Rebecca Scoble
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@Neila–Sorry I missed this! Anyway, just to address your question, we’re looking for an audio DRAMA like Awake, not an audio BOOK like Tokyo Demons. We’re fine with stories that feature a narrator or internal monologue, but don’t get caught up describing visuals or individual actions–conversations between characters should happen mostly uninterrupted.
Hey Najela,
I really don’t think this story is going to work for us. The premise and character archetypes are so clearly based off Ouran Host Club that, even if the plot plays out pretty differently, comparisons are inevitable. And the plot point about Daisuke’s virginity makes your entire cast besides Daisuke unsympathetic in a way that would be very difficult to redeem them from. I think you’re headed in the wrong direction with this pitch, but I’d be happy to read another one if you’ve got more ideas.
To clarify about Awake–the original idea was invented as a comic, but we didn’t get very far into development before deciding to make it an audio drama. We didn’t really have any visuals in place before we switched gears to audio mode (it was basically a pitch we were making to another artist, who preferred one of the other ideas we went to her with), and I’m honestly not sure how the story would’ve played out if we’d developed it more as a comic. The talking computer was a decision that was driven by the audio format, and the scenes would’ve probably been broken up differently in a comic, but other than that I can’t really say.
Every medium has its strengths and weaknesses–there’s nothing inherently more difficult about writing for audio than any other medium other than the fact that fewer people are used to it. Finding a way to seamlessly explain your world and premise without infodumping is a problem in EVERY medium, and the solution is always the same–figure out what needs to be explained right away and what can wait until later, come up with clever or subtle ways for your characters to mention worldbuilding details while they move the plot forward, plant seeds early on so important ideas don’t feel like they’re coming out of nowhere, simplify what you can, and make full use of unspoken communication to establish your setting (in this case, sound effects). If you really can’t pull that off for some important background info, then just do a little controlled infodumping. Audio dramas that use inner monologue or narration can use it to explain background info quickly, or you can leave it for the wise/experienced character to explain to the newbie–it’s not the most elegant solution, but a few infodump-y paragraphs certainly won’t ruin an otherwise strong story. Just keep in mind that this should be a technique that keeps your story moving forward faster, not one that slows things down–the point is to get the necessary background out there so the plot can move forward, not bog it down in confusing details.
Also, remember that you’re not just losing a way to express your story, you’re also gaining one. A lot of the things you’d be getting across in a comic’s visuals can be expressed with acting and sound effects. For example–let’s say one of your characters is very shy and introverted. In a comic, you might design her to wear her hair over her face, to wear baggy, form-hiding clothes, to stand hunched over with her arms crossed, to get an uncomfortable or embarrassed look on her face when she’s put on the spot. In audio, a voice actor can get all of that across through hesitation, mumbling, sighs and other vocalized sounds, speaking quietly and trailing off–etc.
Similarly, lots of common actions are really audibly distinctive–running or walking on different surfaces, eating, crying and laughing, opening and closing doors, rummaging through a bag or a drawer, using a phone, typing and writing, tripping or falling, getting dressed or undressed, using common items like cash registers or vending machines, water and fire, body sounds like coughing or stomach growling, insects and animals–this list could go on forever. And uncommon actions–like, say, causing an error on a futuristic semi-sentient computer, or doing maintenance on cryogenic pods–can be set up in audio through repetition of particular sounds that will need less explanation the more they’re used. Remember, the visuals in comics aren’t actually the most important part–no matter how beautiful or impressive they are, they’re still a means to an end, one way of expressing an idea. If you try to express the way things look in audio, you’ll fail. But if you focus on the actual idea you were trying to get across with visuals, and figure out the best way to express that idea through sound, you can tell almost any story well.
I’m really starting to regret any time I told people that their story wasn’t suited to audio. I don’t want people thinking that audio dramas are a narrow, limited medium that can only handle stories about people sitting around and talking, because that’s not true at all. The problem isn’t that the stories couldn’t be done in audio, it’s that the writer used a concept better suited to another medium and didn’t adapt it well enough–just took an idea like visually stunning magic battles or long, typed forum conversations and stuck it into an audio script without thinking through the best way to make it work audibly.
Okay! I really hope my long, LONG, tirades aren’t scaring people off. This is probably awful, cruel advice to give at this point, but…don’t overthink it. Just tell me the best story you can–if you can get me excited about your story, the whole team will find a way to make it work, together.
Okay, now that we’ve got all the pessimistic stuff out of the way, I’m back to talk about things we DO want to see!
This is trickier, because the question “what makes a good story” is way too big for a simple blog post, and that’s really what we’re looking for in the end–good stories. Every story we’ve considered publishing has, at minimum, one really innovative element, or one really well executed element. There’s always some aspect that raises it above the average, but what that element is varies greatly from story to story.
One thing we’ve mentioned before is that we want stories that evoke a strong emotional reaction. We’ve tried dressing this up in fancy terminology so we don’t sound super dumb about it, but what we’re really looking for is FEELS. And, like I mentioned in one of my first responses, the best way to add feels to your story is to write lovable characters, and then make terrible–and occasionally wonderful–things happen to them. Beat up on your characters in whatever way makes sense in the story you’re telling, withhold whatever it is they want for as long as you can before you give it to them. Even in a gentle modern-day romance, the stakes should feel high to the characters.
In more specific terms, there isn’t that much I can think of. I’d like the next audio project to contrast with Awake in some way–but Awake’s a pretty weird little story, so pitch something other than a sci-fi bottle drama, I guess? Similarly, don’t do anything that’s too close to any of our currently running series. Comedy would be great, romance would be great. An urban fantasy or dystopian story (with fairly simple, subtle worldbuilding) could be interesting. A well-constructed mystery might work really well in audio, or a fantasy story centered around a small, tight-knit group on a mission. But, to be totally honest, outside the list of don’ts I wrote before, I don’t have a preference for genre. Do what you think you can pull off best–the genre you’re most comfortable in, one where you have a good handle on the usual tropes and can use or subvert them in a way that doesn’t feel forced.
Hey Najela! You ask a couple big questions, so I’m going to address them one at a time. I’d actually already written 3/4 of this list of things to avoid when you wrote your post, so I’m posting this part first.
I’ve written out some general guidelines for things to avoid, both for Sparkler in general, and for audio in particular. I don’t like being really specific about genre because we’ve always wanted to have a variety of genres represented in Sparkler, but there are a few types of stories that just never seem to fit in with what we’re looking for, and a few more that take some outside-the-box thinking to work.
Genre and storytelling:
-Avoid writing episodic sitcoms. We want cliffhangers and characters who grow and change over the course of the story.
-Gag humor doesn’t work for us very often. We usually prefer more character-based humor.
-The audio department in particular isn’t looking for anything set in or based off the golden age of radio. Of the small number of English-language audio dramas out there, a large proportion of them are throwbacks to old-time radio shows, so that ground has already been covered by people who know the style better than I do. An extremely good story might convince me otherwise, but you’ll have to really impress me.
-Avoid stories that feel too young. We aren’t a YA publisher. We’re open to stories about teenagers, but plots and characters that feel like they’re stuck in high school, dealing with very teen-specific problems, don’t work for us. Check out our series Tokyo Demons and Off*Beat for examples of stories about teenagers that we really like–both stories star unusual teens whose problems go beyond the average high school hijinks.
-Horror isn’t our favorite genre. To be clear, having horror elements in your story is fine (gore, scary situations, supernaturally evil villains, etc). But stories where the reader/listener’s main emotional reaction is supposed to be fear or disgust don’t fit in well with our lineup.Audio-specific issues:
-Be very careful if you include a lot of text-based communication in your audio story. The way people communicate via text message, internet forum, email, etc. is very different from the way people speak to each other. If you do want to make that kind of communication a major part of your story, think hard about the best way to present it in audio.
-Any kind of cinematic fighting falls flat in audio, since you can’t see what’s happening. A quick and dirty scuffle can work well, but verbal arguments will always be the most effective type of conflict. If you really want to do something high powered, try to think of an audible way to make it work–maybe a system of spoken magic spells with particular sound cues that tell you what kind of spell it is? Your ideas don’t need to be perfect off the bat, but you need to acknowledge any part of your story that needs special consideration from an audio perspective and try to come up with a way to deal with tricky story elements.
-On an ideological level, I want to create good acting jobs for women. Writing stories with male leads is fine (there’s clearly a lot of interest in male/male love stories with our audience, after all), but even if you’re writing a story that focuses on male characters, I’m going to insist on at least a few meaty roles for women in any story we produce.
-Think about scale! Limit your number of characters and settings, the same way you would in a play or movie. The same goes for any music-related plot points–hiring a few musicians is doable, but an entire orchestra isn’t. At the same time, though, don’t be afraid to write more than just people sitting and talking. Through creative editing and sound effects, we can make almost anything work–it’s just that stories that focus too heavily on audio-unfriendly plot points stop being worth it. I know this is a pretty confusing idea for people who’ve never worked in audio before, so feel free to ask specific questions about what will and won’t work in this thread.Now that I’ve focused (too much?) on the negatives, I’m going to do another post about positives–things we want to see more of–later tonight.
Hi abillyhiggins–thank you for your interest in pitching an audio script!
To be totally honest, I have some serious reservations about your pitch. Slice of life is a tricky genre, and as someone who’s heard the philosophical ramblings of undergrads plenty of times before, they would have to be pretty unusual and done with a ton of self-awareness to make an entertaining story. It seems like you’ve put thought into your characters, which is a good start, but simply developing two characters isn’t enough of a story for us.
As a company, we’ve had a little trouble expressing exactly what we’re looking for since we don’t want to restrict ourselves to one genre, but a big part of it is this: emotional impact and forward momentum. Or, to put it more simply, we want stories where interesting stuff keeps happening, presented in a way that makes people care, a lot. So: really bad things happening to characters they love, really good things happening to characters they love. Plot twists and cliffhangers. Complex characters with unexpected motivations. Romance, intrigue, humor, drama. A lot of our stories feel a little pulpy, and that’s a feature, not a bug–pulpiness is fun, and if you do it right, it doesn’t stop your work from being smart, being progressive, or saying something meaningful.
Your description actually reminds me a little of one of my favorite comics, The Less than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal (comic is rated 18+). TJ and Amal is an example of the kind of slice of life story we’d definitely want to publish–like your story, it stars two characters, one whose life has been kind of a mess for a long time, and one whose life just fell apart. But the road trip framework gives the story forward momentum and keeps it on track–the loosely connected things that keep happening to the two main characters build their individual development, and their relationship to each other, with subtlety and humor. It’s full of highs and lows–hilarious conversations take dark turns, Amal’s perception of TJ changes multiple times as new information about him is revealed, the guys’ moods swing from surly to cheerful, or from playful to serious, in a really organic way. The main characters are completely lovable and relatable from about ten pages in. It’s also a romance, with all the extra complication that implies–not that your story needs romance to be interesting, but it’s one way to add some drama. If you think your story can create that kind of momentum and emotional impact, I’d be happy to read it. If not, though, you may want to consider another story.
And this is not directed specifically at you, but you give me a good opportunity to bring it up for everyone: if you’re a cis person and want to write transgender characters, make sure you do your research. This is good advice for anyone writing outside their own experiences, but I want to stress it here because in a lot of the media I’ve seen with transgender characters, the issues they have to deal with get simplified to fairly basic identity acceptance or generic overcoming prejudice narratives. There are a bunch of very real legal, medical, societal and romantic problems specific to trans*people, a lot of which wouldn’t even occur to the average cis person. That’s been my own experience, for sure–reading blogs and articles written by actual transgender people, instead of work filtered through a cis perspective, is eye-opening.
Woo! Thanks, Doreibo! Happy Chinese New Year to you, too, plus all our other readers!
This is so great, Neila! I love the idea for this prompt, too–there is nothing better than terrible Valentines puns!
All right, artists of Sparkler–I can’t wait to see what you guys come up with!
Raffle details:
Sparkler will be running a raffle on March 1st for everyone who participates in this prompt. Just post your art here or post a link to your art here (if it’s hosted elsewhere, like on Tumblr), and your name goes in the raffle! Any free or paying subscriber to sparklermonthly.com can post in the forums, as you’ll see in our Welcome Post.
We’ll be pulling three winners from the raffle. If you’re one of the winners, you’ll receive your choice of one of the following:
1.) A free one-month subscription to Sparkler Monthly
2.) A free Sparkler Monthly ebook/mp3 set of your choice (Off*Beat Vol 1, Off*Beat Vol 2, Tokyo Demons Vol 1, or Tokyo Demons Audio Book 1, Part 1)
3.) A free button set from any of our series mailed directly to you: Off*Beat, Dire Hearts, Awake, Gauntlet, or Tokyo Demons
lockoneyes–OH MY GOD THAT IS SO CUTE! Seriously, so cute!
Aw, CUTE, animatorwannabe! I’m loving Tory’s seductively raised eyebrow–he only wishes he were this suave :D Also the luminous green eyes–pretty!
Huh, I don’t see any broken links or images down there right now…Lissa’s doing a lot of work on the site this week, so there’s a chance something was down for a little while and got fixed or put back up. Do you still see the problem, Nonane? We’ve also occasionally had issues with the links at the bottom of the page acting strange on particular computers or browsers, so if you’re still having issues at this point please let me know and I’ll ask Lissa to check it out.
We love the drop downs, too! They’ve only been there for a few days, but they’re a really welcome addition.
Thanks as always for posting about this stuff, Nonane!
If anyone else wants to add a question here, you have until tomorrow morning (10 am EST)! At that point, I’m headed to recording sessions, so we won’t be able to add any more.
Thanks for the questions, guys! This is going to be fun :D
Hm…
Hmmm…
Not saying anything, any comment I could make would be WAY too spoilery. Just that this upcoming chapter could add some fuel to this conversation.
Heh heh heh.
Sorry about that, I dropped this for a little while. I think I figured out what the issue here is, though.
Basically, the edit button is on a timer, and I’m pretty sure this is actually on purpose from the people who designed our forum software. The idea is that if you post something and quickly realize that you screwed up or put in a typo, you can go fix your mistake. But once a post has been up for a while, it can be confusing if someone goes back and changes it, particularly if people have already responded. This is trying to combat the thing where someone loses an argument and then goes back and deletes or changes their posts, leaving the forum an indecipherable mess.
We’re a pretty chill forum, so I don’t really think keeping you guys from being destructive like that is necessary, but I haven’t figured out how to change that option.
Lissa’s too busy to look into this immediately, but I can put it on her list of things to do in the next few weeks. I guess the question is–if this isn’t really a bug so much as a design choice, how much do you guys care? I have no idea whether this is a simple fix that can be changed by unchecking some option I couldn’t find, or an impossible fix that would mean making major changes to the forum software.As admins, Lianne and I can always edit things for you if there’s an issue, at least while the forum is relatively small. That’s at least a temporary fix.
Ha, I never realized Neila was Alien spelled backwards! Cool!
