Something I’ve seen a very few scriptwriters do, is to provide something like a table of contents of a list (in order) of what sound effects appear in the script. If you’re a scriptwriter who does this, I absolutely adore you. It makes things a lot easier when going back to add sfx back in.

I heard a tip that I’ve had some success with which is to use a dog clicker to help with recording. You can see a video about this here. It’s also useful for marking where sound effects need to be applied.

When I started, I wanted to try and look at every post that came in certain subreddits so I could save it for later if I wanted. I did this for /r/gwascriptguild and also for /r/gonewildaudio. For posts that weren’t script offers, I saved some where I liked the ideas. This quickly because untenable (I underestimated how many posts appear each day!). But, if that’s something you wanted to play with, you can use a free online newsreader (I like NewsBlur). If you subscribe to https://www.reddit.com/r/[subreddit name]/new/.rss (for example https://www.reddit.com/r/gonewildaudio/new/.rss). The feed only showed the most recent 200 posts that hadn’t been read yet, but it will still somewhat useful.

I tried keeping a spreadsheet of scripts I wanted to fill, but it quickly spiraled out of control. Talking to others, people suggested using Trello, which is a free project management tool. I’ve started using it and I love it so far. I have lists set up for narrative scripts I’m interested in, regular scripts, scripts I’ve recorded but need to be edited and scripts I want to fill next. It’s a great tool and you should give it a try. Others suggested setting up their own Discord server with different rooms for each list. I tried this, but didn’t feel like it was flexible enough for me.

When I’m picking out scripts I want to record, I’ll search the gwasi.com site for tags I like, but I also find scripts in a few other ways:

  1. Reddit will show you a list of your followers. Click on their usernames and look at which scripts they comment on. Some may have posted comments about hoping that a certain script gets filled. If they’re already following you, there’s a chance that they have similar taste in scripts as you do. Maybe some have even written scripts of their own.
  2. If you find a script offer you like, look at that user’s history to see if they’ve written any other scripts. Often scriptwriters will write scripts with similar themes.
  3. Similar to #2, look at other VA’s who have filled the script and look at other scripts they’ve filled and the scriptwriters behind those scripts. Again, it’s likely that there will be common themes amongst the scripts.