics. And I actually think that may help quite a bit with um your podcast SEO on like Google and stuff like that, because you'll have a dedicated page to these topics and you can write out like your blog and then have the embed player with all of that together.

Alban 49:42

Jordan, you got a nice message. You and Courtney Elmer got a nice message from Audrey Wiggins, uh, Technical Abyss Talks. Really enjoyed your latest episode about the five podcast choices that could be costing you listeners. Some of the quotes in here, this is a long message, but things like, oh my goodness, this was fantastic. I've been a podcaster since 2011. And you know what? It's great to go back and see everything I could be working on. Uh, just the we actually got a lot of messages about that episode. So congratulations, uh, not just from me, but from Audrey and I think quite a few other people who wrote in via fan mail.

Jordan 50:19

Yeah, I I would say that this was the episode. The episode with Courtney Elmer, it was such a good idea to get her on the show. I'm so glad I did it. I'm so glad she was willing to come on because she has just such a wealth of knowledge. And it did turn out to be such an awesome episode. And I think that this might be one of the episodes I've gotten the most feedback from. Like just constant people like writing in or like messaging me or texting me. Um, even people from my life have been like, man, that was a good episode. So that never happens. So thank you, Courtney. I appreciate you gracing us with your presence. All right. Well, thank you all for listening. And until next time, keep podcasting.

Alban 51:03

All right, Jordan. You sent me something and you said, Do you have a post show? And I said, No. And you went, Well,

Post Show Viral Animals Debate

Alban 51:11

it's been a big year for animals, so we could talk about that.

Jordan 51:16

That checks out.

Alban 51:18

And honestly, I thought the only thing that I when I heard big thing for animals, I went, Oh, did we pass some like animal welfare laws or some sort of like you I was just like, that's the only place my mind went. And I'm like, okay, what's the good news? And you said I'll tell you in the post show.

Jordan 51:37

Yeah, okay.

Alban 51:38

But I know it's not an animal welfare law. So what is it? What good things have happened to animals? It's a bit a big year for animals.

Jordan 51:45

It's been a big year for animals. It is not a big year for like animal kind. I think it's been a big year for specific animals, like viral animals, I should say. Viral animals. Viral animals. So, okay, if you think about it, I think it was like this year or within the last year or so. Do you remember Moo Dang?

Alban 52:03

The mood. The uh the hippo, the baby hippo.

Jordan 52:08

So moodang, the baby hippo, which was so cute and just like went viral everywhere. Everyone's obsessed with moodang. And then we had um, there was the dog that like ran down the slopes at the uh Olympics that went super viral. There was like the dog at the Olympics, and everyone's like, give him a medal.

unknown 52:28

Do you remember that?

Alban 52:29

No, I don't think I saw this.

Jordan 52:30

Okay. That was that was also like a huge thing. It was very viral. Everyone was really upset that he didn't place. And then there was um Punch the Monkey, which was the monkey that got bullied at that Japanese zoo, and then everyone was like obsessed with Punch the Monkey, and he had like a little toy.

Alban 52:48

Oh, that was so sad. Yes, I saw that. Where the other monkeys were mean to him, and then he had a toy and went off by itself. This isn't a good year for animals.

Jordan 52:56

These are it's a great year for animals.

Alban 52:58

The dog didn't get an Olympic medal. The monkey got bullied by the other monkeys. You're just saying because they went viral.

Jordan 53:06

Just saying because they went viral. It's just it's a big year for cute animal viral stories, and the newest one is Jimothy.

Alban 53:14

Okay, I do actually know, I didn't know the other ones. I do know a Jimothy is. Jimothy is like a I want to say like a raccoon in Oregon or something like that.

Jordan 53:26

Jimothy is a raccoon in a neighborhood of Seattle, and he's like a local celebrity there, but he has just like gone super viral. He's very famous now, and it's literally to the point where Roku, you know how Roku TVs have that screensaver, and it's like this famous screensaver of like a city, and there's always like these Easter eggs in it. They added Jimothy the raccoon to the screensaver. And for those of you who have not seen Jimothy, I I'm this probably sounds insane. I'm I'm gonna explain it. So Jimothy's spine is shortened, and so he's just like a ball with legs. Yeah, he's got a cute little raccoon face and like a nub of a tail, and he is just so cute. It's it's kind of sad because like obviously this mutation, but he's so cute. And so anyway, so he's on the raccoon, the Roku screensaver now. I saw that Dungeons and Dragons have added Jimothy as like an official like creature, like a cryptid in DD lore.

Alban 54:28

What how are these Jordan? These are not good things for animals. These are people on TikTok really liked something bad happened to an animal. This is the opposite of a good year for animals, except for Moodang, who but though is kept in a zoo, not optimal there either.

Jordan 54:47

I mean, punch the monkey is doing great now.

Alban 54:50

What happened to Punch? I didn't the the story was the other monkeys were mean.

Jordan 54:54

Yeah, the other monkeys were mean to him. Everyone was like, Oh my gosh, like save punch, like justice for punch the monkey, and then like everyone sent him a bunch of toys to the zoo, and then eventually he actually got accepted by one of the monkeys, and so he finally was like starting to make friends, and now he's like integrated into this like little monkey community.

Alban 55:16

Once he had a ton of toys, they all accepted him.

Jordan 55:18

They're like, All right, yeah, he got famous.

Alban 55:22

This reminds me, if you pay attention to the Rudolph the Red Nose reindeer song, yeah. They all treat Rudolph terribly, and then at some point, they actually really need Rudolph because they're like, Oh, Christmas is ruined unless the guy we've been bullying the whole time helps out. Yeah, and Rudolph kindly is like, I'm gonna put all that aside because Christmas is what matters. And then all the reindeers loved him, and they're like, Oh, Rudolph, you're great. And I'm like, this is a bad story to tell kids. Like, hey, the the the story is you can bully people for looking different, and they still should probably help you out if you ever need it. Like, terrible story, terrible year for animals. I disagree with this whole post show.