Book excerpt: This textbook offers a practical guide to creating narratives in audio media. It is one of the most beautiful and complex tasks in radio and podcasting: how do you tell a compelling story and keep your listeners tuned in? In Storytelling in Radio and Podcasts, Preger offers practical answers to crucial questions: What material is suitable for long stories? How can I bind listeners to a real story for 15, 30 or 60 minutes? Or even get them excited about a whole series? How do I maintain suspense from beginning to end? How do I find my narrative voice? And, how do I develop a sound design for complex narratives? Richly illustrated using practical examples, the book guides the reader through various stages of developing a non-fiction narrative and examines structure, character development, suspense, narration, sound-design and ethics.