I find this task to be extremely challenging but helpful in broadening our horizons as young writers. As we are only able to use the sense of hearing, without the aid of visual images, we must be very creative with our diction and sound effect choices. Every action and feeling that we want to be portrayed has to be done so by using the sense of sound. For example, something as simple as a character that is having a daydream. The dream must be displayed using sounds that we, as humans, recognize and associate with a dream. Music is important as it sets the mood. A variety of different sounds and tones is what makes a radio play engaging and interesting.
On the other hand, it is easy for us to make our characters. We can come up with a biography and backstory and also a physical description of these characters but anything we do have on a character must be shown through sound. Nobody listening to the radio play can see the character and they don't know of their past; it is just helpful to us writing the play so that we can envision the character in that state. We need to show the character through dialogue. Good dialogue is key for a good radio play. A character trait can be exposed through dialogue. For example, if there is a character who has romantic feelings for another character, we can use dialogue to express that because we cannot see how the person acts around that person so we must show it with words.
I think that this will be a difficult task but extremely useful in the long run for us to develop as writers.
