S2E9 - Just have your Friend Ask if You Asked them to the Sock Hop if They'd Say Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

All right, cool. Hello, and welcome to behind the Locked Doors, a productivity tool that we've disguised as a podcast. I am Scott Paladin. I am working on a horny werewolf audio drama called It Takes a Wolf.

Hi, my name is Sam Stark. I am working on a spinoff of the actual play podcast Unspeakable Distance called Azin West.

Hey, I'm Jack. I'm also working on Azin West.

Yeah. And we are missing Mike today. But that's fine. He's allowed to go off and have a life and do things without us. We're not codependent at all. It's fine.

We do miss him, though.

Of course. So let's check in with how things have been. I will. I'll start. Two weeks ago, I laid down on the therapy couch and talked to Jack for like an hour about breaking open and reevaluating everything on one of my episodes. So that went well. After I was able to do that, so I. Let me see what the word count ended up being. I broke open that episode that I wasn't feeling good about and went back into the one, the previous one that I had been like, don't let me go into this one. I went into it, I broke it open. It's not perfect. There's still things that need to be fixed about it. But I wrote about five grand on it since we did that and. And finished out that. That part of this two episode bun, so. And I feel a lot, a lot better about what I've got now than what I had been trying to do. So that. That is success. I even started a little bit on the next one. So I am feeling. I'm feeling very good about my progress over the.

Excellent therapy session.

Yeah, that was helpful.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like, I just needed to kill the darlings. I just needed to throw it all out and start with, well, you needed.

To get to something that was gonna make you hype to work on it, because the thing that you were trying to do was really cool, but it was also, like, not the thing that you were gonna jump up and down in your chair about. And I feel like you got to the thing you were talking about.

It was a really good idea in theory, but the actual execution of it was not working for what the show.

Had prior to that point developed into.

Like, it was an. From way back in the early days, and I had just been like, ah, this is cool. I like it. And I never re Evaluated it, and it needed that. So.

And yeah, all right.

How have you all been.

So it's my turn for the homework. I am mid homework. I'm not completed the homework from last time. I've had other life circumstances over the past couple weeks. But we are working on the episode, the sort of second episode where Az and West find stowaway on the ship. And I've like drafted up to the point where they have pulled the stowaway out of the floor and are questioning this child about how did you get here? Like, what's going on? So it's in progress, but it's not completed. Hopefully by the next time we all meet up, there will be a full rough draft of that episode for Sam to read. Hopefully, like earlier than that so that you can have read it by the time we meet up again. But yeah, I am.

That'd be great. But also, if it doesn't happen, it's totally okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's. I mean, a giant cardboard animated foot doesn't smash you if you. If you use your homework in this scenario. So you're fine.

Yeah. And I had major surgery, so I am recovering. And man, man, does post surgery exhaustion suck. Because it's like, what do you mean? I can't vacuum both my downstairs and my upstairs. Why do I have to only choose one? And it doesn't make any sense because I'm not doing anything and I'm so tired and it's stupid and I hate it.

Your body is using all of its energy to recover from major surgery, and that's your homework.

Yeah, exactly.

Right now to rest and recover.

I keep having to tell myself there are three holes. There are three holes in my body right now. Like, I basically. It's the same as being as like recovering from being stabbed. So just chill the F out and like, sit down and watch a show or something.

You got into a knife fight with a guy while you were unconscious, so naturally.

Exactly. And I still won. So, like, I should be proud of myself.

Yes, of course you should.

Well, we have an issue. Or not an issue. We had a topic issue. Sounds fair. We had a topic from, like weeks ago that we were like, oh, we should talk about that sometime. So I remembered that we had. So we were going to talk about the scenario when somebody has given you a script or you've been, you know, you're working on a project with them or whatever, and you read a thing and you go, oh, you've been asked for feedback. But what your feedback is, I want to play one of these parts.

Yeah.

Or multiple of them.

Or multiple. Yeah. I Want to play? That's not unusual. You're like, I want to be all these people.

Yeah.

And so there's the question of, like, how do you navigate that? And how do you. I knocked a thing over. Don't worry about it. How do you navigate that? How do you feel about. Like, should you just hold that in and, like, squash your. To not make it awkward for the other person, or should you be advocating for yourself or what? How do you guys feel about that?

So for me, it depends on who has handed me the script. When mel handed me store 236, I knew I already had a part. Yeah, Shout out.

Plug, Plug.

I knew that I already had a part. I wasn't sure what it was, but I knew it was something. However, when I read the script, there was a character in there that I was like, oh, my God, I want to play this character so bad. And because it's Mel and because we're very good friends, I could just say that I could be like, dude, just get rid of the character that I'm already playing. I want to play this character. I just want to play this character right here and just. Just be funny and silly about it and everything. But if it's somebody that, like, I extremely respect and I don't know very well, and they just hand me a script and they're like, this has gone through a couple rewrites, and I think it's. It finally flows, and I'd love it if you would take a look at it. And then you read it, and you're like, you know, it's the best thing you've ever read, and, oh, my God. And you're just really excited about it, and there's somebody that really, you would be really good for, and, you know, you'd be really good for it. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to be like, oh, and by the way, I'm like, really? And I should play this character because you don't know what they're thinking or planning. They might already have somebody in their head for that character. And then with Mike, who. I'm pretty sure this is why this conversation today came up. When I read his script, I just. Because I know Mike, and I love Mike, and we're good friends. I just very carefully was like, oh, so I would love to try out for some of these characters, but I bet everybody in this is gonna be, like, really amazing and British, right? And, you know, of course, Mike is. Mike was wonderful about it, but it really depends on who has Handed me the script because I know how to navigate that person, and that's how I navigate. Sort of trying to weasel my way into that project.

Yeah. I feel like there is an element of, like, personal and professional comfort you have to have with the person who handed you the script before. You can be, like, you know, even playfully, like, okay, so, by the way, like, if I'm reading a script from, like, when I read Scott's stuff, I'm like, hey, by the way, homie, I would play any one of these characters. They all rule. But, like, if I am reading a script by someone I barely know, that would be kind of different. I feel like it feels overly familiar in a way to, like, come to them and be like, hey, your writing is really good. These things are working, and these things aren't working. Also, consider me for this part.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The.

The other thing. The other kind of important thing is there are two. There are two parts to this. That important to remember is one, whoever the person is that has given you the script obviously trusts you enough to read it. So there's an in. There's a right there. That's, like, they trust you enough to read it, so you at least have a good rapport with this person. And then the other thing is, if it is somebody that you don't know super well, you do still need to communicate that you would be interested if you are interested, because you can't just automatically assume that they're gonna know that you want to be in the production. So for the person that I. Not really comfortable saying it outright, when we were all done and I had read the script and I'd made all of my comments, and we talked about it, and the rewrites were, like, in process or whatever. I just asked very politely. I was like, so when are the auditions for this? And would it be all right if I.

That's a good way to do it.

If I just very professionally, like, the most professional I possibly could, would it be all right if I auditioned for some of these characters? Because I think they're great.

Yeah.

So, yeah, there is that level of do it. Because they're not just gonna automatically know.

Yeah, they can't read your mind.

But then also. Yeah, but also they did ask you to read the thing. So that's great. That's a step forward in the right direction.

I think there's also a. And I agree with you 100%. Like, if you. If they're. If they. If they trust you enough to ask your opinion, then if you are an actor, and you know what your skills are. You're not, you know, you know better than they do in a lot of ways what you can do. And if they. So they may not know. I'm definitely being like, just saying, like, hey, I am super interested for when auditions come out. Make sure that I do not miss that, you know, is a really. The real soft sell version.

Yeah.

But there's an argument for if you feel strongly about something, letting the person who's created it know that you have input on a character, that you feel connected to it, that you think you can do it. If. If you really feel strongly about it, you kind. A little bit. Just a little bit. You kind of owe it to them to. Because if you really think you're going to be the best person for it, advocating for yourself and making sure they know that you haven't have that input and have that point of view on it is valuable. I know as somebody who hand scripts out that hears from people that I'm looking for collabor, collaborate, collaborators, collaborators, collaborators. I'm looking for people who have something to bring to a part. I'm looking. I. And so if somebody has a point of view on a character, I would like to know. As long as there's no pressure for them to feel for them. Like as long as I don't feel like I'm gonna harm the friendship or the relationship by saying no, then I still I personally, as somebody who hands script has handed scripts out, I wanna know when people feel like they have a connection to a character, if they have input and stuff like that. And that can extend even as far as extend it, extend it. That can also shade of, have a shade of. I just have. If you have input on a character, even if you're not going to play them, you just say, I have these thoughts because I connected with this character. And as somebody who connected with this character, that gives me this kind. This gives me feedback that I want to give you just as part of the review process. That's also part of it too. It's really valuable to know when somebody really connects with a character because you know, you hit something then. Right.

If you've given someone blorbo brain about a character that you wrote, you want to know that, right?

Yeah, exactly. They may not see that in that character because they're not you and they may not have the same relationship that you do. So just letting them know that you have that reaction is also valuable. Now that being said, I agree with 100% with the idea that you need to like, make sure there's no pressure.

Right? Yeah, it's kind of like reasonable and delicate about it.

Yeah, yeah. This happens a lot with me because of my narration and I'm in so many writing groups, so I'll do beta reads for stuff all the time and I'll do, you know, alpha reads for things even sometimes, and I will immediately know whether or not I would be a good fit for narration. And I'm way better at knowing narration than I am with voice acting. I have got my narration stuff down. I'll know within a couple, just maybe a couple paragraphs if I should read your book or not or if I could read your book well or not. And so a lot of the time I'll read stuff and depending on who it is who's given it to me, I'll know if they're maybe have me in mind as a possible narrator or if it's something that I just don't ever read and they really just want some feedback. And then there's my friends who write stuff and immediately like, oh, I could definitely read this. Or oh, I don't think that I would be perfect for this. And telling my friends, I have to remind myself, I have to be like, they can't read your mind. If you want to read, if you want to narrate this, you have to tell them that. So, yeah, so that happens a lot to me is the sort of, you know, don't just, don't just assume stuff either way.

Yeah, man. I hadn't thought about this from like it being basically the exact same conundrum with narration versus audio drama. But it is exactly the same, isn't it? If someone gives you something to read and you're like, I could read the shit out of this into a microphone. Like, it's the exact same pickle you find yourself in.

And it sucks. Yeah, and it sucks when somebody hands you something and you know that you could read it and they probably want you to read it because they don't know a lot of narrators, but you immediately know somebody who would be better. Who does that genre better or does that voice better? Like, I do not read. I do a lot of trans stuff. I do a lot of trans voices, but I do not read trans femme because I am not trans femme. That's the wrong voice. So when somebody hands me a trans voiced book, but it's a trans femme and they don't really understand that it's not something I should read, I have to tell them I know so many amazing trans femme Narration, narrators. That would be so good for this. And then they're like, oh, but I don't know them. And I'm like, no, it's okay. So it sucks when you get something that's a different voice, and you have to be like, I can't do this.

And. And on that note, that. That kind of recommendation is. I think it's great when you can tell somebody, hey, this person, this character. I heard so and so when you. When I was reading. Yes, I heard Our Mutual Friend.

That's my favorite.

And that. I think you should never feel awkward about being like, look at. You know, is it okay if I make sure they know about auditions? Is it. Do you know? You know, like, making sure that that connection happens. Very valuable. And because you're not.

That is. That's literally my favorite thing when I read something and I'm like, hey, so I know a guy.

Know a guy or a girl or a. They or them.

Yeah, the one that just happened recently for me, and it was, like, the most amazing experience because, you know, and I didn't. I didn't get them a job, but, like, I facilitated them getting a job. And, like, it was just. It was cool. It was like, win for everybody.

One thing I will note is there. I have. I have been in situations where. I mean, I guess it's not going to. There's no point skirting around it. There have been times when I've been in the. I want to play this part situation on Breathing Space where somebody brought me a script and I'm reading through, and I. In that situation, because I was one of the people sort of running stuff. I tried to. I'm hoping my memory is such. Maybe somebody else will be like, oh, Scott. Really hard sold me on whatever. But when I was excited about something, I always made sure that I was like, okay, well, I'm still gonna go through the audition process. I'm not gonna try to, like, convince anybody that I should play it because that induces some additional. Just because I was one of the showrunners, you know, basically, I was one of the principal writers and the people who reviewed scripts and stuff.

Yeah.

Yeah. So there was a matter of, like, in that situation because there was more of a dynamic. I made sure to say. Or I was. I'm not gonna say I was 100%. I can't remember. Like, I don't want to say 100% all the time, but, like, I was aware of, like, I can't, like, advocate for myself. I should not be like, oh, I Want to do this really badly, but. Yeah, so there. That is something to be aware of. That's not something. That's not a position a lot of people are going to be in because there's probably not a ton of people. The number of people who are running anthology audio dramas, we probably have a higher number of it. We have a higher chance of getting one of those people listening to this show than other shows.

Yeah, true.

Probably not a huge number.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Have you guys. Have you guys ever. In something that you're writing where you already are playing somebody, you write another character and you're like, damn it, I want to voice this character, too. That's happening to me in AZ and West really bad. Like, I already am one of the two main characters. I can't play other characters. And I mean, I want to play this.

Okay. How different of a voice can you do? Because this. This. Okay, if it were, like, a big production where we're paying people and trying to hire actors and whatever, that's one thing. But this is a hobby project. That's a spin off of another hobby project. So if you're out here, like, I can do a different enough voice to convince the audience that it's not me again in a different hat, or it's fine if it's me in a different hat and people can fucking live with it being me in a different hat. There's no reason not to.

Yeah.

I mean, it's not like they don't reuse a bunch of voice actors on professional television shows. Yeah. The people that they hire do other jobs on that same show. If you want to do it. I don't think there's a reason why you would. Unless, like, literally, unless you thought this is going to increase the workload too much for me or I don't think I'm going to do it well enough, then why not?

I think that's the main thing is it would be way too many recording sessions for myself, but. But that just kind of in my mind, I love the character so much, you know, like, we're creating this character that is, you know, it's complex enough and it's interesting enough and funny enough that I love it so much that I want to play it. So that's good. That's a good thing. I'm just looking at it. We can wait, and I'm gonna find a really amazing British person to play them. So it'll be fine.

I can tell you from experience that there have been characters that I've been like, man, I Want to play this character so bad. I'll speak a little bit frankly about it. There was one of the episodes I wrote for breathing space. There's a character named Hooch.

Oh, yeah.

And, man, I tore that character away from myself when I was. When I was like, no, it's got to go to casting. It's got to go to casting. I can't. I mean, I wanted to play that character so bad, and then the character, the person we brought in, fucking nailed it.

Yeah.

So much better than I ever would have done it. And it also. Yeah. And it's just like. Yeah, no, sometimes. Sometimes they just do. You're like, you know, that is the right call. Right. Where you're just like, I just got to give. I just got to give this to somebody else. And that can be humbling. But also, it's so cool because, I mean, like, I still get to love the character. I still get to feel really proud about. Yeah. How well that character turned out because I was still involved in the creation of it. I just didn't get to be the voice, and it worked out so much better that way. Yeah. It's like, there's no shame. I'm not gonna say there's no shame. I mean, like, that's great. And sometimes you'll find it to be better and more collaborative that way. And then occasionally, very rarely, you'll end up in a situation where like, nah, I just gotta do it.

Yes. Like, actually, sorry, guys. Just kidding. I do need to do this one.

Yeah. Yeah, it's happened. It was not super. I felt really, really, really bad about that one. I never wanted to send something to auditioning and then have it go back and go, like, nah, I'm just gonna do it.

Well, sometimes you hear your options, and everyone puts in, like, really nice auditions and does the best that they can do, and you're like, it's still not hitting what I had in my head. And I think I could do the thing I had in my head, which is a tough position to be in, but what are you gonna do in.

The situation where that happened? I. To this day, I still feel like the failure is on my end. I didn't give my act, the auditioning people enough information to hear for them to give me what I was looking for. Right. Like, I didn't have the right. I didn't choose the right lines. I didn't give enough description. Something about the way that I set that up. I was looking for something that I didn't give people an opportunity to deliver on. It but because of. Because of that, I couldn't say, well, I can't, quote, unquote, hire somebody. I can't bring somebody on and then tell them to do it differently than how they like, that I don't know that they can provide what it was. So I was like, well, fuck it, just do it. I still. I mean, I don't feel that bad because it's not like nobody lost out on a job or whatever, but, like, nonetheless, I. That's not the way things are supposed to go.

It would be different on, again, a paid project where people are, like, losing income. If you are like, I'm going to send this part out to audition and select someone and then pay them. That is not what was going on on Breathing space.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well. And even in. In at the scales, we're talking about, like, a lot of this, like, probably it takes a wolf. I know what that budget's going to be. I don't think that's going to be anybody's livelihood.

Yeah, yeah.

When we go to that either. That's all light. Yeah. Okay. There was. There was something as we were talking and then we went past it and I wanted to go back to it.

Uh.

Oh, breadcrumb your way back through the discussion here.

No, can't be that important. Just. Okay, touching back on the idea of if somebody has given you a script. Oh, yeah, this is what it was. Just going back to the idea that you've been handed a script, somebody you. You really vibe with one of the characters, you say, I want to play this. This is. This is what I want to do. Just to reiterate, the most important thing is that you give them the feedback they actually ask.

Yeah.

Before we get into any of this, of I want to play this character or whatever, it is important to give them the feedback that they ask for. And as long as you've, you know, so get all of that out of the way first.

Yeah, yeah.

So that you can actually help them the way they ask for. Because, like, the worst thing as a person who's given out a script is you give this script out and they go, I want to play this character. And you're like, well. But, like, does. Is it good?

Does it work? Did I write a good thing?

Like, yeah. Or like, do we need to change? Like, is this is, you know, what needs to be changed? What needs to be fixed? Like, you know, there is definitely value in. I hand a script out and somebody goes, oh, my God, this is the best thing I've ever read. But there's also, like, well, but, like, does anything need to be changed?

Right, Exactly.

Unequivocally positive feedback is also a version of or less useful than sometimes than.

Anyway, so you have your. You have your people that you know are going to be cheerleaders that are gonna be like, oh, my God, this is amazing. And then that's all they give you. And then you have your people that you know that if you hand it to them, they're gonna be like, oh, I love this. But what about this part right here? Can we change this? And so you'll. I mean, I have, like, four people in my brain right now where two of them would be like, this is great. And the other two would be like, yeah, but this part sucks. So.

And both are valuable.

You have to cultivate, like, your beta readers.

Well, you can also. I don't think there's any shame in telling people what you're looking for at the time. You know, I've handed scripts to people and said, at this moment, I am just looking for encouragement. Like, I know. I know it's got stuff that's wrong. I know that it's incomplete or whatever, but I need the emotional energy. And people can deliver. I think any reasonable person can deliver what you ask them for. And then later on you're like, okay, it's the same. Yeah, it could be the same way.

It's the same when you're asking for feedback on a manuscript for a novel, too. Because if you just hand them the novel and you don't give them any direction for, like, what you're looking for, that's so hard as a beta reader. It's so hard. The hell do you want?

Am I fixing typos?

Right? Am I fixing typos?

It doesn't matter, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. So usually people give me their. Their manuscripts, and they're like, do you don't. Because I'm terrible at grammar, punctuation. They're like, okay. No grammar, punctuation stuff. No, none of that. I just want to know, like, flow. Or I want to know, like, are there huge plot holes? Things like that? And then I'll just look specifically for that.

Yeah, yeah, that's.

But, yeah, that's always helpful if you tell them.

Yeah, yeah. There's a whole discussion about how to get good feedback from people that we could have. That we're. Beth maybe is a thing for a later day where it's like, how do you get people to actually give you what you want? Rather than.

It's a really good topic, though. Because not a lot of people know how to give critique, and not a lot of people know how to ask for critique.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a whole. I mean, there's a whole thing about giving critique that you know they're going to say no to as well. I know that. That was one of the roles that I did a lot of, was telling people things that I knew they were going to say no to in reading space, where it's like, hey, you need to rewrite the entire. Or not. Me too. But I would advocate that you rewrite the entire last third of this episode and change everything and kill all of your characters and do all this stuff knowing that that was a role of. Sometimes people would take me up on it, which was great. But some. Most of the time, it was. I was gonna say a thing, and they were gonna have justification for why that was not the case. And as long as they have they understand why, what their decisions they're making are correct, then, you know, like, break. You know, like, as long as you were doing it purposefully.

Yeah. Something I really appreciate about getting feedback from you, specifically, Scott, is that you're so fearless about recommending sweeping changes to a manuscript, which is, like, really hard to do. When someone hands you something and you know that they put time and effort into writing it and they, you know, had a vision or whatever, it's really hard to be like, hey, I think this is not working on a structural level, and you should change some pretty major things to make this manuscript work. But it's really valuable to have someone who's comfortable enough and, like, brave enough to tell you that. And so, like, I've always valued that type of feedback from you. Even when I come back and be like, no, I have a really strong justification in my brain for why I don't want to make the recommended change.

Yeah.

And that's.

And it works with you. It works with you, Jack, because Scott makes these huge, sweeping suggestions for changes, and you are confident in your writing, and you are a good enough creator to understand what parts you should take and what parts you shouldn't. And that's another thing that a lot of people don't understand. And I noticed when I was going to. Oh, it really does. I was going to all these, like. Like, book groups and writing groups and stuff, and people would just take all the suggestions and just change everything. And I'm like, but now it's not your story anymore. You've changed everything.

Yeah, The. The. The. The most valuable thing about getting input from people is not just the actual input. You're. You're getting information from them about how they reacted to it.

It.

But your reaction to their input also is a part of that cycle. Right. For you. You have to react to the criticism, the. The. Their subs. I mean, and that can be positive too. If some, if you hand a script to somebody and they say, oh, my God, I loved this and this and this and this, and you're like, you didn't understand it. You loved it, but you didn't understand what I was trying to do. Yeah, they make you go, oh, crap, I didn't do the thing that I was trying.

I didn't do it clearly enough for.

Didn't do it clearly enough. I didn't. And so, you know, when. When you give somebody some suggestion that you're like, hey, I need. I would. I would say completely change everything about this, everything about it. And they go, no, because that. Your suggestions aren't the story that I'm trying to tell. Yes, but that I. To me, that, like, that the point where they are able to advocate for what they're trying to do is the point of giving them criticism that maybe they are not.

Yeah.

Suggesting things that maybe they won't go for. Because if they can, if they have the reason behind it, then that means that that's the story they're trying to tell. You know, if they just did it and then I tell them to change everything about it, and they go, oh, okay. And they just, like, follow me blindly. That's not what I'm looking. That's not what you're looking for either. You know, now what you would. In an ideal case, it's either they think about it for a while and they go, no, I don't want to change it for whatever reason or think about it for a while. And they say, oh, I understand what you're trying to go for. Let's change this or that or whatever about it. But the important part is that you have elicited a reaction about them and made them sort of think about the thing that they're doing. So.

Yeah, and you have to also have the context of. Is the person that you have handed your thing to, are they a reader of yours? Are they a consumer of the media that you create?

Yes.

Oh, for sure is like, I was one of the only horror writers in a lot of the groups that I was in, and I had to take the feedback in the context of. These are fantasy readers. These people do not read horror. You have to, like, you have to also know like where your readers are coming from. And again, it's a really, it's a really hard skill to cultivate.

It takes practice. It takes fucking up practice.

Yeah, like, oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Easy. It's easy to mess up giving feedback where you're, you're not giving them what they're looking for. You're at. You're giving them stuff that's for the wrong stage of editing where it's like, you know, I'm giving you little nitpicks about certain lines, but really, you. You were expecting to rewrite all this anyway, or maybe I'm telling you to change everything and you've already thought you were, thought you thought you were just getting like, you know, punch ups on certain line. Like there's all these ways to screw it up and like, there's also the, the feeling of like, if again, am I going to damage the relationship by giving them, right, you know, you know, critical advice or like, you know, asking to change it or hurting their babies or whatever. Like that, that's a whole, that's a whole thing you gotta navigate.

Yeah.

And it sucks.

Yeah.

But look, hopefully you've cultivated the relationships to the point where you're like, you can tell me anything. You can tell me this thing sucks or you didn't. Now tell me. I guess doing a, A, an objective saying I didn't connect to something is different than saying it sucks as well. So. Thing. Yeah, yeah, there's, there's a little bit about how you word it, but yeah, usually. Oh, yeah, go ahead.

That actually, that I have a question that, that totally made me think of something. I was in the con that happens here locally every year. I used to do their writers group. Not their writers group, their writers was like a. Wow. It's a workshop. You like turn. You submit a thing and then you try to get into. You work with some of the pros at the con. Anyway, one year, I don't remember her name. I don't really care. She's some big editor in New York. I was in her group and we.

Were.

We were editing. Not editing. Wow. I've lost all my words. Sorry, guys. We were on a piece that was very strange and on paper it sounded like something that I would really enjoy because the dude got the idea from a Hieronymous box painting and it was very. Just surreal and absurdist. But I read it and I, I just didn't care about anything. It was like not hitting with me at all. And I didn't care about the characters. I didn't care about what was happening. I wasn't excited about the weird stuff. And I was like, this is very odd that I don't care about this, but I don't care about anything. And when it got to my turn to talk about it, and I'd already listened to all this great feedback and all these people that were into it and everything, and I just said, I was like, I am not your audience, and I really don't have any good feedback to give to you because coming from me, I don't wanna, like, say, well, I didn't like this. And I didn't like this because judging by other people who love this piece, this is all good stuff. So I gave my reasons for why I didn't give any feedback for the piece. And then this editor person just ran me through the shredder for, like, five minutes about how you should always give feedback. And I was like, I don't.

That's not true.

What are you talking about?

Yeah, that's just not true.

Okay, so. So you guys are sort of in the same mindset as you were. If you are not the audience and you don't care.

No. Because you're only hurting the person.

Correct. Yeah, exactly.

Okay.

Yeah. No, that's so stupid. If it's your job, like, I guess if you are a professional editor and you've been handed this thing and you've got a boss to report to, I guess maybe that's different.

Or if you're the only editor and.

I am 100% not that this is.

A whole different thing. If there's a panel of people and you're passing something around for feedback, there will be people with whom the piece resonates. And if it doesn't resonate with you, you're not contributing any by being like, well, I didn't like it.

That's what I thought. Exactly. And being aware enough to say, oh, I see. What I don't see. Like, I can see that there's something I'm not seeing here.

I personally thought that that was, like, pretty good feedback. I was like, this doesn't resonate with me at all. I don't care about this, But I can see that it does with other people. So I'm not gonna say anything and ruin something potentially, because you have.

You're not saying nothing. You're just saying, this didn't affect me. So I'm not going to give you the specifics. But the feedback is. I didn't have an inroad on this thing. It didn't touch me for Whatever reason. But I can't. But especially if you don't know why. If you don't have the answer of here is what you have to change. Maybe the answer is it would have to be an entirely different story. Right. Like, again, if you're talking about your fantasy versus horror writers, if you're a fantasy reader and not a horror reader and somebody hands you a horror thing and you go, I don't know how to critique this. I don't have the inroads for it. I would only tell you to make it a fantasy story.

Right, Exactly.

If that's not what you're going for, then that's the only thing I can tell you that takes half a second. Oh, it's not fantasy. I'm sorry. I don't like it. What else do you have to say?

Yeah, no, thank you for validating my feelings. I've. That's been sort of in the back of my mind for, like, three years. Like, just very, very odd that she got so mad that I didn't critique it. It was just.

Well, yeah, that is. That is such a, like, I think, industry mindset about, like, being sort of obligated to give feedback and that you're, like, failing this person somehow if you don't. And it really is like a whole different thing when you are the sole editor and you've been paid to edit someone's shit. But also, you shouldn't be to that point with a script if it's not something that you are, like, a genre you're familiar with or a style that you're familiar with in the first place. Like, that's the fucking whole point of hiring an editor is like, you're trying to find somebody who can work with you and who understands what you're trying to do. And if you're not that person, you shouldn't have got fucking hired. Like, what's going on?

Oh, my God.

Yeah, Yeah. I can't even imagine giving my horror story to an editor that.

Right, right, right, right.

Like, how stupid. It's just not what you do.

Yeah. Like, demonstrating the awareness to know when you're not equipped to give good feedback is like, honestly, like, I wish everybody did that. Because the number of people. I mean, I've been in much more visual art classes than story stuff, but where it's like, we had to go around the room and everybody had to give feedback on your 2D composition or whatever, and I'm like, like, most of you don't know what you're talking about. I know that at least A third of you guys are gonna fail this class. Why should I be listening to your input? But we had to do it. And you have to then take the feedback. But it's like having the self awareness to know when you're not gonna be useful is great. That's really important.

If you are a. Yeah, no, please finish. I will tell you what I was gonna say when you're done.

I was just gonna say like, like the. If you are a particularly good editor, if you are a particularly good person with stories, with art, with whatever you're working in, then you probably can work in a lot of genres, you probably can do a lot of things. And maybe at a certain skill level, experience level, with editing, you can give feedback that would be useful in situations like that. Like this didn't touch me. This didn't, you know, bring me in for whatever reason. If you can identify why those are the cases, you know, you. Then maybe you have something useful as a. If you like, know that it's just not working for you and you don't have the words for why, that's the best you can say, right?

Right?

Yeah.

Okay. Oh, no, I was just gonna say quick, having gone to some art school. Yeah. Art school is so bad at teaching you how to critique. Like, what the hell is every art school professor even doing when they like get you in a room with all these other people and try to tell you like, how to give useful comments? Peers. They're all so bad at it. I don't know why that is, but it is like every art class I've.

Ever taken has been like that.

I don't know. Anyways.

Yeah, no, making art and critiquing art are like they, they have overlap because you need to be familiar with how things work in order to do both. But like, they are two different, like.

Two different skill sets in a lot of ways.

And they don't really. I mean, I'm not gonna say they haven't. They do have lots of overlap, but they're not the same game. And it's really, it's interesting how. And they need to interact with one another too. Like, you can't make art that doesn't get critiqued. And you can't critique things if there's no art. The feedback cycle of those things is amazing. But the best editor, not editor, the best critic is somebody who can teach a third party what they love about a thing or what they see in a thing. Right? They have. Have an understanding of what it is that's so good that they can Impart those feelings onto other people. And they can make it. They can make. They can engender a love for something in something that they, you know, in a third party and be like, let me show you how to appreciate this. Reading good critique will make you a better artist in that way because they can show you things about story structure or, you know, composition or, like, in music theory and stuff like that. You. They. If they. They can teach you things that will make you better at your own job. It's really great when it's done right, but those are not. Being a good artist and being a.

Good critic are not the same.

I'm really sad that Mike couldn't be here today, because I feel like Mike is like that when he critiques something he's so good at, sort of pulling out the really good stuff and being like, here it's. And pulls it out and as you look at it and is like, look at this. This part of your thing was really good, and this is why. And he's just so good at, like, really pinpointing really specific things in writing. And this would have been a really amazing conversation with him because he would have just stopped and said something really profound and then made fun of me, and we would, you know, move on, and it would be incredible.

We talked about.

I miss him.

We've picked. We talked about art criticism or not her. We've talked about criticism before and feedback and all that stuff.

It'll come back up.

We will have another version of this conversation with them. Yeah, for sure. But, yeah. My lunch hour is nearly over, so we need to set our goals so that I can get back onto a conference call. Okay. So as tradition, I will go first. I started just a little bit into the Pillars episode. I'm currently working with the idea that after seven episodes of hearing our main character as the narrator, we have switched narrators, and we're now hearing the insight of our female leads. I like the way that's going so far, so I'm going to continue with that, and I'm just going to keep rolling forward. I hope to have another couple thousand words done on that, and hopefully that works and we can get some backstory and explanations, all that stuff, and have fun with it. And that's mostly the thing. I'm going to try to keep having fun with it.

Good goal.

That's my real goal. All right.

I know that I'm not writing the episode right now, but I am watching andor because it's finished and I can binge the whole thing and Andor for some reason, andor really, really inspires me with just writing in general because it's a fucking amazing show and it's written so well. But the stuff that's happening right now in Andor Season 2 for some reason is specifically getting me really excited to write Azan West. So I might actually sit down these next couple weeks and not specifically write episodes, but maybe write some vibes, if that makes sense. Sure. Do some more skeletal work of some of the later episodes because the ideas are sort of popping off.

Yeah, it's always useful.

Yes. I am going to attempt to finish drafting the second episode and get it to Sam with time for Sam to actually look at it before we meet up again. That is, I think, my only goal at the moment. And there is like, a scene Sam on that episode that's gonna be you. So if at any moment you can drop that in there because it's not contingent on like, the as in the west parts of that episode. Yeah. Like, completed episode to draft by next time is my goal. Cool.

Awesome. Awesome. Excellent. Well, good luck to us.

Yeah. Godspeed.

See you on two weeks.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

Okay. Website. Library. Horse. Patreon. Patreon.com. curse knowledge. And we'll see you guys in two weeks. Anyway, bye.