Inner Voices: how writers create character

From William Blake to Charles Dickens, authors have written or talked about experiencing auditory verbal hallucinations when writing fiction or hearing voices that others cannot hear. So is this the same when writing for radio or television? And if so, do writers hear characters as clearly as if a real person were speaking or as an external voice outside of themselves? In this podcast we hear from accomplished TV and radio writers Sarah Phelps and Al Smith and from Dr. Jennifer Hodgson, co-author of The Writers' Inner Voices project, the first ever large-scale investigation into how writers and storytellers hear voices. They discuss what it feels like to hear characters, whether there’s a difference between creating characters for television, radio and written fiction and the practicalities of script writing. For more podcasts, videos and articles visit http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/production