How to Create a Dramatic Reading Script

These instructions are intended to help you create a script your readers can read from for a dramatic reading project. Most of these scripts are now created as Google Docs, which I find the easiest way to share files online, but you can use anything that lets you format, edit, and share a document with a public link. I describe how to use Google Docs here, because that’s what I use.

Set up a Google Drive and Folder

You’ll have to set up a Google Drive if you don’t have one already, to store your Google Docs files in folders to keep them organized. Go to the Google Drive Help page to learn how to set up a Drive and folders to store your Google Docs in. (You’ll need to set up a gmail account first if you don’t have one already. You can use a pseudonym for the email address if you don’t want to reveal your real name.)

Google gives you up to 15 GB of storage space for free. That’s plenty of room for lots of scripts. I recommend storing each book in a separate folder. The link to that folder is what you’ll put into your first post (alternatively, or in addition, you can put the link to each chapter file into your Magic Window)

Create Your Script

Once you have your Google Drive set up and your folder created, it’s time to start creating your script! While you can prepare a script from scratch in Google Docs, I prefer to prepare my chapter scripts in Microsoft Word on my computer first and then upload the files individually to Google Docs. That also gives me backup copies just in case anything goes wrong.

Collect Your Content

Copy and paste the content of the original work from a Project Gutenberg (PG) or Internet Archive (or other source) file. Make sure the work is in the public domain (PD), no matter where you find it, before you begin! PG content is public domain in the US, but may not be in other countries that base PD status on the author’s year of death. It must be PD in both the US and your country, if you live outside the US. If you’re not sure about its PD status, ask about it in either the Dramatic Reading Suggestions forum or the Need Help? Got Advice? forum and one of the admins will check it out for you.

Creating your content is easiest to do from PG html files because you can just copy and paste it into a Word document; other sources may require you to download a PDF and either convert it and proofread the result, or painstakingly copy and paste the contents from a PDF and proofread.

Since LibriVox policy requires that the whole text be used as much as possible, dramatic reading Book Coordinators (BCs) are asked to comply with an "honor code" when preparing online texts. This means you cannot alter the original text when preparing an online version, apart from color-coding lines or inserting character names/line breaks to turn a prose text into a script.

Once you have the contents in a Word document, make sure it contains the whole book (no need for the copyright information at the end of PG files, just the work itself). Then divide it into chapters and create a separate file for each chapter (best to keep it simple and just name them Chapter 1, Chapter 2, etc. You can add chapter titles as well, but that isn’t essential.)

Upload Your Files to Your Google Docs/Drive

Now create a folder in your Google Drive (in the “My Drive” area) by clicking the down arrow beside “My Drive” and selecting “New folder.” Name it with the title of the work you’re preparing the script for, then open that new folder and upload your Word files by dragging and dropping them from your computer to the folder. Remember to go in and click “Share” in each file, and select “Anyone who has the link,” before the project starts so your readers can open the files.

Adapt Original Content to Turn It into a Script

There are three major tasks to adapt your content into a script.

Make the Text Readable!

Before you identify the characters’ lines, make sure your document is as readable as possible for as many readers as possible. A lot of LibriVoxers are in their golden years, which means their eyesight isn’t what it once was. Some may be color-blind or have other visual or reading impairments.

Set the body text size to at least 14 pt type, use a sans serif font (like Calibri, Open Sans, Arial, or even Play), and increase the line spacing to at least 1.15. If you use color for the text, make sure it’s a dark color on a light background. Don’t use yellow for text! It’s very hard to read on a screen, even with good eyesight. If you use colored text and highlighting for dialogue, make sure the highlighting is significantly lighter than the text so that the text stands out.

Separate and Mark Up Content to Turn It into a Script

Having novels broken into play-like scripts is essential and very helpful to the editing process. It also cuts down on lost/mixed-up lines, and makes it much easier for readers to navigate their lines. Two steps here; best to do them separately to ensure accuracy:

Step 1: Type each speaking character’s name before each of their lines throughout the entire chapter and insert line breaks between dialogue and narration. Look for the text that’s between quotation marks and think carefully before assigning anything else to a reader. Some coordinators try to assign bits that sound like they might be said by a character even if they’re not shown as speech. That doesn’t always work.

Here’s an example I came across recently (the purple words were assigned to a reader, but later reassigned to the narrator):

Dicky said he wasn’t yet, but he had thought of being a mining engineer someday, and going to Klondike.

It’s best to rely on quotation marks to indicate speeches, and treat the rest as narration. Once you’ve added the character's name at the beginning of each line, readers can easily search for them using Ctrl-F/Cmd-F. It would look like this:

Narrator: He said—

Oswald: ‘Oh, yes, I daresay. And then you would be wanting the coconut and things again the next minute.’

Noel: ‘No, I shouldn’t,’

Narrator: Noel said. It turned out afterwards he and H. O. had eaten the coconut, which only made it worse.

Step 2: This step is optional, but a lot of readers like it, as it makes it even easier to find their lines.

Use a different color and/or highlight color to code each character’s lines (use the same color for each character in all chapters). You don’t need to color-code the narrator’s text; they will read everything that’s not highlighted. Just adding boldface to the word Narrator will help that reader spot it. There are 9 different text colors in Google Docs to choose from, and another 9 highlight colors available if you have more than 9 characters. And although there are plenty of variations on those 9 colors available in Google Docs, I advise against using the variations, as it can be difficult to differentiate between similar shades of the same color, especially if there’s a lot of color-coding. (However, you may want to darken the cyan blue a bit as it’s hard to read.)

Here's the same content as above, only color-coded:

Narrator: He said—

Oswald: ‘Oh, yes, I daresay. And then you would be wanting the coconut and things again the next minute.’

Noel: ‘No, I shouldn’t,’

Narrator: Noel said. It turned out afterwards he and H. O. had eaten the coconut, which only made it worse.

I generally use up those first 9 colors, then use them again, with a harmonious (lighter!) highlight color added, for additional characters. That allows for 18 characters, and I can always vary the highlighting/text color combinations to create even more if needed. Some BCs also use underlining to create more options.

Color-code each of the characters in the chapter once, and then use the “paint format tool” in Google Docs to copy that coding to every one of that character’s lines in the rest of the chapter. This is a time-consuming task, and you’ll need to go through each chapter several times to ensure you’ve caught all the speeches and coded them correctly. It’s well worth spending time on this, however, as discovering two years after you started a project that a reader who has since left LibriVox missed lines because they weren’t coded/separated correctly can be painful. You'll get to know your book very well by the time you’re finished.

Add Character List/Intro-Outro/Cast of Characters to Scripts

To help your readers and proof-listener quickly see who’s in each chapter, create a character list at the top of each chapter, just above or below the chapter number/title. (You can also use this list to copy your color-coding from for the rest of the chapter.)

Now add the intro (the LibriVox disclaimer) below your character list (perhaps with the heading “Start of Script” just above it). Your readers (especially the narrator) will thank you for including everything that they need to read here so they can just open the Google Doc and start reading. Similarly, you can add the characters’ voice credits to the text just before their first line (e.g., “Alice, read by Jane Doe”), which helps them remember to include it when they read the first chapter of their role.

Add “End of Chapter [Number]” to the end of each chapter, and “End of [Title of Book]” to the end of the last chapter.

At the start or end of the book (your choice), add the words "Cast of Characters" for the narrator to read. That will be followed by each character (including the narrator) reading their own role name (“Alice, read by Jane Doe”), which the editor will copy and paste from each reader’s first chapter submission.

Also, it’s nice to provide a credit for the other volunteers who worked on the book, which could come just before that “Cast of Characters.” Here’s a suggested format for that:

The Story of the Treasure Seekers is brought to you by the following LibriVox volunteers:

Meta Coordinator - Redrun

Editor - Krista Zaleski

Proof Listener - Winnifred Assmann

These credits could be at the start of the first chapter, end of the last chapter, or in a separate file called “Cast of Characters” that appears at the beginning or end of the book. The separate file option is probably best if you have a long cast list.

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And that’s all there is to it! Remember not to rush through this work; getting everything right here can make a huge difference to your workload later.

Created by Winnifred (October 2024)