Light for the Path/Cast the Shadows
Before there was A New Hope, there was only Star Wars. Depending on which interview with George Lucas, there was only ever going to be one, then a trilogy, then nine, then only six, and then ‘no there were nine planned all along’, then of course actually there were a pile of spin offs planned, some even with Wookies. If only …
Blind Obsession in Characters
As we grow towards May and I, to the online course on comedy with Steve Martin, I’m thinking about what makes comedy effective. The Story Toolkit was speaking to Blind Obsession and used It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia as a perfect example of how to create great comedic characters. What is a character’s “blind obsession”? Many people consider creating character flaws. …
Hidden Exposition
The Story Toolkit Podcast spoke about “invisible” or “hidden” exposition in one of its recent episodes. Hiding your exposition in radio drama is tricky business. Teleplays and film scripts have the ability to point to visual cues; audio does not. Currently, the podcast listening audience seems to be in love with overly wrought exposition. This is the nature of the podcast …
Polarising Your Cast
What does it mean to polarise (polarize) your characters? I first heard this term in The Story Toolkit Podcast episode #31 where they demonstrate excellent polarisation from Out of Gas one of the best teleplays from the amazing dead-before-its-time series Firefly. Good writing polarises the cast allowing each character to react differently to a story event. Let’s consider the iconic characters of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy …
Transitions Key in Audio Drama
Once again The Story Toolkit Podcast got me thinking. This time it was about Stranger Things (episode 23). Bassim El-Wakil and Luke Lyon-Wall in the second half of the podcast episode talk about how transitions are not just clever endings of scenes, but are key to keeping the thread of the story coherent. Isn’t that even MORE important in audio drama? …