Quote Originally Posted by Kc View Post
In what ways do you think that working in a purely audio medium both helps and hurts your ability to tell a story? & Are their advantages audio drama provides storytelling that other art forms perhaps do not?

Well, just the fact that you have to TELL rather than show. That aspect alone causes more problems and technical hurdles than anything else. Action scenes are VERY difficult to pull off without some sort of narration. It can also screw up the pacing because in the middle of an action scene, we butt in with a journal entry. In tactical situations the reality of the scene would have them just shut up and use hand signals, here, we have to "talk it out". Any time a character is in a scene, we have to introduce them with a line rather than them just being quiet and observing. We also have to be careful to also use the character's names in introductions and things. Casting is a pain because if two characters sound similar, then scenes get confusing. Also, we have to be VERY careful with just about every word and inflection used. There's no visual to re-enforce an emotion or thought-process, so we have to use dialogue only to have something come across. "Often times the listener doesn't fully understand what they just heard until the next episode or some time later." --- That's mostly why people complain about slower episodes, but don't realize that the slower episodes raise the stakes and set up the other episodes to have that action. Because it's audio only, we have to spend more time in setups and establish things than visual mediums that can do the same in seconds.

The pluses? Not having to SHOW anything. We can do pretty much anything we want in the story and not have to worry about settings. There's also some scenes that the "devil is in the details". If we were to show you the
SPOILER 
then people would over-analyze everything to the point where anything and everything can be proven wrong. Same with Datu's matagun. The actual mechanics of it doesn't have to be shown, so we don't have to worry about the exact specs. So, we get to fudge some stuff.

If it were film, I would do similar story-telling techniques, but not the same. I would rarely show what the zombies looked like. The focus would be on the characters and reactions, and not the special effects that go into making the monsters. I also would show little to no blood or gore. We do more in the audio drama because it can't be seen, so there's already a filter. As much as I write this stuff, I am not an advocate of visual violence.
I like the way the imagination takes over. I'm sure we all have different ideas about certain aspects of the story, such as What the Colony looks like, What the Little Ones look like, how fat Kalani is etc.
Even when I listen to the show on the move, I still picture each scene in my mind - that kind of effect can only be achieved through not only giod story writing, but good story telling as well.

Using one's imagination to "see what's happening" is a great way for the listener to pay greater attention and get involved with the story. I believe that's one of the reasons why the show is so popular with the fans.