Scripted Or Unscripted?

In producing programming, there are two basic approaches we can take. We can speak top of mind, off the cuff. Or, we can use a script. What are the advantages and disadvantages of either approach? What can we take from those as it relates to our personal development? In today's episode, I share my experience as a writer to explore those questions.

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Listen to the podcast here

Scripted Or Unscripted?

Many podcasters ad-lib their programs. Speaking straight from the heart off the cuff is a conversational natural way to connect with your audience. It feels like the host is speaking directly to us. Done well can create and strengthen an emotional bond. It can be immediate and engaging. It lets us see the personality of the host, at least the one they show the public.

As if you can't tell, that's not the way I created this show. I write my episodes and then read and record the copy. This is the other approach to programming, producing scripts. Premeditating the content of a program sacrifices that immediacy we spoke about, yet it's the dominant way programming is produced because what we gain in so doing is the opportunity to spend more time and effort to gather and arrange our thoughts before we share them. That's why it's the approach I use.

Writing is thinking. Good writing is clear thinking. Great writing is effectively sharing thoughts and stories that have power. They stick with us, inspire us, and better our lives by broadening and deepening our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. This is what I aspire to do with the episodes. What qualifies me to aim for such a lofty goal? I didn't start there.

Writing is thinking. Good writing is clear thinking. Great writing is effectively sharing thoughts and stories that have power.

For decades, I have helped people with their communication skills, their ability to influence others and their clarity about how they can uniquely contribute to the world. To the degree I have been useful and effective, I credit my habits as a lifelong learner. Specifically, I have been an avid reader and writer my entire life. Before I got into this career track, I learned to write screenplays. I read dozens of books on the topic. I took classes at Gotham University and wrote three full-length screenplays, none of which have ever seen the light of day.

When I went into the interpersonal communication field, I began writing weekly articles and did so for years. I wrote hundreds of them, most between 1 and 2,000 words in length. The people who read what I wrote or worked with me to improve their communication skills often shared stories of how they found the thoughts I shared valuable. These experiences strengthened my skills.

With growing confidence, I continued to stretch myself. My reading and writing habits have always had a theme. They are driven by an insatiable appetite for learning about the human condition. I don't know exactly why I'm this way but it reaches back to childhood. I was fascinated by Greek and North mythology and read it all over and over. I continuously consume both classic books and contemporary informational content, and I write.

It took decades and plenty of help but I wrote a novel. One is good enough that a publisher invested over $10,000 of their scarce resources into its production. A novel is a challenging thing to create at least one that succeeds in achieving the vision of great writing I mentioned. It's like a puzzle where all the pieces are connected so if you move one piece, all the others move too.

Maybe a gigantic Rubik's cube is a good way to imagine it. I used to regard fiction writing as a form that gave the author great freedom. Since they are making up the story, an author can go wherever they wish. Only after learning how to write a novel did I learn this is not the case. Fiction is only valuable when it is true psychologically, philosophically, and congruent. It plays by the rules the author chooses and establishes. Should the author transgress against these precepts, the value of their story collapses.

Scripted Versus Unscripted: Fiction is only valuable when it is true psychologically, philosophically, and congruent.

Writing long-form fiction helped me further develop as an interpersonal communications consultant. I didn't know that going in. I was simply following a muse but I did know I was exploring the truth about human nature. It's what motivated me to persist through the four drafts that failed to realize the vision of the story. When you explore the human condition by creating characters with conflicting motives, perceptions, qualities, and agendas, what you find is it's not long before the characters start taking over.

They drive their stories. They want things. They do things that surprise you. Before I experienced this myself, I didn't understand how this was possible and how that could have worked. It was truly an amazing discovery. It's evidence to me that we are not singular individuals. It's more realistic and useful to consider ourselves as a community of people because the experiences and emotions of our lives never go away. They are embodied and archived in our brains in ways so complicated that it's helpful to think of them as personas.

Maybe this strikes you as strange or maybe you think I'm talking about schizophrenia but I perceive it as a natural and wonderful feature of how our brains operate. We generally lose the ability to recall all of our memories and those we can are colored and filtered by the perceptive frameworks we had when they were formed, as well as our mindsets at the moment so that we recall them.

Scripted Versus Unscripted: We generally lose the ability to recall all of our memories, and those we can are colored and filtered by the perceptive frameworks we had when they were formed, as well as our mindsets at the moment, so that we recall them.

These frameworks represent our points of view. The fact that these morph over time is part of what we are pointing to here. Our thirteen-year-old self is still in our brains and sometimes under certain circumstances, perhaps connected to experiences of that time in our lives. Parts of that persona rise to the surface. It's the same for the myriad other frameworks we develop in life.

I don't know how psychologically accurate this model is but I find it useful. It gives us grace, allows us to see ourselves with greater resolution, and helps us dial back our hubris while at the same time building our capacity for empathy. These are the pathways that allow us to move in the direction of life. What do I mean by that? The most concise way I have come to think of it is the three Cs, Consciousness, Connection, and Creation.

The best I can tell, these encapsulate the highest and best of human experience. They seem to me what life is all about. In this manner of thinking, the three Cs are what we are here to realize. How does all of that relate to scripted versus unscripted programming? One way to think about it is to take a closer look at the writing process no matter what we are writing or who we are writing for.

When you get right down to it, writing is thinking. It's the process of capturing thoughts with language as precise as we can manage. It's about arranging those thoughts in ways that are logically and artfully sound enough to convey meaning. That means writing is about editing. Leaving out the words and thoughts that muddy the picture reduces clarity and distracts from the main point.

This is the 80% of the writing iceberg that's under the surface. It goes unseen. It's not something we do when we are sharing our thoughts verbally. Those tend to be muddled with words that aren't quite right and thoughts that aren't fully considered. The act of writing gives us the time to address those deficiencies if we dedicate ourselves to that task.

While the act of writing makes thoughts tangible, it doesn't make them sound, clear moving, or useful. What does? We are back to what I said about writing fiction and the truth. To write truthfully, we need the ability to think critically. Sadly, it's an ability that is not prioritized in public school curricula or even those at the university level. As a result, there's a deficiency in this skill that is evident by how impulse-driven our society has become.

Critical thinking is one of the primary ways we access and expand our power and our agency. Learning to write and write well is one way to build our capacity for critical thinking. I spoke of paths. This is another such path. This is the path to wisdom. This is also why this program is scripted. I don't claim my scripts are perfect or even great. Those are aspirational goals, ones that are for others to say but I am further down these paths than I would have been without the lifelong habit of reading and writing. For that reason, I will always do so and I encourage others to do the same.

Critical thinking is one of the primary ways we access and expand our power and our agency. Learning to write and write well is one way to build our capacity for critical thinking.

If you haven't already established those habits, start small. Journal for a few minutes. The key is to marshal the discipline to do so every day. You need not write pages and pages. You simply need to capture your thoughts and explore them. One thing we can do is to look back on each day and list three victories. What three things did you accomplish that day that moved you furthest in the desired direction? What three things could you do tomorrow to do the same? What went right? What went wrong? What did you learn about yourself? What could you do to improve?

The simple act of chronicling our potential for growth focuses us in a powerful way. It invites critical thinking about ourselves at a minimum. Such practice can unlock previously unnoticed doors. In a way, it's like scripting, not a podcast or any of the programs. This is like scripting your life and there's plenty of power there. Let's go.