SOME WAYS TO…

Jon: “There are folks out there who want something that's like something they've already enjoyed - kind of comfort food, basically. If you go to the Audio Drama Reddit, you’ll see - hey, I want something that's like Indiana Jones or...

And fair play to them. This is a medium where you can create something that's effectively a homage or a pastiche of an existing medium. That can be very successful.

The cons of originality are - people don't know they'll enjoy it until they try it. So there is naturally a barrier to entry. And then, when they're trying to spread the word, they may well find it incredibly hard to describe exactly what the hell this show is …a horror / weird fiction / folk symbiote..?


“You get to create something that's unlike anything else out there…”


The pros of originality… It's a virtue in itself, right? You get to create something that's unlike anything else out there - to a certain extent. You get to feel like you're innovating, which is brilliant.” (Jon Ware, The Silt Verses)

Muna: “I would say another con of originality is that - with a serialised fiction podcast - our attention spans nowadays are very short. You get 5… 10… 15 minutes in and you go, I don't like this and - just switch it off.

If you're already paying for Netflix, or you buy a book, the author has already received their royalties off your interaction with it. Whereas with us, you need to stick with it for us to know that you're a fan and then support us.

If someone isn't willing to give it a proper chance - especially because our episodes are so long - because it is something that they're not used to...they can just easily drop off. And yeah, we're not expecting every single person to come and listen to us. But it's a tough one, because you do need to stick with it for a bit before you get hooked, I think.” (Muna Hussen, The Silt Verses)


“…attention spans nowadays are very short.”

John: “Audio drama and podcasting has suddenly become huge, which is incredible.
And it's just really important to know the medium you're working in and love that medium for what it's capable of.
So do your research - there is a rich language and culture of radio drama that you can learn a lot from before you start.
Because it's capable of almost anything - you just need to know how to tackle it.


“...go out and listen to the world.”


And once you've nailed, like, how the medium functions, go out and listen to the world - what the information is that you need to understand someone or tell a story. (John Wakefield, Wooden Overcoats)

David: “You need to know what you're doing, but not too much.
I think sometimes if you go in aware of the challenges ahead …you won't do them.” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)


“…know what you're doing, but not too much.”

Kaitlin: “When I write, I really love to give my listeners the opportunity to first draw their own conclusions. So I love to drop smaller clues that they can start trying to piece together. I want them to feel as though they've worked to earn this bit of lore.
Especially because, in The White Vault, you're doing found footage. You're not getting all of the same information that the characters are getting, and they're already not getting a lot of information.
They're in a terrible situation where they're trying to figure out what's going on, and then you're receiving a very filtered version of that. So I created this... I always think of, like, the hamster water feeder - when you finally get something, it feels like an achievement.
A bit of the mystery is revealed and sometimes revealing one piece just creates more questions. And for me - as a consumer of horror, or mysteries - that's something that I really like. It should have levels to it and layers to it.
I don't see anything wrong with people who want to push forward the lore and really get that deep dive done as soon as possible so that you can expand from there. But that's not the stories that I generally like to tell.” (Kaitlin Statz, The White Vault)


“I want them to feel as though they've worked to earn this bit of lore.”


Travis: “I was recently listening to Episode One and Two of The White Vault - because it was our eight year anniversary of making podcasts.
Now, knowing the entire story - having lived through five seasons and five miniseries - there were some connections that I, the person working on this thing day and night, had not connected.” (Travis Vengroff, The White Vault)

Jen: “Our comedy, by and large, is quite character driven. So it'll come from putting these characters in the situation - or imagining like, what is the owner of a magic shop? Like, how would they talk? (Jen Sugden, Victoriocity)

”I always, from the very beginning, even background sort of crowd characters, I gave names - because I thought whoever has to play that part has to have ownership.” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)

DAVID: “I think some writers do a big series bible in advance, like …this is how the postal service here works…
I hate that.
I get really bored. And so we'd throw in references to things that are ridiculous, like the woods, which are small but impossibly dense, and the Belgian embassy - on this tiny island. And we really enjoyed that. But I like then - the next season - going, okay, let's build upon those jokes and get something serious out of them.

So if Eric goes, gosh, I'm lonely - as a punchline, in Season One - in Season Four, you go, no, let's think about what that now means, and let's generate stories from the throwaway jokes.
And then you build and build and build, and more characters have …things.” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)

KAITLIN: “When you're trying to write something that's much larger, with an overarching story - you're still writing every episode having its own story.
Each episode is trying to accomplish something, and each season is trying to accomplish something larger, and then, at last, at last, at last...greater and greater.” (Kaitlin Statz, The White Vault)


“…you always feel like you're progressing in your knowledge.”


NAOMI: “I think the most important thing is that something should happen in every episode. You should be able to describe it - preferably short. You know, this is the episode where Amy arrives. This is the episode where this guy has a gun.
I also like to chop the front of the episode and put it in the previous episode's ending.

So there's always a cliffhanger and, then, the next episode immediately says - and here's what that's about. Even though there's mystery, each episode solves a singular mystery, one at a time. So you always feel like you're progressing in your knowledge.
Because I find it's harder to engage with something when you have to wait for answers. So one of the things I did is wrote down a load of secrets - and then tried to allocate one per episode.
Each episode, it gets more intense - and the secrets get darker, and bigger, and more important. But something is resolved every episode.” (Naomi Clarke, The Secret of St Kilda)

JON: “We've got some episodes... There's one that I'm just finalising now, for Season Three, that's gonna be over an hour long. And you go, this is crazy.
We could actually just split this into two. We’d get more downloads. If we were running adverts on it, we’d get more adverts. But there is that real joy in going - no, I want every episode to have something happen.
And people can always look back and go, this was the episode where we were in this really exciting location. You know, every episode, even though it's not an anthology and it's not really a Monster of the Week show, can feel self-contained and memorable, and that's really, really valuable. (Jon Ware, The Silt Verses)


“We often talk about respecting our listeners.”


MUNA: “We often talk about respecting our listeners. Like, we don't need to make the decision for them that this is too complicated or this is too long.
There is the risk - because you're doing everything in real time - that maybe some people will find it too complicated.
But so far, our listeners have actually really enjoyed having that kind of meaty episode that they can interact with every fortnight.” (Muna Hussen, The Silt Verses)

JEN: “When we have the whole season, we'll go through, make sure there's no plot holes. And then we make sure that we've got enough world-building in each episode.
And also, there's a good mix of it coming from the character's interaction with the world, so it's not just the narration doing the heavy lifting.
Once we’ve done that - is this funny..?

At our first table read, people were like - this is funny, but I'm really struggling to get my head into the world. It was just too much too fast.
The solution to that was we needed a different episode one
…to introduce the characters, and set the world up better.” (Jen Sugden, Victoriocity)

Chris: “The solution is being flexible as writers, right? Don't be so fixed in your ideas that you can't change where the story starts, or what perspective, or whatever.”

“The solution is being flexible…”

DAVID: “What I said to the writers was - what I want are good stories. We will find a way of making it funny.
I know if I sit there and try to write a script and I go - number one: you have to be funny …I freeze up and nothing gets done. Whereas, a good thing about Rudyard, as a protagonist, is that he's always trying to do something. It's always the wrong thing, but he's actively pushing a story along…
I found that you just focus on a character, and think what do they want to do this week? And how are we going to turn that into a fun thing? Does that involve local elections? Does that involve being stuck in a mineshaft?” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)


“That first minute is so crucial.”


NAOMI: “I have quite a short attention span - and I think, also, in audio media you have such a short period of time to get people's interest.
That first minute is so crucial.

The story that we had originally was a lot about slow unfolding. But - if you want people to get invested - I really like to start when the shit hits the fan and then work backwards. Everything else, we can fill in later.
Mysteries are great, but the first thing that should happen in a mystery is …someone should find a dead body…
There needs to be enough of a hook to get people in immediately and be like - okay, now I need to listen to the end of the episode.” (Naomi Clarke, The Secret of St Kilda)


“...podcasts are often what we listen to while we're doing other things.”


JON: “Another point - in terms of complexity, which I think about a ton - is the fact that, when it comes to podcasts and audio drama, I don't feel that there's been a real collective moment where we've figured out - what is the attention threshold for your average audience..?
How many characters can you have before people start to lose track of who's whom? How many locations and narrative journeys can you have going on simultaneously?

And the challenge there - that's so different from other media - is, because podcasts are usually conversational, they're often what we listen to while we're doing other things. So we tend to give a lot more grace to audience members who are just ...not really fully paying attention in the same way that you would to other media.
You do need to accommodate those listeners in a way that you wouldn't if you were creating something else. Honestly - any more than three people in a scene, and you're going to start losing listeners pretty quickly.” (Jon Ware, The Silt Verses)

...or if people have similar voices, which can easily be the case.
I've heard even BBC radio dramas where there's two people from the same approximate part of the country - and maybe they're a similar age - and yeah, any differences between them get, just, blown away.

MUNA: “Also, Season One - almost every episode was 45-60 minutes. That's a lot longer than the average. A lot of podcast peeps that we're friends with, who have their own shows - do about 20 minutes per episode. And there is a reason for that and there is a case for that.
But what we've always done is sort of gone, well, we're gonna create the story that we feel it should be, not what we think will get us the most listeners or the most sales.” (Muna Hussen, The Silt Verses)


“…look at audience volume versus audience engagement.”


JON: “In this era, you can look at audience volume versus audience engagement. Like, there was a show - Case 63... It was 10 minute episodes. And that's very ...snappy.”

It is doable, but you'll definitely be able to tell the difference if they've thought - okay, we're going to make brief episodes with a proper beginning, middle and end ...or we've recorded two hours and we're just going to chop it into ten minute pieces. It will be very obvious which of the two it was.

JON: “Completely. And you want to make it accessible for everyone but when you've got listeners who want to give it time and attention, why would you rob them of as much as you can give them?” (Jon Ware, The Silt Verses)


“The first thing we do is plot really carefully.”


Is there any way that you have of measuring how much kind of almost like genre content there is in each episode?

JEN: “We predominantly think of Victoriocity as a comedy, but that's probably just because of our backgrounds.
The first thing we do is plot really carefully. And, very often, what'll happen is, if we haven't quite plotted an episode or something well enough, we have to go back and redo it.
A lot of our work is inspired by 19th century sensation novels by people like Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Ellen Wood, Wilkie Collins… They're so intricately plotted.”

Did Sensation Fiction tend to be serialised?

JEN: “Yeah - but that was the commonest way for all novels to be published at the time.”

It's interesting that you're going back to an earlier literary form, which was itself serialised. And then using that - of course you're updating it and you're bending it and twisting it - as a template.

JEN: “Wilkie Collins said: make 'em laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait.
And, in his novels in particular, at the end of each instalment - which he tended to publish in monthly journals - there would always would be a cliffhanger.
And that's what we did model ourselves on - we make sure that every single episode has a cliffhanger - of some kind. One character shoots another - and it's revealed there's something we didn't know about him.
Or, it might be just - somebody asks a question that changes what we are investigating…
It's definitely modelled on that Victorian idea rather than a modern thriller.” (Jen Sugden, Victoriocity)


“Wilkie Collins said: ‘make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, make ‘em wait’.”


JEN: “Also - find people that will help you make your stuff better and be good at taking criticism.”

CHRIS: “Everybody needs an editor.” (Chris Sugden, Victoriocity)

JEN: “If Chris and I wanted, we could get no feedback on Victoriocity scripts, and just put out what we wanted. But we do add in an editorial step where we ask people that we really trust to tell us the truth - ‘That's not good.’; ‘That's not funny.’ ‘This is too long…’
Because you can't just rely on yourselves.” (Jen Sugden, Victoriocity)

MATTHEW: “...the fun for me, with the writing, is in the dialogue - I'm very interested in conversations. I really like to be on a bus or a train and - just listen to mundane chit-chat - the banality of it all.” (Matthew McLean, A Scottish Podcast)

AMBER: “I think, with certain mediums, people who are new to it will gravitate towards certain genres - and I think, with audio, it's sci-fi. Because you can do anything in audio. So the first thing you do is - go to space. Also, it means you don't need to recreate real life spaces, you get to make your own.
Also: more sort of...weird fiction. Like The Behemoth, which I really liked. This giant creature walking across America, accompanied by a teenage girl, talking to it. And all the news reports following them - what is it, what is it trying to do?
I remember being - oh, that's really interesting... This is the sort of story that I'm interested in making - something you can't put a label on straight away.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)


“…you don't need to recreate real life spaces, you get to make your own.”


KAITLIN: “...one of the interesting things that I've learned, writing for horror, is that sometimes having a low amount of horror content in an episode is the reprieve that listeners require - to have the heavy hitter episodes coming later on really hit home.
So, for me - when I'm writing something - I always try to make sure that not specifically horror is happening, but that the story …which is in itself something terrible… is giving you enough information to feel like it's moving forward, towards something new.
But, at the same time - I've repeatedly said that I can never write something scarier than what somebody makes in their head. So I can give them this leading cord through a dark cave, but I'm not gonna turn the lights on, because whatever they think is in there with them is far scarier than anything I could create. (Kaitlin Statz, The White Vault)

“I can never write something scarier than what somebody makes in their head.”


AMBER: “I feel like audio drama is better at atmosphere than it is at outright scares. I think it's just about creeping you out more than anything.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)

ANDY: “When we started, we did almost entirely approach casting - partly because we knew so many people that we wanted to work with, and also - one of the big marketing ideas for the show was that we were going to have a famous guest in each episode, in order to make people feel like it was credible.
You're not gonna do a call out on Spotlight, because the rates aren't good enough. They're just not gonna come forward for it. So, yeah, that was, I suppose, the core cast - people John and Tom knew through York University. and the people who were knocking around the London Fringe theatre scene at the time.
A lot of people were in our orbit because of that, and we dragged them in like the terrible black hole we are.” (Andy Goddard, Wooden Overcoats)

JOHN: “I also worked for the Royal National Institute of the Blind at the time, in their Talking Book service - who are one of the best audio book makers in the country.
And so we had access to what can seem like a very mysterious world if you're not part of it. As Andy says, we were going to shows, we were making things with people and so these people didn't seem distant, they were people you'd been to the pub with, had a drink with.” (John Wakefield, Wooden Overcoats)

Is there's potentially that thing that - if you're not in London - that becomes suddenly more difficult?

ANDY: “I think in any major city, you'll be able to work it out. Like The Delightful Sausage have been making a really fun podcast, drawing mostly from the Yorkshire and Manchester comedy scenes.
There's a lot of good sketch actors and local theatre troupes, wherever you are in the country. And it'll give it a lot of local flavour if you do it somewhere that isn't London. Since the pandemic particularly, the conventional wisdom that you have to be here is sort of slightly dissipating.” (Andy Goddard, Wooden Overcoats)

JOHN: “We had a lot of people who said yes to do the show who weren't London-based - who travelled in because they wanted to do it.” (John Wakefield, Wooden Overcoats)


“…it'll give it a lot of local flavour if you do it somewhere that isn't London.”


AMBER: “David Pellow - who plays Chris - we were both part of a group that made films. Katrina was somebody that I'd kind of wanted to write something for - because, for both Tin Can and Middle:Below, I'd given her a one-episode character.
This is what I do. I use actors and I feel like I've been neglecting them, so I write them a full series. I did the same thing with my friend Roger, who's the narrator in the Dungeon Economic Model…”

Like a cat that brings a mouse except instead of a mouse it's an enormous undertaking - they're like, oh, wow, thanks...

AMBER: “Yeah, whether they want it or not is a separate question.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)


“…if money was not an issue, who would you want to be involved?”


NAOMI: “One of the things that Mick said first was - if money was not an issue, who would you want to be involved? And that's how we ended up with Alan Burgon as a lead.
I think, pretty much, audacity rather than anything else.” (Naomi Clarke, The Secret of St Kilda)

MICHAEL: “Yeah, that's something that we leaned into more with the convention - how we approached our cast, who have got their own little worlds in the audio fiction space.”

What was your pitch? Was it the story?

MICHAEL: “It was the same kind of thing that I sent to Naomi - I've got this idea for a show… Here's what I want to happen… Are you interested..?
It was a little bit longer than that.” (Michael Ireland, The Secret of St Kilda)

NAOMI: “Then we worked on that first script for like a really long time, got that absolutely perfect, and sent that through to seal the deal.” (Naomi Clarke, The Secret of St Kilda)


“I've got this idea for a show… Here's what I want to happen… Are you interested..?”


I'm really interested in this idea of... auditioning people

MUNA: “We put a couple of monologue scenes out there, just little snippets that people could do.
A lot of it is the fact that we don't know what we don't know. So a lot of people do closed auditions - and we've done it - we've had a role and we've seen someone or heard someone that we thought was great and we might approach them.
But, also, what we want to do is make it extremely inclusive. We are, you know, accent agnostic...region agnostic... because you can be anywhere and record with us, so long as you have a good mic and an internet connection. We don't want to limit it just to our network.
None of our roles really need you to be a certain person, other than - occasionally - we do need someone to be slightly older. But a lot of our roles are even gender agnostic, aren't they, John?” (Muna Hussen, The Silt Verses)

JON: “A fair few, yeah.
We did spend a solid month with our Season Three auditions, getting back to everyone. It's a ton of work when you have an open audition, but that's how you find someone who is just on the verge, who is a fresh new voice. I think three of our four lead voice actors had not been in an audio drama before.”


“…three of our four lead voice actors had not been in an audio drama before.”


I suppose another thing about it, is - I'm sure there were people that weren't right for the particular roles - but once you know they're out there... I'm not saying you would write a character specifically for them but, you know, it's almost like knowing that paint is on the palette - it becomes a possibility.

JON: “A key part of how we cast is going - how will this voice be distinct from others in the scene? So you have all these talented people where you have to go, sorry, we've already, we've got one American, so…” (Jon Ware, The Silt Verses)

Note to would-be voice actors: an unusual native accent is more a strength than a weakness..!


“...we try to use the energy that people bring.”


I suppose you've also now got that thing where any actor coming into it has got two series to refer to and they can kind of get a certain amount of the tone and stuff from that kind of thing.

CHRIS: “I mean, we don't require people to do that - but they can give it a listen and see what it's like. But also - people tend to get it.
I mean, we try to use the energy that people bring. We work with a lot of very talented character comedians who’ll just throw out all these different performances they can do. And, together with Nathan, we’ll be, like - okay, yeah, this one seems to make sense for this cabbie, whatever.” (Chris Sugden, Victoriocity)

ANDY: “We got to open castings because we sort of, honestly, we kind of looked around and went…because we've mostly cast the people we know, there was, let's just call it a lack of diversity in the cast.
By Season Three, we're like, oh, we've actually got some responsibility to kind of broaden this a bit.” (Andy Goddard, Wooden Overcoats)

DAVID: “We said we were open to all ethnicities for these parts. But, if you write characters which can be open to all, you'll still mainly get lots of white people going for it.
I think if you just assume that diversity will happen, it isn't going to happen.
But if you write it into the show itself, and you say, right, this character's non-binary, this character's Nigerian - then you can approach specific actors, and that worked out much better for us, especially by Season Four.
And I think it's also a reflection of casting methods that adapted, evolved, became a lot better.”


“I think if you just assume that diversity will happen, it isn't going to happen.”


DAVID: “I think one area where we'd managed diversity fairly well was - I always had this idea that most characters were probably bisexual unless proven otherwise.
And it also just created that kind of really accepting, light, fun vibe of the show, that you'd have queer characters in it. A number of the actors and writers are queer, I came out as bisexual during the series at some point.
And so, you always had that sort of in there as well - various sorts of queer romances. That's something I care very much about.

I don't think it was ever about queer themes specifically - it is about the stories of funerals. It just so happens that the Mayor and the Reverend end up getting married and everyone's already on board and - I mean, it was a huge surprise to me that the show did very well around the world.
A huge section of our audience were, like, teenagers in America, which is something I could never have foreseen. But a very large queer audience was drawn to the show, which was really, really lovely.” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)

JOHN: “Rudyard is the only one who isn't confident enough to accept the world.
Everyone else is just relaxed about everything. They've not been corrupted by the outside world. They just don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to be happy about everything. The reverend sees no issues in writing porn. Why shouldn't he?” (John Wakefield, Wooden Overcoats)


“...it adds a certain heft, having an actual age range.”


DAVID: “Oh! And yeah, we've had a lot of - particularly the older members of cast - who said, it's very rare we get to play characters who have this much fun - because usually we're either playing like Person With Dementia In Home or Curmudgeonly Racist or something.
And it's really lovely to just play an older character who gets to go on adventures, have fun, have romance, hang out with all the young characters…” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)

JOHN: “If anyone is looking for a cast, do go to older performers because they're as passionate about doing what they do as anyone else.” (John Wakefield, Wooden Overcoats)

ANDY: “I also think it adds a certain heft, having an actual age range.” (Andy Goddard, Wooden Overcoats)

DAVID: “And if you're a great dramatic actor, there's a good chance you'll be very good at comedy as well - and if you're a very good comic actor you'll be brilliant at drama.” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)


“...the universe is very big. There is plenty of room for Scottish accents…”


I'm in Brighton, so not far from London, but I really dislike that everyone expects a South Eastern English voice - usually middle class, as well.

AMBER: “When I was making Tin Can, somebody asked me - are you not worried that all of your characters in this science fiction space show all sound Scottish? And I was like, the universe is very big. There is plenty of room for Scottish accents…”

It's depressing. It's depressing.

AMBER: “It is.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)

There used to be that whole thing in the media of like working class intellectuals, for example, in the 60s, the 70s, the 80s - and progressively it's been pushed out. Quite often nowadays, even when there are working class characters in something, they're either stereotypes or - you get that thing where they’re put on a pedestal - but it's a stereotype on a pedestal.
So maybe only the working-class person can see through some pretension, but only because they’ve got the stereotypical attitudes of a working-class person.

AMBER: “I was asking my friends to be in Tin Can, early on. It was sort of like - oh, I'm really sorry, could you just do this? It's absolutely okay if you don't want to do it...
And I think when you go in with that attitude, I don't think you value the work and I don't think the people you are asking to take part value the work either.”

It makes any kind of directing hard. Because if you're downplaying it, then it's hard to tell someone to do the same line four times or whatever.

AMBER: “Yeah - I brought people in, they sat next to me in the corner of my living room. We recorded the lines - only one or two takes - because I was just like - oh, thank you so much for doing this. Let's get it over with as quickly as possible.
I didn't have the confidence yet to be like, can we please just do that one more time? And also, a lot of them were not actors. They were just people I worked with at the time. And they thought the thing I was making was cool, which was really nice - they were really lovely about it. But, at the same time, I probably should have stayed with using actual actors.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)


“I like saying to the actors, what would you like to develop in this season?”


DAVID: “If an actor comes up with a better line than mine, a) it will make it funnier, and b) I'll probably still get the credit, anyway - so you may as well…”

JOHN: “Also - there were lots of things where you took real things actors said, behind the scenes, and inserted them into the character. Beth - when she first met Andy Hamilton - said something like, ‘I'm really scared I'm going to eat him’.” (John Wakefield, Wooden Overcoats)

DAVID: “I love to work with actors directly - because I really like to get the cadence of their voices and then write to it. Sometimes it's about working on their personalities.
So there is a certain sort of fastidiousness in Felix [Trench], which is useful for Rudyard. Tom [Crowley], all of this sort of breezy confidence, we'll put that in. Ciara [Baxendale] - peculiar, peculiar insights into things she's doing. Brilliant, whack that in.
And I like saying to the actors, what would you like to develop in this season? What aspects of the characters do you think are underused?” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)


“...if I do need a tiny bit of direction, there'll maybe just be a little note…”


MATTHEW: “I guess if somebody new was coming in we'd probably have a chat about, you know, how the character sounds, and what their angle is.
But, in the main, it's all in the script - and, if I do need a tiny bit of direction, there'll maybe just be a little note next to it - ‘he's seething’ or whatever, ‘he's upset’.” (Matthew McLean, A Scottish Podcast)


“...the actors’ interpretation of the characters is worth more than my original intention.”


AMBER: “For Part Three, I wrote the first three episodes and then did a read through with Katrina, [david] Pellow and Mark. And then we kind of talked about it. I asked them for notes, what works for you, what doesn't work - anything that doesn't make sense? And then - what questions do you want answered in the next three episodes?
So it meant when I was writing the second half of the series, I kind of had these beats that I already knew I was going to hit. And I feel like the actors’ interpretation of the characters is worth more than my original intention.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)

JOHN: “Just to praise David, he is a superb head writer in allowing other writers to come in and shape the characters in a way that feeds into the arc of the series. In a very collaborative way.” (John Wakefield, Wooden Overcoats)

DAVID: “I could never be a novelist - by myself, writing. I hate it. I like to be in a room with people.
The biggest joys for me - when I think back on Overcoats - were the read-throughs, the production meetings, the studio days…” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)

“We've always just had this core of people who've been very kind with our time - because they're not getting paid for it. They enjoy it, as well...or so they tell me.
Maybe they've just not found the way to tell me to stuff it, yet. But we've kept working with that small core of people which has served as well because you start to get a good workflow in place with it.” (Matthew McLean, A Scottish Podcast)

MATTHEW: “Probably nothing ground-breaking but just - if there's, like, a big series - the story you really want to tell …it probably shouldn't be your first one.
If you've got this great story and you know you're gonna get 10, 12 solid episodes out of it - maybe don't dive into that. Maybe just write a wee short story, and play with that, and learn the ropes first before you go into what you might consider your life's work ...if that doesn't sound too grand.” (Matthew McLean, A Scottish Podcast)


“...the story you really want to tell …it probably shouldn't be your first one.”


JON: “In terms of good advice for people hoping to create a podcast, I would say - it does feel very much like we've had the wild west of podcasts, the gold rush basically - where big companies came in and saw, oh my goodness, fiction podcasts are a relatively cheap way to produce content. Let's pour money into them. And then - as those haven't necessarily gone the way the big companies wanted them to, often they've dropped off.
So we're in a really difficult situation right now, I think, where it's a market that's becoming increasingly saturated, where you have big shows - whether it's the BBC, Spotify, Gimlet - competing with basement blanket fort productions, and it feels harder and harder to get yourself seen, especially if you're doing something that's a little bit different.
But there is hope. One show to look at right now - in terms of how it's built up an audience organically - is Modes of Thought in Anterran Literature.
The best way of building up an audience in a saturated market is - look at their model - a regular output, good quality, well-produced episodes, week after week.” (Jon Ware, The Silt Verses)

DAVID: “Keep that playful side of it
I'd always think - what's the fun in this scene? Not what are the gags but what can you play with? What is going to give some pleasure to the actors, to the producers, to everybody?
I'm not really happy on a project unless I'm enjoying who I'm doing it with.

If you can write dialogue that makes the actors very happy to turn up to work in the morning, you're about 90% of the way there.
Come up with an idea. Don’t overanalyse it. It won't be perfect - at that point. Just keep working on it until it's something that you enjoy, because something will happen.

You'll never know if you're going to get a big audience. You might not make very much money, or indeed any money. But if you've enjoyed what you've been doing, the time hasn't been wasted.”


“...if you've enjoyed what you've been doing, the time hasn't been wasted.”


“There's tremendous satisfaction knowing a lot of people are listening to your show. That's very important. You can't deny otherwise.
But if we were just in this to make a show that everyone's gonna listen to and is gonna hit all the metrics, I'm not sure we would have done a sitcom about funeral directors. We'd have done another chat show. And it would have been a shame.” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)


MUNA: “We would direct an episode and edit it - and then, at the same time, John would be writing the one that's coming out in, you know, one or two fortnights.
And it all felt quite a lot of pressure and work, to get everything out. John talked about the expectation of our listeners, but there's also the expectation of the people we're working with. We don't want to keep them hanging on and saying, look, we're going to book this in, but then we haven't quite got ready yet…” (Muna Hussen, The Silt Verses)


“...what kind of feedback are you interested in?”


NAOMI: “You should never give more negative feedback than you have positive feedback. You should always start and end with positive feedback - and unasked for feedback is always criticism. If they didn't ask for your feedback - it's criticism.
So, now, when I work with other writers, they're like - so what did you think? And I'm like - what kind of feedback are you interested in?” (Naomi Clarke, The Secret of St Kilda)

CHRIS: “I think the most important decisions we made were around the people that we worked with.
Like, we had worked hard at our craft for years before we did Victoriocity - but it just wouldn't be the show that it is without Dominic, our producer, without Nathan, our director, and without this incredible cast that we begged, borrowed, and stole through personal relationships and years of working with people in theatre and comedy, and friends of friends..
But that's also one of the hardest things. We had to find those people, and ask them - and they were very generous with their time, and introduced us to other people. If any one of those things hadn't happened …it would have all just fallen to pieces.” (Chris Sugden, Victoriocity)


“...the most important decisions we made were around the people that we worked with.”


JEN: “We paid for all the expenses, so nobody was out of pocket, but people did give their time for free on the first season. On the understanding that if we were able to kickstart a second season, they would be invited back and get paid some money - which is what happened.
One of the actor friends was Tom Crowley. We'd met him at the Fringe, in Edinburgh, with his group, The Sad Faces - amazing sketch group. Funnily enough, it was just before Wooden Overcoats came out. I was telling him about this idea, and he was kind of like - oh, we've already kind of done this, it's gonna come out soon. And that was amazing because it showed that it could be done.

And Dominic - our producer - had done a lot of our tech, so he was already really good at lighting and things. He hadn't sound designed, but it was something he was really interested in doing and learning - and he's excellent at it, but he taught himself. Actually, Andy Goddard really helped – in the early days - gave feedback, and tips, and that kind of thing.
There's a really nice community in the audio drama space. Felix Trench gave me and Chris a lot of his time early on - and we've tried to pass on what we know.” (Jen Sugden, Victoriocity)

How do you – as a couple - maintain a creative partnership? Some people who come to this site may want to make something with someone that's already in their life. So I guess the question is - how do you balance the occasional difficulties of the work stuff with your personal relationship?

KAITLI: “We certainly find ourselves talking about work either directly or indirectly very, very often. One of the reasons we work so quickly is because we have constant contact with each other.
If I wake up and say, ‘Travis, I had a really good nightmare’ - and what I mean is a very useful nightmare - I will tell him everything as soon as I wake up.
But you said the magic word that is very difficult - and that magic word is balance, of which we have little.” (Kaitlin Statz, The White Vault)

TRAVIS: “I would say there are very few people working full-time for themselves in this field. It's very, very shockingly few, unfortunately.
But when you're your own director, your own company - and then working with somebody you care about, the fear - and risk - of failure is so high that you don't have the opportunity to fall into autopilot. You must constantly innovate or you will sink.” (Travis Vengroff, The White Vault)

AMBER: “Recording another podcast, Folxlore, there was an episode that was all about clubbing culture. My concern was that - for the really sort of bouncy, shouty scenes, they'd kind of be tempering that, because they would be very aware of a microphone in front of them.
So, what I ended up doing was using shotgun microphones - and recording it like a film set. They could jump around and shout as loud as they wanted. It came out really, really well.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)


“…we tried to work with the restrictions in an artistic way.”


AMBER: “An issue we had making Season Two of The Tower was that we weren't allowed to record in person - because this was during lockdown.
I think in all cases, we tried to work with the restrictions in an artistic way. Mark Gallie worked in a call centre at the time - and he actually used his headset to record his lines. So we got that authentic call centre audio.
And David Pellow recorded with a USB microphone - at home, in a room that wasn't treated. So in Season Two, it's a little bit echoey. And I really liked the sound of it.
For Season Three, we were back in the studio. And so Pellow's audio was once again, crystal clean. And I'm like ...it doesn't sound as good. So I put a really small reverb on his voice to make it sound like it'd been recorded in a badly treated room - then the EQ and all the other effects.”

That's nice because I think sometimes, one of the things that people will always say is you have to record in one specific way to get good audio.
And, maybe partially for variety, maybe partially for realism, sometimes you are going to get a bit of room sound - and that gives an idea of them being in a physical place.

AMBER: “Yeah, we leaned into it.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)

JOHN: “The editing thing I really recommend - like, I hate monitoring speakers, they're awful to edit on - unless you really have perfect audio, and know what you're doing.
I used to edit - when I was starting out - on little Sony in-ears that cost £20, because I would then test it on something like them at the end. You couldn't be distracted by the technical deficiencies of anything while making it, so you just had to focus on the storytelling.” (John Wakefield, Wooden Overcoats)

“Every time I've got to edit the dialogue. I just hate it.
It's just because I'm very controlling with the audio. I would never outsource dialogue editing because I know what I want it to sound like with my own ear.
But I hate doing it. It's painstaking. But - when I sit down to do it, I'm very disciplined about it. Like, I have, say, two hours. I'm not going to finish it in those two hours, but I'm not going to do anything else in that time. I've not got a phone beside me. I'm not half looking at the internet.
And it's shit, but it's got to be done.” (Matthew McLean, A Scottish Podcast)


“I would listen to it on the worst speakers I could find.”


MICHAEL: “There was a lot of learning with the editing process. How our workflow adapted, how we met deadlines - whilst providing notes and feedback to the sound designer. I learned so much about direction, dialogue editing, soundscaping and dynamic range whilst editing.
I will listen back to each scene on a range of different devices: studio monitors, headphones, earphones - and a phone - to make sure that the subtleness or directness of a sound was heard, regardless of device.” (Michael Ireland, The Secret of St Kilda)

NAOMI: “...and then I would listen to it on the worst speakers I could find.” (Naomi Clarke, The Secret of St Kilda)

TRAVIS: “We had a named talent individual, who was awesome. We had one hour of their time in a reputable, very expensive studio in London. I don't know how we got through the entire script within an hour. But we did.
I get the audio, I'm editing the audio on my not-super-good headphones and I trusted that the audio was good. But it was very tinny, it sounded like it was spiking, even though the volume levels weren't there. And I told them: ‘Hey, this is bad. Either it's your mic, or the engineer compressed all the audio without telling us.’
It was compression. And by asking them to give us the raw audio, the issue was immediately cleared.” (Travis Vengroff, The White Vault)

AMBER: “You wanna be fairly uniform in how you record everything, unless you're doing something experimental. And then, when you get to post-production, you can take your time and you have more control over where everyone is in the stereo field.
The majority of people are listening to audio dramas on their way to work, or doing other things. They're not really looking for surround sound. The thing that I was always told was to ‘mix for the tube’. I think Andy Goddard told me that.


“The majority of people are listening to audio dramas on their way to work, or doing other things.”


AMBER: “It's my theory that it's why there are so many audio dramas recorded on phones or, like, a tape player - because then you can hear them really clearly. But you have to keep everything fairly central because, if you're listening on not very good headphones, there's a good chance you might lose track, you know?
So I don't have the voices any more than maybe 15% in any direction, unless I'm doing something where somebody's in the distance or whatever.
It's one of the reasons why I'm really thankful for the Bandcamp versions, because you can download them in any format. So if you want that high quality version, you can get it.

It's just making sure that the voices are loud enough, they're fairly central, and then anything the listener needs to hear, you keep that fairly central in the mix. Or, what I do with the music for The Tower is - I've got a plug-in that creates a phantom centre in the music, in a stereo track. So it means that the music’s enveloping rather than getting in the way of the voices.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)


“…simple tech problems can be overcome without having to re-record simply by troubleshooting.”


TRAVIS: “The same thing happens sometimes when we've occasionally mixed to mono - so all those cool stereo sounds will now sound terrible and your music will sound like it's been downgraded - and voices too.
And I've had really professional mixing engineers make this mistake, tanking the entirety of the mix to sound as if we recorded it on, like, cell phones, which... can be the case… but it should sound like a $150 mic, because I've put a lot of EQ and editing into it to make it sound nice.

So - simple tech problems like that can be overcome without having to re-record simply by troubleshooting. It doesn't matter how professional the people you're working with are. Again, really expensive studio - they just exported it improperly for us - for our needs and our uses. Because they heard ‘podcast’ and said, “ah, okay, let’s get them an MP3 then…”
And I was like, ‘no, we want all the audio. Don't edit the thing because if they say, “um”, we can use that for a dialogue interjection.’ Sometimes these things are very organic.” (Travis Vengroff, The White Vault)


“...we didn't know what we didn't know…”


MUNA: “One of the things we struggled with was that we didn't know what we didn't know about audio engineering. So we worked with some incredibly talented audio editors and I don't think we were briefing them particularly well.
Because, when you're listening to audio drama, you might be listening on your laptop, in your car, your Bluetooth speaker, your headphones... We needed to understand how to make everything sound good regardless.
There was someone who'd said, I listen at work - and we use a lot of binaural sounds - and they've only got one headphone in. So they were saying, well, sometimes I can't follow…” (Muna Hussen, The Silt Verses)

DAVID: “Something that can only be applied to a podcast is - I could say to the writers, you can throw in anything. Like, at the risk of giving my producers a hernia, any kind of madcap sequence...
I would deliberately write in stage directions like ‘A lion howls sadly’. and all these sort of ridiculous things - a safari park, a marina - oh, we're on a volcano…
Because I don't recall at any point John or Andy ever saying we can't do that. They might have wanted to hurt me in some way…but they never did.” (David K Barnes, Wooden Overcoats)


“I would deliberately write in stage directions like ‘A lion howls sadly’...”


DAVID: “Also, Andy and John both throw in gags that aren't in the script, which are audio. Like, at one point, the Reverend says, the other day I bought a wind-up crab. And it's a very funny line.
Then, in the actual edit, John suddenly put in the sound of the Reverend winding up the crab - it's scuttling on the table and bumping into Madeleine…”

JOHN: “It falls off the table, runs to the side of the room, and then hits Madeleine.” (John Wakefield, Wooden Overcoats)


“Travis either says ‘yes, this is great’ …or ‘that doesn't make any sense’...”


KAITLIN: “The more that I wrote - and the further that we got into podcasting - the more my scripts became more specialised, to deal with providing notes on sound design. In the very beginning, I wasn't writing those cues in.
Now, I have a very specific way of writing in all of the sound design, that I think would benefit the scene - and then Travis either says ‘yes, this is great’ …or ‘that doesn't make any sense’...” (Kaitlin Statz, The White Vault)


“...focus on what is important to convey.”


JON: “I learnt to love impressionism.
So, one of my great loves - but also my great bugbears are ...footsteps. Footsteps in audio design can be an absolutely beautiful way of establishing choreography, but also building tension in a scene. But try and add more than one person walking together into a scene and what you get is a cacophony, pretty quickly.
And so learning to go... This is when we're going to try and be realistic in this moment. Say it's someone getting into a car and we're going to listen to them sitting down, putting on their seatbelt, closing the door.
In this moment, where there are several people in the scene, this is when we're going to employ a bit of impressionism and we're going to focus on what is important to convey. And everything else is out the window because it detracts from the clarity of the scene.

Inevitably, you come back to it and you go - I'm doing too much, the scene needs to be breathing a bit more. We need to have a bit more quiet between the noise. We need to find the pauses.” (Jon Ware, The Silt Verses)


“We need to find the pauses.”


TRAVIS: “In an earlier season, Kaitlin wrote a lot of scenes with human teeth in a box. And I was like, as a sound designer what do I do with this?... So I found human teeth.”

Oh, you did?

TRAVIS: “In this box here.”

Okay, wow

TRAVIS: “And they sounded just right.”

I won't ask where you got the teeth from.

TRAVIS: “Ethically sourced.”

Do you want to say something about how you started composing the music? By the sounds of it, at first you were just like sandboxing lots of different things..?

AMBER: “I think I was looking more for sounds rather than melodies, if that makes sense. Experimenting with different instruments and kind of sound palettes.
For all three seasons, I'll have a suite of instruments - like a band setup, almost, and then the instruments are the thematic link between all the music - but it's different instruments each season.

Once I had that first piece of music that plays at the very start of the series, that provided a handful of motifs...
There are certain tracks in the soundtrack that are genuinely just - they're labelled as improvisations because they start with me hitting record, and then improvising on the themes.
And that's been a consistent approach throughout the series, listening to a scene and then taking that improvisation and building a track from it.

All the tracks start with an electric piano - that kind of dreamy, ethereal sound, and then it builds from there. I think that's the one instrument that's there in all three seasons.
Season Two, we introduced more organic string sounds - and then, with Season Three, I'd gotten this synthesiser that's very, very analog. So I used that kind of palette and those kinds of sounds.


“I think I was looking more for sounds rather than melodies…”


AMBER: “I didn't want to write character themes. Because I did that for Middle:Below and Tin Can.
I wanted The Tower to be a much more cohesive thing. Because I feel like themes can separate characters, in a way. And also, it's very much Kiri's journey.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)

AMBER: “I think learning project management was probably the big one.
When you're doing an episodic show, is that you have to force yourself to be organised. With Tin Can, I was writing an episode while also editing an episode, while also releasing another episode. All while working full-time in a bar. I didn't get a lot of sleep that year.

Then, for Middle:Below, it was a cast of four or five people - how to be able to communicate - how to work with people in a way that leaves them - and you - happy, at the end of the day.
Learning how to treat people has been a really, really big, big part of making this. I think it's made me a better person.” (Amber Devereux, The Tower)

KAITLIN: “When we hear how things work in other mediums, it’s always kind of flabbergasting to hear ‘oh, it takes six months to make this happen’ or ‘the project will be ready in a year and a half’.
For us, sometimes it’s like - I walk into the room and say, ‘Travis, I had an idea...’ And if it fits into a schedule, maybe it’ll go out in a month. If I already have a script written, all we have to do is cast and produce it. That can be a really short turnover.”

TRAVIS: “Could be under a week.”

KAITLIN: “For example, with Liberty: Tales from the Tower, our anthology series – if I have an idea for a singular scary story, it’s not like we have to set up a new RSS or start with new branding or anything like that. And we already have a lot of people that we’ve worked with in the past who we know have reliable voices.”

TRAVIS: “And they know our acting style – we’ve got a style guide for all of our stuff.
So we can get it produced and recorded in under a week, really easy, without thinking. It’s just done. And all the files are received. They’ve been verified. Everyone signed a contract. Everyone’s been paid. 30-70 hours of editing. A week or less.”

KAITLIN: “We create so many stories because we really like to eat food. And if we don't make stories, we don't have money to buy food.”

TRAVIS: “We have to release things every two weeks, or we are stagnant. And stagnant means losing audience and income, because it's a game of attrition.
As opposed to the idea of automatic growth or ‘build it and they will come’ - you can't take that for granted. As full-time creatives, that's the game…”


“…they're supporting us having the ability to pay our rent while I write the next season.”


TRAVIS: “We know what our costs can be. If we don't have the income, we simply do without in those instances. So maybe we won't have music for this episode - because it's expensive. We'll use Creative Commons sounds instead of buying something or get really creative in the sound design space.”

KAITLIN: “Or, for example, when we had to delay an episode for when we had an actress who couldn't get to a studio because of the protests in Chile. Even though we couldn't release that episode, we were still producing the next episode and we were still casting people.
We still need the income to work on the things that will be released.”

TRAVIS: “It also became an issue of - if we have two shows that ever overlap simultaneously, we can never bill our supporters more than two times. Because that would just be unethical. Like, what if people don’t like this other show we’re making or only planned for a certain dollar amount each month?
For instance, The Boar Knight, our children's musical, is not the same audience as The White Vault. It's not the same audience as the sci-fi adventure Vast Horizon, which is very dark as well - but not horror.”

KAITLIN: “For us, I think doing a children's musical is more about expanding our types of storytelling - and Travis is a musician, from his younger years, and was really looking forward to doing a musical and it turned out incredibly fun.
But even though people are joining us on Patreon during The Boar Knight, and they're not Boar Knight fans, they're not just supporting that - they're supporting us having the ability to pay our rent while I write the next season of The White Vault. (Kaitlin Statz, The White Vault)

Travis: “...or get the music for The White Vault made, which takes months …or get actors contracted and paid. We are actively producing between three to five shows at any given time. It can be a lot of simultaneous thought, budgeting, and juggling…” (Travis Vengroff, The White Vault)

MATTHEW: “…things have to be going out regular. And I get that, like - it's sage advice, but...I'm showing now that it's not necessarily true.
I think if you've got a long enough back catalogue you can get away with being ...almost dead - but not quite dead. Which is what the show is. Just the odd twitch to keep people interested.” (Matthew McLean, A Scottish Podcast)


“Everything takes longer than you think.”


CHRIS: “Everything takes longer than you think. That was more of a problem for us for the second season - for the first season, we wrote most of everything before we even spoke to anybody.
In the second season, we had raised money and were starting to think about production. So we were writing more on a calendar, right? And it was alright in the end, but …everything takes longer than you think. So try to make sure you don't. box yourself into a corner. It's easy to think - oh yeah. This took me X amount of time, so doing it six times will take six times X amount of time
…maybe not.” (Chris Sugden, Victoriocity)

JEN: “Always build in contingency. Chris and I both got COVID. After avoiding it for two and a half years. The first week of recording Season Three - we couldn't go to the studio. And then, immediately after, I got preeclampsia, and was hospitalised.”

CHRIS: “It's not a very generalisable problem - but I think that the idea is.
So. Contingency, everywhere - contingency in time, contingency in budget, everything.”

JEN: “If you do get sick, do you have a back-up?”

NAOM: “I think networking is so important. I hate it. Absolutely loathe it. But it makes such a difference. Making sure that people who already know about audio drama are hearing about your project on a regular basis.”

I'm sure you've got some good stuff out of it as well, right?

NAOMI: “We made friends from the cast who we love so much - we're all quite heavily bonded. And we've met some other creators that we love and we really respect. We know a lot more voice actors now. People who are excited about the things we're excited about.”

MICHAEL: “Conventions are great, as well.”

“Your cast are your best advertisers…”

NAOMI: “Your cast are your best advertisers, because they have social media, they have followers… Making them evangelists is one of the cheapest and easiest ways you can advertise yourself.
Having them to be like - 'Hey, this thing is amazing and you will like it.' Which neither of us would be able to write, I think. We would be a bit bashful and reserved.”

MICHAEL: “No one's in competition with each other either. It's all just helping build each other up regardless of what shows are about.” (Michael Ireland, The Secret of St Kilda)

NAOMI: “And we get speaking engagements and things, panellist stuff - we get asked to be involved in other projects, guest writing or guest spots…” (Naomi Clarke, The Secret of St Kilda)


“It can either be lots of fun or an agonising trudge ...but it needs to be done.”


JON: “I guess the other thing is promotion.
I am in Askew was a show - pretty much - without promotion. It was word of mouth that made it successful.
We’ve tried to put our grown-up pants on for this one, and actually get into the habit of doing marketing, Patreon management, all of it...
It can either be lots of fun or an agonising trudge ...but it needs to be done. You need to build an audience, especially as social media networks are being born and dying... Right now, making sure that you have a stable listener base who are coming back is so valuable.” (Jon Ware, The Silt Verses)

MUNA: “And that's particularly hilarious, because both of our careers are in marketing! ...but we're too awkward to market ourselves. So we really have to push.” (Muna Hussen, The Silt Verses)

So how did you connect with other creators, and has it been useful? Feel free to use more inspirational words than ‘useful’.

MUNA: “Honestly, everyone we've spoken to has just been incredibly supportive. Like the audio drama fiction podcast community is - everyone's in the same boat, even those shows that have quite a big team behind them. And, actually, a lot of us use the same voice actors. So it is a community that knows each other and has a lot of time for each other. “

JON: “It's important to make sure that your entire audience isn't other podcast people, but in terms of having peers who go through the same challenges and who, in a pinch, can go - yeah, I'll wing out a few lines for you by this time tomorrow - yeah, it's incredibly valuable.
So any people starting out - you will find other people who are at the same stage as you and you will find people who have gone through this all before, and they'll be really, really happy to help.”


“...you will find other people who are at the same stage as you and you will find people who have gone through this all before, and they'll be really, really happy to help.”

And in terms of promoting each other's work as well..?

MUNA: “Yeah, everyone promotes each other's work. It's really nice. Everyone shouts out people when they have won awards. We do it often - we reshare finales or Kickstarters. And we do get a lot of love from the other podcasters as well.” (Muna Hussen, The Silt Verses)

JON: “I think the only thing we don't do so much of is feed drops, which we probably should be a bit braver with. It’s when you effectively drop a trailer, or in some cases an entire episode, for a friendly show into your own feed. Perhaps we've been too protective of ourselves, but definitely that's something we could be doing in future.” (Jon Ware, The Silt Verses)

I listened to the first season quite a while ago, and when I knew I was talking to you guys, I thought I'd go and read the transcripts. And that's a nice kind of different way to it - almost like historical records for people to dig into.

TRAVIS: “Yeah, we invest a lot of money and time into transcripts. It is a component of the experience for many people. For some people, it might be their only component. So it's important that we do it right.” (Travis Vengroff, The White Vault)

MATTHEW: “I know some creators create Discord or Reddit or Facebook groups with their listeners. And I could see why that's nice from an engagement point of view, but I imagine that would be hell from a creation point of view because people would be throwing theories and story ideas and then you would start to doubt yourself when you were writing - whether this is an original idea or if somebody had influenced it…” (Matthew McLean, A Scottish Podcast)

MICHAEL: “This is the first thing we’ve ever made, so we looked for help, support and advice from everywhere, and were recommended putting a fan policy in place. So we looked - the only fan policies that were really about, as a reference, were from, like, mega corporations - Disney and Marvel.”

NAOMI: “It was the best of intentions.”

MICHAEL: “Yeah. But the only reason why the only templates were from mega-corporations is because it's only mega-corporations that do it.
You do not need to do it at an indie level. You just sit back and...whatever happens.
And we didn't realise that at the time - but that fan policy was taken down within 24 hours. As soon as it was up, it was down. People rightfully hated every aspect of it and we scrapped it. We learnt from it.”


“…we're not your friend, we're not your dad - we're just regular guys…”


NAOMI: “I am just so phobic of being a terrible creator to some fans. And so, the people who are really interested in the show - some of them are quite young. I try and refer to them as ‘kids’ to make sure that I'm always being appropriate, the access is metered in acceptable ways, we're not getting too friendly with people that we don't know. We're being supportive, but we try not to be …everything to everyone.
Like, we're not your friend, we're not your dad - you know, we just make a show and we're not great people - we're just regular guys, you know?
The last thing that we want is people to be like - this person is great and I wanna be able to talk to them all the time and tell them everything about my life. That is not what we're for.

Before we made our Discord, I used to run a charity for gaming spaces, writing codes of conduct and stuff. And I was like - there's gonna be a load of rules before you come into the Discord. I'm just so worried about getting too big and us not being able to handle it or mod it.
And, again, we both hate unpaid labour from other people. We have Louis, who does a lot of our social media and is a real force of nature. And, quite often, we've foregone a paycheck to give Louis a bump because we're desperate not to exploit. I just don't want to become evil. I'm so afraid of becoming evil.”

Michael: “Yeah. One of the things that I've always tried to do, as well, is be transparent with everyone that's involved. Like, if something's going on behind the scenes, I want to make sure that everyone involved is aware of that.
Just to make sure that we're there for each other, to build a trust as well as familiarity.
Also, if it stops being fun, then you stop, you take time away. Look after yourself.” (Michael Ireland, The Secret of St Kilda)


“...to build a trust as well as familiarity.”


NAOMI: “Yeah, I mean, Mick and I are both disabled, to various levels - so we both have to be aware of just...sometimes it's not going to happen, you know?

I think we're lucky that our cast really respects and likes each other, as well. So we make sure that we shout out other projects by all of our cast, and we have a job lead channel…
So, even if we're not recording, we're doing something to help,” (Naomi Clarke, The Secret of St Kilda)


“...what you see online is one percent of one percent of what is actually happening.”


JEN: “Compared to a lot of audio drama, we will get some shout outs and nice things said on social media - but not huge amounts of chat.
So it's sometimes hard to gauge how many fans we have. We have a good chunk of people on Kickstarter who give us money to make new stuff. But on Tumblr, there's about three people that post…
We are kind of …more niche.”

You probably just have a lot of invisible fans who maybe aren't big posters

CHRIS: “It's like - Twitter isn't the real world. Like, what you see online is one percent of one percent of what is actually happening.
It's just the people that are quite vocal publicly online, right? We know that people rave about the show to their friends, because they tell us about it when we see them at a live show - or they'll email us, or whatever.
So we know it happens - and we have to assume that it must happen much more than we hear about it. Because the volume of fan activity that you see online is partly a function of how popular the show is, but also lots of other things - like when the show started, its representation and who it's speaking to…”

Jen: “Demographics as well. Who you appeal to.” (Jen Sugden, Victoriocity)

Chris: “We've deliberately made Victoriocity for anyone, any age. We know grown adults do, we know 11 year olds do - but it's only a small fraction of that demographic that you find on Tumblr.” (Chris Sugden, Victoriocity)