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-The belief
The moment
Notes on the script
Suggested lines
First line
Last line
Since the 1950s, radio has aired short personal belief essays - ordinary people reading what they believe, in a few minutes, on the air. Here is a studio for writing your own.
Read On AirYour belief, in three minutes on the air
The form is simple and hard: one belief, said plainly in the first person, carried by one moment from your own life, told to a listener rather than preached at them. Paste a draft - the page times it on a tape deck, finds the lines that state your belief and the ones that preach, and lays it out as a radio script. One run gives you an editor's verdict and notes that quote your own words.
Try a sample:
1 Your draft
Time on the air
2 The studio free
ON AIR
The script
a belief, in the first person telling the listener what to do 0:30 every 30 seconds at 150 words a minute (an estimate - read it aloud to be sure)
3 The producer's reading
One run reads your draft and the page's counts and gives one verdict, checked in this order: name the belief if no sentence says what you believe; find the moment if the draft never tells one particular time and place from your life; step off the pulpit if 3 or more sentences tell the listener what to do; otherwise ready for air. Then three to five notes that quote your draft word for word - keep, cut, show it, ask yourself - and a suggested first and last line made only from your own details. It never rewrites the essay.
Pricing as soon as the session is ready...
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4 Saved scripts
How the free side works
The read-aloud time is an estimate at 150 words a minute, a calm reading pace; your own pace may differ, so read it aloud once before you record. The budget is 300, 450 or 600 words for 2, 3 or 4 minutes.
A belief sentence is one with "I believe" in it (also "I still believe", "I have come to believe", "I don't believe"). A sentence that preaches tells the listener what to do or think: "you should", "we must", "everyone needs to", "people have to", or one that opens with an order such as "Remember", "Don't", "Be" or "Let's". Time markers ("that morning", "the summer I was nine", "in 1998") are only a hint - the producer's reading decides whether the draft tells one particular moment. Big words are abstract nouns such as kindness, truth and hope.
The page checks every reading: the verdict against its counts, that every note quotes your draft word for word (and where it falls in the script), that a cut is named when the draft is over time, that the suggested lines add no names your draft does not use, every number in the prose, and the word limits.