7 tips to find your real podcast voice : NPR

Photograph Illustration by Becky Harlan/NPR

Image Illustration by Becky Harlan/NPR

When I (Abē Levine) started off interning right here at NPR, I labored evenings as a marriage ceremony server. And a person thing often made all those shifts for a longer time: speeches.

Individuals toasts honoring the newlyweds had been often stuffy, above-rehearsed and thirsting for identity.

If you want to channel your reliable self, ditch the podium. That is a piece of seem tips I got from the information “Sounding Like By yourself,” amid other podcasting resources at Transom.

When it will come to making a podcast or drafting a toast, you are not in this article to publish an essay or give a presidential tackle. You are composing for the ear. This indicates producing in a everyday, conversational tone – like you might be telling a story to a buddy, or even your pet iguana. Your purpose is to tell your tale in a voice that’s real to how you speak.

To get some aid with this, I talked with Lifetime Package host Marielle Segarra. Her to start with piece of guidance is to be economical with your terms.

Occasionally, a 25-cent word is superior than a $2 word

Fancier isn’t really greater in radio. “So it’d be like stating ‘the vehicle’ as a substitute of ‘the motor vehicle.’ Why would you say that? No one particular talks like that,” Segarra says. A $5 term, on the other hand, isn’t automatically a massive or smaller word. It truly is a single that fits the condition just suitable, like when you say “that slaps!” to describe a tune that helps make you vibe on a molecular stage.

One particular thought per sentence

Run-on sentences heading in numerous directions are your enemy. For a listener seeking to understand you, it really is like herding cats. Continue to keep your sentences focused by indicating what you suggest.

Say it aloud

Say your concepts out loud – at the time just before you write them, and again right after you’ve got written them down. Talk to yourself: Do I sound like me? Get a breath, relax your shoulders, and check out once more.

Segarra in some cases starts her sentences with, “Hey mother …” to get herself into a at ease room. She’ll document her narration – we connect with this “monitoring” – and then she’ll delete the “Hey mother” afterwards, when modifying the audio.

She also endorses which include terms that you use every single working day, you know what I imply? Placing phrases like “I guess…” or “It truly is kind of…” just before, just after, or involving two ideas can aid you audio extra conversational.

Mix up your tone

Transform how and in which you anxiety seems and emphasize phrases, Segarra says. Instead of finding louder, try out receiving quieter or adding a mounting curious tone to specific text, for example. If you’re just providing a information update, you may need to seem far more neutral, but if you happen to be telling a tale, you happen to be using your voice to continue to keep people today on their toes.

Use far more contractions

Apostrophes are your close friend. To seem fewer formal, use “will not” rather of “will not” and “do not” alternatively of “do not.” Prevent long, complicated sentences listeners never need to listen to all that sound.

Get jiggy wit’ it (wiggle, wiggle, wiggle)!

Following doing your initial reading, do it yet again – but outrageously, radically, all additional like! Permit your self go into new dimensions of whimsy and bizarre. Strike document and get even bigger. Even if you will not in the long run go with that model of by yourself, you’ll have stretched your variety outside of your classroom looking through voice.

Recall your viewers

Whether or not you are making a marriage ceremony toast or making a podcast, you are setting up a conversation. Your friends, family members, lecturers and everybody out there is listening. Just talk to us.

Persons are hungry to listen to your voice, so raise it.

This electronic tale originally appeared on NPR’s University student Podcast Challenge newsletter, where you can get weekly updates on our once-a-year contest. You can subscribe in this article.

Extra information and facts on our center and superior college contest can be located right here.

Visual style and design and enhancement by: Beck Harlan

Edited by: Steve Drummond and Danielle Nett