#unsolicited audio drama advice

[fyeahaudiodrama]

Hello! I’ve been thinking about fights & action in audio dramas so here’s some random unsolicited advice about how to make your fights land:

Give your actions the weight they deserve. Instead of just dropping a “punch” effect into your scene, layer a punch with a shove or other impacts against flesh so it sounds larger than life - and probably more convincing in your audience’s mind

And speaking of impacts, it’s not just physical attacks that need them - magic gets better translated when you tack an impact on at the end, whether that’s smacking into a body or blasting through a tree

Consider the setting your action takes place in and how the action interacts with it. Are you trampling undergrowth? Splashing through shallows? Skidding on shiny floors? Throw some of that in to make the fight environmental as well as physical

You know what else makes sounds in a fight? CLOTHES. Grabbing and grappling them, tearing sleeves, rustling with the rush of movement. Put some clothing sounds in there to help give your fight a really bodily feel

Uhhh that’s all I can think of for now but I can talk more about hacking together sound design if that would be helpful for anyone

[mercyandmagic]

I really like other ships aside from just the main ones. Canon is good, fanon is good. But I can't stop feeling guilty about it. May I ask if MXTX ever made a statement on how we ship the main characters with the others sometimes?

Not exactly.

During the writing of MDZS, MXTX's author's notes mention that the romance is just Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji, no third-party. But this is strictly a comment on canon.

During an interview, when asked about Xiyao, she said she did not intend them as a romantic couple, but then said people can view it as they like. So I'd say she's fine with shipping, and given that her friend and canon artist Changyang has drawn many non-canon ships like 3Zun, Nielan, etc., I don't think she's against shipping other characters at all.

If I may offer unsolicited advice: I don't think you should ever feel guilty for shipping characters, even main ones. One person's preference is different from another's, and if you like Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian with other people, you do you in your fanfiction and fanart. Don't feel guilty at all. I strongly dislike Nie/lan and Xi/Cheng, but I support their shippers' rights to ship and enjoy it.

Also! If you're curious to know more about what she thinks, on May 6th, a discussion between MXTX, the audio drama director, and Japanese novelist Risa Wataya will be published. https://twitter.com/mimifm11/status/1651053205810466817

This is super exciting and I cannot wait to read translations.

[smartphone-science]

“Dicebam haec et flebam amarissima contritione cordis mei. Et ecce audio vocem de vicina domo cum cantu dicentis et crebro repententis, quasi pueri an puellae, nescio: tolle lege, tolle lege.” -Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, ch.8

Had Augustine declined the call and refused to read, Catholic theology would have been a great deal wanting. For it was because of books, and reading books, that Augustine was able to turn his life around and contribute a great body of knowledge and scholarship to early Catholic thought.

There are books lying about in many corners that are eager to be read. Like Augustine before us, the invitation is already there, but with so many books, where do we start?

That’s where I enter. Carrying books.

Imagine me as the pesky neighbour and you are Augustine. Let me annoy you with insistent nags, let me shout “tolle lege, tolle lege” outside your windows. And if that imaginary window be opened, allow me to hurl these recommendations so that you’ll know where to begin with your readings. 

Tolle lege!

First book is

SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome by Mary Beard

Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆

Frankly speaking, there’s just too many books on Rome’s history that a new one only elicits a refusal of repetition. Not again! Like an extra litre of olive oil to your morning sunny-side up, courtesy of some passing Italian chef – it has promise, it has eggs, but eating it only returns a sigh instead of a smile. But Mary Beard cooks up something interesting in her new history of Rome. Her focus is different. It’s not really the history of the city, nor of the empire. Go read Mommsen for that (he’s really great).

What Beard focuses on is what made Rome powerful in the first place: its people, the Romans. That’s why SPQR is great. It acquaints us with the Romans in ways more intimate than has been done before, helping us to understand them in their idiosyncratic bests and worsts. In doing so, SPQR forces us to rephrase Monty Python’s eternal question “what have the Romans ever done for us?” into “what have we ever done to the Romans?” Because, really, aside from being a great Italian football team that finds zero success in Europe (sorry Roma fans, but the black and blue of Milan is the best), how do we look at Rome and the Romans today?

Click here to buy (free delivery worldwide)

Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities by Bettany Hughes

Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆

The good people on the internet are always ready to lend their unsolicited assistance in all things “inaccurate”. Bored online editors prowl the catalogues of youtube in search of historical errata, and once they latch onto a perfect prey, they insist upon corrections. One persistent advice is found in many Istanbul videos, it goes something like “it’s Constantinople, not Istanbul”. What this simply shows is that helping is not always good. Some can be terrible. Is denying centuries of dynamic changes just to keep a western wet dream from spoiling helpful? Istanbul is a city of transformation and endurance, and this is chronicled well in Bettany Hughes’ biography of the city, Istanbul.

How on earth do you even write a biography of a city? Ask Hughes. She does a great job in this book. Istanbul glows and grows with personality in Istanbul, and every page documents that development with the support of expansive research and scholarship. Online zealots will continue to deny Mehmed II his achievement, but like the Crusades they fantasise about, they will always end up failing. Hughes’ Istanbul is a testament to the enduring legacy of 1453, the year Constantinople turned into Istanbul. It was a sad change for the fading Byzantine empire, but it was a change that came at the right time. As Dickens would have it, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

Click here to buy (free delivery worldwide)

Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore by Emma Southon

Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆

It is said that Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned. That’s quite heavy metal and Judas Priest would probably approve. But there’s no truth in this, as this was later revealed to be nothing but slander. Disappointing, to say the least. Royal Roman intrigues came aplenty, and Nero was just an easy target for libellous tongues. His mother Agrippina was another favourite target. Recipient of many crude suffixes and prefixes, Agrippina the minor, the slut, the incestuous princess, what have you, had to thread her way through the treacherous paths of Roman politics for her and her son’s survival. She did so with verve and success, which angered many men, hence the nasty titles.

And many men are still angry today, so the names survive. But Emma Southon fights back for the much maligned royal. In Agrippina, Southon paints a lively picture of the gutsy figure in colourful language. Southon spares no false formality to bear the strength of her defence, and it works extremely well. The thrill, drama, and suspense of political intrigue are vividly captured in Southon’s informal style and there is no other way this could’ve been achieved. Southon’s spirited defence of Agrippina is full of well-researched arguments and confident energy. Many disapprove of her style, but Southon, like Nero, just plays the fiddle as her critics burn in their contempt.

Click here to buy (free delivery worldwide)

Milk of Paradise: A History of Opium by Lucy Inglis

Goodreads rating: ★★★☆☆

The wisdom of the dairy industry has given us milk, many kinds of cheese, and butter. Needless to say, it is one of our greatest accomplishments as a species. But with all good things, the force of opposition always comes uninvited for dinner. The intolerance of the digestive system towards dairy has led some people to look down and expel its wonders in unflattering ways. Dairy, the sweat of gods, the sacrosanct sodium, is forcefully exiled by the body’s bigotry. The power of the downward discharge pulls the mood down as well. To succour our dairy deprivation, many have looked to plants to mimic mammary glands. There is a considerable degree of success in this department. Soy, almonds, coconuts, and other plants have produced milk. But Lucy Inglis says in her book that there’s another plant-based milk, not so much dairy, that instead of pulling us down, pushes us up, sending us to variable levels of high that traditional and alternative dairy can’t.

The name of the juice? Opium. In Milk of Paradise, Inglis traces the history of opium use in human societies. Don’t worry, it’s highly readable. I suspect no opium was consumed during the time of writing. Consider it a highstory. Anyhow, the book is very well written and highly accessible to poppy readers of history. It’s a well-researched romp across time that has the effect of leaving the reader in a rewarding high by the end of the book. Dairy consumption while reading may or may not be helpful.

Click here to buy (free delivery worldwide)

The Woman Who Would Be King by Kara Cooney

Goodreads rating: ★★★★☆

The animated feline drama Lion King centres on the growth of a young cub into a worthy king. The newborn lion royalty, Simba, has been prepped up for kingship even before he first voiced a meow. The mandrill Rafiki, who served as the kingdom’s prophet of some sorts, lifted the young cub for all animals to see who the heir was. There was no backing out of it now. But it doesn’t seem like young Simba has any plans to abdicate – in fact, in a rather morbid behest, he gladly sings I just can’t wait to be king. Be mindful of what you wish for, kids.

Thing is, Simba was the unanimous choice because not only was he the only son, but he was a son. That is to say, the throne of Pride Rock was exclusive to male heirs. Had Simba been a female cub, things would’ve been very different. Would she have echoed the same impatience to be a queen? But, what if female Simba wanted to be a king instead? That’s a story Disney would reluctantly tell. But it’s a story history has already told. Kara Cooney is here to retell that tale in her biography of the Egyptian pharaoh Hatshepsut. And she was a woman. She was a king. She. In The Woman Who Would Be King, Cooney salvages what scant data of the female pharaoh are available to her as she summons Hatshepsut back to life in her pages, exuding the fierceness and cunning of lions. What we read is almost a novel— a very good one — peppered with generous citations here and there to remind us that we are actually reading a real historical account. Cooney’s magic allows Hatshepsut to roar in her book but from a safe mortal distance. Don’t worry, books don’t bite. 

Click here to buy (free delivery worldwide)

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[fyeahaudiodrama]

here’s an exercise for all you audio drama writers:

take a sample of a conversation from one of your scripts, cover all the names/identifying tags, and consider how easily someone would be able to identify your characters based on their scripted dialogue alone

would people be able to tell one character from another based on their speech patterns? their word choices? how much they talk compared to others? their opinions and the content of what they’re actually saying? would someone be able to tell them apart if they all wound up being performed by the same voice actor?

if you’re not sure, it may be a good chance to work on developing your character voices - making sure your characters aren’t just vehicles for conveying plot information, but that each one’s dialogue can help present information about them as a person as well

obviously, not every piece of dialogue will be (or should be) uniquely representative of the person speaking it, and some of it will always be influenced by your personal writing style

but it never hurts to take a look at your dialogue and ask “is this something my character would actually say or something im just trying to make sure gets said?”