The Spark

Naomi: “When we started, Mick was really interested in cults. 
         And my family's quite heavily religious. My mother grew up in, essentially, a Scottish - slightly cult - kind of church, where everyone had to wear hats, and the preacher got to admonish your children, and that sort of thing. 
       So I've got quite a positive relationship with religion. But, as a queer, I also have a negative experience with religion. And we took that cult thing and a friendly, supportive small town - and sort of smashed the two together.”

Michael: “What we also developed, along the way, was to bring the listener on that same journey of cult indoctrination. So you feel similar things when bad things start to happen.” 

Naomi: “It's more horrifying if you love everyone first.”

Michael: “Cults wouldn't be as inviting as they are if there weren't charming personalities behind them.
        And the opposite of that was writing a protagonist that does a lot of bad shit.” 

Naomi: “I just like people who are a little bit sad and a little bit broken.”

Michael: “We've found a good balance.”

Another good thing about entering an existing scene is that both creators and listeners soon create networks for the like-minded to plug into.

Michael: “...right before the pandemic - we converged amongst an audio fiction festival.”

Naomi: “It was Pod UK, in Birmingham.”

Michael: “Yeah. I'd come in as media - I would record interviews, video and audio, for the festival to use - in order to promote themselves further. 
        From that, though, it began a lot of discussions - and opened up the scope, for myself anyway, of wanting to push further into a place where it's not ….inachievable… You’re talking to these people - We’re Alive, The Magnus Archives - who have taken something from nothing and made it into a global phenomenon. 
        …also met Naomi there, which was quite handy.” 

Even so, it was a little while later that Naomi declared on Twitter that she wanted to try her hand at writing her own show - with Michael quickly responding. And so, work on a script began - though the two newcomers to each other still had to navigate some differences of taste and process.

Naomi: “Taking feedback was a nightmare.
        I am a delicate little emotional child and I must be shit-sandwiched. I'm very clear about that.”

(For those unfamiliar, and perhaps rapidly losing their appetite, this is merely the act of making something undesirable more palatable by surrounding it with less offensive things).

Naomi: “And Mick - he's very direct and clear with his criticism, but he doesn't shit-sandwich. At all. So I had to have someone else there to be like - no, it's still good, it's still worth writing - just to balance that out.”

Michael: “It's a pragmatic approach. If I don't comment on it, it's because I like it and it doesn't need improvement.”

Naomi: “You have to keep showing it to people. The only way to get a good script is to submit to the mortifying idea of being known. 
         So, I had  a librarian friend read it. I had a friend who - English was not her first language - read it. And a couple of friends who were really into story structure. And each of them would be making comments based on their particular perspective. 
         You have to put it on the page. and hope that nobody says, this is stupid - your inner thoughts are stupid. Especially doing it for the first time, where you're like - I don't know if this is good. Maybe I'm just really boring and insane. 
        And you won't know that until you get feedback. But it's hard to keep the motivation if you only receive negative feedback…”

And, at the other extreme - you also don't want to be a person who's completely invulnerable to any and all feedback, and thinks that everyone else must be boring and insane if they say anything remotely negative.
         That’s a shortcut to nowhere, as well. Because you never learn anything.

Naomi: “The trick is finding someone who loves you, but is also a bit harsh.”