Guest Post: A Podcaster’s Guide to Winging It by Mick Bordet

Mick Bordet writes and produces ‘Some Other Scotland‘, a podcast novel that encompasses twisted versions of current news events and listener interaction set against a plot involving ancient advanced civilisations and clan warfare.  He is also a regular contributor to the short story podcast ‘Great Hites‘.

If there is one golden rule of podcasting fiction, it is “Don’t start podcasting until the book you are reading or performing is complete”, but what if the very essence of a podcast is its ability to change?  How can it reflect what the internet does best, disseminating timely information and seeking feedback from readers and listeners, if it is based on a plot written months or years earlier?  Is it possible to create an engaging tale set within our current timeframe that people can not only follow on a weekly basis, but can, with a little democratic process, have an impact on that is substantial enough to change the whole story?  Well, let us not forget that if there is one golden rule about rules, it is “Rules are made to be broken”.

When I set off writing my latest tale, all I had was a setting (Scotland) and a collection of simple guidelines to follow.  Every week I would post a week’s worth of local news stories and ask my listeners to vote for one.  I would then take that item of news and twist it in some way to make it different from reality.  These fractures would build up over time as part of the ongoing story, introducing new characters occasionally as required by the twists.  By the fourth week I had a core set of characters spread around the country being affected by these changes and just the smallest inkling of where the plot could go.

So, where does that leave me, having broken a cardinal podcasting law?  How do I manage to keep writing every week without knowing what the outcome of my story will be?  What stops me leaving gaping plot holes or writing myself into a corner?

The answer may not be what you would expect in the circumstances, but I use an outline.  True, it is not a complete summary of the whole story, as I don’t know what is coming, but without it I would have tripped myself up several times over, which is not a great way to keep listeners interested.  What I have is an overview of the story up to date, including character details that have been added as the story has developed, and a skeleton of what may be yet to come within a rough timeline.  For example, I know that the main antagonist will cross paths with two of the lead characters introduced in the first two weeks, but I don’t know exactly why or when or even what the outcome will be yet.  I just have this open line that states that it will happen at some point on order to move towards the resolution of the story; the result will probably surprise me as much as the listeners.

When a listener poll throws something new and unexpected into the mix, whether it is a character, a special item or an event, it needs careful consideration to identify the best place to slip it in.  Should it apply to the antagonist to assist in his devious plan or to the protagonist to throw a spanner in the works?  Can it be fully integrated into the plot straight away or would it be better to mention it in passing, foreshadowing later events or explaining a reason for actions that have already occurred?  Once these sort of questions are dealt with, the outline needs to be updated, including the potential impact on each of the characters and the overall plot.

Armed with this toolkit, the process of responding to changes becomes much more manageable, if not exactly easy.  Unlike writing a novel in the conventional manner, there is no going back to an earlier chapter to give a character an item she needs to escape a perilous situation later.  Once the episode is sent out to podcatchers, that’s it; the door is closed, if the horse has bolted you’ll need to come up with alternative arrangements for recovery.  There is only so far that planning can take you.  There will be a dead end or a plot twist from so far out-field that the only way out is with the imagination, but that in itself may open more interesting avenues of exploration than you might reasonably expect; just remember that limitations both demand and encourage creativity.