How to Write a Radio Serial Drama for Social Development- PDF

42 Chapter Three: Characteristics of Radio Serial Drama
Advantages of Multiple Plots in an
Enter-Educate Serial
The treatment of Too Late, Too Bad shows how the various plots in a serial fit
together and demonstrates some of the advantages of the multiple-plot
approach in dramas used to promote social development. These include the
following:
• The serial can appeal to a wider range of audience members. While the
characters involved in one plot may appeal only to some audience
members, characters from another plot, who have quite a different
lifestyle, may attract others.
• Suspense can be maintained throughout all the episodes. The writer can
move from one plot—and its mix of conflict and crisis—to another, in
the process keeping the audience in a constant state of excitement and
maintaining their emotional involvement.
• The story is enriched by the wider range of characters, and the action
becomes more complex as the sub-plots weave in and out. The ability to
suspend one or more plots for a time also helps to enrich the story and, at
the same time, prevents a frequent problem of Enter-Educate serials: the
suggestion that everything in life follows a predictable course and works
out neatly in the end.
• A serial can be more emotionally powerful than a single-plot story,
because multiple plots allow for a wider variety of people, interacting in
very different ways, and expressing both positive and negative emotions.
Since emotional involvement is what most attracts and holds listeners,
multiple plots increase the chances of attracting and holding a wide
audience.
• Message relevance can be shown through a variety of characters. It is
clear that “people cannot learn much...unless they attend to, and
accurately perceive, the relevant aspects of modeled activities” (Bandura,
1986). If only one set of characters communicates the social message of a
drama, listeners may believe that the message applies only to people in
those circumstances. Sub-plots show, subtly and naturally, that the
message is relevant to a variety of people in differing situations.
• The message can be repeated easily and unobtrusively. It can be
incorporated into several different plots, presented in a number of
different ways, and viewed from different angles.
• Multiple plots provide a greater opportunity for message relief. The
message can be set aside briefly in one or more of the plots while other
elements that enrich the story are developed.
• The various Steps to Behavior Change (see Prologue) can be
demonstrated naturally in different plots. The characters in one plot, for
example, may be at an early stage in the process, just becoming aware of
the need for behavior change. Those in a second plot may be at the point
of deciding to take action. Still other characters in a third plot may have
adopted the new behavior already and begun advocating it to other family
and community members.