ADWIT: The Audio Drama Writers' Independent Toolkit

Ignite Your Storytelling Spark for 2024: How to Plan a Season or Story Arc, Plus Coming Attractions and The ADWIT Audience Survey

6630 Productions Season 2 Episode 5

Send us a text

Getting ready to light a fire under your audio drama writing habits in 2024?  Here's a method for planning your next season or story arc that breaks your season down into episodes, and episodes into moments, so you can make a story that matters, one storytelling beat at a time.  We'll explore Dan Harmon's storytelling method in detail, and how Lindsay adapted it for her needs, making up a season and an episode. Plus, you'll learn about the ADWIT Audience Survey, and how you can shape the future of The Audio Drama Writers' Independent Toolkit. And, you can sample the coming attractions for our next episode. 

WARNING: Spoilers for Star Wars and The Wizard of Oz. 

Resources: 

Produced, written and hosted by Lindsay Harris Friel.
Music and production assistance by Vincent Friel.
Additional sounds by  https://freesound.org/people/klankbeeld
Park Forest, Boxtel North Brabant, Netherlands

For more information about this podcast, visit adwit.org

You can shape the future of The Audio Drama Writers’ Independent Toolkit. Take the ADWIT Audience Survey, so we know what writing strategies to help you with next. One randomly selected respondent will win a gift certificate to Libro.fm. All participants will receive a PDF explaining the story crafting method described in our December 25, 2023 episode.

Want to get in touch? Contact us at writersadwit@gmail.com, or visit our website at adwit.org.

Tell us how you really feel.
Write us a review on Podchaser or on Apple Podcasts.


Speaker 1:

Hi everybody, it's Lindsay and welcome to a final episode of AdWit for 2023. As you all know, adwit is the podcast where we talk about how to create an audio drama, because I would like there to be more audio drama for me to listen to. More audio drama, more podcasts, more fun, more love, more everything, and I want to help you with strategies to make that happen. Buzzsprout sent me a podcasting backtrack, which is a very positive hey, here's how your podcast measured up this year thing, and I cannot let them have the last word. We have an exciting new episode coming up soon where we interview somebody who I have wanted to spend time chatting about making audio drama and fiction podcasts with for a while. First, I would like to tell you about the AdWit Audience Survey which is coming up. Before we do that, here's a very quick word from our sponsors.

Speaker 2:

Why go to other amusement theme parks when you could explore abandoned land, experience the thrill of an escape room, the chills of true crime and the challenge of the great outdoors in abandoned land? The amusement park for people born between 1968 and 1985. People love driving a go-kart with a leaky engine in our delinquent Indy 500 racetrack. Hit the finish line before your car catches fire. Climb up the inside of the skyscraper department store elevator shaft and then free fall back down with our pitch dark, rusty girder bungee drop. When you make your way underneath the killer whale habitat, you'll never forget the smell. Splash your way through the remnants of abandoned amusement parks from all across America in our newest attraction, shady Setback River, and remember when you're at abandoned land you're never alone. Burnett Valley Creek Gorge, new Jersey. All participants must sign a legally binding waiver to enter the park.

Speaker 1:

And we're back. Welcome back to ADWIT, the podcast that is the audio drama writer's independent toolkit, where we want to help you make better stories to share with everybody. Ladies and gentlemen, folks beyond the binary, friends and neighbors, I dropped the ball with season two. I admit it. I own it, I live with it every day. You can ask why, if you want. I'm not going to get into it right now, but I still want there to be more good audio drama and fiction podcast to listen to. I want you to be empowered to make better stories and share them with the world, and I want to make more good audio drama and fiction podcasts.

Speaker 1:

So, to that end, I have created a survey for you to fill out. It is about a dozen questions. It will only take a long time if you want it to. Some of them are multiple choice, some of them are open-ended, some of them are. Pick as many as you want and you can find it at the link in the show notes, or visit our website, adwitorg, and you'll have information about the survey available to you.

Speaker 1:

One randomly selected respondent will win a gift certificate to Librofm. If you don't know what that is, librofm is an employee owned social purpose corporation, the chair's profits from your audiobook purchases with your chosen bookstore, giving you the power to keep money within your local economy, and you can learn more at Librofmcom. Librofm supports bookstores worldwide, not just the English-speaking world. They also include bookshops as far away as Ghana, new Zealand and Santiago, chile which I enjoy saying because I would like to live there someday and this means that you would also join our mailing list and you would receive a printable PDF of how Lindsay plans a season, because the end of 2023 is nigh and that means that 2024 Jano Rimo is upon us, because for some of us who are caregivers that have to provide holiday cheer, nano Rimo does not work. What is Nano Rimo? Nano Rimo is National Novel Writing Month, which is in November and it's when people get together and they write

Speaker 1:

their novels and they try to reach a certain goal and then they all get on a website and say here's my word count for today and those of us who have to get your home ready for an upcoming holiday for people that you love and care about so they can have a happy holiday. Trying to write a novel in November doesn't work, but trying to write a novel in January which does not have holidays right smack dab in the middle or at the end of it, might work, especially for people who want to create their own audio fiction script and, as a result, to empower you to tackle January 2024 and start a new writing habit and start a new audio fiction, audio drama, whatever podcast. I would like to share with you here is how I plan a season or a story arc, or at least how I planned season two of Yarn Sox O'Rising. First of all, I start with the Harmon Circle. You probably remember back in season one when we talked about plot. I talked about Harmon Circles. If you do not know about the show Rick and Morty or the tv show community, that is okay. Dan Harmon is a tv writer. Dan Harmon wrote the show community. He currently writes the show Rick and Morty. I have no idea what else he's up to, but in any case he came up with a method for planning an outline of a episode or a series. That works really well for me. It may work well for you. It might not work for everybody, but it's worth a shot. You can read an in-depth explanation of Dan Harmon's Harmon Story Circle at the channel 101 wiki and I will have a link in the show notes and he also explains the story circle, the idea of the story circle, with examples from a community episode in a tumblr post. But for now we're going to make the simplest possible story circle.

Speaker 1:

There are eight stops around the wheel that make up a story circle. Each spot correspond to a point in your main character's plot and I'm going clockwise. They are the comfort zone, something you want. Enter the unfamiliar, adapt, get what you wanted, pay a heavy price, return to the familiar and show that you are different because of the experience. Now, I'm not a huge fan of the details of these points. I think it lets the protagonist and, by extension, the audience, off the hook a little bit too easily and instead I I relabel harman stops around his wheel of fate here stop. One is a comfort zone with something that the protagonist wants. Let's not forget that the protagonist is sort of a stand-in for the main character in many ways. The second point is the offer or an on-ramp to something new. Point three you enter the unfamiliar. Point four you adapt. At point five, you get what you thought you wanted and pay a heavy price for it. I like to mush his points five and six together so that things move faster. At point six, you reexamine, lick wounds and plan to try again, using the knowledge that the main character has gained since point four. Point seven rise to the challenge and save the puppy. Point eight go back home and show off how awesome you are for the experience.

Speaker 1:

Now, this may sound very confusing. By the end of this episode I will have given you a way to get a visual representation of this. That will make it easier to understand. But for the meantime you can apply this to any big five act drama like Star Wars or the Wizard of Oz or Romeo and Juliet or the Muppet movie, etc. Etc. And that will help you understand how any of these stops around the Harmon circle works.

Speaker 1:

But because I differ from Dan Harmon, after point four I want to clarify a couple of the plot points that I am giving you. So the first one is comfort zone with what you are going to mush. Points his points one and two together to speed things up. Like, for example, luke Skywalker wasn t exactly happy on his little farm and on tattooing. He was talking about how he wanted to go to Toshi station to get the power converters or whatever it was. He wanted something right, right. Then you get the offer or the on ramp. This is where your main character has the opportunity to go somewhere or do something or make a big change, just like Harmon. That s point two. Point three we re going to enter the unfamiliar. Point four adapt. Point five get what they thought they wanted and pay a heavy price for it all at once. Finally, I get to meet the wizard. Oh no, he is a giant head over a fire who is not going to help me unless I kill the wicked witch. So you are getting what you wanted and paying a heavy price at the same time.

Speaker 1:

The next point, point six you re going to re-examine, lick your wounds and try to plan, to try again, using the knowledge that you gained since point four. For example, in Star Wars, between the first time they escaped the Death Star and go back to the Death Star to blow it up. They have that planning meeting and Luke Skywalker finally gets to be a fighter pilot, like he wanted. But he's not. He's not just some farm boy who knows how to handle a stick shift. He's important to the people in that room because he's actually been on the Death Star. This time he's their recon guy. The next point you're gonna rise to the challenge. You're gonna save the puppy or the kitten or blow up the Death Star or whatever. And finally, point eight go back home, show off how awesome you are for all the experience that you've had. You come back and you show off your tan and your muscles before you go back to school.

Speaker 1:

You can apply each of these stations of the wheel to an episode and, and each with a hint of what's coming. So each episode can be one of those stops around the wheel and then each of those episodes can have their own little wheel. So here's an example for you. Let's say episode one. The point that we're hitting here is comfort zone with want. This is the episode where we see what the world is like for a cute little small town cookie baker named Molly. So she lives in her nice little town and she makes cookies. She works at a bakery where they make croissants and nobody really appreciates her cookie baking enough. And I'll look. The circus is coming to town, so Molly goes to the circus and she sees the beautiful aerialist, flavia. The next morning Flavia comes to Molly's bakery to get croissants. Episode two this is the offer, or the off ramp. This is the episode where Flavia, the beautiful circus aerialist, asks Molly, the cookie baker, if she wants to run away with the circus and bake cookies for the crowned heads of Europe, and so on and so forth.

Speaker 1:

Enter episode three. Episode three we're going to enter the unfamiliar. This is the episode where Molly finally meets the circus people and loses her suitcase, but she gets to keep her special kit of spices and seasonings that she uses for her beautiful cookies. Episode four she's going to adapt. Molly has to borrow clothes from someone else. She has a very hard time finding clothes that fit because the circus people aren't like people that she's met before. Hmm, that's odd. So as she's adapting, she's learning new stuff about this new world, and she also finds out that nobody in the circus drinks alcohol. Hmm.

Speaker 1:

Episode five Molly gets what she thought she wanted and she pays a heavy price for it. Molly gets to bake cookies for the circus ringleader and she finds out that the traveling circus is actually a front for a human trafficking ring from outer space. Oh no, and Molly is thrown in a cage with all the other humans. Episode six reexamine, lick wounds, plan to try again, this time for a bigger prize. Molly meets the other human captives, especially a lemonade maker named Sybil. She learns that they're going to be put in a zoo on the planet, whatever it's called, and she's going to use that information from episode four that she learned Nobody in the circus drinks alcohol, because they're all allergic to acids that come from fermentation. She's going to use that information to use cream of tartar, which is a ingredient in cookies some cookies, not all cookies to overpower the guard and escape, and she and the other captives plan to steer the circus caravan into a lemon grove.

Speaker 1:

Episode seven Molly rises to the challenge and saves the day. Molly apologizes to the aliens and pretends to work with them. Molly serves snickerdoodle cookies to the aliens, which have cream of tartar in them, which gives them that nifty, tangy taste, and when they're overpowered, the other captives squirt them with lemon juice from the lemon grove. The aliens are defeated and the captives escape. The circus inflates its tent into a giant spaceship and flies away with a warning. Episode eight Molly gets to go home and be awesome and show everybody how wonderful she is.

Speaker 1:

Molly and Sybil go back to Molly's hometown and start a cafe that serves cookies and lemonade. Now each episode can have its own Harmon circle. So let's look at episode one. Here's an example At home. Molly works in a bakery and cafe. She's not the boss. She bakes excellent cookies on the side, but they never quite turn out right because the owner of the cafe thinks that her cookies are not important and makes her bake croissants instead. Her cookies never quite turn out right because the owner of the cafe thinks that her cookies are not important and makes her bake croissants instead. But she gets along with everybody and she wishes she could bake her cookies for folks who would appreciate them. Then somebody says to her cheer up, molly, the circus is coming to town. Why not go to the circus tonight instead of obsessing over cookie recipes? So that's the offer for point two.

Speaker 1:

Now Point three she goes to the circus. She smells popcorn and cotton candy and hot dogs, et cetera, and she gets inspired by all of these new smells and new flavors and thinks herself wow, amazing, all the things I could bake. And the other people from the cafe, they're her friends' hate or awe. You got to relax, you got to enjoy the show. So we get to point four. She adapts, she relaxes, she enjoys the show and she sees Flavia, the beautiful circus aerialist, and she gets to relax and feel happy and she is enthralled by Flavia's beauty and grace doing seemingly impossible stunts, and she briefly forgets her troubles. Someone says to Molly don't you wish you could do something like that? And it ruins the experience for her. So that was point five get and pay.

Speaker 1:

Now we're at point six, where she's healing. She's looking at what she learned, reviewing everything and licking her wounds. She walks home thinking about how she wishes she could bake cookies for people who would appreciate them, like how Flavia can fly for people who appreciate her. So she develops a new tactic. She's at point seven now. She plans to get up extra early the next morning to use the cafe's oven to bake a special circus cookie combining sweet and savory flavors, and she returns home with new skills and information. The next day she tries out her new cookies on the cafe staff and they don't know what to think of them. They're good, but they've never had a cookie like this before. And plus they're busy getting the shop set up for the morning rush. And that's point eight. She suddenly got her new cookie that potentially could be served to people who would appreciate it. It's new, it's different and we're going to end on a cliffhanger. Who should come in to get coffee and croissants, just as Molly's cookies are at the right serving temperature? But Flavia, the beautiful circus aerialist, obviously your plot is going to need a massage to make it work the way you want.

Speaker 1:

Don't ever be a slave to a format. But here's what I want you to try Try writing a season outline based on this Harmon circle. Don't write about something that matters to you. Make it up as you go along. I did. I just made this up. I'm not saying it's great. I'm not saying I'm a genius. I'm saying this is how the format works. That's our show.

Speaker 1:

Please take our survey. You can find it at adwittorg or at the link in the show notes. Tell us how you feel. Again, not only will your survey responses help shape the future of AdWitt, the audio drama writer's independent toolkit, but also one lucky participant will win a gift certificate to Librofm. Everyone who participates in the survey will receive a printable copy of planning a audio fiction season by me, something that will visually make all of this make sense. If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend. If you enjoy the audio drama writer's independent toolkit, share it with another friend. Visit our website at adwittorg.

Speaker 1:

Next episode is going to be an interview with an exciting audio drama creator who I think you will also enjoy. Actually, you know what? Why be coy about the whole thing? Next time we'll be talking to Lindsay Sherman of Long Cat Media. Two lenses for the price of none. It's going to be fun. You're going to love it. Bye for now and have a happy New Year. You lucky folks have been listening to AdWitt, the audio drama writer's independent toolkit. This episode has been produced, written and hosted by Lindsay Harris, freel Music and production assistants by Vincent Freel. For more information, please visit our website at adwittorg.

People on this episode