#'yeah this is exactly a scifi horror plot setup but also what if she just needs someone to talk to. just give her space.' | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

procyon-podcast-network · 7 years

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HOME STRETCH! Our Kickstarter still has a little over one day left to go. We’re funded, but we would love to reach our stretch goal so we can pay all the hardworking folks who volunteered to help us make it possible. People like our artist, (@theoutsidervevo) sound engineer (@shapechangersinwinter) and musician (@sounddesignerjeans).

During our campaign Andrea Klassen (our Certified Journalist on the team and co-writer/producer for Station to Station) did interviews with the creative teams of all our shows. In case folks on the tumble missed it, we’re also posting it here!

Below the cut: Station to Station writer’s room insider with Alex Yun and Andrea Klassen on inspiration, horror, and representation in genre fiction.

When Dr Miranda Quan embarks on an 10-week research cruise in the Pacific Ocean, she expects two months of no-nonsense experiments, bad Titanic jokes and marathoning Grey’s Anatomy. Instead, her lab partner has vanished, leaving nothing but a notebook full of illogical ramblings, a voice recorder, and a half-finished maths problem she has to solve. With a storm moving in and something sinister lurking below decks, Miranda must untangle the conspiracy surrounding her or be consumed.

AK: It's really satisfying to write women who get to be flawed heroes in all the ways male protagonists do too. With moments of bad judgement and moral conflict and selfishness and stubbornness. Also as a queer woman it's... just nice to get write characters whose stories aren't tied to homophobia — where someone can have a crush on another woman, but that's not the source of conflict the way horrifying science conspiracies are.

AY: Exactly. And the reason that we do this — the point of PPN — is to create narrative space for ourselves in genre fiction, be it horror or sci-fi or fantasy, where we are allowed to take up that space and drive that narrative. We deserve to be front and centre, to have our stories not end in tragedy, to have stories that doesn't just mimic the current way the media treats marginalised identities. It is not niche to put non-white, non-straight bodies into narratives that have been historically excluding of them.

The idea that diverse stories are less appealing is based on constructed ideas of what "the norm" looks like - it's tied to the experience of what it means to be the "default" and what it means to be the Other.

The rest is below the cut!

Andrea Klassen (co-writer, Station to Station): In an effort to hold onto the old Q&A format for one question — where did the idea come from for Station to Station?

Alex Yun (creator, Station to Station): I have scientist friend who goes on these types of research cruises once a year and has for the two-three years I've known her. She talked about it last time she went (or was about to leave, back in October/November), I thought 'this reminds me a bit of Wolf 359' which lead to 'this would make a good podcast' and that's how the original idea was formed.

AK: I remember when you first talked about it, there was something so appealing about that setup. Even before we'd really delved into what was going to happen in season one, there's that combination of forced isolation and forced camaraderie. No one's alone on a research vessel, but you're very much stuck with what you've got, for better or worse... and in this case, maybe a little more of the worse.

AY: Right, and that's how it turned from 'slice-of-life dramedy with slightly creepy science' to full-blown sci-fi conspiracy horror. The restrictions of being stuck in confined space, of being unable to escape because you're literally hundreds of kilometres out at sea — that all feeds into the paranoia, the unease, and the claustrophobia of horror.

AK: Yeah, and I think all those same things are reasons this is a story that's so interesting to tell in podcast form. My favourite horror has never been the stuff that's about slicing up people — it's withheld information, the stuff just outside your peripheral vision, that sense there's something going on you don't understand. A medium that's entirely what you can hear is so ripe for that.

AY: I think a big component to horror is helplessness. When you look at these classic horror movies, so many of them are about being stuck in a building, in a room, in a house — and then adding in the growing fear and sense of wrongness that comes from the unknown and truly unnatural. The best horror is psychological. I'm not really interested in gore as a trope. There are a lot of other fears you can delve into that's simply more...interesting and rewarding as a setup. Especially when you tap into the natural-reaction gut-instinct kind of scary.

The best thing with audio is that you get unlimited ways to play with perception. 'Nothing is scarier' is a favourite trope of mine and audio is perfect for that precisely because it's non-visual. It leaves a lot of room for imagination and painting the medium.

I'm honestly not a big fan of horror films precisely because of how many rely on cheap tropes like body horror, jump scares and gore, but I have loved conspiracy thrillers because they deliver the same punch of fighting against something bigger and unknown — so I suppose I wanted to create something that used similar tropes, but that I would be able to listen to and not bug out in the middle.

AK: I love ‘nothing is scarier’ too, and if you think about it, we've got a very literal use of it here — no spoilers, but nothing really is the scariest thing going on in this show in a lot of ways.

AY: Right, the vast empty abyss of the void beyond when you're in the middle of nowhere. Which is always fun to joke about, until you start exploring what it means, and how to make use of the.... let's call it the instinctual human unease towards the unknown.

AK: One of the things that's been a lot of fun there is that at the centre of this story we have this trio of very different, complex women who do paranoia and unease in such completely different ways. (I wanna gush about our characters, Alex. I wanna gush.)

AY: That was something interesting to explore — coming up with different perspectives, different voices, different character motivations was definitely a learning experience for me as a writer as well. We have three extremely competent women of colour at the centre of things trying to solve this eldritch, unexplainable, larger-than-yourself mystery and it is very gratifying.

AK: It's really satisfying to write women who get to be flawed heroes in all the ways male protagonists do too. With moments of bad judgement and moral conflict and selfishness and stubbornness. Also as a queer woman it's... just nice to get write characters whose stories aren't tied to homophobia — where someone can have a crush on another woman, but that's not the source of conflict the way horrifying science conspiracies are.

AY: Exactly. And the reason that we do this — the point of PPN — is to create narrative space for ourselves in genre fiction, be it horror or sci-fi or fantasy, where we are allowed to take up that space and drive that narrative. We deserve to be front and centre, to have our stories not end in tragedy, to have stories that doesn't just mimic the current way the media treats marginalised identities. It is not niche to put non-white, non-straight bodies into narratives that have been historically excluding of them.

The idea that diverse stories are less appealing is based on constructed ideas of what "the norm" looks like - it's tied to the experience of what it means to be the "default" and what it means to be the Other. And as an asexual Chinese woman, I am writing to create that narrative space for myself.

AK: I think it's also deeply informed the kind of story we're writing. Horror can be pretty individualistic — final girls, a single protagonist getting to the bottom of everything — but when you're telling stories about people for whom finding safe community is an essential part of survival in everyday real life, it changes the narrative.

Questions of trust are so central to this story — both who you can trust when things go wrong, and how that trust or lack of it plays out. While in this case there's a conspiracy motivating our characters, these are questions that I think resonate on a pretty personal level if you're a person with any kind of marginalised identity.

AY: Right, and being aware of the real-life subtext is vital if we want to create something unique. Every piece of fiction has multiple layers to it, and every piece of fiction is measured against the meta-narrative it exists in. We're doing a horror-sci-fi in a medium that's abundant with horror-scifi — so it's obviously important to be aware of how we build it. It's been a challenge balancing character moments and not overcomplicating plot, but that's why themes of found families and solidarity and momentary allies an integral structure of the story.

But when all is said, I'm fairly satisfied with what we've got so far — I've enjoyed working with you, I love our cast, and I'm looking forward to bringing this thing to life.

Station to Station launches this summer. For updates, check us out at s2s-podcast.tumblr.com or follow us on Twitter @S2SPodcast.

#station to station #procyon podcast network #s2s podcast #representation matters #diversity in sff #supportpocpods #p: station to station

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