#making fiction out of fact

[rozmorris]

Making fiction from family memories – Charlie Young

‘I realised I came from an unusual family,’ says Charlie Young, and in that moment came another realisation – there was a story to be uncovered and told. That story became a historical novel, Houdini’s Last Handcuffs, co-written with his sister Cheryl. But to begin at the beginning, I asked Charlie where the idea of the novel was born. The idea of Houdini’s Last Handcuffs came from a multitude…

[panakoui]

post canon laishuro prelude :>

[lovearion]

blake 'i like every version of you but i think the one where you want me is the version i like the most' winter

[hildegardladyofbones]

One of the best things about Disco Elysium by far is that it does not fear ugly women. The world is full of ugly men, but ugly women are so hard to come by.

[dukeofthomas]

I can't find it now but there's a post about suspension of disbelief and how it's broken when the story starts trying to excuse it. "character gets knocked unconscious for hours but there's no further issues from this" okay 👍 "and actually this makes perfect sense because of this and that" um no it doesn't why are you lying to me. like i am willing to ignore the holes and the discrepancies!! all you need to do is let me and not bring unnecessary attention to it!!!

and all that is my issue with the whole robin child soldier argument. like i am willing to ignore it i am willing to engage with the fantasy literally all you need to do is NOT try to convince me that Actually It's Fine Because They Want To Do It or whatever. like literally just shut up about it and i can engage with the fantasy!!

[linniegator]

If Stella Helluvaboss was a gay male character we would get her side of the story, positive relationship with her daughter and a narrative that would make her more sympathetic but since she is a boring woman character (yucky) in a vivziepop story we will get none of that ❤️‍🔥

[way2gosuperrstarr]

oh shit whats that!!!!! i throw this image at you at terminal velocity and immediately run away, getting hit by a car as i make my grand escape. then i die. the end

not final dca designs

[ruvviks]

All That's Left follows two journalists and their friends in post-apocalyptic United States as they travel from the fallen east coast megalopolis Opportunity back to Los Angeles, crossing through a harsh wasteland overrun with zombies— only to find out that there is a lot more life left than what the protected cities want them to believe. On their journey they meet dozens of people living their lives as peaceful as possible away from military forces, corporations, and corrupt governments; and they learn that the same mutated ghouls that took down Opportunity are spreading rapidly through the country, destroying everything in their path. Will this finally be the end of the world as we know it?

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@vvanessaives, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree

[purpleshadow-star]

Pic context: Talking about the exy stadium at USC considering the fact that USC is a real school

I love how Nora just invents things in order to avoid complications with real-life things.

Like, using USC's football stadium as the exy stadium too would take a lot of work to figure out how that would be possible. Solution: invent a new stadium!

Having the characters play a real sport that already exists would mean looking into all the rules and regulations and history, etc, and there could be multiple elements of the sport that work against the plot of the story or complicate it in some way. Solution: invent a new sport!

I mean, it gives her full creative control over what happens in the story, and we as readers get to learn about a cool new thing without feeling the need to fact-check every element. Tbh, it makes so much sense to me.

Like, go off! Make stuff up! It's your world. We're just reading and enjoying and becoming obsessed with it!!!

[coquelicoq]

when you're the only person who keeps living through the time loop, the people around you cease to be people and become mere characters. your treatment of them doesn't matter because they're not real and they won't remember. the only way to give anything meaning is to end the loop; their actions don't affect the loop and therefore are meaningless. you're the only one who has the ability to change the future, so anything you do in service of that goal is justified.

but. kim dojka looks at yoo joonghyuk and says no, actually, these characters are people. whether they remember or not is beside the point because they are real right now. and you don't give your life meaning by achieving some accomplishment that retroactively makes everything that came before worth it - you give your life meaning in the living of it.

[thelaurenshippen]

this is a genuine question not at all meant as a rude gotcha, but I feel like I've seen lots of people cite the relatively low barrier of entry as a huge advantage of podcasts as a medium, "if you have access to decent audio tech you can make a podcast" etc etc. So where does the need to sell a script come in? Is it a financial thing, and IP thing, something else?

this doesn't read like a rude gotcha at all, it's a really good question! there is a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to podcasts compared to tv, film, theater, etc. (though not as low as writing a book if we're talking about hard resources - you can technically write a book with just a laptop and a dream and then self publish! though as a writer who has written a lot of scripts and four books (3 published) writing a book is a much bigger psychological burden imo lol).

the need to sell a script, for me, is entirely a financial thing. if I had the money to produce podcasts at the level I want to entirely independently, I would! I know how to do it! but, unfortunately, I really only have the funds to produce something like @breakerwhiskey - a single narrator daily podcast that I make entirely on my own.

and that show is actually a great example of just how low the barrier is: I actually record the whole thing on a CB radio I got off of ebay for 30 bucks, my editing software is $50/month (I do a lot of editing, so this is an expense that isn't just for that show) and there are no hosting costs for it. the only thing it truly costs me is time and effort.

not every show I want to make is single narrator. a lot of the shows I've made involve large casts, full sound design, other writers, studio recording, scoring, and sometimes full cast albums (my first show, The Bright Sessions had all of those). I've worked on shows that have had budgets of 100 dollars and worked on shows that cost nearly half a million dollars. if anyone is curious about the nitty gritty of budgets, I made a huge amount of public, free resources about making audio drama earlier this year that has example budgets in these ranges!

back in the beginning of my career, I asked actors to work for free or sound designers to work for a tiny fee, because I was doing it all for free and we were all starting out. I don't like doing that anymore. so even if I'm making a show with only a few actors and a single sound designer...well, if you want an experienced sound designer and to pay everyone fairly (which I do!), it's going to cost you at least a few thousand dollars. when you're already writing something for free, it can be hard to justify spending that kind of money. I've sound designed in the past - and will be doing so again in the near future for another indie show of mine - but I'm not very good at it. that's usually the biggest expense that I want to have covered by an outside budget.

but if I'm being really honest, I want to be paid to write! while I do a lot of things - direct, produce, act, consult, etc. - writing is my main love and I want it to be the majority of my income. I'm really fortunate to be a full-time creative and I still do a lot of work independently for no money, but when I have a show that would be too expensive to produce on my own, ideally I want someone else footing the bill and paying me to write the scripts.

I love that audio fiction has the low barrier to entry it does, because I think hobbyists are incredible - it is a beautiful and generous thing to provide your labor freely to something creative and then share it with the world - but the barrier to being a professional audio drama writer is certainly higher. I'm very lucky to already be there, but, as every creative will tell you, even after you've had several successes and established yourself in the field, it can still be hard to make a living!

anyway, I hope this answers your question! I love talking about this stuff, so if anyone else is curious about this kind of thing, please ask away.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: NEVER WHISTLE AT NIGHT: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology, ed. by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr.

This has a bunch of authors I already love in it (Stephen Graham Jones, Darcie Little Badger, Waubgeshig Rice, and Rebecca Roanhorse!!), and several authors I've been meaning to try (like Tommy Orange, Nick Medina, and Kelli Jo Ford, to name a few), so I'm really hyped for them all to be together in one volume! Plus dark fiction is very much my jam (especially when it comes in a bright and colorful package).

[komashkathesilly]

ithink i hauve covid

[uselesscantrip]

made a cazador pin cushion so I can impale him for 11 more years

[louroth]

Lou that tattoo and piercing question get me 👀👀 so thinking about spicy….What’s the sexiest thing MC could wear that would be an instant turn-on to the ROs? (Does lingerie exist in Ouro?? Akshsjshsjd 😂)

OH I love this, B you always come in with the hottest Q's. mwah thank you :> 💖

Yor/Yana: naked but with fur, or a sheet. But preferably naked and wet, always. Sweat counts too - but the baths are THE sexiest place for them.

Auryn: Naked beneath thin clothes or cloth. Anything that hints at what's beneath. Low slung trousers. Cleavage. Anklet jewelry. Being comfortable is hot.

Sene/Selene: Jewelry and chains hidden beneath clothes, straps and buckles, ropes. Qunari armor anyone? They'd go buck wild. Armor and uniform overall makes them think thoughts they ought not to.

Leith/Custom: slips of skin, like high cuts on pants and dresses, low backs. Anything that gives a tantalizing glance of skin. Wearing a summer dress or a sleeveless shirt? They'd be drooling and howling.

Idren/Ida: lingerie for SURE. The more elaborate the better. Or form fitting clothes if one doesn't wear lingerie. Also hunter wearing their clothes after shamelessly stealing them, and if you still have lingerie under they will not let you leave the bed.

[onstoryladders]

i was rereading the comments to my katya/sofia (goncharov) fic and lmao its so funny how we were all talking abt their complex relationship and whatnot when they exist even less than regular fictional characters