After several weeks of steady progress, in week six, I hit a wall. I was in the middle of writing episode two when I realized that I didn’t like my protagonist. The character was becoming boring and didn’t have any room to develop. I was stuck. I sent my mentor, Mr. Gosselin, a copy of my most recent draft and asked if we could discuss it. 

During my meeting, I tried to be an attentive listener. De Bono describes a good listener as “paying attention to what is being said”, “respect[ing] the speaker”, being “genuinely interested”, and finally, appreciating “the value from what is heard,” (De Bono, 66). For this session, I was able to record parts of our conversation, and have reviewed the recording to help me generate further ideas. 

One valuable piece of advice that I received concerned how much each character knows at any given time. Mr. Gosselin suggested that “you have to decide… how much Dad knows,” before moving forward. He also recommended that I figure out the last scene or line of the podcast so I could structure the entire plot leading up to a big reveal. 

I realized from these discussions with Mr. Gosselin that I needed to plan out the entire podcast before I started writing further episodes in detail. 

Another suggestion was to avoid unnecessary details such as describing what my characters are eating, unless there is a payoff in the end. For example, in the first scene of my podcast, an interaction between two characters included cute details that were fun but not crucial to the plot. Mr. Gosselin pointed out the potential issue which could have affected timing and audience interest. 

In week seven, I took a big step backwards and reconsidered the overall theme of my podcast. I spent time detailing out each character’s strengths and weaknesses, wants and fears, beliefs, appearances, backstories, and motivations. I revised my vision board to layout all of the characters’ qualities. Below is a blurred out photo of one of my vision boards (blurred to prevent spoilers)

Currently, I am working on creating an outline for each of my episodes. I am already compiling a list of questions to ask my mentor next week. For example, I would like to ask my mentor what in his opinion is more important: plot or character. I feel right now that I have created interesting dynamic characters who have individual motivations and personalities. However, I have a lot of questions surrounding my plot. How concerned should I be about tropes or predictability? Can I leave some details unexplained? I like the thought of my listeners having to solve the mystery along with the protagonists, but currently am struggling to integrate this. 

Although I did not reach my goal from my last post, I feel I still have made significant progress and have learned that creative struggle is healthy and necessary. See you in two weeks!