Um… (Why I write outlines before each podcast.)

• Short one today, and kind of a “back-of-house” focus.
• I thought it might be worthwhile to share a little bit about how the sausage gets made. My MO for creating this podcast each day.
• So different podcasters have different philosophies on show prep.
  • Some completely wing it. They may have a general idea of what they’re going to talk about, but they improvise, playing off of their cohosts to create something spur-of-the-moment
  • Others are more like an NPR host, carefully preparing a script and effectively reading it on the air.
• I fall somewhere in between, but if I’m honest, a little bit closer to the latter.. I come into each recording session with a pretty well-fleshed-out outline of what I want to say. There are a bunch of reasons I do this.
  • For one, while I may have a topic in mind before I record, I’m often surprised to see just how much that topic can shift, based on what I write down. Occasionally, I end up discarding my original idea and picking a different topic entirely.
  • Second reason for outlining my podcast scripts: I make a better show when I plan it out ahead of time. There’s a limit, a legit ceiling, to how clever I can be off the top of my head. When I improvise too much, I feel like I too often just scratch the surface of a topic. Gaps in logic and obvious corollaries go unexplored, just because they didn’t spring to mind in the moment. Whereas when I outline, and especially when I read through that outline a time or two, I end up restructuring my thoughts into something resembling an argument. “Oh, that belongs up there,” or, “Hey, that’s kind of irrelevant, isn’t it!”
  • Finally, while outlining my ideas ahead of time requires some time investment on the front end, it saves me a ton of work in postproduction.
    • Because I know pretty much what I want to say, I don’t go chasing ideas down rabbit trails that lead nowhere. I don’t stuff every pause with meaningless filler words like “Ummmmmm”, “Errrrrr,” “So…….”. And I’m less likely to stumble over my own tongue trying to get my ideas out of my brain.
    • Now, I do still occasionally mess up. And I haven’t yet excised the word “Um” from my vocabulary. But those missteps are relatively minimal, and fairly easy to clean up in the post-podcast edit.
    • I edit the podcast on the iPad, mainly because my favorite app is so geared to that specific use case. A quick swipe of the Apple Pencil, and that “Um” is banished to the digital netherworld.
• Of course, there are downsides to scripts and outlines
  • First, you lose a little bit of spontaneity and energy when you have a script in hand. It’s just easy to hear to difference between a recitation and an improvised take. I try to keep my delivery loose and relaxed, but I know it’s not quite the same as “doing it live.”
  • Second, this approach really works best for a solo podcast. If I had a cohost (which I’d love to eventually have!), I’d need to be a little bit more nimble, a little better able to give and take on the fly.
  • But for now, it works for me. I like the end result, and I feel like it’s worth the investment.
• So that’s my justification for the podcast outline. Just in case you’re curious, I’m gonna dump this outline into the show notes, so you can see for yourself how closely I hewed to my script for this episode.
• What’s your take on podcast show prep? Do you like to plan every pivot, or do you prefer to show up and see what spills out of your head? I’d love to hear from you…Thanks very much

Video Game Coin sound effect by harrietniamh. Licensed under CC BY 3.0.