S1E20 - Chugging Away At It

Yeah. Okay. Well, I guess on that token, we're, like, into the podcast again. Hello and welcome to behind the Locked Doors. I don't know, a way that we're trying to summon a demon to do our projects for us. So it's a long term magical spell. I am Scott Paladin.

I am Sam Stark.

I'm Jack. I guess it's weird to introduce myself that way when I don't use my, like, full legal, like, whole ass front and back name.

You're like Madonna, though. You're just.

Yeah, you're. It's a mononym.

Yeah.

I've tried attaching a last name to the name Jack, and it always sounds weird and fucked up, so I'm just.

Yeah, I don't know. Jack seems. Jack seems good.

Okay. Anyway, hi, everyone.

You've got, like. You've got, like the person name and then, like the brand name, which is a smart way to do it. Yes, I've just got full brand name. It's like, hello, I'm full Scott Paladin. To the point where people are like, hello, I'm Scott.

You are Scott Paladin.

Paladin.

All right, let's check in on the reason why ostensibly we're here. Yeah. So I am continuing work on episode four, I think it is, that I'm technically on it's the fuck up episode. Although I haven't gotten to the fuck up part yet. But at the moment, I'm still stuck in sexy sparring time between my partner.

Stuck? What do you mean stuck? You mean reveling in enjoying rolling in sexy sparring time?

Yeah, it's going good. I mean, I'm not making the kind of progress that I gotta stop using this language. It's going slowly, but it's going. So that's good.

You know, going is the important part.

Yeah. So how are y'all doing?

Hey, Sam, how are you doing?

I am actively not working on as and less.

Gotcha.

Last time I heard you were actively, like, in hell.

Yeah, kinda. But in a good hell, I guess. Yeah. No, I had a period. I had a period of like, two weeks where I was really in it and I was like. I was feeling, like, really strong. I had really strong feelings about a bunch of really specific things about the characters in as, just for clarification. And I was really feeling good about it. I was doing the marinating in my head thing that has to happen a bit before you write stuff. And it was feeling really good. And then I got another job, and that's five jobs. And it's just too many jobs. And it's actually pretty cool because it's basically like I heart radio. It's. It's not I heart radio, but it's like the equivalent of iHeartRadio but for podcasts. And it's like, it's national and so it plays in a lot of different countries and stuff. But anyway, I'm basically just narrating a book for them. But I'm. But every episode is a chapter of the book, so. But that's like continuous work every week. So it's like an actual job with and stuff. And I actually, I'm having sort of a. I'm having an emotional time because I have to go into tomorrow I'm gonna go into my, like, I still physically go to work job, which is an accounting job that I, I guess is technically my side job now. Cause I go very kind of sporadically. But I have to go in there and I have to tell my boss, my amazing, wonderful boss of almost eight years, that I just. I can't do this job anymore because I have so much voice stuff to do. So tomorrow I'm going to not quit, but I'm gonna put in my notice for my last non job. Wow.

Well, yeah, simultaneous like, you know, like the. Cause it sounded like you're a bit worried about it. So simultaneous like congratulations and condolences.

That's always tough. Yeah, I'm not like worried about it, but I really. I really like my boss and I really like working for him. And I feel like so many people just have these terrible boss employee relationships and they dislike their jobs or their jobs are really hard on them. My job has been for the last seven and a half, whatever years has been so accommodating and so wonderful. They were so kind to me when I had my second kid. They are always really like, hey, I have to take my kid to the. You know, she threw open in class and now I have to take her to the doctor, blah, blah, blah. They're always like, yeah, sure, go do it. Like, they've just been so wonderful and I feel like I'm just throwing away this wonderful thing, you know. But even though my boss has on several occasions said, just let me know as soon as you don't have time and you have to. He's again, been extremely. Just understanding and caring and wonderful and I. And I'm like, I don't want to get rid of that, but I just don't have. There are not enough hours in the week.

There's not enough sand. Yeah, you need to clone yourself.

I'm only one person.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

But still, that is cool. I mean, that is overall very cool, though.

Yes.

Okay. Jack, do you have an update at all?

I'm still trying to put furniture in my house. That's my update. But yeah, like, because we are in the position where Sam is super busy and I have to have Sam's homework to do my homework.

We're just.

We're chilling until Sam's life calms down.

You have a curtain, though. It looks like you have a. Like, a curtain.

I have a blanket draped over a, like, cl. This. I'm in a closet. Listeners, Hello. This is. I'm literally sitting in a closet.

Podcasting tradition. Like, that's what podcasts are born.

There are, like, fuzzy blankets draped around two sides of this closet from the, like, clothing bar that's in here. But at some point, I want to put, like, foam panels or something on this other wall and probably on the door behind me as well. So this should be a little more sound treated in the future.

Excellent. That's wonderful.

Well, I can see there's foam in your space, Sam.

Yeah, Mine is also.

Sam is super professional. Yeah.

But it's also a closet. So, like, if I. If I close this, I am completely surrounded by foam paneling. But as you can see, like, right here, this is the door underneath the slidey door. But it does a fantastic job for, you know, looking professional when I have to, like, be on camera for other people. But also it does really good sound wise. And I don't need, like, a big studio or anything.

Yeah, right.

That's. That's one of my. Like, someday I'll, like, properly build a little sound booth or something.

Yeah. I'll have $5,000 for a booth. Junkie booth.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got, like, this room mostly gets by on the fact that, like, these shelves behind me all deflect sound. And then I've got.

Oh, the good shit.

So, listeners, because you can't see what's going on right now. Oh, he's still talking.

Like, moving blankets and Ikea sheep skins do a great job.

So for the listeners who can't see what's going on, when we look at Scott, it actually kind of looks like he's in the cargo bay of a spaceship.

It looks like there's a gray wall.

It looks like it's metal. No. No tools and shit. And there's lights.

It's awesome. It's the room in Mass Effect 2 on the Normandy. Where is it? Fucking Jacob. Who Hangs out in there.

Yes, Jacob, Yes.

Yeah, that's what that wall looks like to me. And then what he just showed us, like, he turned his camera around. He's got, like, some nice foam paneling and some of that sheepskin. Like, you know that. Cool. Yeah. And so one side looks like a mass effect ship, and the other side looks like a sound booth. It's great.

I love that for you.

Oh, man. Yeah, I've got. Except instead of guns on the wall, I've got keyboards. Cause I'm one of those guys.

Racks of keyboards.

What is the pink light?

Uh, it's just a pink light.

Oh, it's just.

Hell, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, it's just a pink light. It's one of those Edison bulbs. I can change the color on it. What are you.

What? Oh, my gosh. Now it's orange. Yeah.

Sometimes when I'm sitting on lawn podcasts, I just, like, sit and futz with my, like, color lights. If I could distract people.

The purple, the red, and the orange make it look more like a ship than the blue does, I think.

Yeah.

Oh, my God. There's more than one. There's just lights everywhere.

Wow, that's so sick.

Yeah. Okay, so I did have a. I did have a podcast or, like, an artistic creation question for the. For the two of you.

Oh, bless.

You guys might have thoughts. So when you are writing specifically, like, you're trying to create content. I hate the word content. I can't believe I used it. Trying to create a story. Right. In that process, does that color your relationships with the things that you consume that you go out and look for? So if you are working in the sci fi realm, do you want to then read and watch a bunch of sci fi, or would you prefer to avoid it? Or does it. How do you guys feel about the things related to the thing that you're working on?

I have a pretty specific answer. If it's okay if I go.

Please don't.

Please go, because I'm speaking.

Yeah.

So for a long time, I was just writing. Like, before I. Before I did audiobooks and stuff like that, I was writing. I was writing books. And well, before that I was writing fan fiction, and then I was writing books and. And then I was writing screenplays and stuff. But anyway, I. If I were to, like, one day be like, oh, you know, I have an idea for sci fi. This is something that would never happen, by the way. This is an example. I have a. I have an idea for a sci Fi novel.

And.

And then I would just consume a Bunch of sci fi stuff. But I would try really, really hard to really vary it. Like, I would go from Lynch's Dune to the Expanse to something really super urban. I would try to get as much and I'd watch old 70s sci fi. Cause back in the day when sci fi was like, they have a brick that they're holding and communicating with each other, or they don't even think about. You don't have to have a panel for a computer. You can carry it around. That's really cool because that kind of stu is like the first, like the births of a lot of things. And like when you go back and you see like other people inventing things and coming up with new things, whole cloth. It kind of, for me personally, it really kind of tries to make me think further and further outside the box. But like, I always try to kind of immerse myself in the media that I'm trying to create. And. And specifically for me, I don't suggest that everybody do this. I watch a shit ton of anime, like a whole. Because that's always kind of the feeling that I go for. I love. I love a lot of the tropes of anime in general. And once I finally do get some Azen west written, you'll see it. You'll be like, oh, my God, that's so anime. Sam, what are you doing?

No, I would love that for me personally, yeah.

But I try to surround myself in it, so.

And that process continues all the way through. You said when you get the idea, you get it, but is that something you just like, would continue through during the writing process as well?

Actually, no. That's why it's kind of a specific answer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's.

I immerse myself in it when I'm doing that sort of percolating part of it where it's in my brain, it's not yet on the paper. And then once I am okay, I'm definitely at the phase where I can start writing stuff, I stop. I just completely stop because I need all the ideas in my head, but I don't want it to like, dictate what I do. And so I will actively avoid it when I'm starting to write. So I will switch genres of what I am reading, what I am watching, when I am writing.

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Interesting.

Jack, do you have thoughts?

I think my thoughts are that I have paid no specific attention to this ever. Like, anytime I'm making something, I feel like it's such a. Like, at least in my forebrain. It's such a separate item from the stuff that I'm consuming that I really don't think about how the things I'm consuming are impacting the things that I'm creating. Like, at least in the front of my brain, probably in the back of my brain, there are, like, connections being made that I don't realize are happening, but I'm not doing, like, active thinking about it the way that Sam just described.

Yeah, yeah. I feel somewhat akin to Sam in this, in that although I don't do well, I don't know, I have both drives and I just don't have it as clearly defined the way that you do Sam. Where, like, I both want to, like, see what is there and what is out there and how other people do things. And yet also, like, it's like, how about this? What it is, is I want to see other versions of a story I want to tell, but I don't want to see other things in the genre I want to work in, if that makes sense.

Oh, interesting.

Broadly speaking, I want to be very well read in sci fi and very well watched in sci fi. But if I'm writing sci fi, then I don't want to go read other things with that aesthetic. But if I'm telling a love story in sci fi, I will go look for other love stories in other genres and see what those look like. Because that's where I'm going to learn about how other authors do the same emotional impacts and how they do their characters and stories. Whereas, like, what somebody else's spaceship design looks like isn't gonna help me in the writing process. And like, generally speaking, I'm. Especially lately, as I. In the last couple of years, I've become very introspective about, like, what art. God fucking. What art means and stuff like that.

I think Scott's like, ugh, what art means.

Yeah. But, like, I think both of you got some of that when we did let's Get Weird about most recently, where it was like, what can we take away from these works?

Yeah.

And that's that. That whole. That whole entire season was me just doing this on purpose. And so that. Yeah. Like, I become very interested in, like, the. In, yeah. Versions of the story that I want to tell, but not necessarily the genre conventions of what I want to tell. Like, when I started. When I started working on It Takes a Wolf, I literally sat down and was like, okay, every fucking werewolf movie in the world, let me. Let me take a look at them. And I started to go through them and I was like, you know what? Nothing. I'm not. There's nothing in here that I want. Like, there's literally.

There's nothing here for me.

No, that totally makes sense.

Yeah, pretty much like that. There just isn't. I'm sure there's somebody out there telling similar stories with. I mean, like, actually the closest thing is. I know the crap. What was that Telltale game based on?

The comics. Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Yeah, it's called.

I did a presentation on this college.

Yeah. Big. Big Wolf is the name.

Yeah. Big Something.

Yeah. What's the fucking name of the game?

This is gonna drive me up the wall. Somebody needs something.

Wolf, something. It's. Isn't it based off of Fables?

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah, but what's the name? I haven't. I haven't read that.

So I for real wrote a whole paper on this and The Wolf Among Us.

The Wolf.

The Wolf Among Us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's probably the closest thing. But like, anyway, so, like, but like, so that.

Oh, I see those vibes actually, now that you say that, Scott, I can see the influence there. I see that now. Like, it's there.

There's. There's some of that I played like a billion years ago or whatever. But like the. Yeah, like, so there's. There are examples of it, but I'm not gonna go look for, like, I don't. That's not what I would need. I don't need the wolf parts of that. I can work. I can do that myself. But like, what I did do was read a bunch of Chandler. I went and read like, everything I could get my hand on. Hands on from. From Raymond Chandler and then started looking at other authors. And the weird thing is that, like, Raymond Chandler, he is the best of the hard boiled detective novel. Like, he's like the progenitor, you know? Yes, he's the guy. And as far as I can tell, fucking nobody else is just he. Nobody else hits exactly what I want out of what, like, he. He brings something to that genre that I really, really love, that no other author that I have found does in that genre. So, like, I went to Dashiell Hammett, I went to several others, and I was just like, none of this. None of this has got that juice. I want that juice.

Where's the juice?

So I'm still. I'm thrashing around looking for other stuff. But. But yeah, it's not like I don't want the. I don't want like the trappings of it. I Want, like, the story beats and, like the heart and stuff.

Yeah.

Is it different when you, like. Let's say. Okay, so there's two ways that I kind of come upon an idea, I guess, and one of them is I will. It'll slowly kind of creep up on me and I'll be like, man, that's kind of a cool idea. For example, I'm going to just put my whole ass out here for a second. The whole podcast is filter. Okay.

Or unfiltered here.

So I. I do panels at NorWestcon, which is like our literary, cool sci fi fantasy convention here in Washington state. And I had a panel with a bunch of incredible authors, and I was the moderator and they were basically. We got a bunch of, like, first pages of novels.

Yeah.

And I would read them, you know, for the panel and then they would, like, do a quick, like, minute. Yeah. A clinic on it, basically. And we got a couple of these sci fi ones that were pretty cool. And I kept thinking in my head, I was like, man, I can never write sci fi. This is crazy. And Nancy Kress, I'm just gonna call her out. I'm sorry. Nancy Kress was on the panel. Nancy Kress is a very good writer. She writes really cool sci fi stuff, but she's very traditional, and she only writes traditional stuff. She's very set in her ways. And somebody in the crowd, I don't remember how the conversation got this way, but somebody in the crowd was like, but what if you did Bridgerton in space? And, like, Nancy Kress had a fucking aneurysm. Like, she got like mad on the panel. But then me on the other end of this panel was like, oh, that's a great idea.

You're on stuff.

Oh, my God. So I've been thinking so slowly over the past couple years, I've been like, what if I wanted to do Bridgerton on a spaceship? What if it was planets instead of whatever? And a lot of people have been.

Like, I love mobile suit fire brands.

Exactly. And a lot of people have been like, that's a great idea. That's really fun. Da, da da, da da. And I was like, okay. So I've been slowly, like, I've been consuming Bridgerton like, it's air, it's oxygen. It's just a stupid show and I love it. And I have begrudgingly, very slowly and painfully been reading the books. God damn. Wow. No, they're just the audience, the show. So much better than the books anyway. But I've been doing. But I love Regency. I Like that romance Regency thing. I love Pride and Prejudice, that kind of thing. But. But again, I'm like, I gotta really. I gotta watch a lot of sci fi, I gotta read a lot of sci fi. And so that's like one way that I go about a story.

Yeah.

And then the other way, I was, Sorry, that was a long way around to get to this question. But do you find that it's different when something like that happens where it's like a long time of thinking about what you wanna do as opposed to you're driving down the street and you see a certain looking dog and you're like, oh, that dog's so fucking cute. I can write a story about it really fast. Like, oh, I'm done with the percolating. It's ready to. I have a story idea in my head. I'm gonna go write it. Do you still do like a I want to consume media thing? Or like, is it different when it's like a shorter processing time? Do you still. During the process.

The answer is that if I. When I've had those moments that you're talking about where you're like, I'm just gonna write a story, like, I just have this thing, I'm just gonna do it to that. Like, that process is so short that I don't have time to like, it consumes my life and I don't do anything else. I just like, do it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then the other process where it's like, I have a thing and I want to do it and I have intentionality and I have a plan. Those are so long and laborious and like involve like long periods where I like want to bury my head in the sand, which is like where I'm at right now. Or like that, like, I don't even know. It's like. But like, that's, that's the only time that I'm talking. That's when I come about on the other stuff because the other ones are just like, that's a hyper fixation version of the story writing process versus the like, oh, I have an idea. Here are the things I want to include. I'm just going to start chugging away at it. It feels much more deliberate. And that's when I start thinking about things like, well, what about the media that I'm consuming? Can I turn that into homework? That's when that comes into play. So yeah, for sure. I have a plan. I'm going to do it on purpose.

I guess I've never just had the. So fast. I Didn't have time for research.

Yeah, yeah, that's okay.

You know what I just realized?

Yeah.

Here's what I'll say. The time that I do think intentionally about consuming media that's related to the project I'm working on is if I'm working in a genre or style that's not as comfortable or familiar to me, then I will specifically go find, like, I will do homework about, like, whatever genre I'm trying to work in that's not a genre that I already know all the tropes and trappings of. Do you know what I mean? That makes sense because there are tropes and genres that I already feel so comfortable around that I'm like, I know what I like. I've already consumed a lot of the media that has the stuff I like for this. But if it is something that I don't know much about, I'll have to be like, okay, I better go actually go sit down and watch a noir movie or whatever, because I don't know enough about noir.

Yeah, it's really interesting because there's. We're touching briefly on a distinction that I've been thinking about for a long time, which is the distinction between aesthetic and genre. Where, like, noir is a genre in my head, where it's like, this is about hard boiled crime, you know, crime and murders and detectives and, you know, city streets and all that stuff. But, like, you can tell a noir story in cyberpunk, you could do it in fantasy, you can do it in a regular old everything. Like, that's. Whereas, like, the aesthetic is the coat that the story wears, where the genre is, like, what the story is, the flavor text. One of those things. Yeah, it's one of those things where I think about this a lot because everybody conflates the two when they talk about sci fi and fantasy, where, like, fantasy is almost always just the aesthetic that, like, what you're really telling is a different kind of story. There's very few, like, fantasy stories. Until you get to, like, fairy tales, I guess. I don't know. But like, when you tell me if you said, oh, I'm writing a fantasy book, that doesn't mean anything to me. Like, okay, there's probably gonna be swords, I guess is like, maybe the thing. I can guess.

But there's also, like, urban fantasy where there are swords.

So, like, that's like, maybe there will be swords. But like, if you said, oh, I'm writing a romance, I know a whole bunch about what that story actually is. Yeah. And so I guess, yeah, so when I was talking about like things I don't want to, I don't want to experience the aesthetic, but I will look for the kind of genre, the story genre of what I'm looking at in that way. And yeah, it's one of those things when you're thinking about like, because both of you talk about like, oh, if I was writing in a genre I know nothing about, like sci fi. When you say sci fi is a genre you know nothing about, I'm like, that doesn't mean anything. Sci fi isn't the genre. Sci fi sometimes can be like, can tell you things about the story. Like there are a lot of, like to me a sci fi story. Like the genre of sci fi is when there is some sort of scientific speculative fiction principle that is intrinsic to the story. Like time travel or time dilation or cloning or robotics. Like there's something that's like built into the story itself. And then sometimes sci fi is Star.

Wars, which is just fantasy in space.

Yeah. Which is straight up. And that sometimes the distinction is like space opera is the thing that people say. But like, yeah, there are a lot. I mean like Gundam is like that too. Like Gundam is, you know, it's a. It doesn't sell you anything about what those, those are high. Those really are like a high romance. Like, yeah, like, yeah, romance in the, in the old distinction, like the Byronic.

Romance, not like courtly romance.

Like two people want to fuck. I mean they do want to fuck all the time, but like it's.

Thank you for saying that out loud.

Witchcraft, Mercury or we are good. So good.

But yeah, it's an interesting distinction that I feel like the common language we use talking about stories kind of lets us down in, in that regard. And I also think there's something really valuable. It's harder to do when you're sort of an analytical or non confident writer. But there actually is something really valuable to the naive approach to something where you're like, like I'm going to do sci fi. I don't know anything about sci fi. I'm just going to do it. And what you will end up doing is your version of it more than like the conventional version of it. And there is something really, really cool about when somebody does that. Again, it's hard to do if you're like to have the balls to do it. If you've got the little cop inside your head telling you your writing is going to be bad. If you've got the little critic who's like telling you oh yeah, you already know the Internet comments that are going to happen when you put it out. And they're like, oh, you shouldn't do such and such. Because that was. And like, so I do. I'm not like saying I understand. Like, to ignore all of the people who have all of those voices in your head is like not non trivial. It is hard to do.

Yeah.

But there is something really cool about when somebody is just like, I'm just gonna do a thing. You know, I've often described that as outsider art, but I think naive is a better term for it.

Yeah.

Where somebody is just like, I don't know the rules. I'm just gonna start, like, do it.

Just gonna go for it.

Artists in that way will often do things that like nobody else would do. And that's kind of like I said, there's value in that.

Yeah, totally.

I'm not even sure what part of sci fi I'm afraid of because I grew up on sci fi. My parents are huge sci fi nerds. We've had sci fi my entire life. And if somebody asked me, hey, can you write a sci fi horror? I'd be like, I'm there, I got you. Yeah. Spaceship. Spaceship. Scary alien or ghost spaceship? Haunted Contagion. Yeah, that's easy. And like, again, I'm going to try Bridgerton in space. So I mean, whatever. And like something like Star wars or Dune, where it's more like a space opera and the science of it's kind of, you know, hand wavy. Like I feel like I could do something like that. Cause it's basically, it is just epic fantasy. It's just you have spaceships and laser swords.

Yeah. It's synesthetic. Yeah.

I think it's specifically for me now that I'm thinking about it. When I watch people creating things in the breathing space discord and they're talking about how the ship's ape vac works and the names of the naming conventions of some of the sci fi things. I'm like, I think that's what it is. I don't know how to name anything in sci fi. I don't know how to like. I would have to tell the story from the viewpoint of somebody that is like the opposite of an engineer, like a botanist that's on a ship that knows dick all about what the thing is they're on right now. The science of it scares the crap out of me.

But like, that's like you say that and my immediate thought is that fucking whips. That's awesome. I love that idea. Yeah.

That is a really fun idea.

Like the idea of somebody who's just like in a sci fi world. And to them they're just like, I don't know, that's basically magic, but like computer go burr.

I don't fucking know.

Yeah, yeah. I don't know what the fuck they're talking about, but, like, I kind of love that, you know that taking that approach from. If you're talking about, like, Bridgerton. I don't know Bridgerton specifically, but I do know vaguely the romance, you know.

Pride and Prejudice.

Yeah, it's the same thing.

Highfalutin, you know, it's Pride and Prejudice, but hornier.

Yeah, yeah, yep.

I mean, well, not really, but whatever.

Yeah. If you're being real, Pride Prejudice is pretty fucking horny.

Yeah, yeah.

But taking that as like, oh, these are all rich people who don't know how anything works because they're all separated from it. And to them it is just an aesthetic is actually a really cool approach to that idea.

Yeah, that's true.

That I would. That I really love. Like. Yeah, when you're, when you're approaching things like that, when you're, when you're saying, like, oh, I'm. I want to take it from this angle or whatever, sometimes it's just a matter of, like, thinking like, oh, is this actually a problem or not? Because it doesn't sound like it really would be a problem for that particular idea to me.

You know how in Downton Abbey, all of the, like, people upstairs and the people downstairs have two totally different spheres of knowledge about, like, how the world works. I feel like that would be so easy to, like, transpose onto a spaceship where the, like, crew of the ship understands how the ship runs and, like, the systems within it and the people who are passengers are just like. I don't know, it gets us a place, like, whatever.

Yeah. I mean, I don't know how a plane works. I've been on a plane a whole bunch. I don't know how it works.

I don't know fucking jack shit about how planes.

Yeah, yeah. And a train. I don't know how a train works either. And I've been on a train twice in my life, so.

Yeah, I mean, like, it's. It's one of those things where, again, like, sci fi, it sounds like from your approach, you've got this whole other genre of story that you want to tell and you're just going to use sci fi as the trappings for it. Which sounds great. Like, that's, that's great. I love It. There's nothing like, not just. Is there nothing wrong with it? That's fucking. That whips. That's Star Wars. That's.

Yeah, that's true.

Any number of sci fi properties that you quote unquote, Sci fi properties, that's all of Marvel now, which uses sci fi trappings, but, like, has nothing to do with science ever.

They don't care. Yes.

And that's fine. Yeah, yeah. It's one of those things where the guiding principle is only that you only need something to be internally consistent. It doesn't need to be correct as long as you explain it and then kind of follow those rules. As much as that matters. If it's important to the story that, I don't know, ship thrusters work a certain way, then you have to explain that enough that people understand why the story is working that way and then keep to it because you've explained that those are the rules. And therefore that creates and or solves problems within the story for you to resolve and all that stuff. But if, like, the answer is that, like ships move at the speed of plot, then like you just.

Which they kind of do in breathing space. And we've just decided that's fine.

My brain for a second was like, wait a minute, how fast is plot? What is plot? Like, I literally went like, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on.

What unit of measurement parsec asks like, what are you talking about?

They move at the speed whatever is convenient for the story.

Yeah, yeah. There's one other facet of it that I'm just kind of thinking about right now is I have such a good grasp of quote unquote fantasy stuff because there's so many staples of the genre. There's so many, like, when somebody starts talking about a magic system, I could talk for hours about a magic system. I can like get in there and be like, you know, is it word based? Is it thought based? You know, blah, blah, blah. Like, we could talk about magic forever. Yeah. And like things in a medieval type or steampunk fantasy world that has magic, whatever, has gods, blah, blah, blah, I could really get in there. Cause I've played so many fantasy video games, I've read so much fantasy books, blah, blah, blah. But like, if somebody were to like, okay, let's do a sci fi, da da da. You have to. I personally have to start thinking. Cause again, I like really getting into the nitty gritty and understanding the world that I'm writing in. And I think about, like, okay, now I gotta think about, like, how do they Communicate. What is the energy source? Like I gotta start think like I do with magic. You know, like magic makes the world go around. I gotta think about like energy and things like that for like more science. You see what I'm saying? Like there's like bits of the world like really simple stuff like are we still wearing underwear? Like, you know, that kind of stuff. Like I gotta, I gotta think about, about all the actual day to day crap and it's just, it blows my mind.

There's a, there's an instinct that I think has grown up over the last like the sci fi has gotten a lot quote unquote harder in the last 20 years. The difference between hard sci fi and soft sci fi where like soft sci fi is like, you know, aliens invade from Mars, pew, pew. Lasers, you know, flying saucer stuff. And then like hard sci fi is more like the expansion chance. We're like, yeah, the fact that Martian. Yeah, we're the Martian. We're like, yeah, you're going to talk about how oxygen is produced in this environment and the fact that we need to go mine water ice from asteroid or from comets and stuff. That's a whole. But the truth is that again you only need to have answers to stuff insofar as they're relevant to the story that you're telling. Right. So the question of do they have underwear or not is. I mean if that's relevant to the story, yeah, maybe it can be interesting. And then also what can be cool, this is often the way things work within breathing space is that we think about the world. We're like, well, what if, what happens when this such and such event happens? What happens? What would we do? What would, what would it look like to live in this location? You know, and stuff like that and sort of think about it and then from that will come cool ideas that we then talk about and bring into the setting and they become relevant. You know. The example I'll use is Whale Falls where, where like I was we're talking about like well, you know, you know, the big salvaging and stuff. I was like, well, you know, there'll be big ships that like these, we'd set up all these little salvaging crews wouldn't be able to handle, oh hey, I remember from Wikipedia diving on about Whale Falls that I'm like, oh, this would be a cool thing if it was like a, you know, a big. It becomes a cultural event that mimics other things that we've seen elsewhere in the real world. Let's kind of think about that. And it becomes an interesting plot element. Or not plot element, but setting element.

Super banger setting element.

Yeah, yeah. And it's cool. But it was only emerged from other thoughts that we had. But we've had. This is a very inefficient way to do your stuff because we have tons of those conversations that never result in anything. I have an entire conlang sign language thing that I created. The very first thing I created for breathing space was like Belter sign. It's this whole thing about, like, you can. It's about. It's a sign language. You can also write based off of the movements and stuff. And it's. It. It was interesting. But then we're making an audio drama. There's no. There's no room for it.

Except we. We brought it. We brought it in in season four.

Yeah, I did. I did actual sign language in the booth, but it wasn't built here.

Actual sign language, like actual American Sign Language. You can hear. You can hear Sam's Belter sign in.

But like that's. That sat around that idea. Did not. But so like, when you. It is really interesting to do that kind of stuff where like, I'm just going to world build and see where I come from. It. That's a fascinating way to do storytelling, but you don't have to do it. You could just like plot your course and then fill in where you need to. And then not like. Like Wile E. Coyote throwing down the train tracks just as he's. As the car goes over them. You know, that's totally fine too. I know that. Like saying, oh, that's fine. You don't have to worry about it. It doesn't alleviate the anxiety of worrying about it. I'm not under that delusion. But nonetheless, like, it is totally cool. You can do it. And for anybody listening who's worried about it, like, don't worry. The Internet comments will never be sated. So don't let them rule your head. Like a comedy.

Yeah, you can't live your life by the Internet comments. What I will say, though, is whenever you do bother to do those little pieces of world building that you don't think are going to matter, they can make the world feel like it has a lot more depth. Just because you look into some corner where you weren't expecting to see anything in particular and there's something there that you thought about and adds meaning and flavor to your setting in that way.

Yeah, it's a little bit of a magic trick because if you mention 10 things and then explain two of then everybody thinks that you've thought about all 10 and have answers for all 10 when you don't necessarily do it. So it can be a really good magic trick to making it seem like a more fleshed out world. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Yeah. So, okay. We could keep talking forever. This is my lunch break and I haven't yet.

Oh, no, I gotta go. I keep forgetting. I'm sorry.

No, it's okay. I'm like. I mean, we just have engaging conversations because y'all are both cool people and I like talking to you. So it's not a.

We like talking to you too.

We're making hard signals, everybody.

Yeah.

So we will. We will continue the convention format here. Do you guys want to set goals for the next two weeks?

I have plenty of goals, but they don't involve anything that we talk about on this show.

And I guess that means that Jackson on Holding pattern for y'all, too.

My goal is Sam's life. Calm down asap.

Yeah, we're gonna have to clone Sam at this point just so that. Yeah, we need 8 of time to do this. On my token, I'm gonna keep chugging away at episode four. On that note, I have come to the or. I'm slowly coming to the realization that I will probably start over, like, literally with blank pages on every episode and then only pull in the things I want. And that has made me feel like, oh, like a. That makes me farther away from having this thing all done. But I know you guys have been seeing the Wolf Den where I've been typing out, like, big world building stuff. And it's one of those things where when you think of an idea and you're like, oh, crap, I wish I thought of that four episodes ago. Well, I haven't put any of that shit out, so I can go back and fix all four episodes now.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to do that now. A full draft through and then starting over with the blank page is you have the option to cherry pick only the juiciest shit from your first draft and add it in earlier in the show where it makes sense to do that.

Exactly.

And you'll look like you were so smart and planned way.

So I'm going to be less concerned with the, like, nitty gritty of any particular episode now. And just sort of like, I want to have a version of everything. And hopefully that will. That will make me. Hopefully that will allow me to work a little more quickly with regards to that, because I can go. I can just, like, get it down. Just do it. Fucking do it.

Yeah, just slap it down and then you can.

I'm going to continue on in that. And yeah, we'll check back in two weeks. So bye bye, audience.

Bye, bye, bye.

Thank you for joining us for behind the Locked Doors, a Library of Cursed Knowledge production podcast thing. I don't know if you are interested in any of these projects. You can head over to Library Horse, which will eventually redirect to a webpage once I make it. You know, if you want to support the podcast, we do have a Patreon. It's patreon.com cursedknowledge. See you all next week. No, wait. See y'all in two weeks.