0:16

Hello, hello, sarah Golding here, and who are you again?

0:20

I am Lindsay Harris Friel.

0:22

You sound beautiful by the way, why, thank you?

0:25

I'm doing my deep voice today.

0:28

Do I have to go lower? Yes, I could speak like that.

0:31

That's the lowest I'd do. Oh, I like that one. Thank you, it's my old block.

0:35

I like doing him. It's my Johnny Vegas.

0:38

Anyway, welcome to AdWit.

0:41

We're very excited to have you here and hope you're wearing your shiniest pants.

0:45

I have many questions about Johnny Vegas.

0:47

Do you? Yes, I have many questions.

0:50

I can't answer any of them, so he's English, yet his name is Johnny Vegas.

0:54

Yeah.

0:57

He's great Monker.

0:59

Yeah, he's a beautiful comedian man.

1:02

I say beautiful because I mean that and if you saw him you'd feel the same.

1:07

Heard him, you saw him in action.

1:09

He's a very funny, fun man.

1:11

Is he on Oz9? No, he should be.

1:16

Oh, mate, we'd love it if Oz come on Oz9.

1:19

He should come on Oz9. Everybody should Write to shannonkperry at gmailcom.

1:24

Get on Oz9. Yes, it's a glorious show.

1:27

We're just wrapping our fifth season.

1:31

It's very exciting. How many seasons? Five, not one, not two, not seven, not six.

1:35

Five seasons, but five, yes, five hundred million episodes.

1:40

Yeah, shannon is just super amazing.

1:42

This episode is coming up to episode 100, which Shannon pretty much pantses her writing with an element of plot which brings us neatly to the point of today's beautiful episode.

1:56

Because we're talking about writing, aren't we for audio drama, audio fiction, and we wanted to do a little deep dive focus.

2:03

Yes, this is the Audio Drama Writer's Toolkit, where we give you the tools to make the audio drama or fiction podcast whichever you care to call it of your dreams, Truly.

2:14

And then some yeah, and today we're looking at do you outline, do you to the nth degree write things, or do you just like go?

2:22

Okay, I'm going to write something today from this pack of cards based on the two of clubs and see where it takes you.

2:30

So, yeah, talk to me, lindsay pros and cons.

2:34

So I'm an outliner and I've become an outliner.

2:38

I wasn't always, and when I was a pantser I never finished anything.

2:50

But I really think that the benefits of outlining are you can see the whole episode or the whole series or the whole play or story or whatever, and how its parts relate to each other.

2:59

It's easier to show patterns of setup and payoff.

3:03

It's easier to set up a plot twist that seems to come out of nowhere.

3:07

You can sort of dribble your little breadcrumbs throughout.

3:11

You know like oh well, I'm going to have to do this later on, so I better put something up here.

3:17

Yeah, I'm doing little mimes to each of the things you're saying.

3:19

So breadcrumbs is like flipping things to the floor.

3:21

Yeah, keep going, give me more fuel, more importantly, your, your energy is conserved and used in a more efficient way.

3:29

You can grab a scene and work on it when you have time, as opposed to trying to constantly drum up energy and enthusiasm for a whole episode or a whole series.

3:39

You just you. Like a lot of people who make audio dramas say you have a full-time job or several part-time jobs, or you have family people that you take care of, so on and so forth.

3:52

Real life has a tendency to get in the way, doesn't it just yes, yes.

3:56

That's why you know you might not have time to write a whole 16-hour audio drama in one night can I give you a visual metaphor for this then?

4:09

so so my brain has gone instantly to the roller coaster, right, and if you look before you and you see the whole thing, you can, like, stand on the platform and you can look at the beginning and just see where the route goes, and there are some bits that are unfamiliar as of yet, which will come to you when you get to that point.

4:26

But there's your dips and rises, there's your corkscrews, there's the loops of the pace and the excitement and there's going backwards and stopping and all sorts of crazy things.

4:35

So that's for if you're a planner or something, you've got that in front of you and you know what's coming for your development, whereas the panther is someone who just like, has bare, flat, tumbleweed land and you've got to make the roller coaster completely right.

4:51

Is that a good visual?

4:52

metaphor does that actually, I'd say? I'd say it's more like you're using the momentum of riding the roller coaster as you're.

5:01

You're hoping that the momentum of the roller coaster will take you to the next bit every loop yeah, you just won't get off and never go on it again I, I, I can see how for some people, well, of course it's exciting, yeah, um, here's a thought for you.

5:18

I just, I, my, uh, my reserves of energy and memory are finite.

5:24

If you're under time constraints, breaking your idea into smaller chunks and hitting each one at a time can spread out your energy and enthusiasm over a whole story, as opposed to gradually getting tired and the kissing and the stuff that makes you know the stuff.

5:45

That's sort of window dressing. It's like decorating your house before it has foundations or plumbing.

5:50

I don't know.

5:51

But, sarah, you, on the other hand, really advocate for the pants method.

5:55

Well, I don't know, I think I've done a mixture of both, but up to now as well, yeah, I have had that fog of like give me ideas being of Sarah, whoever you might be, and yeah, I have, like various things I wanted to hit and kind of a very, very loose structure as to where I wanted to go with, say, for example, anyone for coffee, right, right, right.

6:20

And essentially the basic structure was I wanted to include these things in the episode, have this dynamic happen between these characters and otherwise.

6:37

I'm just going to let those characters speak to me and see what happens when I do that.

6:40

And yeah, even there wasn't kind of you could probably tell there wasn't an ending specifically for each episode.

6:47

It was just like a vibe, a groove. Yeah, key elements to these people's individual stories, and one person at the time was in focus, but there was also lots going on with the dynamics of the other characters too.

7:00

So I wrote the whole thing and then went back to each one and then sort of put more structure in place after having flown by the absolute seat of my pants, and I think I wrote that in two weeks, that short season.

7:13

So, yeah, it feels really exciting.

7:17

You picked up on that when you're in it because you know you don't notice anything else, You're just in that moment and I don't know if you work visually when you're writing or not.

7:26

But I'm also sort of playing many videos in my head of these people because in in the instance I'm talking about with anyone for coffee, I knew what these characters looked like because they were friends of mine and and you know they aesthetically were right, those people in my but yeah, I think the whole development of the pace of something and the moments of danger and excitement or worry or concern or fun, I kind of went in and re-edited and played with that after I'd written the whole thing.

8:00

Okay, just to give you an idea, I used to do the same thing.

8:03

What I found is that my memory's not that great.

8:08

If I had somebody pick up a key in scene two, in scene eight, I might be like where's the key?

8:16

There would be things in my head that weren't on the page, so the play wouldn't make sense to people.

8:24

People would be sitting here going, we don't know what's going on, and this simply isn't interesting.

8:29

Everybody should do the writing method that works best for them, but I'm going to advocate, in my opinion, that dopamine burst feels super great, but first of all when your dopamine exceeds your norepinephrine or when your brain chemicals that say yes, go, do it exceed your brain chemicals that say hey, maybe we should think about this.

8:56

You could type the word beef for six pages and think it's a good idea.

9:00

You can write garbage, beefy, what, Actually? You know what, sarah, this expression pantsing?

9:05

Where does this come from? Let's talk about where this comes from.

9:08

The seat of your plants is sort of that thing of making it up completely as you go along.

9:14

Until the development of the slip skid, indicated towards the end of World War I, pilots had no instrument to help them turn efficiently.

9:24

So, with the aircraft banked but neither slipping towards the lower inside wing nor skidding, with the tail hanging out towards the outside of the turn, if the aircraft did slip then their bottoms would be sliding downhill in their seats, and if they skidded, a slight g-force pushed them uphill.

9:44

So it's basically being flown by the seat of your pants, right, because that's the bit that's going through the air and making it up as you go along.

9:52

So allegedly that's where it a pilot. You only have to fly.

9:54

What is it?

9:55

They call them something like the 20-minuters because they're only in the air for 20 minutes before they get killed, something like that.

10:11

Yeah it was very sad, but they were flying by the seat of their pants.

10:15

You're using sort of like a center of your body, intuition, to tell you what to write next.

10:21

So what I want to propose is Proposing to me.

10:25

Yes, lindsay yes.

10:28

The skort method is, it's not pants.

10:32

The skort method it's not pants, but it uses the burst of enthusiasm as well as the structure of an outline, and it has pockets.

10:40

Oh, I love a pocket, don't you, lindsay? I do love a good pocket.

10:43

What I think people should do is use that overall burst of enthusiasm, yeah, to write the overall story, episode, series, whatever, as if you were telling the story to a friend.

10:57

If you meet exactly, yeah, okay, pantsing in the broadest possible sense of the word.

11:06

Like, you know, guy walks into, uh, you know, or yeah, a guy walks into a girl and the girl punches him in the face.

11:15

That's how I met my husband.

11:17

Actually, here we go. Another Give Me Away reference the first episode of the season two.

11:25

Current season of Give Me Away has different podcast luminaries.

11:31

Let's say, away has different podcast luminaries.

11:37

Let's say, describing what they remember of the first season of Give Me Away in very broad strokes.

11:40

So if you need season one of Give Me Away summarized for you, that would be the episode to listen to.

11:45

But in the meantime, my point is just write a big summary of the story that you want to write.

11:51

Don't go into detail. Save banter and kissing for later.

11:55

You know wallpaper and drapes and furniture can come later.

12:00

Just do the big, broad.

12:03

Match the curtains.

12:04

Just do the big broad bits of the story, yeah, yeah, and then don't research, because then that slows the process down, doesn't it?

12:08

Just get it out, get it out, yeah, yeah, and then don't research, because then-.

12:11

That slows the process down, doesn't it Just get?

12:13

it out Get it out, yeah get it Exactly Like if you're sitting here saying space pirates, I'm going to write a story about space pirates, but oh, you know what, I don't know anything about propulsion systems.

12:23

You just write a note saying Sarah, research propulsion systems as opposed to going off and researching propulsion systems.

12:31

What sort?

12:31

of beer that they would have.

12:33

You have the wrong measure of the depth of this States.

12:37

Pirates, I must say. But yes, I mean I have utilized Scrivener from the book club which is a thing.

12:43

I've been writing for a while and I love that because you know, I do say I have done Pantser but I have also done proper plotting and this is something that I've been working on in a finite way for a while and one of those ones you know you can't stop tinkering with and leaving alone because you you nth degree plotted and there's so much to do so you can over plot right.

13:04

But Scrivener I love because there were lots of beautiful tools in there to have drafts and cards and other things and you talk about, you know, your research and stuff and yeah, I have my character cards and um relationships with other people cards and there's background information and so I've swamped myself with too much planning.

13:24

Lindsay, what do I do?

13:26

I don't know that you've.

13:29

You don't sound swamped.

13:31

You sound prepared to me okay I think, with my brain and how it works.

13:36

I kind of have felt overwhelmed by that, and so I have left it alone for a short while to like sink.

13:44

I get it and get immersed in all the bits it needs to, and when I go back to it, I know I will be enthused and excited, but I think it scared me the overwhelming amount of information and to then hone.

13:57

That is something that I need to be better at.

14:00

That's fair. I think that's a very, very fair way to do it.

14:03

And what I would say at this point is and I'm trying to think about the way I love Scribner too yeah, I love Scribner too.

14:10

In my case, I am using Scribner for the Iphigenia project and that helps me because I can do stuff like the Iphigenia adaptation.

14:20

I can do stuff like take an article that I've found online and copy and paste it and put it in a note there so that I can reread it later.

14:30

But, as you said, you've got an overwhelming amount of information.

14:33

This is when you grab one scene and work on only that one scene.

14:39

Now, with Scrivener, I think the way the user interface works is that you sort of have a notebook, so you're sort of there's that thing down the left-hand side of the screen that has all of your options.

14:53

I would find a way to hide that.

14:55

Don't look at it and just only look at your notes for that one scene, like what are your turning points, how, where is this scene going?

15:09

Grifner has cards for each scene in an act.

15:13

Think of them like recipe cards.

15:15

Each card has the ingredients and actions of the scene.

15:19

It doesn't have the flavors, but it has the ingredients and actions of the scene.

15:25

So at the beginning of the card, at the beginning of that scene, start with the character's motivations and obstacles, write that down.

15:34

Then write where the character ends up at the end and then, in between those two statements, write what the character does with the obstacles and how that changes things for them to get to the end state.

15:50

So, for example, if a cat wants to eat tuna but the obstacle is that the tuna is in a can and the cat can't open the can because they don't have thumbs, they can't operate a can opener.

16:05

That's what the cat wants and how the cat has to deal. That's what the cat wants and how the cat has to deal.

16:10

That's the obstacle that the cat has to deal with in order to get the tuna.

16:15

And at the end of the scene the cat is purring and napping and happy because they're full of delicious tuna goodness.

16:25

Then on that same card, in between those two statements, write what actions the cat takes to subvert the obstacle of the tuna is in a can and the cat doesn't have thumbs and can't open the can.

16:42

Once you've written those down, move on to the next recipe card or scene card, whatever you want to call it.

16:50

Then, when you're working on that scene, you can add all the flavors you want, you can add an extra sprinkle of pathos or whatever, and only work on that one scene and then work on the next one, and then work on the next one.

17:08

Don't buff, don't polish. But when you're getting hey, wait a minute, are we getting into, like, our next episode now I think maybe we are, we must talk about those for another time.

17:17

Let's save talking about our different writing tools and software for another time.

17:23

It's good. What this really all boils down to is I was hanging out with a friend of mine one summer day.

17:27

We were about 20, 22, maybe Prime of life and we were just hanging out at my mom's house.

17:34

We had nothing better to do and we had a computer which at the time was probably a Hand cranked.

17:43

Joking, joking.

17:44

It was a piece. Yes, we had to get the pedals out and pedal to get it to work.

17:48

And she said well, have you written an outline?

17:53

I wrote an outline. So she and I just sat there and wrote an outline and then I said, god, now I can't stop thinking about it.

17:59

She said, well, then, let's just grab a scene and work on it.

18:01

Like you, just think about it.

18:03

It's like grab a scene and then pants your way through that scene if you want, if you feel like it, and then go back and you know, come back and revisit it.

18:12

It's like we talked about in the last episode with uh rajiv joseph and the um bengal tiger at the baghdad zoo.

18:21

right, he let it sit in a drawer, but the drawer wasn't a coffin I think you used the word marinade previously and and I love that, Let it soak in the flavors things you want put in Exactly.

18:35

Yeah, but just grab one scene so you won't feel as overwhelmed, and then put it down.

18:40

And then let that buoy you up, let that lift you up and take you to the next scene.

18:46

But don't overwhelm yourself. Don't say well, now I've got to write the whole first act.

18:49

No, you don't. Yeah, cool.

18:56

Do it overwhelm yourself. Don't say well, now I've got to write the whole first act. No, you don't. Yeah, cool, do it one scene at a time, but that's, that's for another episode.

18:59

Yeah, I mean. And so breaking that draft down into episodes itself also gives you that overview, doesn't it, and doesn't feel too overwhelming, right?

19:06

Do you want to talk a little bit more about what you could do to chunk it to manageable things?

19:12

Yeah, with Yarn Socks. I thought, oh well, it's 120-page script, I can break this down into 10, 12-page episodes, easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

19:23

But you don't. It ain't that easy, isn't it what I?

19:27

Yeah, what I. I ended each episode using the next sequence's opening and stopped when it became like a character had to make a choice.

19:42

Then it's sort of like, not at a literal question, but just sort of like where, you know, two roads diverge, so to speak.

19:51

You have to either go this way or that way.

19:53

And then Then the second episode, when we edited, we decided to have you know, episode two started with the last couple of minutes of episode one.

20:04

Episode three started with the last couple of minutes of episode two.

20:07

So you sort of had a little fill in to bring you up to speed.

20:10

Warm your audience up to remembering oh yeah, I remember that bit and yearning to know what happens next.

20:16

Exactly.

20:17

I should talk to Sean Williams, who wrote Almalim for Gideon Media, and ask him how Almalim Do-do-do-do, almalim, almalim, do-do-do-do, yeah.

20:28

I should ask him how he made the choices that he made about where sort of the dividing line of episodes was for that story, because that's an epic story.

20:39

Right, that is an epic. And the other thing is, I really feel like that has to be a piece where, okay, obviously Amalem, which is about the last days of Jesus Christ.

20:54

Everybody knows how the story ends, but there is a biblical reason for the Amalem character to be non-binary from the very beginning of the story, but you don't find out why until the very end.

21:10

And that's all I'm going to say about that, because it's so beautiful and I really don't want to spoil it for you.

21:16

Yeah it's a lovely, lovely podcast and you should listen to it.

21:19

On a side note, cliffhangers, which deserve their own episode, don't they just?

21:28

Yes, yeah, but for the moment I'm going to say watch Muppets Mayhem for a masterclass in the cliffhanger.

21:35

It is the most that every single episode has the most straightforward possible example of a cliffhanger.

21:38

It is the most that every single episode has the most straightforward possible example of a cliffhanger.

21:42

If you're familiar with TV sitcom writing at all, you know that there's that little cold open at the beginning and there's that little button on the end and what they would do is, after the button on the end, they would sort of have a mini cold opening of the next episode so that you get a sense of, so that you get this great cliffhanger and yeah, so 1010 would recommend Muppets Mayhem, which was not renewed for another season because Disney doesn't know what to do with the Muppets.

22:13

Boo to that decision. Someone wake up and shake it up.

22:15

I mean, yeah, that's all good and well.

22:18

All well and good. All of those words in the right sentence form and structure, some cliffhangers I, like you know, in the olden days of your old 50s, darn tootin' kind of what is it called the gold age of radio.

22:34

You know and you'd have like a cliffhanger before an advert for cigarettes, right, so you don't have to just put a cliffhanger at the end.

22:42

You can play with your cliffhanger right at the beginning.

22:44

I think the goan show had them at the very, very first episode.

22:47

Forget not first episode, very first part of a piece.

22:51

And then you got to kind of like see some kind of music or advert or something, and then there was the, the reveal.

22:58

So yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

23:00

Oh, my God, lindsay, I've dropped my water all over my microphone.

23:04

Hi everybody. This is Lindsay. As I edit this episode, I realized that the point of this discussion was staring at me right in the face, but Sarah and I were having so much fun that we didn't get to the point.

23:15

Each episode has acts and you have your act breaks where you might insert a commercial, a musical interlude or a transition to the next scene.

23:24

Of course, you want your audience to stick with your story through that break.

23:27

Right before that transition, your characters are under some kind of pressure and they have a choice.

23:33

Each option in that choice has a consequence.

23:36

So when you want your audience to stick with you through the transition or musical interlude or advertisement or whatever, put your characters in a position where they have to make a choice and the audience won't find out what the result of that choice is until after the break.

23:51

So as you're plotting your story, when you move from one scene to the next or one act to the next, putting your characters in a position where they have to make a choice and the audience won't learn the result of that choice until after the break is an effective cliffhanger strategy.

24:07

Thank you, oh no it's okay, they completely missed the microphone.

24:10

It's just gone all over me.

24:13

One of the things I also want to say is every now and then in my travels across the internet, I will meet a podcaster who writes one episode, produces it.

24:25

You know, they write the episode, they cast it, they record it, edit, produce, put it out there, promote it and then start the next episode.

24:32

Please I this just makes me want to cry yeah, please, for the love of God, finish writing one draft of your entire season or series or whatever you're doing, before you start production, because it's all hard work.

24:51

It's hugely hard and you're going to break yourself.

24:54

Don't break you. We love you, don't hurt yourself.

24:56

The excitement is there, of course you. We love you, don't hurt yourself. The excitement is there, of course you want to share it.

25:00

But you know, the bit beyond production takes a hell of a lot out of you and is social media and everything beyond that, hype-wise, is unforgiving and quiet, yeah, and it can be very demoralizing.

25:14

And you've got all this beautiful energy and then you do that one week and you perhaps haven't garnered enough traction that you wanted and you're then getting the next episode out and maybe nobody really was responding.

25:24

In a way you kind of thought, and then you get more despondent and more upset and then by the time the third one comes out, you're like, well, I don't want to put it out then because nobody's talking to me.

25:33

No, you're absolutely right. Build the hype before use the writing part of your brain, then use the producing part.

25:42

There's a reason that we all only have one head, because we really should only wear one hat at a time.

25:47

Oh, wow.

25:48

I want to wear all that yeah.

25:51

I know it really is true, and I do have this discussion with a lot of people you know and if you can outsource specific things that aren't your wheelhouse and you're able to, it will really help you.

26:02

If you can't, because of various means and also megalomania, because let's face it we all got that sometimes.

26:12

I'd say keep your megalomania in the writing process and then say okay, now I'm going to go produce it, or now I'm going to have somebody help me produce it, or I'm going to learn how, or whatever.

26:23

When I was growing up, TV was one of those things where new episodes were written and produced weekly.

26:30

So if Archie Bunker did something that was reprehensible in week seven of All in the Family, the naughty Archie Bunker yeah, the writers, could you know they could make him seem less horrible in week eight or nine.

26:46

Rectify the situation. Exactly so yeah, showing true pictures and troughs of character development and so on.

26:51

Yeah.

26:52

In response to a time where people did feedback, but how?

26:59

Well, they'd write nasty letters to tv guide, yes, or their local local newspaper very disappointed in this way, yeah or they'd write to the uh right to the production company.

27:12

Yes, you know, right to the network or whatever you know I am most displeased with this archibald bunker character and captain smart.

27:20

Conversely, yes, you have a situation like the unbreakable kimmy schmidt, which was a steaming streaming show a steaming show, it was a steaming show.

27:31

It was a streaming show on netflix and when it first came out as buzzfeed, this show has a major race problem.

27:40

Right.

27:43

And had it been a situation where the writers had been going along creating new episodes and waiting for feedback that wouldn't have been the case.

27:53

Right, they probably could have done something about it, but because the whole thing was written, produced, packaged and sold, netflix was basically like well, here we, you know, this is it.

28:04

Where were the sensitivity readers? Huh, huh, exactly, I mean, that would have helped.

28:08

And those are free not freely available, but I mean not as in money.

28:12

But you know, you advertise for specifics to help you with any area of your writing on, I don't know, the Audio Drama Hub or various places in Tumblr, twitter, reddit and so on.

28:23

You're going to find someone useful to help hone it so that that problem doesn't happen to you.

28:28

Yes, in fact get a couple of sensitivity readers, because we all have different sensitivities.

28:36

It's a good idea. It's one thing to have a dramaturg or an editor or a beta reader or a sensitivity reader or all of the above as you're going along.

28:46

Sure that can definitely help you.

28:49

Don't do it alone.

28:51

Yes, it's not safe to go alone.

28:54

Take this, try not to but on the other hand, in terms of production.

28:59

Don't start producing until you're finished writing, because I don't trying to do both at the same time.

29:05

It will break you we've said it will, it will.

29:07

Honestly, you can maybe do it, maybe you can, maybe that's your resilience and your superpower, but, um yeah, I think some perspective and distance and properly treating yourself with some self-care is doing the batch writing process.

29:22

Exactly, I don't have the character fortitude to do that.

29:26

And speaking of character, sarah, speaking of character, yes.

29:29

Lindsay. What are we going to talk about next time?

29:32

It's about writing, good dialogue and more.

29:37

Yes, because without it, audio drama would just be a whole lot of weird noises, wouldn't it?

29:42

Just just woohoo. Yes, so yes, tune in next time on next week's episode of AdWords with her Lindsay Harris-Friel.

29:54

Yes.

29:55

And Sarah Beautiful.

29:57

Golden, you know happy writing. Kids Get out there.

30:00

You're amazing. Keep going, happy writing.

30:03

Avanti Plot plot pants, pants, Move onward and upward, Just create from beginning to end it's all going on.

30:09

Have fun.

30:26

Yes, bye-bye.