Radio College

Organizing the Writing Process

by Various

The following discussion about organizing the writing process took place in May of 1995 in the Pro conference on the WELL (Whole Earth Electronic Link).

From Robin White -

Hey, what's your working method? I have dozens of pages of transcribed interviews cut up in little piles on the floor. I am busy sorting them and putting them close to other piles to which they relate. But I can't get to the door because of the piles. Is there some other way? Do you guys work with tape or script?

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From Daniel Grossman -

I've discovered that sometimes when I spool tape onto the floor, my swivel chair rolls over it and crinkles the tape. This is a good way winnowing down the number of cuts you have. Any other questions?

P.S. This method doesn't with with digital work stations.

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From Benjamin Shapiro -

Often when editing on my workstation, I will dump sound files in the trash, empty the trash (this is macintosh lingo of course) and then use Norton Utilities to try to recover the deleted files. I find this adds that extra thrill to my day -- not unlike your technique of mashing the tape under a chair caster!

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From Jay Allison -

Robin, get your transcribed interivews on disk. This is why God invented word processors.

A bulletin or marker board is still handy sometimes too.

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From Robin White -

Jay - my interviews are on disk - but somehow that's too linear - I sort of need to wander among my actualities, taking one from here, one from over there...

How do you use your marker board?

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From Jay Allison -

I just write up all the fragments, then start drawing lines between them, erasing, restructuring, generally creating order from chaos.

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From Dan Gediman -

I have found that taking transcribed acts and actually cutting them up and rearranging them in a table does wonders. Since I don't have a very big monitor on my computer, doing this in my computer is not very helpful. I too use the marker board approach as well. I find older techniques help me visualize "the big picture" better.

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From Pamela Swift -

This doesn't actually relate, but when we used to work with (reel to reel) tape and had lots of little pieces from different sources, I invented a long yard-stick like piece of wood with glued clothes pins on it, numbered to 100. We'd hang each piece in order, then, I'd take em down and hand em in order as my engineer spliced em on. When someone opened the door and the wind blew we'd all be sunk. Haven't seen anything like my invention anywhere. Think I oughta patent it?

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From Milt Lee -

Robin, here's how we do it (STILL): I go through and rough edit, while keeping a very good record of where every thing is that I want. While I'm doing this, I'm copying from the DAT to a cassette for transcription. We transcribe all the rough edited tapes in order and when we're all done, we print out 2 copies of the transcript. This has been as much as 50 pages. We use WORD so we also put line #'s on the transcript (continuous) Then Jayme goes through the transcript once and marks what she thinks is good - I look at it and add or subtract. Then she cuts out the good stuff ( with the line #'s) and goes to McDonald's and arranges the stuff on yellow pads with a glue stick - all the while writing narration. We are now up to the 4th edit. She generally uses envelopes to hold "like minded" pieces until she's done. Then I arrange the pieces in the computer (adding people's names and the first line # of the master transcript.) Then we count the characters: for an hour long show we need 45 - 48,000 characters) And then we cut somemore. When we finally get down to the right length script (according to characters) THEN and only then do I start to cut tape. This way I only edit once and I edit in the order of the show.

BTW the #'s are to help me find which tape and which cut on the tape the quote is from. Otherwise after you put all those little pieces of paper together you can't find where they came from. A royal pain.

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From Daniel Grossman -

It is really great to hear how everyone puts their pieces together. I'll tell you how I do it, which is an adaptation of how I*thought*Jay did it after visiting his studio last summer. I saw his maker board but didn't at the time understand the critical role it played, and apparantly he kept me in the dark!

Anyway, I do a loose transcription on my word processor of my raw tape. I try not to stop the tape much, so this process takes maybe about fifty percent longer than the tape time. Then I print out the transcript and mark the parts that seem most interesting. Then I go back to the original and make a dub of each section that I liked (since I use DAT there is no generational loss). I try to copy sections roughly in the order in which I think I might use them. Then I write the story, filling in the holes between the pieces that I have dubbed. Finally, I make an open reel copy of what I decided during the script-writing was best, and make a fine edit of the tape.

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From Joe Richman -

It's interesting to hear about so many people working from transcripts. I've always found that I can't really write or organize a piece unless I am constantly listening to the tape.

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From John K. Diliberto -

We work with everything in the computer. An assistant transcribes the interview [I know :-) ] and then I start cutting into it for the actualities I like and start writing the story around it. I don't listen until I dump it into the DAW and then it starts getting seriusly sliced and diced. There is someting about having the entire script laid out on printed pages for that global view that I miss, but I've gotten over it.

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From Robin White -

Hey, this is fascinating. Milt - I think my method is most like yours except for McDonalds and the glue stick. Thanks for the suggestion about line #s though - didn't know about that feature of WORD.

I could never use an assistant because before I transcribe I look for the emotional tape - would never trust anyone else to get that right. Then I only transcribe that and don't listen again until after the script is written.

Joe, I wonder if it makes for a different kind of script - more literary or more "audio-ary" - the way one works. I did do one piece without ever writing a script and it was more like making music - I was more concerned with the rhythm of the voices and the way the sounds of the voices offset each other, less concerned with the content.

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From John K. Diliberto -

You must not work on deadline!

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From Robin White -

True, that was an experimental project done for its own sake.

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From Dan Gediman -

I do a hybrid of all of the above (although Milt's ideas are food for thought, esp. the character numbers needed for an hour of radio. I'm still in the dark about the need for line #'s though). I go through the original tapes and listen for the good tape. Dub *that* to DAT, then send a cassette of *that* tape to be transcibed and then work off the transcription to write the script. But, as I have said above, I like printing it out and looking at it and, although I haven't done it in a while, literally cutting and pasting ala Jayme. This is a great dicussion BTW.

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From Robin White -

When do you start thinking about sound? Do you get sound before or after the fact, what sounds do you go for? What sounds work and what don't?

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From Milt Lee -

The line #'s are so that after you have cut up all the pieces it's very easy to find where that *act* actually came from. You look back in your master transcript, note that the act came from tape 5 or where ever, then you go back to your tape log that tells you the beginning and ending words of the quotes that you ruff edited, and look at the time or counter # that you originally wrote down and voila! There it is!!! no muss no fusss. It's kinda time intensive on the front end but overall you save hours and hours - on a long project - our shows are ususally 1 hr - it can save you weeks. Not to mention frustration.

As far as sound goes, I gather it as I go, and log it just like actualities. It helps me figure out the angle that the piece is going to take since most of our shows have both a lot of sound and music. BTW when I ruff edit, I generally do it with the heart in mind, rather than some factual idea of what the show is about - I figure that if there's a fact that needs to be there the narrator can add it if the people are tight enough in their observations.

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From Tatiana Schreiber -

This is a great discussion, especially with regard to individual versus collaborative methods.

My method takes about a million hours and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. I log all my tape (not a complete transcript) making note of the quality of the tape as a go. If I have doubts about whether I'm going to use this tape, I'll try to have someone else transribe it (if I have a grant) - but I'll still listen to the tape while reading the transcript, and fill in my own notes abut the quality. Then I read all my transcripts, marking the good stuff with 1, 2, or 3 check marks to the side, or "great" if I know I must use that tape. Then, believe it or not, I color code all the good stuff with colors corresponding to main themes of my project.

Next, I start writing, dubbing good tape as I write, and shifting the text of the logs into my script, filling in the exact transcription. When I'm done, I have a script about two times too long, whereupon I hope I have a good editor and start working with her, arguing for why I want to use all my good tape.

I no longer use the method of dubbing all the good tape first and then editing it and writing from there. So I guess I've shifted from the sound-first approach to the writing first approach. Sometimes I use a combination, dubbing all the good tape for sections of the project that are collage-like. I use a different method for features, but I still log all my tape first, including most of my ambient sound, because it gives me ideas about how I want to write the story. Often after reading the transcripts I'll write an outline including the characters, names of the tape I want to use, and the log numbers (tape counter numbers).

Well, like everyone, I could go on for days talking about the idosyncrasies of my method and avoiding logging tape. _________________________________

From Robin White -

I love the idea of color coding - that would really help identify my piles visually. BTW they are still on my floor, except by now, under the influence of time and passing dogs they are gradually merging into one great mess of transcript.