Production

We separate Transcription, Story Structure, Writing and Recording Narration, Technical Editing / Software, and Using Music and Sound into 5 discrete pages to best communicate the basics of each.

The actual process of producing an audio story isn't as neat as all that.

You might have cut your transcript into chunks, organized it instinctually, and settled on a structure. You might've chosen the juiciest clip from the middle of the story to use as a hook, only to return to the audio file and realize a siren from outside interrupts right as your interviewee's voice breaks with emotion. And that's okay!

As with any creative practice, it's important to remain flexible as you craft your audio story. It makes sense to come up with a script draft before digging into the minutiae of tech editing, but you want to be listening to clips as you create the script, not working exclusively from a transcript. And maybe you'll write and record narration and edit it into the larger piece, but if you play it for friends and they express confusion over why things happened a certain way, or say you sounded really low energy, it might be time to re-write and re-record.

Moving back and forth between story structure, narration, and your project in Adobe Audition is a big part of the process.