ADWIT EPISODE 1: INTRODUCTION
Sarah: This is the first very exciting, all enthralling, all inspiring and motivating episode of ADWIT, the audio drama writers’ independent toolkit.
Lindsay: Yes.
Sarah: Groovy!
Lindsay: Hello.
Sarah: Good, good day. And Lindsay. Lindsay, what on earth is this podcast for, who on earth would need and yearn to listen to every single episode of this podcast.
Lindsay: This podcast is for people who either write audio drama, or they want to learn how to write audio drama, and we’re going to look at different aspects of audio drama, and we’re going to look at what makes them great: what makes them useful, how they tick how they work and we are going to work on writing exercises that will help you play with that aspect of audio drama.
Sarah: How very exciting. And why on earth, are you interested in audio drama, Lindsay? What is it that you love?
Lindsay: Because I’m an addict, I’m an addict and I can’t get enough of it. I think we both consume a fair amount of audio drama. I, you know, it’s, uh, it’s. Just like everybody else. I got really hooked on it at a young age. Now I can’t get enough of that stuff, but I’ve also heard a fair amount of audio drama that’s very good, and I’ve heard a fair amount of audio drama that…wasn’t. And I want there to be more good audio experiences in the world for people to enjoy and consume,
Sarah: Same.,
Lindsay: and this is my way of helping people feel empowered to grab it and run with it.
Sarah: I love that
Lindsay: And, uh, we also, you and I also send out the fiction podcast weekly.
Sarah: We do, we do.
Lindsay: We do, which is if people are interested, you can look it up at the podcast. host.com/fiction podcast, weekly, you can sign up, you can contribute your audio drama news, and you can subscribe. It’s wonderful. And if you are. If you enjoy listening to audio drama, or if you enjoy making audio drama, uh, please do sign up and subscribe.
Sarah: Yes, do
Lindsay: this is sort of a side project, for you, and for me,
Sarah: I’m going to say I’ve got about 19. side projects I do, essentially, just want to act, but also write so that I can write parts for myself.
Lindsay: Well, that’s the thing! I remember having this great. Um, I had this, this, a writing workshop with, uh, Doug Wright who wrote Quills, among other things. He wrote Quills, and he wrote, I Am My Own Wife, and he’s, uh, just a wonderful big bear of a genius writer. And he said, I got into writing because I didn’t want anybody else to tell me… I didn’t want to wait for anybody else to give me an opportunity.
Sarah: Wow.
Lindsay: To make stories. And you know, when you’re, when you’re an actor or a designer or a director, you sort of have to, you know, you sort of, you sort of have to go, okay, well, let’s, let’s, let’s find a script. If you’re a writer, you can. Or if you have that skill in your tool belt, you know, then you can make stuff happen.
Sarah:And as an actor, there is nothing more exciting when you know, the script that you’ve got a part in whether small or large or in-between is good. Oh, it just feels so exciting.
Lindsay: Well, it’s wonderful that they also, when you work with a creator and that creator, um, that writer or writer-actor relationship is always wonderful too.
Sarah: I agree. And we can talk about that as the season of- if we have planned for you goes on and on. So what are we going to talk about? What, what can folks expect from this, ah, groovy, groovy season
Lindsay: we’re going to talk about some aspects of audio drama, like plot, character, dialogue and writing for sound environments.
Sarah: So I would also add to that some writing exercises to try out, right? So get you going; inspired, doing
Lindsay: we’re hoping that people will do is that they will post them on their own blog or web space and send us a link to them. Not because we’re going to judge you or we’re going to give you a grade, but because we want to find out how our information is received on your end, and if it’s useful, and helpful and productive.
Sarah: Groovy.
Lindsay: For example, if I give you a recipe for a cheese sandwich and you use it to make a roasted beet salad, while I truly do like beet salad, it means I need to reevaluate how I’m presenting that recipe for a cheese sandwich.
Sarah: Yes. I’m hungry now. And in the future, we will also hope to have a reading of some of the samples from, from people’s writing exercises on the podcast. That’s, depending on how things go and what you send us.
Lindsay: We have a website, which is ad wit, ADWIT.org. It’s not.com. I haven’t checked out.com. I can’t, I’m sure it’s some advertising.
Sarah: Org, it’s good. Because it’s like, we’re organized
Lindsay: we’re an organization
Sarah: we’re organic, .
Lindsay: What do we want to do? We want to give people some tools to craft better stories for the audio drama, medium or audio fiction or whatever you want to call it.
Sarah: Yeah.
Lindsay: Do we want to even discuss… Do we even want to discuss the difference between audio drama and audio fiction, in my opinion,
Sarah: Well-
Lindsay: -or do we want to-
Sarah: that’s a deep, well, isn’t it, that whole , cavernous- (laugh)
Lindsay: all I can think of- all I can think of is Felix Trench, as Rudyard Funn, saying, “I wouldn’t pull on that particular thread.” Well, one of the things, well, well, well, let’s actually, let’s let’s I actually know I’m gonna, I’m going to say this now; one of the things that we are going to do is we are going to discuss some currently existing audio dramas. Audio drama podcasts, and break them down and talk about them in greater detail so that we can sort of show you- we’re going to use them as examples. For, for example, here is a great episode of a show, that is a great example of how to use this plot technique. Here is a great example of a character, and we’re going to show you how to make that work. There will be some extra listening. So you might hear me and Sarah say, okay, stop everything and go listen to that now. There may be spoilers for certain episodes of certain shows, and we’ll note that in the show notes. So really the reason for this is not because we want to spoil or promote particular podcasts. It’s because we want to give people some tools to craft better stories for the audio drama medium
Sarah: yes. Yes. And just learn more also about, you know, your own writing styles and what you’re kind of yearning to write too.
Lindsay: Um, yeah. Yeah. That’s very true. And some of this is also me and Sarah sort of looking at audio drama and saying. What are we doing? How do we do it? What’s a better way to do it.
Sarah: Yeah. Groovy..
Lindsay: This is definitely not going to be one of those podcasts where we try to sell you a thousand dollars writing seminar at the end. It simply is what it is.
Sarah: Yes. So if people do want to send us a thousand dollars, that’s fine too. We don’t mind.
Lindsay: Yes. But send it to us in pounds, because that stretches further.
Sarah: Does it though? I’m not quite sure anymore. Money confuses me, but that’s another thing I need to deal with.
Lindsay: So I want there to be more I’m my selfish want is that I want there to be more good, independent audio drama for my listening pleasure.
Sarah: Yes!
Lindsay: And I want more people to be able to tell their story in a way the audience will- audiences will stick with it.
Sarah: Agreed. Hey, wait, say, who, who are you to tell anyone, anything about writing Lindsay? Who are, who are you? What, what is your qualification?
Lindsay: I ask myself that every night too. I know I lie there, “who am I to tell you to tell people anything?” So my name is Lindsay Harris Friel. I’m Lindsay. I have a MFA master of fine arts in playwriting from Temple University. And, um, but I also have created a lot of what I think they call scratch theater now, or fringe theater. They used to call it fringe theater. Um, where you just sort of like you find an abandoned building and start making theater and it
Sarah: sounds glorious.
Lindsay: Um, yeah.
Sarah: I wish we could do that now!
Lindsay: I know, give us, give us a dollar and you can come in and, you know, come in and see us do crazy things on stage. Um, I did a lot of 24 hour plays, which are one of those things where people give you an idea at eight o’clock on a Friday and by eight o’clock on Saturday, it’s going up
Sarah: Amazing
Lindsay: in front of an audience.
Sarah: Love it.
Lindsay: Yeah. Um, my experience with audio drama is that- it was something I listened to on long car rides home from the Jersey shore or in the library on rainy afternoons. And it was always like finding a buried treasure or a secret missive at the far back of the radio dial. And I got hooked on the British podcasts around probably I want to say like 2007 or 2008, or so back when John Oliver was on The Bugle, and I heard We’re Alive, and I thought, Oh, I could do that.
Sarah: Great show.
Lindsay: Yeah. And I made- I’m sure K.C. Wayland would love to hear me say, “Oh yeah, I can do that!”
Sarah: (laughing) Yeah, he’s done all right-
Lindsay: yeah, he’s done fine. He won’t mind
Sarah: Is it a billion downloads?
Lindsay: Yeah. I know. While he’s hanging out with, um, Lawrence Fishburne
Sarah: oh, well,
Lindsay:he’s in Hollywood.
Sarah: Yes, did you see? It’s coming back. Bronzeville Two
Lindsay: Bronzeville Two. I need to get caught up on Bronzeville.
Sarah: Come on.
Lindsay: So I heard We’re Alive and I thought, Oh, I can do that. So I made Jarnsaxa Rising. Uh, and if you haven’t heard Jarnsaxa Rising, it’s not spelled the way it sounds unless you are in Scandinavia, but, uh, in any case, I also wrote Breathless, and The Parsonage, and The Audiophile for 11th Hour Productions and my production company with my husband is 6630 Productions. And Sarah, tell me all about you.
Sarah: Well, I’ve got an F A in play.writing
Lindsay: What’s an FFA.
Sarah: It’s the slightly rude, but Oh, nevermind.
Lindsay: Okay. MFA, MFA has another rude interpretation as well, go ahead
Sarah: So I’m coming in from the position of a voice actor, loving storyteller. And, uh, so I have been in a vast array of wonderful fun, uh, audio fiction shows I, since about 2015 when I started, um, and also I’ve been dipping my toe more and more.
I’m a huge fan of monologues. I teach kids currently various Lambda exams, including our human monologues. So I come across them in my working day. So so much. And so I was inspired to start my own writing, kind of kicked off with the Moonologues, which happened in, I think 2019 was it when the 50th anniversary of the moon landings and involve lots of wonderful people across the world to voice act and write.
Those and collated those, the Quaralogues has just come out in the last year, which is monologues from lockdown. And I’m very impressed and amazed by the talent that came on, to come and play with that. Uh, and I’ve also, I, very shockingly, got some beautiful funding to make Anyone F’Coffee, which is my. Women’s health podcast.
I wrote the audio fiction parts for last year, which is like a hybrid of fiction and, and real life interview with people who are suffering various medical issues, um, all women, and also with. With medical professionals who deal with advice on where folks can get help, who are suffering from these things and, um, places to look, um, just to, you know, help them.
your mental health, essentially, some of the things sort of dipping my toe in and, and really enjoying it. The process of, of doing that. And on top of that, I’ve been. Um, I’m a doer, I guess, like I love doing things. So I’ve created many, many writing competitions. The Dashingly Quirky 2021 competition is open now folks.
So search that up probably look on the show notes for a link, and jump in and send us ,
Lindsay: we should definitely have that in the show notes. Yeah.
Sarah: Um, and that basically entails, uh, involving a judging panel of people in audio fiction who basically yeah. Help help us find. Beautiful new writing. And then so far we’ve been able to perform that at major events like London Podfest, the Pod U.K. Event, uh, the, uh, Vaults festival as well.
And this year I’ve pitched various places. So it will hopefully be a brill dinner . Another event. So I love, I love new writing. I w I love collaboration. I run the audio drama hub, virtual pubs, as learning experiences, all aspects of creating a fiction. I do admin sort of stuff on that and try and ping out as much fun, groovy things as I possibly can.
So, yeah, I, I, I just want to act really, I love acting and I think. Uh, I’m blessed with the fact that I can, I could change my accent and play at my age. And one of those kinds of chameleon type people that have had great fun so far, and and hopefully continue to and sharing all I know on the MADIVA podcast as well, which is, uh, my, how to voice act podcast.
Lindsay: Which is great.
Sarah: Thank you. I’m enjoying that. Yeah, I’m just starting out on my new interviewees for that. So I’ve got great re array of people, including Beth Eyre and Lori Martinez and the Booth Junkie. And,
Oh my goodness.
Lindsay: You’re getting The Booth Junkie.
Sarah: I, am!
Lindsay: I love him.
Sarah: This is amazing. So yeah, so
Lindsay: we love him.
Sarah: There’s lots of beautiful advice for voice actors coming up on that and hopefully to launch end of March, beginning of April. So yeah, I’m a busy, busy, busy lady with a couple of kids as well, homeschooling and a hilariously fun husband too gives me cuddles. So there they life is great.
Lindsay: Oh good. So actually one of the accents I want you to learn, I keep meaning to send to you. Is, I want you to learn the difference between a Philadelphia accent and a Pittsburgh accent,
Sarah: Oh my, see, that’s a challenge,
Lindsay: because I think it would blow your mind.
Sarah: Wow. Okay. I love that.
Lindsay: Yeah. They’re . Very similar. But they’re, they’re very similar, but when, but if you got them mixed up, you could have a fistfight on your hand
[00:14:25] Sarah: [00:14:25] Ooh, la. . Now, are you, you properPhiladelphia, is this accent- ,
[00:14:30] Lindsay: [00:14:30] So, I’m- okay. .
[00:14:32] I was born in Philadelphia. I moved around a bit. And like a lot of people in Philadelphia, I watch a lot of, uh, WHYY, which is our local NPR station. It’s our public broadcasting. So I grew up with a lot of Monty Python and Doctor Who, and trying really hard to lose the Philadelphia accent. But yeah, a standard Philly [00:15:00] accent kind of sounds like this.
[00:15:01] This is we’re going down the shore. We’re going to go down to shore and we’re going to go get some water ice.
[00:15:06] Sarah: [00:15:06] Nice.
[00:15:07] Lindsay: [00:15:07] And, uh, yeah. Noice. Yeah, we’re going to go. We’re going down’a park
[00:15:11] Sarah: [00:15:11] n’own a park.
[00:15:12] Lindsay: [00:15:12] SoI
[00:15:12] Sarah: [00:15:12] I love it!
[00:15:13] Lindsay: [00:15:13] I’m going to go home and do my homework. It’s the weirdest accent ever. I’m going haome . I’m going to go haome .
[00:15:24] Sarah: [00:15:24] I love it.
[00:15:25] I love it. I’m going to learn new things on this too.
[00:15:27] Lindsay: [00:15:27] I’ll send you a video or something. Okay. So also what we want to do is we want people to be able to get in touch with
[00:15:34] us so
[00:15:34] Sarah: [00:15:34] you can find us on Twitter too. And we’d love to ping out, you know, writing links and competitions. If you’re a writer too, and you want folks to know of specific opportunities, utilize us too, copy us in, send us out.
[00:15:46] So we are ADWIT podcast on Twitter, and we great to, to have some interaction with you folks on there and our email. Lindsay drum roll is drum
roll.
Lindsay: Okay. Is
Vince: the email address is Writers Ad Wit, that’s W R I T E R S A D W I T @gmail.com, writersadwit at gmail.com.
Lindsay: Okay. Okay. We’re good. All right, let’s get back to the notes here on (doot-dit-do) okay. Um,
Sarah: Yeah, the rest of a bit question-y, weren’t they? So, that is, do we want to give them something to write and do like, do they want to write a biog, or something and write a biog, d’you know what I mean? I think we should, each episode, even this introductory one should have a something. Do you think,
Lindsay: what do you mean? Like my homework?
Sarah: Yeah. If they want.
Lindsay: All right, for the next episode, if you are interested in listening ahead, if you want to know a little bit of what we’re going to be talking about next episode, we’re going to be talking about plot. So I would strongly recommend going to the truth podcast.com and listen to, can you help me find my mom?
Sarah: It makes me want to cry just thinking about it.
Lindsay: Yeah, I, I got a bit teary listening to it too. Like I had to, as soon as it was done, I had to like, turn it off and go do something.
Sarah: Yeah. So trigger warnings were, do we need to say to folks,
Lindsay: content warning for the sound of children being scared and the feeling of the possibility of losing a family member and also, Oh yeah, maybe a content warning for children being scared.
There is a child who is restrained.
Sarah: Yeah.
Lindsay: So, um,
Sarah: I have to say
Lindsay: against their will.
Sarah: It is one of my favorite podcast episodes of all time.
Lindsay: It’s so good.
Sarah: In fact, it might even be number one. I think I heard it very early on in my modern audio fiction experience of getting embroiled in the community and otherwise, and yeah.
Oh, it’s sublime. Super.
Lindsay: It’s so good.
Sarah: Thank you. Yeah, very much for joining us this week. It’s very exciting to start these, uh, hopefully helpful writing adventures, uh, to inspire and motivate you just to do gooder! . What do I mean?
Lindsay: Yes.
Sarah: What do I mean by better English than do gooder, Lindsay? Cause you have more
Lindsay: Avanti!. We’re going onward and upward.
Sarah: Super! So We will see you next time on the add wit podcast! Ta-ta! Excellent. Bye-bye
Lindsay: bye-bye thank you.
ADWIT: The Audio Drama Writers' Independent Toolkit Podcast 