Freelance Dex Writer (Narrative Audio Tour Scripting) - Headout

Dex creates cinematic, immersive, narrative-driven audio tours for venues and neighborhoods worldwide. We’re building a pool of freelance Dex Writers to script tours across our global roster of cities, working within Dex’s established scriptwriting frameworks.

The writing of a Dex tour is an evolving craft involving creative distillation of in-depth research and immersive, conversational storytelling for audio-led walking tours. The writing of each Dex will be a collaborative process with the tour producer, who serves as the creative curator of the tour.

This is a structured creative role, not a blank-page one. You’ll take a research brief, with an itinerary, route, and detailed research per exhibit, and turn it into a scripted, character-voiced audio experience that survives Dex’s editorial bar—across multiple rounds of feedback (approximately 3 rounds), on a tour-by-tour engagement basis.

What makes this role special?

• Travel the world through your writing. Draft narrative audio tour scripts for iconic venues and historic neighborhoods across the world after understanding the craft of Dex writing. This involves absorbing Dex’s scripting, voice casting, structure, research, and other guidelines.
• Learn something new every day. Read and curate research with an eye for the most compelling facts about world-famous sights. Collect verifiable evidence with reliable citations.
• Find the stories only you can. Discover a unique storytelling angle with your perspective and judgment to weave diverse factoids into a compelling narrative. The tonality and distinct voice you bring should outdo even the venue’s in-person guides.
• Work with a team of talented producers. Collaborate with our tour producers who have worked across narrative and documentary filmmaking, travel vlogs, music production, and advertising.

What skills & experience do you need?

• 3-5 years of demonstrated narrative or scriptwriting output—audio, video, podcast, or long-form storytelling. General marketing/content copy does not qualify.
• A writing sample that shows you can find a non-obvious story in a well-documented place, not just summarize it well. A published piece would be ideal.
• Strong research instincts: comfort digging past the first source, sourcing rigor, and honesty about what isn’t known. Curiosity and an instinct to unveil the most interesting facts about any exhibit or venue.
• Comfort writing inside a structured creative framework and taking direct, specific editorial notes across revision rounds.
• Curiosity about places you haven’t lived in; you’ll be asked to write convincingly and specifically about cities you may never have visited—through the lens and in the voice of a guide who knows it like the back of their hand.
• Reliable availability for iterative turnaround cycles typical of freelance engagements.
• Work tour-by-tour on a defined turnaround time, coordinating directly with your assigned Producer. Sticking to timelines without compromising on quality becomes crucial, as we scale and rely more heavily on writers to craft scripts that require minimal intervention.

Bonus

• Experience in documentary filmmaking or short-form video journalism.
• Prior freelance experience working to an external editorial framework rather than your own in-house style.
• Interest in history, urban geography, and place-based storytelling.