thetowerarray

[thetowerarray]

Reblog if your art project has not, does not, and never will make use of generative ai at any point in your creative process.

[thetowerarray]

Why YOU (yes you right there) should audition for Round After Round!

Minimal commitment! Due to the show being an anthology, most characters are only in one episode!

Open casting! Anyone can audition! If you think you fit the character then you can audition!

YAY FANTASY! A fun loving fantasy podcast! Who wouldn't want to play a cool pirate or a vampire with relationship problems OR an assassin who is very bad at being an assassin!?

Casting is open until August 2nd! Come check us out!

[thetowerarray]

tiny knights on the back of my sketchbook

[thetowerarray]

Do kids today even understand why podcasts are called podcasts?

[thetowerarray]

C is for @thetowerarray's Calling All Adventurers!

A fantasy story inspired by tabletop roleplaying games. An unnamed voice broadcasts on a pirate radio to any adventurers who may be listening, bringing news and advertising job opportunities. The Host is a former adventurer himself, and as his broadcasts continue, he dedicates more and more time recounting his life as an adventurer many years ago.

One season of eleven episodes currently available.

[thetowerarray]

I love audio dramas so much. What do you mean I can go on a 3 hour aimless walk, look at trees and birds and listen to stories about how wonderful and vast and scary the world is at any time. It's the best. Nothing makes me happier. How lucky am I.

[thetowerarray]

hello tumblr user. in front of you stands a confident and outspoken character. your challenge today & forever is to consider the possibility they may simply have self-confidence and are not just faking to secretly cover up massive insecurities. good luck

[thetowerarray]

Unreliable narrators are one hell of an idea. You can just write whatever, and if a reader points out "hey the way this scene happened should not be physically possible if it's done the way this character described it", you can just be like "yeah I don't trust that fucker either."

[thetowerarray]

Happy Audio Drama Sunday! It's been a long week and I'm exhausted, but art exists and stories are beautiful and I love getting to see people's work. Let's get into it.

⚡️ This week I listened to the first episode of @heartglasspod and was just blown away. Like not only are the writing stellar and the characters instantly fascinating, but this concept is so beautiful and weird that I am all in. There’s something very tempting about being able to talk to a loved one who’s passed, especially one whose death is suspicious, but the memory issue and the actual cosmological distance between our characters is bound to cause problems. I can’t wait to see where it goes.

🧛🏻‍♂️ The thing about @theholmwoodfoundation is: I love Tom. I love him. I can’t help but compare our characters to their predecessors, which I think Jeremy in particular would hate, but they all fill very different roles. That said, Tom is still decisive and funny and refuses to let Jeremy panic, which is very Van Helsing of him. The writing here is so nuanced, and the way these characters developed works so well. Can’t wait to figure out what the heck is up with Jeremy.

🪐 This episode of @iriscasefiles has it all. Gangsters. Linguistics. Violence in the face of unspeakable injustice. Soup. I am constantly impressed with Brian as a character—something about how “nice” doesn’t mean “helpless” is really delicious in the context of this particular anticapitalist setting. And it’s encouraging. You can always do something to fight injustice. Even if you’re just a waiter.

☀️ I don’t have much analysis about @thetowerarray’s finale of Calling All Adventurers, except to say I just love this show. The narrator’s first real adventure has come to an end and asked more questions than he started with. The slow burn mystery and eventual victory (but at a cost) was so skillfully crafted. I am very much looking forward to season two. And in the meantime, listen to the show! It’s wonderful.

🩸 There is a risk when crafting a dark fantasy like @last-dance-audio-drama to deal death willy-nilly. For shock value, for "realism," for the sake of keeping the tone. You all know the type of story. Last Dance isn't that type of dark fantasy. I'm caught up now, and 3+ devastating character deaths in and two episodes left to go, I feel like every single death has been earned. None is taken lightly or treated with scorn. Not a one has a background haze of a writer being like haha, gotcha! And each one hits like a truck. I am worried about what's about to happen to these characters, but I trust the story. Not for a happy ending--I think that's a little too optimistic--but for a good ending.

♾️ I'm like, years too late to The Big Loop, but I'm here now and WOW. The Big Loop started in 2017, a project of audio drama OG Paul Bae, and although it's an anthology, I would say all the stories fall into slipstream fiction. The setup is realistic, everything seems pretty normal, and then...things get weird. I'm only so far in, but every single episode has been a new and fantastic little gem. My favorite so far has been "All God's Children," which is very hard to explain without ruining the several twists. If you want to understand where audio drama as a medium came from and hear some absolutely killer writing and acting, please check it out.

That's it for me! I hope my fellow Americans have an Independence Day that is full of resistance and doing what you can, and I hope everyone else has a lovely week where you don't have to hear about what we're up to for once. See you next Sunday!

[thetowerarray]

Happy Saturday, friends! Welcome to

✨Fiction Podcast Self Promo Saturday!✨

I want to hear all your audio drama news!

If you have a podcast, a new episode, a crowdfunding campaign, a casting call, or anything else audio drama related that you'd like to promote, reblog this post with your self promo! I'll reblog every one I see throughout the day!

[thetowerarray]

I'm glad there are people out there willing to tell stories for someone they might never meet. And to tell stories because they want to. Whether they haven't been told before, or they've been told a thousand times over but never quite like this, I do like a good story.

[thetowerarray]

Okay here it is. The moment that zero of you have been waiting for: My infodump about framing devices and modern audio fiction.

If you're a newer fiction podcast listener, you may have asked, "Why do so many shows pretend to be some real thing?" And if you're a newer fiction podcast creator (as I am), you may have asked, "Do I have to use a framing device?"

Short Answer: It's never been a requirement, but it is fun for some creators, it is useful for some stories, and the tradition of it dates back farther than you might think.

(Extremely) Long Answer:

I would say that the tradition's lineage can be traced back in two directions, separately: horror and radio.

Horror.

This one goes way back. Way way back. Dracula, Frankenstein, etc etc... There really is something about what we would now call "found footage" that creates a workable balance between believable and unbelievable - make it seem like it could have actually happened, however impossible the story is, and (if done right) the horror aspects hit deeper. Combine that with the automatic sense of the unkown that comes from only reading snippets from a few characters' personal perspectives; horror thrives on the unknown.

[Tangent] The podcast Re:Dracula, which I feel should be mentioned here, is a very interesting representation of all this - as a direct adaptation, it maintains the framing device of the novel Dracula: the letters. Its extension of the device is brought not in the audio format but in the RSS feed format. No attempt is made to explain why we're hearing the voices of the characters, as many fiction podcasts default to, rather the immersion comes in experiencing the sense of time between the missives. [End Tangent]

Moving into film, found footage actually took a while to make it onto the scene, but once it did, oh my god did it change everything. Okay, Blair Witch was technically not the first found footage horror film, but we're not going down that rabbit hole. Most would call it the first good one, or at least the first successful one. Which is interesting because at this point we've had plenty of films based on books with framing devices, most of which entirely do away with the framing in the adaptation. So why was 1999 the year film was ripe for framing devices to enter the horror film genre in a big way? I would say it's plausibility. Personal-sized video cameras were now (relatively) affordable, and had been around long enough that people who made and watched films were familiar with them. So it's now a believable thing to be able to cobble together a documentary from clips found on a camcorder, and so they do and now the horror market is changed forever. Next comes copycats, and movies that take the concept and make it their own (like Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity), and movies that parody the now-ubiquitous trope (like Grave Enounters).

So by the time fiction podcasts take off, found footage horror is well established as a beloved reawakening of a beloved literary tradition. And it fits easily in audio horror for much the same reasons as it did in video horror. Think Magnus, Archive 81, probably every SCP podcast, and so on. And within audio fiction, the horror genre is very popular and very much a trendsetter, historically speaking.

Radio.

I could probably get away with just discussing a single event here, and you can probably guess it, but I'll try to go for a broader scope than just the autumn of 1938.

So, honestly, as far as I can tell, old radio shows had a habit of using framing devices just for funsies (or at least for lots of different reasons that I could get lost in exploring but I won't). Importantly though, they largely used different framing devices than books had used up to this point. They were innovative, which is an attitude that certainly transferred into modern audio fiction. Without digging too deep into any of them, here's some notable examples:

Let's start with The Shadow because of course we start with The Goddamn Shadow. This one used a very soft framing device, since it doesn't really explain why the audio broadcast exists, just why it's coming to you in audio format instead of visual: The Shadow has invisibility powers. Yeah I know that's a pretty weak connection, but it's a connection the show attempts to imply: The Shadow often manifests as a disembodied voice, and that ties in to it being a radio show. 🤷🏻

Sherlock Holmes (the one with Basil Rathbone) used a somewhat stricter framing device in pretending to be conversations between Holmes, Watson and an interviewer, in which they describe the events of solving the mystery after the fact - pretty similar to the framing of the original books, but adapted well to audio.

Dragnet framed itself as police reports, I think.

Dimension X and X Minus One both, to varying degrees, frame themselves as tales coming to the listener from the actual future and from an actual alternate universe, respectively. (If you ask me, they should have traded names.) Of course, this doesn't make much use of the audio format specifically, but it illustrates that by this point framing devices in audio were a tradition and not unusual at all.

~We now return you to the music of Ramón Raquello and his orchestra.

Yeah okay here it is. We have to go here.

October 30, 1938 was a day that changed science fiction, audio drama, FCC regulations, and probably the entirety of scripted performance art, forever.

Orson Welles' radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds was so flawlessly framed as breaking news that it famously caused something of a mass panic. While the extent of the panic was slightly exaggerated, it's true that the show was so well done that many people who missed the beginning (or didn't pay attention to it) thought the nation was actually being invaded.

The story that they wanted to tell relied heavily on the device of being a purported news broadcast, and there's no doubt that its impact stems from that device - we're still talking about it 90 years later, and not because of the plot of the story.

I'll leave the parallels and differences between the legacy of War of the Worlds and that of The Black Tapes to be explored by someone else.

Modern Audio Fiction Carries On the Tradition.

Broadcasts.

I've already mentioned TMA, Re:Drac, and Black Tapes.

I haven't mentioned Welcome to Night Vale, which (love it or hate it) was without a doubt one of the biggest catalysts of the audio drama renaissance in podcast form. We all know people who have only ever listened to one fiction podcast, almost invariably either TMA or WtNV. And Night Vale came first and got popular first. Its format as a small-town news radio broadcast has been imitated, innovated, responded to, and intentionally avoided more times than I can count. Very much worth mentioning is that Night Vale popularized the idea of using a framing device not as a way to add plausibility to its stories (nothing could, it's peak absurdism after all), but to add structure. The author knows what to write where, the listener knows what to expect when. Another appeal of framing devices, and another reason why they're so widespread.

Tapes.

Ah yes the tapes. Horror podcasts and their tapes. Drowning in tapes (/lh). It works so well because (a) it's an easy fit for found footage audio, (b) it adds a "spooky" analog horror vibe, and (c) it's fun and fairly easy to design, and forgives a lot in terms of recording quality and editing skill - good for creators at all levels of proficiency. Voicemail and voice memos have similar benefits but without the well-loved "spooky analog" aspect.

Limitations.

The Bright Sessions, Moonbase Theta Out, Wolf 359, and quite a few others all have something in common: they eventually gave up their framing devices. In my opinion, the shows' improvements after doing so is not by any means a reflection on framing as a concept, but instead a demonstration of a show's need to adapt as it grows. Sometimes Episode 149 follows the same form and format as Episode 1, sometimes it doesn't, and a creator's ability to accurately assess whether the format fits the story they want to tell leads to decisions like this (which can be really difficult decisions to make), but ultimately, doing what's best for the story itself always pays off.

When you choose a framing format, you sort of lock in how you're going to write the show and what it's going to sound like. This can be very useful. Like in writing poetry, some of us work better under constraints - it causes us to flex our creativity. It also, as explained above, creates a framework, a formula, which can make it easier to outline an episode.

But it doesn't work for every story. Some shows hold on to their framing devices too long, the plot filling and stretching the format until the frame is bursting at the seams. Conversely, though, I say a series shouldn't abandon a device if it doesn't need the new narrative freedom to further the story - something to fill the absence of the episode format as a player itself in the work.

Form as Storytelling.

This is, in my opinion, one of the greatest (and too often untapped) strengths of framing devices in any medium. I LOVE IT when a piece of art uses its medium as part of the art itself. What part of your story can you only tell because of the medium you're using? What unique part of your medium can you use to enhance the story?

Some absolute favorite examples of this idea from other media, in no particular order: the ending of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, the very end of Zelda TotK, Shakespeare's frequent use of play-within-a-play, the Thor fight in God of War, tons of bits of Series of Unfortunate Events (the books), the twist and out-of-game-play in DDLC, all of WandaVision, the elephant scene from It Takes Two, Asteroid City...

It's something I kind of want to see more of in audio fiction: powerful moments in using the medium of audio as a tool to tell the story rather than only a limitation to be written around. Framing devices help with this, but there are a lot of opportunities in other tools too. I find it in horror and comedy series, and few other places.

Conclusion.

This went on way longer than I expected. I have too many thoughts about it. To sum up:

Why are there so many shows pretending to be some real thing? Because there is a very strong tradition of it in audio fiction, because it provides a lot of structure and benefits especially to newer creators, because it allows for the medium to be part of the art form in a way, and of course because it's fun!

Should I use a framing device in my fiction podcast? My dear, nobody can answer that but you! Ask youself if it would improve your story, if it would improve your writing ability, if it sounds fun to you, and if it would create a show that you would want to listen to (I always say that you should be your own target audience; if you would want the thing to exist, odds are someone else will enjoy its existence). If you use one, you're in good company; if you don't, you're in good company. If you start with one and drop it for season 3, or if you start without one and pick it up partway through, you're in good company. You can do a full-cast immersive found-footage show with sound effects, you can do an audiobook as a podcast, and you can do anything in between!

Feel free to add corrections, context, and additional notes to any of the above. I'm not a history expert, I'm just a nerd with internet access.

Peace and love on every planet, y'all.

[thetowerarray]

Are we allowed 2 updates?

Calling All Adventurers is now available on Apple Podcasts! (it took us a little while to figure it out)

We've also released our final episode for Season 1!

Happy Saturday, friends! Welcome to

✨Fiction Podcast Self Promo Saturday!✨

I want to hear all your audio drama news!

If you have a podcast, a new episode, a crowdfunding campaign, a casting call, or anything else audio drama related that you'd like to promote, reblog this post with your self promo! I'll reblog every one I see throughout the day!

[thetowerarray]

idk at some point i feel like people dont know how to be insane about two characters dynamic without making it romantic. like emotional closeness and complicated relationships and like doing basic acts of caring about each other/protecting each other automatically gets turned into a romantic thing by many people and im just like. sighs in aro. platonic relationships can be just as deep and interesting! sometimes it being platonic makes it BETTER, even! to do so much for someone that is truly your friend and not anything else... is a really lovely thing to tell and emphasizes how important friendships can be

[thetowerarray]

Do you like podcasts? So do we.

Stop by the Podcast Book Club server sometime: chat about audio dramas, listen to podcasts with the community during server-hosted listening parties, keep up with events like our Audio Fiction Convention + Podcast Jam, and more. Hope to see you around!

[thetowerarray]

New Episode Alert! [Season 1 Finale]

Calling All Adventurers Episode 11: Stay Alive

Things go from bad to worse in the Shallowlands as the pair fight to save the lives of everyone present.

Episode Transcript

Content Warnings: Stalking, Gore, Violent Scenes, Death

Additional Voice Cast:

Monster - Owen McKnight

We very much hope you enjoyed Season 1 of Calling All Adventurers. Let us know how you felt about the big reveal. Did you see it coming???

[thetowerarray]

Does anyone have any NON-traumatizing fiction podcast recommendations? Are we sure they exist? Bc so far i have yet to find any