Audio narratives come in many forms, and doubtlessly you have already encountered some. For instance, when you listen to a radio play or podcast, when you play a video game, or when you visit a museum. Others may be entirely foreign to you. But what is or is not an audio narrative is not an easy question to answer either. Are sound installations? Are poetry readings? Are game soundtracks?

In each of these examples, there is clearly a degree of narrativity and storytelling involved, but this may be more or less explicit. As the examples suggest, moreover, audio narratives may be purely auditory or take multimodal forms, their intention may be artistic or pragmatic, and narratives may seek to tell a story themselves, or rely on additional textual information.

To answer the question 'what is an audio narrative', we can best explore this family resemblance. Below you will find various kinds or narrative forms in which audio is used. Please read the descriptions below and connect them to the appropriate term. If you are unsure, please explore the links included in the tips.

Quiz: Pick the correct term for the given description


Tip: You may have heard about Orson Welles’ The War of the Worlds (1938) or Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood (1954). Explore the vast archive of the Third Coast Festival for radio drama for a selection of the awarded audio stories. 






Tip: The success of services such as Audible indicate how popular such audio narratives have recently become. 



Tip: Famous early examples include Luigi Russolo’s Intonarumori (1913). Explore examples of such sound art here.  






You probably have encountered several of these narratives before, while others are new to you. Looking back at the diversity of examples, they map onto at least two different axes:

• To what extent do these narratives stand alone, or are they supported by or in turn augmenting other, multi-modal experiences? Audio books or radio dramas are meant to be consumed as auditory products only, whereas audio guides, sound walks, and interactive game soundtracks are meant to enhance a visual, material or multi-sensory experience.

• How interactive are these narratives? How much control does the author exert on the narrative and its auditory form, versus how much can listeners still affect the narrative themselves? For instance, the sequence and outcome of radio drama and audio books, again, are pre-determined, whereas game soundtracks and soundwalks may be more or less responsive to listeners' actions or interpretations. This is especially the case for locative audio, in which GPS-tracked listeners affect the sequence or outcome of a narrative by moving through the space of a museum or a city.

On the next page, we will further examine how both the auditory and narrative aspects of this form of storytelling.