I have always marveled at writers who become consumed with their characters. I've heard story after story from authors who claim their characters begin to speak to them on a regular basis - and then their stories begin to write themselves. I don't think we're necessarily at that point - although the story has definitely begun to take on a life of its own, and I certainly have started to develop quite a soft spot for some of our main characters. Admittedly, these guys tend to hang around in my brain for a while after one of our writing meetings. I have only recently begun to experience the whole "characters talking to me" thing in a couple of other writing projects I'm working on, and I'll be honest... it kind of freaked me out. I never 100% believed in it before ... but it happened. And now I am really looking forward to the day that it happens with the podcast.
Maybe it's already started. Who knows? What I do know is that I like our characters. I want them to succeed. Not that I want to make it easy for them, because how boring is that? But I'm pulling for them.
Our main character is a guy named Alex Kirunov. Mid-twenties, Chicago native, although at the opening of our story we discover that he's been out of town and out of touch with the family for a while. And even though the other characters play some pretty major roles, this is ultimately his story.
And as I've said before, I like Alex. Were he a real person I think we'd be friends, although I think I'd probably worry a bit about his lack of ambition. But he's a good guy nonetheless. We have a little bit in common... we both love Reuben sandwiches. Remarkably, we both use the same rating scale. We have both spent a lot of time in Omaha, some of it against our better judgment. We both have many Slavic relatives. Mine are Czech and his are Russian - but let's not split hairs. We both know enough Russian to be dangerous - although I bet he knows more than I do, and I think he could teach me some choice words. I'm sure he's been sworn at more than once by certain family members. And we both have seriously geeky friends.
He also sounds remarkably like Jason. It's weird.
I mentioned before that we have a handful of scripts written, and Alex is starting to become a real person to me. I'm really looking forward to seeing how he continues to develop, and who he's going to become when this whole mess is over. If it ever truly ends. And if we ever truly get off our asses and start recording.
Which we will. We promise.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
It's an urban fantasy! No, it's a road story! No, it's a buddy movie!
One of the most often-asked questions about this project, of course, is "What kind of a story is this going to be, anyway?" (Incidentally, the most often-asked question is, "Jason, weren't you supposed to finish those tweaks to Episode 2 last month?" but that's neither here nor there.)
It's a good question, really. The first, not the second. The second question sucks, truth be told, and I'm getting a little tired of answering it. Just back off, okay?
Ahem. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
So, what kind of a story are we telling? This is a seemingly simple question that actually trips me up sometimes. As River already said, it's certainly an urban fantasy - that is, it's set in generally present times and contains magic, myth and other fantastical elements. So, yeah. It's an urban fantasy.
Looking at it another way, though, it's also a coming-of-age tale. Our hero isn't a bad guy by any means, but he has a lot of growing up to do when we open the story. On some level we're telling a story about one guy figuring out what he wants - or needs - to be when he grows up. The fact that what he needs to be is something he had never even heard of before the story begins is rather beside the point, as it turns out. So it's a coming-of-age story.
Of everything we've written so far, I think my favorite parts are the dialogue between our hero and his best friend. The rhythm feels right - objectively, I think we're doing a good job capturing the sense of their history as friends without the dreaded flashbacks that seem so popular in audio dramas (and I'm sure we'll have one or two of them at some point despite our best efforts). And looking at the arc of the story, the main character would be totally screwed without his friends. Those relationships are pretty critical to the story - and one might argue that they're sort of the point of the whole thing. So I dunno, maybe it's a buddy story.
At the end of the day it probably doesn't matter what neat box I can put the story into. I'll let the as-yet fictional legions of listeners argue about that in the as-yet fictional forums that will surely spring up across the internet for discussion of these issues.
It's a good question, really. The first, not the second. The second question sucks, truth be told, and I'm getting a little tired of answering it. Just back off, okay?
Ahem. Sorry, just had to get that off my chest.
So, what kind of a story are we telling? This is a seemingly simple question that actually trips me up sometimes. As River already said, it's certainly an urban fantasy - that is, it's set in generally present times and contains magic, myth and other fantastical elements. So, yeah. It's an urban fantasy.
Looking at it another way, though, it's also a coming-of-age tale. Our hero isn't a bad guy by any means, but he has a lot of growing up to do when we open the story. On some level we're telling a story about one guy figuring out what he wants - or needs - to be when he grows up. The fact that what he needs to be is something he had never even heard of before the story begins is rather beside the point, as it turns out. So it's a coming-of-age story.
Of everything we've written so far, I think my favorite parts are the dialogue between our hero and his best friend. The rhythm feels right - objectively, I think we're doing a good job capturing the sense of their history as friends without the dreaded flashbacks that seem so popular in audio dramas (and I'm sure we'll have one or two of them at some point despite our best efforts). And looking at the arc of the story, the main character would be totally screwed without his friends. Those relationships are pretty critical to the story - and one might argue that they're sort of the point of the whole thing. So I dunno, maybe it's a buddy story.
At the end of the day it probably doesn't matter what neat box I can put the story into. I'll let the as-yet fictional legions of listeners argue about that in the as-yet fictional forums that will surely spring up across the internet for discussion of these issues.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Backstory and the impending apocalypse
We've all done things we regret. I know I'm making a gross generalization here, but I'm willing to bet that everyone reading this has at least one, if not hundreds of moments in the past that you wish had gone a bit differently. I'm even willing to go out on a limb and say that for many of us, a large percentage of these moments happened before the age of 20. I know that for me, there are lots of things I wish I could hop in the Wayback Machine and go back and at least attempt to make a different choice. Still, many of the moments in my past shaped who I am today -- and without them, I wouldn't be sitting here in Chicago, writing a blog about writing a script for a podcast. And when I put it that way, perhaps I am not the only one who should be regretting those choices. My apologies, dear readers. But I digress...
Chances are you didn't make a choice at age 13 that could potentially impact the very balance of the universe and cause a future apocalypse. (But hey, I'm willing to be wrong. Hope you worked it out if you did - and if not, let us know. It would save us a lot of time trying to figure out which recording equipment to use if the world is going to end in a few days.)
Our main character on the other hand, did make a rather stupid choice when he was a teenager. He has only just become aware of how something as innocuous as writing his name in a place he probably shouldn't has unalterably changed the course of his life, and has the potential to impact millions of other lives. I won't give away too much here - but the story itself is about an ordinary guy who finds himself in an extraordinary situation, and has to come up with some pretty creative solutions to get himself out of a mess he didn't even know he created.
Herein lies one of our more difficult challenges: backstory. There's a lot of it. We have managed to construct a pretty complex plot - which, while admittedly I think it's pretty cool, is damn hard to reconstruct in a way that doesn't sound completely contrived and boring. I mention this because one of the motivations for embarking on this little project was listening to another audio drama podcast currently in production that does the whole backstory thing very, very badly. (Which Jason and I will both completely own as our own opinions, even though I won't name any names.) I remember saying in a very haughty and arrogant voice, "We could totally do a better job than they ever could." And thus, we got on this crazy rollercoaster ride.
And I have to admit, it's no small feat. I find it particularly challenging to tell a story that requires a bit of exposition to make sense, when my only storytelling tool is dialogue. I really don't want any of my characters to be in the middle of an action scene... for instance... a zombie attack... and suddenly stop to say, "You know, this reminds me of that time three years ago when..."
But oh, the danger looms. I actually relish the challenge however, and I'm enjoying the opportunity to hone my writing skills by working hard to make the dialogue count. The last thing I want to do is insult our listener's intelligence with unnecessary and unwieldy monologues about events that have only a passing relevance to the current scene. So far, I think we've managed to avoid the *insert name of bad podcast here* style of writing - but I can see how easy it would be to slip into that mode.
Just something to keep us on our toes.
Chances are you didn't make a choice at age 13 that could potentially impact the very balance of the universe and cause a future apocalypse. (But hey, I'm willing to be wrong. Hope you worked it out if you did - and if not, let us know. It would save us a lot of time trying to figure out which recording equipment to use if the world is going to end in a few days.)
Our main character on the other hand, did make a rather stupid choice when he was a teenager. He has only just become aware of how something as innocuous as writing his name in a place he probably shouldn't has unalterably changed the course of his life, and has the potential to impact millions of other lives. I won't give away too much here - but the story itself is about an ordinary guy who finds himself in an extraordinary situation, and has to come up with some pretty creative solutions to get himself out of a mess he didn't even know he created.
Herein lies one of our more difficult challenges: backstory. There's a lot of it. We have managed to construct a pretty complex plot - which, while admittedly I think it's pretty cool, is damn hard to reconstruct in a way that doesn't sound completely contrived and boring. I mention this because one of the motivations for embarking on this little project was listening to another audio drama podcast currently in production that does the whole backstory thing very, very badly. (Which Jason and I will both completely own as our own opinions, even though I won't name any names.) I remember saying in a very haughty and arrogant voice, "We could totally do a better job than they ever could." And thus, we got on this crazy rollercoaster ride.
And I have to admit, it's no small feat. I find it particularly challenging to tell a story that requires a bit of exposition to make sense, when my only storytelling tool is dialogue. I really don't want any of my characters to be in the middle of an action scene... for instance... a zombie attack... and suddenly stop to say, "You know, this reminds me of that time three years ago when..."
But oh, the danger looms. I actually relish the challenge however, and I'm enjoying the opportunity to hone my writing skills by working hard to make the dialogue count. The last thing I want to do is insult our listener's intelligence with unnecessary and unwieldy monologues about events that have only a passing relevance to the current scene. So far, I think we've managed to avoid the *insert name of bad podcast here* style of writing - but I can see how easy it would be to slip into that mode.
Just something to keep us on our toes.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Who are you again?
Being the intelligent, astute, and undoubtedly attractive readers that you are, I would imagine that you have a few questions. Such as:
1. Where is the podcast and how do I download it?
2. Who are you people?
3. What does an audio drama podcast, or blog about an audio drama podcast, have to do with a Reuben sandwich?
4. Are you really that good-looking in person, River?
I will do my best to answer your questions in the order that they were received:
1. The podcast does not exist yet. Emphasis on the word yet. We have written scripts for a handful of episodes, and will begin the recording process shortly. We decided that writing a blog about our process might keep us from losing momentum and slacking off (a talent that both Jason and I share), as well as provide a forum for ideas and suggestions from you, dear readers. More details to come in future updates.
2. We're just a couple of aspiring writers in Chicago who decided to add one more project onto an already full plate. Er... plates. A couple of fun facts: I am a pretty decent drummer, Jason excels at Rock Band. I love to play games, Jason designs them. I completed my writing goals this week, Jason did not. Just sayin'.
3. The Reuben sandwich actually does play a fairly significant role in the podcast. When it finally comes out, you'll understand. You'll probably shake your heads ruefully and say, "What the hell?" but you will understand. Suffice it to say that I love Reubens. They are my favorite sandwich. I even have a rating scale. I have never found the perfect "10" - but I will one day. A girl's gotta have dreams. Also, believe what you will, but I am absolutely convinced that the Reuben was invented in Omaha. Although I'm currently living in Chicago, I am an Omaha native, and damn proud of our sandwiches.
4. Yes.
Please feel free to comment with more questions about us, our process, or the podcast itself. We'll continue to update on a semi-regular basis. Next up will likely be some information about the premise for the show, as well as some background info about the characters.
1. Where is the podcast and how do I download it?
2. Who are you people?
3. What does an audio drama podcast, or blog about an audio drama podcast, have to do with a Reuben sandwich?
4. Are you really that good-looking in person, River?
I will do my best to answer your questions in the order that they were received:
1. The podcast does not exist yet. Emphasis on the word yet. We have written scripts for a handful of episodes, and will begin the recording process shortly. We decided that writing a blog about our process might keep us from losing momentum and slacking off (a talent that both Jason and I share), as well as provide a forum for ideas and suggestions from you, dear readers. More details to come in future updates.
2. We're just a couple of aspiring writers in Chicago who decided to add one more project onto an already full plate. Er... plates. A couple of fun facts: I am a pretty decent drummer, Jason excels at Rock Band. I love to play games, Jason designs them. I completed my writing goals this week, Jason did not. Just sayin'.
3. The Reuben sandwich actually does play a fairly significant role in the podcast. When it finally comes out, you'll understand. You'll probably shake your heads ruefully and say, "What the hell?" but you will understand. Suffice it to say that I love Reubens. They are my favorite sandwich. I even have a rating scale. I have never found the perfect "10" - but I will one day. A girl's gotta have dreams. Also, believe what you will, but I am absolutely convinced that the Reuben was invented in Omaha. Although I'm currently living in Chicago, I am an Omaha native, and damn proud of our sandwiches.
4. Yes.
Please feel free to comment with more questions about us, our process, or the podcast itself. We'll continue to update on a semi-regular basis. Next up will likely be some information about the premise for the show, as well as some background info about the characters.
It all started so innocently
...no, really, it did. Over brunch last year, River mentioned casually that there are two magic shops in Chicago located within about 3 blocks of one another. A couple of weeks later, we were discussing our favorite sandwiches and she pointed out that her favorite, the Reuben, was invented in Omaha.
(A tip, good reader: Don't mention the possibility that the Reuben was in fact invented in New York in 1914.)
A couple of weeks after that, we were sharing our favorite podcasts and realized that there is something missing in the world. Something important. Something epic. Because at this moment, there are no podcasts about magic shops, reuben sandwiches, and the end of the world. Not one.
Clearly, something had to be done.
And so, we began.
(A tip, good reader: Don't mention the possibility that the Reuben was in fact invented in New York in 1914.)
A couple of weeks after that, we were sharing our favorite podcasts and realized that there is something missing in the world. Something important. Something epic. Because at this moment, there are no podcasts about magic shops, reuben sandwiches, and the end of the world. Not one.
Clearly, something had to be done.
And so, we began.
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