It can be hard to know how to start marking a podcast, especially if it's your first time. Planning, or pre-production, is an important part of podcast creation. The more time you put into preparation, the easier it will be to record and edit your audio.
There are some key ideas to consider that make a good podcast:
The only way to get people to listen and keep listening is to be passionate about what you are saying. It doesn't matter what your podcast is about - if you care about it, that will come through. Even the most everyday things become exciting when the person telling you about it is excited. So make sure you choose a topic that really excites you and that you want to talk about.
Who is your target audience? This is a key point. Who you want your audience to be will shape your whole podcast. Your audience determines not only the content of your podcast but how you tell your story. If you want your audience to be based in your own group of friends, town, country or region you will need to think about what language, dialect and slang you use; different kings of audio cues that signal your environment (local sounds, music, accents, etc); and how to make the content of your show reflect local realities.
How you tell your story depends on your audience and what kind of radio show you want to make. Do you want to tell it in a conversational style? Do you want to have short and very journalistic interviews? Do you want to make a one-off show or a three-part series? Will your podcast go for 5 minutes, 20 minutes, or 2 hours? All these kinds of decisions will shape how you tell your story.
People often do other things while listening to radio so you need to make sure you have a strong, clear structure. Keeping a strong thematic thread throughout the show is one way to help guide the listener - that means making it clear again and again what the podcast is about. You should have an introduction and conclusion to the podcast to introduce the listener to the topic. You want to make it as easy as possible for your listeners to follow along and feel included.
Podcast are usually around 20 minutes but make sure you know your specific assignment guidelines. The length of your podcast should be dependent on your content and your audience. Err on the side of a shorter podcast. Really think about how you will keep your listener's attention - what is the maximum amount of time that you spend listening to radio and what makes listening interesting (like music, sounds, different voices).
Set a goal of how many episodes you will make in a period of time. Many podcasts release a new episode every week during their ‘season’ - but this is an ambitious goal for a new podcast. It is better to have an excellent podcast every four weeks instead of a mediocre podcast every week.
How much time are you setting aside to make this podcast? This will dictate how long your podcast can be and how frequently you produce new episodes.
It depends on which format you want to work in. Consider the difference between a topic and a story:
A topic can be anything from "Intimacy and Ethics in Artistic Representation" to "Challenges to people experiencing homelessness in Providence."
A story is a specific sequence of events inside that topic. Stories are about movement; they end differently than they began.
A story inside the first topic might be, "My ex-boyfriend made a movie about our break up and posted it on Facebook."
A story inside the second topic might be, "Ten years after Camp Runamuck, a community of people experiencing homelessness on the banks of the Providence River, was disbanded by the City of Providence, one of its founders remembers how the camp was formed and reflects on challenges to people facing homelessness in Providence today." (Both descriptions come from stories on Now Here This.)
Most podcasts can be broken into three different forms: audio story, interview, and experimental.
You might have an audio story, which has a beginning, middle, and end with a problem and characters. This format typically requires the most writing and production.
Or your podcast might be a conversation between two or more people, with minimal narration and some contextualization, which can also become an audio piece.
Or it might be a poem with sound design, a sound collage, or other experimental media. These pieces can be hard to describe until you've actually gotten started.
Tip: Think about making a storyboard or podcast plan to organize your material. A storyboard or plan can help you figure out your main theme and how you want to link all of your different components to your podcast theme (songs, interviews, sounds, etc).
NPR uses Project Blueprint to plan storytelling