Investment is what lifts your play from good to great. The more investment the audience, the more they will need to tune in each and every week. Remember that people are trading a half hour, hour, or longer of their lives every time they listen to your audio drama. As a producer your job is to give them the best value you can for that investment.
We have all said after watching a particularly bad movie, "Well there's two hours of my life I will never get back again." There's a reason for that. People need to feel that they haven't wasted their moments on poor story.
In short they need to be entertained in a way that will have them aching for more.
How do you get an audience invested in your story?
While there are many tricks in the trade, beyond all the points I've made in producing audio drama in the past, I'm going to focus on three:
1. Be Passionate About the Subject
The writer/producer/actors/sound engineers need to get excited about the project they are in. If you don't care really about the show, then that will go through. Professional actors sleepwalk through their lines in boring movies. Writers phone it in some times, and producers get lazy. Make sure the project you have signed on for gives you passion. Or at the very least, you can generate passion in getting involved.
2. Start Early
To get your characters beloved by an audience you need to start early. This means in the first scene one of two things (or preferably both) needs to happen if you want your listeners to be invested in the outcome of your characters:
a. The Characters Need to be Identifiable
This means the audience have to be able to look at the characters no matter how interesting and quirky you can make them and say, "That person is just like me" or "I know that person really well". They need to connect with the character in a personal way. This is often achieved with a connection to every day occurrences. Even Harry Potter has problems with the people in his family. Luke Skywalker just wants to do something with his life instead of staying on his Uncle's farm. Thomas A. Anderson (Neo) dreams of having a life and not being the loser drifting in and out of jobs.
Main characters need to be associated with you in some way.
b. Begin Sympathy from the Get Go
Characters who have it hard, have our love. Nobody wants to see someone go through difficulties, and yet that is exactly why we watch movies. Investment means getting your characters in a world of unfair early on. Your character may work too much and it's hurting her family life or your character may love someone who is not interested in them. Your character may have said something stupid that has hurt his friendships. Your character may get dumped, fired, or ridiculed at a family gathering. Whatever the situation, creating sympathy creates investment.
3. Goals and Desires
Characters have goals and desires. As a short form, action and epic characters have goals (tasks to complete) and dramatic characters have desires (relationships to form).
Great writing always combines the two but both need to be articulated in a simple way for the audience.
Ask yourself this about your main character. "What does ____ want?"
If you are unable to answer it in a simple phrase, you need to go retool the character and probably the plot.
What does Indiana Jones want in The Last Crusade?
He wants to save his father.
Yes, he wants to find the cup of Christ, but its never been the driving force in the movie for him. Some people argue that Indy III is the same structure as Indy I and that's why its successful. I disagree. In Raiders of the Lost Ark Indy is clearly searching for the Ark. It even takes precedent over saving Marion in one point. But in The Last Crusade, Indiana is in it right to the end to save his father. We're invested because he has a goal we can understand beyond fortune and glory. He wants to rescue his father, but he wants to rescue his relationship with him too. Magic.
Similarly, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull doesn't work for us because we're not sure of Indy's motivation. Is it because of the mystery? Because the Russians have it? Because of his son? Because of Marion? Fortune and glory? To prove he still can? All these motivations show up. None are king and the story is diluted because of it.
Create investment in your series and you'll have an audience lining up at the door to your RSS feed. Have no investment and watch the numbers die off like Browncoats through the years.
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