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[Transcript] ISBW S17 Ep3: Weaponizing Language
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Weaponizing Language
I Should Be Writing S17 Ep3
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, characters, writing, tish, goals, characterization, ditch diggers, words, story, week, book, phased, point, big, person, hug, language, run, weaponized, twitch
SPEAKER
Mur Lafferty
Mur 0:33
It is I Should Be Writing number 554 I think. Season 17, episode 3. And it’s Tuesday. What other numbers can I throw at you? It’s Tuesday, the 11th, maybe? Not sure. Yes, I am totally with it, and up to date. I’ve been still recovering. It’s one of the worst things about something throwing you off your schedule is, well tomorrow when you realize you have work to catch up on, but there was other work to do tomorrow. So you have to work on the work that’s slightly late while making other work late. Or work on the work that’s due that day, and make the first work later. So, dealing with migraine and stress about the country and everything has been like. I finally got my scripts turned in yesterday. That was a big relief. Finally got the computer built and I’m saying that like I did something. My husband wanted to build it so I bought all the pieces. I bought all the pieces and he built it. And it’s the 12th but who’s counting. Thank you Robheinz.
Mur 2:08
Yes, so the computer’s set up. I just need to be able to see inside of it. Apparently there’s an NVIDIA bug that’s screwing with me. Thanks NVIDIA. Okay, sorry I missed yesterday as well. Hello Sario. Hello Anne. Good to see y’all. This is the writing podcast. Yesterday I did not make my AMA because I had an unexpected appointment pop up and had to run out and do that, unfortunately. Then had to come home and write, and finish that project. Sounding like the New Year’s all full of excuses already. Isn’t that great? Kromag! Hello, good to see you. I hope people are doing well. It’s been a stressful week, very stressful week. If you’re in DC or really any of the nation’s state capital. I hope you’re staying safe. It doesn’t look like it’s going to be an easy week coming up. And that’s distracting to us all. We already talked about that last week, if you’re new, or you’re just picking this up now I do have an episode called Turn it Off, where we talk about how writers deal with the kind of distractions that come up. Shawnshawnecky, ahoy. I’m glad you’d liked Six Wakes. Thank you.
Mur 3:51
Interestingly enough, I was wanting to talk about this this month, but now it seems more relevant than ever. And that’s the weaponization of language. It’s a very clever thing and it’s not something I feel I’m very good at. And so it always surprises me when it works, but I’ve talked about it a little bit before about how the words you use to describe somebody, while they can be accurate, a lot of times they’re chosen very carefully to elicit an emotional response in people. Mother elicits a response in people. Mother of more than one child. Like, mother of four dies. Oh no, it’s so much worse than any other person. That’s what it brings across. It’s more that they put on more words to describe people. And it’s not done with malice a lot of times. It’s just that’s what they use to describe certain people, but you won’t find other people described like that if they don’t want to or don’t think that they elicit such sympathies. Right now, especially with the riots in the capitol last week, that’s all about weaponized language. You can say, violence is bad and then say a whole bunch of other sentences that tell people, no violence is pretty okay. And the best part is, you’ve got plausible deniability because you are quoted as to saying, violence is bad. People know.
Mur 6:16
If you want to learn a lot about what weaponized language, a lot of politicians use it. And yeah, I’ll say it. The person currently in charge of the country, although he’s done nothing but whine and deny and foment insurrection, for the past couple of months. It’s all about hidden messages and not even like clever hidden messages. Oh, well, maybe those second amendment people will take care of that. Second amendment people have guns. And how do people with guns, take care of things? I mean it’s just stuff like that. You can learn a lot. That person is a very, very good manipulator of people. And he does it with language. And I think, perhaps, maybe later. Hello Underpope. Good to see you. Maybe later, it won’t be so raw to study certain languages done by, certain words or phrases said by politicians. But it helps build character in stories. I mean, you take a white person with a gun and you call them a patriot. You take a black person with a gun you call them a criminal and thug. That’s weaponized language right there. And honestly, this was what I was going to talk about, I just didn’t expect it to be so raw. It’s scary to be able to say, to have somebody say don’t do violence and then everything else in the Senate says, go ahead and do some violence. Very frustrating. Hi Tish, good to see you.
Mur 8:38
I noticed it was a case of controlling the narrative, says Kromagg. Yeah, there’s a lot of controlling the narrative going on. There’s a lot of he never said go attack the capital, so he’s okay. They just decided to. Heartbreaking being brown skinned and seeing the injustice in our country. Tish, I can’t, I can’t even imagine. My heart goes out to you. And I hope you’re remaining safe in the next two weeks. Well, all the time but really, things look like they’re going to get worse before they get better. So hope everybody stays safe. But like it or not it is, when you see it in every day it’s awful but it’s very clever manipulation of language which is what we’re trying to learn. Least I am. And I’m not saying it’s good. Feel like I’m digging a hole for myself here. It’s more, you can learn by studying people. Passive voice is considered terrible, except the politicians use it all the time because it points no blame. Mistakes were made. That bill was signed. That regimen opened fire. I mean, no that’s active. The small village was fired upon. That’s a subject then verb. That’s passive voice. So, even as… I don’t know guys, I don’t know. I’m trying to say things that I’m judging myself for saying them as I’m saying them. It’s more like, if there’s nothing else to do right now, see what you can learn from the way different people weaponize language. Keep your eyes open and see if you can parse what they’re saying. For one thing, it’ll help you be more aware. And secondly, it’ll help you learn. You can make more believable absolutely wretched amoral characters that way. Anne says, from what I’ve heard the government uses all the time too. I spoke to a woman who writes for the government. She had to use it. I meant to say I spoke to the woman who writes for the government. Oh no, I thought you were changing from active to passive voice, sorry. No, you were just, yeah, I got you Anne. I understood. Yeah, they have to, there’s no pointing fingers unless you really want to point fingers, which also happens.
Mur 11:46
And hey, y’all probably don’t want to hear about politics and I don’t want to talk about it but it is relevant right now. I’m pouring tea, that’s why I’m leaning out of the shot. It’s unfortunately, relevant, and how politicians use language, how doctors use language. They’re finding it in a lot of studies, especially when it comes to, like, mostly people with brown skin, they’ve done studies to show the doctors just don’t believe they hurt as much as white people do. And if you asked a doctor that of course they would deny it, but that’s not how people are acting. And it’s a very tragic thing but it’s also a way people use… Nothing, nothing is like, by the rules, AB&C, because they’re going to look at a patient and they’re going to say, we’re going to make all the decisions based on the patient’s race, perceived gender, age, class. And they’re going to make decisions based on medical history, and those things. And I’m talking about this because it’s hard for me to write, I feel like characterization is something I struggle with. And in studying things like this, things like the way some people think even. Like sociopaths. I’ve got the book The Sociopath Next Door, which was truly horrible. Because she described a lot of sociopaths that she studied. Just to learn about that point, that characterization. And I did put a sociopath in a recent book so I’m hoping that made that character appropriate.
Mur 14:04
Sario, I have tea. I thought I took a drink. I saw you. I didn’t acknowledge that you said hydrate but I thought I did take a sip of tea. Then again, maybe I just picked it up and held it in my hands. I don’t know. It’s been a long day. But it’s just green tea so it’s hydrating, technically. Sometimes it’s hard studying how people think. I’ve said time and again that at least old Stephen King is, with all of its flaws, a really good look at characterization. And I started rereading IT this week. And just how he opens it with an act of violence, then, or a couple of acts of violence but then he starts introducing all of our adult characters and there are six, I think. Well there’s seven, and one of them kills himself in an early chapter. But we get the story of every single of those heroic kids as an adult, and being contacted by the one who stayed behind. If you don’t know the story of IT, yes it’s about a scary killer clown, but really it’s the concept is every 27 years or so a monster below this town sort of awakens, kills a bunch of people in horrifying ways, and then goes back to sleep. So the kids fought it 27 years ago, and now they’re all 38, living their lives, and have actually forgotten about that time. But the one who stayed behind calls them up and says hey it’s starting again, we got to do something. And so it starts out with the description of how each of those people, who they grew up to be, and how they react to the phone call. And I’m getting detailed descriptions of the hypochondriac and his overbearing wife. Stephen King had a problem with fat phobia, not gonna lie. If that bothers you, wouldn’t recommend his early stuff. I don’t know if he’s grown out of it. But if a woman was fat, she was dominating, overbearing and pretty evil or incredibly weak, but never good. No, there’s no good fat women in Stephen King’s books. So you’ve got the hypochondriac and the dominating, weeping wife. And then you’ve got the brilliant yet weak one girl of the group who grew up to marry an abuser just like her father. And so there’s, it’s all from his point of view, the abuser, which is another one of those things where you got to learn how to write people like that. And King does really well. It’s awful. But it’s awful because it works, it gets that emotional response for me.
Mur 17:29
And I struggled a little bit with writing people of a lot of faith, which I tried to do in Six Wakes. But getting into the first person point of view of somebody truly evil is something I still struggle with a little bit. Which I supposed should help me sleep better at night. But really, it makes me feel weaker as a writer. Which is why even though bad stuff is happening right now, I still say you can keep your eyes open and learn to better form your wretched, wretched evil characters. Because you know, evil is not, haha, rubbing your hands together, cackling laugh. Well, we’re seeing a lot of these days. And that’s how it really manifests. Oh Twitch jittered right when you redeemed hydrate and wasn’t sure it went through. Yes it did. I’ll even do it again. So yeah, I always like to go back to Stephen King when I talk about characterization. My go to ensemble characterization is, I say Sex in the City and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I think I need to start adding Brooklyn-99 to that list. Anne says whether or not you like Christian fiction I highly recommend the If I Run series by Terri Blackstock because in the second and third book she writes the villains POV in first person so well. Interesting, thank you for the recommendation. Okay if I run by Terri Blackstock. A lot of the characters in Brooklyn-99 are many faceted. And any comedian who whines that they’re not allowed to make fun of women or people of color or non straight people and everyone’s just too politically correct and you can’t make jokes anymore. Watch Brooklyn-99 because they don’t make any of those jokes, and they’ve got two gay people, and two regular black men. I mean, regular characters. And two Latinas. You know it’s a very diverse cast and none of them falls into a stereotype. Even the muscle bound… What is Terry? Sergeant? I think he is. Played by Terry Crews, ex NFL guy. Big muscle bound sergeant but he’s absolutely dedicated to his wife. He’s very much a dad to his girls. There’s the scene where he’s trying to put together the princess palace and losing his temper, but it’s not that he’s putting together a girly thing. It’s just he doesn’t know how to put it together and he’s losing it. But he’s not ashamed of being with the princess palace. The chief is gay but not any sort of stereotype played for laughs, that you would ever find. There’s a scene where I actually appreciated the fact that the chief started the African American… It’s a very long acronym. African American gay and lesbian Police Association, I think. And they shorten it to AAGLNYCPA. He started the, the chief started the group, and somebody was going to run against him and so there’s this very young, attractive man coming to his office saying I really admire what you’ve done here sir. I just want to let you know I’m going to be running against you because I think I could take the group in a new, wonderful direction. And in any like 1990s comedy that will be played for sexual attraction. But, no, not at all. It’s not even mentioned. And those are the kinds of things that you know he does so much. There’s so much to laugh about in that episode that have nothing to do with the fact that these are gay black cops. Except for the acronym, which is just funny because it’s a really long acronym. And it doesn’t really make sense when you say it out loud and that’s as far as it goes.
Mur 23:02
I think a lot of times when people say they have trouble with pacing or characterization or plot. A lot of things you need to do is just read more, and even watch more TV. I know everyone says throw out your television, but there’s some really good storytelling going on in television. And there’s some really good characters that are multifaceted in TV right now. I’ve been listening to The Office Ladies podcast by two of the women who worked on The Office. Jenna Fisher who played Pam and Angela… Angela who played Angela, I can’t remember which one is her real last name. But her first name is Angela and the character’s first name is Angela. Anyway, and them talking about it is getting me interested in watching the office again because that was also an ensemble. There’s a lot of things about people that I think writers, I think some writers create rules for their characters and it’s almost never stated outright. Like Dwight Schrute is a lover of authority, and is pointed out a couple of times, later on in the series. But Dwight, I mean he’s funny, he’s obsessive, he’s a complete nerd, he’s naive but he’s also a complete lover of authority. And if he respects you as an authority figure, then he will listen to you even if he hates everything you’re saying. Every time Jim actually pulled rank on him he stopped doing whatever he was doing. He didn’t like it, but he did because you realize this man respects authority and that’s what they wrote into his character. And I think little rules like that can help.
Mur 25:18
And I started out talking about the weaponization of language and then I devolved into flaws of my own characters so that happened. But really it’s all about a lot of things. People have a lot of layers, and a good character has a lot of layers but they will have a couple of those personal rules, and the audience, even if they could not articulate what a character’s inner rules are, you know when they’re broken. Um, I’m going to spoil Babylon Five. It’s been over for a long time. I hope you don’t mind, but there’s a character who’s an assistant to a diplomat, and he falls in love with her. And she’s in love with somebody else who she eventually marries. And at one point, there’s an accident, and her husband, or I don’t know if they’re married at the time but her intended, the man she loves, is caught behind an emergency door and depressurization or something is happening, and he stands there for a minute and he runs away. And then he thinks better of it and he runs back and he rescues the guy blah blah blah. But everybody watching said no, that is not, there’s nothing in him that’s as opportunistic as to let her husband die for his own possible gain. And I wouldn’t have told you I could say what Lennier’s personal rules were, but that definitely broke one of them. Hey Kaykimmie, good to see you. Sario says those comedians are just talentless hacks. Yeah they lean on the easy, stereotypical humor. That’s just what they do, and suddenly people call them on it. Or I think it has a lot to do with the internet because people hear those jokes and they think, well, that makes me kind of uncomfortable but everyone else is laughing so I’m not going to speak up. But then you got on the internet and you found out that there were a lot of other people who were sitting there feeling very uncomfortable too so it’s not like all of a sudden, people are angry at this kind of humor, it’s just a lot of us found out that a lot of other people didn’t find it as funny as they thought we did.
Mur 28:11
So I think, actually I’m like spitballing here. I’m coming up with my own plans. I think I’m going to try to come up with those internal rules for some of my characters and see if that helps me build them. What are the values of the character? What do they hold sacred? Dwight Schrute holds authority sacred. I’d say Lennier, the guy who’s in love with his boss that I was talking about earlier, I’d say he holds loyalty sacred. Loyalty and tradition. Sario says it’s easier to speak out behind the safety of a keyboard. That’s true. For better for worse Sario. That is definitely true. I’m sorry, it looks like my computer’s not plugged in and I don’t understand why. Oh well, it’s still got plenty of power. I’ll worry about that later. Having enough computer problems these days. But how are you doing? I didn’t actually do my word count because I was writing a script and final draft doesn’t tell you word count, they tell you page count. But I have been doing a lot of writing, I’m just not sure how much lately. Got that turned in. Feel good. Now I’m behind on another project. Yay. I mentioned before, I was taking a goals course for the new year and had our second second meeting today, which is why I’ve kind of moved, at least for now I’ve moved the Tuesday, I Should Be Writings to the afternoon because my midday is taken up by this class. And I’m definitely not going to tell you what I learned in the class in a way that will reproduce it and therefore negate what this woman has built. But I did come up with some goals today, some of them I had articulated before and just never knew how to make myself. It’s like they tell you, make the one year goal and then what do you need to do by six months to get this, what do you need to do by three months and break it down and break it down and it all makes sense until you find out what you have to do tomorrow. And I’m like, I’m already busy tomorrow. How am I going to fit this one year goal into tomorrow? I know it’s just a little bit. But where do I put it? Which is where most of my goals fall down, but that is supposed to be discussed in this class as well.
Mur 31:00
So some of my goals, like I know not to say, I want to be a runner, I have to say I want my goal to be run a 10k by the end of the year kind of thing. But actually making myself get out and run that’s the challenge. But I came up with a couple of other goals, health related because I really never want to let that go. I never want to put that on the back burner, because I think it’s really dangerous. I mean, I’m in my late 40s now. Putting health on the back burner is not really a good idea. But I came up with writing goals, and I came up with, I called it microphone, because it’s streaming and podcasting goals. So I’m hoping I’ll have a good plan. The class is over in March, early March, so we’ll see. But I did learn one thing that was fascinating and that is one of my problems has been, I’m a writer, I’m writing books, and I’m getting paid for it. And so I always wondered like, how do I make professional goals? Because the goal is write book, finish book, sell book, write another book. But I’ll answer your question in a minute Billyboy. But then I realized that since I’m already contracted do some stuff, that stuff’s gonna get done and if it doesn’t get done I’ve got bigger problems. So the next book on my contract is not a goal. My next round of edits is not a goal. Writing a book in a genre that I don’t write in, that’s not sold, that’s a goal. Because that requires discipline and ambition and planning to get that done. It’s, I know this, this show is for more beginner types and if you don’t already have a contract and yeah maybe write that novel to sell is your goal, but really that novel’s in the same place as mine is because I’m talking about writing in a genre I’m not used to, and writing a novel on spec, when I could be writing other things. And that’s going to take discipline and planning. Whereas beginning writers could say write that book by the end of the year, or query 10 agents by the end of the year kind of thing.
Mur 33:53
I think that already helped me solidify some of the goals I have in my writing life. So that was cool. Bill asked if an author has internal rules for their characters wouldn’t that hamper a writer who’s a pantser? I don’t think so. Not at all, because you need to have an idea of your character’s personality when you’re writing them. If they manifest stuff in their personality as you’re writing them then you can fix that on edit. But really, when a question comes up, if someone’s rude to this person and I know that this person respects authority, how are they going to react? So, if the CEO yells at Dwight Schrute, he will take it meekly because he respects authority above all other things. Whereas, if the CEO yells at somebody else then somebody else will react in a different way. This is why one of my favorite writing exercises is: put all your characters at a table where a waiter drops a glass of iced water on them. And they should all react differently as per their personalities. Will they get angry? Will they think to get the person fired? Will they apologize? Will they help clean up? Will they just get silent and furious and walk out? I mean there’s so many other ways that different personality types will react to this sudden and startling feeling. Hey, thanks for subscribing Tish, really appreciate it. Kaykimmie says my aunt’s funeral was today but I couldn’t go and there was a skunk right by our backyard so that’s how I am. I am so sorry. I’m laughing at the skunk, not the funeral. Oh, that’s awful. Was it was it was it just the skunk or was it the skunk actually spraying because, you know, skunks as long as you don’t bother them hopefully they won’t bother you. Except for when they spray somebody else and then you can smell it for miles. But I’m very sorry for your day Kaykimmie. I really am.
Mur 36:36
But yeah, even if you’re a pantser, you should know a little bit about your character’s personality. And sometimes when a decision comes up you need to wonder: my person thinks motherhood is sacred. How does that factor into what they just did? Let’s say, they have a hot temper but they think motherhood is sacred and the waitress that dumped ice water on them is pregnant. Are they going to act differently than if it was just a single man? Probably. It was a pretty strong skunk smell but thankfully doesn’t seem to have sprayed our very curious dog. Yes, you know small victories, Kaykimmie. Just small victories at this point. Anne just finished washing clothes and has a wonderful podcast interview today, otherwise good and safe. That is excellent to hear. So yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about characterization and language and hoping people stay safe in the next couple of weeks, and wear their masks. Things are getting scary and I think we’re all tired of being scared. And so even though it’s worse than it’s ever been, people are still like, oh, let’s open stuff. Come on. So, yeah, be careful. Phasedout, you made a pun. You did. And that happened. Congratulations. Beth says late to realizing this, but I love your drink mug. Does is say billionaire’s tears? Yes, this was our Elizabeth Warren mug. Tish: it’s scary to see it’s not just the US but the whole world. Yeah it is. I felt weird asking my editor for an extension last week, considering that they’re British. And I half expected them to go, ‘Come on. We worked through Brexit. You can deal with this.’, but they were very nice.
Mur 39:04
So, tell me how you are handling things. Tell me, whether it’s characterization in your own books, or just life right now because it’s so hard having all of this happen during a pandemic because we just need, you know you need people right now. You need to feel safe, but you also need people and you can’t have it or you shouldn’t have it. Person who works with Escape Artists Preme Muhammad was posting on Twitter yesterday that she had like faux-fur lined leggings on them with unicorns. And she said she’s magical and I’m like, I must know where you bought these because they look like you’re being hugged all the time and I need a hug all the time right now and my family says they have other things to do. Which I realize in retrospect sort of implied that my family didn’t want to hug me at all, where I was trying to point out that they didn’t have time to hug me all the time. But, I mean even with people in the house, I’m feeling lonely. So I just want to reach out and that’s one thing I love about Twitch is that we’re able to do this. We’re able to chat. And as stream labs just said if you are lurking, that’s cool too. I’m glad you’re here. I wrapped myself in fleece robes at night. Yeah that’s good, Anne. Oh my gosh, I missed the hugs. I’m such a big hugger. I hug my pillow, turn off the news and sleep. That’s a good plan. Yeah I have a – God it was years ago- at our comic bookstore, the hottest toy was these giant microbes which I suppose, I don’t know if they’re making Coronavirus now or if it’s too soon. But you know like big stuffed animals of the cellular images of famous diseases. There’s mad cow and there’s giardia. I can’t think of them all. But I have a black death, which basically just looks like a kind of black sausage slightly curved. And I sleep with it like a five year old because it’s just like a perfect size and shape to wrap around. And it amuses me because apparently the genetic condition I have, some theorize that it was brought about by people in Europe who survived the Black Death. They survived it because they had inflated iron in their systems which created people with genetic abnormalities to retain too much iron in their systems. Would you know then could kill you. But if the Black Plague comes again I should be okay.
Mur 42:18
But I just wanted to see how y’all are doing. Phasedout, who I’m forgiving for the pun, says I have virtual people. My cat loves me, chat with your fiance every single day. That’s good. And you’re getting married this summer, aren’t you Phasedout? Kaykimmie says I’m really lucky to live with my family so I can still get hugs. Yes, me too. Tish says my girls get so much hugs since it’s just us. There’s no way they can’t feel the love from mama. Yeah, exactly. I’m around my family too says Anne and so when I see my nieces and nephews, I can give the little ones hugs whenever they’ll let me. I also have virtual communities too. Virtual communities are important. I’ve got a slack that I’m pretty close with. Underpope says I have a few of those giant micro plushies. I have a neuron. Yes the neuron is neat. They don’t have only diseases. They also have like an amoeba and a neuron. It was the inspiration for more than one story. That’s awesome. Virtual communities have helped me as well says Kromagg. That’s great. I’m very glad this has come up. I need to figure out why my computer is not charging. So, talk amongst yourselves while I bend down and check on everything because I don’t know what’s going on. It’s all very annoying. Haha! It wasn’t plugged in all the way. Okay, sorry about that.
Mur 43:59
I have cats. They don’t give very good hugs. Yeah but don’t they sit on you and stuff? I hear people find that comforting. When I sit on the floor after my dogs are super excited from having me on the floor and have decided to stop sniffing or licking me. They usually settle down like right next to me. We don’t sleep with, the dogs aren’t allowed in the bedroom because we’re technically allergic. I’ve gone through a series of shots so I’m not as allergic to dogs anymore. My husband still is so we basically decided we could have dogs but they can’t stay in the bedroom. We need an allergen free zone as much as possible. So no dogs in the bedroom, no dogs on the bed. So when we sit on the floor, they are just like magnetised, cuddling in close which is nice. Phasedout not getting married this summer anymore. I’m sorry. Do you have a plan, a date? You don’t have to tell me. But I sympathize with the holding off of the marriage, I’m sorry. So what are people working on? I want to hear what you’re working on. I want to hear that you’ve got a plan. You know, we’re moving away from the whole resolution thing, but it’s still important to think, do you have a project, do you have a project you want to start. I have a project that I worked on last year and then put on hold and is due soon and I need to get back to it. That’s a novella project. Somebody was asking questions about novellas in the discord yesterday. It’s a rough length because sometimes when short stories get too long, they get bogged down and they need to be cut. And sometimes when a more developed story gets written, if you cut it off too soon, then it’ll be cut off too soon. It’s a more difficult bullseye to hit the 17,501 words to 60,000? 40,000? Anyway, it’s that middle range. That 25 to 30,000 word stories that are kind of hard to do because you got to get your pacing right. And you got to get your timing right. You’ve got to make sure your story is bigger than a short story and not as big as a novel. That’s why, again, Stephen King wrote some excellent novellas. Early in his career. The Long Walk has its problems but I devour that thing every time I pick it up.
Mur 46:56
Let’s see we got lots of people updating. Thank you. Underpope says yes the cats do sit. Okay, good. Kaykimmie is thinking about starting crafting streaming on Twitch if only to make myself accountable to actually doing the things. Yes, if you do that, let me know I would love to watch. That’s awesome. Anne finished chapter five of my supernatural romance suspense. That’s great. Phasedout we are strategizing. Hotel will hold our current package to the end of April, that’s really good. Hey Todd. Good to see you. Working on a piece of Warhammer fanfic right now. That’s cool. I like it. Tisha is writing the third draft of my cozy mystery series. Want to self publish. I would like to hear more of your cozy mystery series. I am a fan of cozy mysteries. This is a clean podcast but I’m bringing it up because it is a thing that happened in the news. The internet of things has… We already knew that it stretched to sex toys but apparently there’s a male chastity belt with an app connected to it, which has been hacked. And somebody posted that this should be, you know, the Internet of Things, the porn Internet of Things should be used in a Midsomer Murders episode. So I had fun puzzling out that idea because Midsomer Murders are ridiculously complex. It’s always some strange person is found dead. Suspicion falls on somebody who’s affiliated with some neighborhood group like the bell ringers or the pudding club at the school, or people who are coming to a high school… What’s the word? Crap, I can’t think of words today. Reunion, that’s the word. But the group is angry because of a decision, somebody else is making, which is almost always a red herring. It’s absurd. One of my favorite Midsomer Murders stories has to do with a grocery store surveyor is found murdered and suspicion falls on the local upper class ladies prostitution club, who were angry about the big box grocery store coming into town. It’s bizarre.
Mur 49:57
Sario wants to work on semi abandoned stories and now people are responding to the chastity belt thing. How much crazier can the world get? Don’t answer that says Anne. I wont. Phasedout says must not Google this. Underpope says I have a short story which is rapidly expanding into a novella. Kromagg is trying to reevaluate a story concept that wasn’t working. Was a mystery but now trying to scrub the mystery out of it. Now, I want to ask more about that but I don’t know if you can actually answer me in a detailed fashion that I would be satisfied with. Huh. Because there’s… Yeah, I would want to know why you’d want to scrub the mystery out of it. Maybe you have enough genres. I don’t know. It’s possible. I hope whatever you’re working on will get some words down this week. Remember if you get a chance, if you’re up at that time, I’m still intimidated by your timing Tish, but I do want to drop in on one of your write in streams. Because I love live write ins, but it’s just scary early. You can go see Tish, I put a link in the show notes of ast Tuesday’s episode, 552 I think. You can go see the link to Tish’s YouTube page. Kromagg says the mystery seemed to be distracting from the core idea. I see. Yeah, I mean you got to do what you got to do to your story. This sounds ridiculous because a lot of my recent ideas, and by recent I mean like in the last six, seven years, have started from something ridiculous and hopefully morphed into something more meaningful.
Mur 52:37
Like my Blue’s Clues meets 1984 story, working on that and then there’s the Murder She Wrote meets Babylon five, that sounds silly but hopefully I put enough mystery into it to where it’s not like haha you’re making fun of Jessica Fletcher kind of thing. But I suddenly thought about a murder mystery based on Stardew Valley. Because it’s like that cozy farm that you inherit that’s connected to a cozy little town, with its own secrets. And it’s not going to be like straight fanfic but inspired by all the different personalities in Stardew Valley and all of the weird side plots going on and I decided there’s also murder. So I might be actually developing a non speculative fiction murder mystery. We’ll see. Yes JMS did write for both of those shows. I keep forgetting that. That’s a good point. But I hope you guys get some words down this weekend. Remember what I said last week, be kind to yourself, turn off the thing if you need to. I unfortunately have not gotten the episode up yet, last week’s Ditch Diggers, but we do announce that we are recording, we’re going to be doing Ditch Diggers live tomorrow here on Twitch. And I don’t remember what time we said, hang on let me check the message from Matt. Because I know he did message me today. Why do people keep calling me? Stop calling me. I’m busy today. Wait, what did he say? Tomorrow. Yes, it is tomorrow. Good, good. And, right. It is like at three o’clock tomorrow, three o’clock Eastern time. So, be doing live Ditch Diggers tomorrow. It will be like Ditch Diggers, usually is, it will be… Where are my words today? I’m getting tired. I’m sorry. It will be explicit, will not be clean like this one. And we’ll be taking the audio from here and putting it in the feed, like before. So if you’re around, we’d love to see you. Because, you know, don’t want to be all lonely and stuff. But yeah, if it goes well, then we’re gonna try to do it more often. Not every time, but more often.
Mur 56:07
So that’s my only short term announcement. Thank you, Tish for subscribing. And thank you everybody for checking in, I’m really hoping I can get my computer system settled and established to where I don’t have to worry about, well everything these days. There’s just a lot. There’s too much to worry about without worrying about switching computers and Nvidia chips that decide to not show you what is any visuals. Whose channel will it be on? It’ll be on mine. I believe Matt’s on youtube I don’t think he’s on Twitch, so it’ll be here at Twitch dot tv slash mightymur. If he wants to host it on his channel at angry writer over on YouTube that’s his business because I don’t know how to do that. You could see the blog and show notes at murverse.com. You can email me at mightymur@gmail.com with questions for the show. I’m on Twitter at mightymur, Twitch at mightymur. YouTube and Instagram, not as often, but YouTube is Mur Lafferty and Instagram is mightymur2. I don’t remember what happened to the original mightymur account. And, yeah, you can support Patreon patreon.com slash mightmur, and get access to the discord and I’m gonna be sending out information to the Patreon, about the first kick in the pants workshop we’re working on. And I guess that’s it. I really hope that you guys stay safe, both in the realm of political unrest and in the realm of pandemic and get some words down, because that lasts. And it’s good self care, because you should be writing.
Remember you can support the show at patreon.com/mightymur, jemi.app/mightymur, or ko-fi.com/mightymur.
I Should Be Writing’s theme music provided by John Anealio. You can find more about him at johnanealio.com.
Art by Numbersninja and transcription by FyreRider.
January 5, 2021 | Season 17 Ep 3 | murverse.com
ISBW S17 Ep3: Weaponizing Language by Mur Lafferty is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
