Cardinalfandom - Cardinal's Moss

V.F.D’s Codes (Happy bi visibility day!)

I've only read the 13 main series books. I what order do you recommend I read the other books? (Mainly, Autobiography and Beatrice Letters before or after ATWQ and 13 Suspicious?)

An interesting question. Here’s the chronological order:

“29 Myths on the Swinster Pharmacy”,

“Who Could That Be At This Hour?” & “When Did You See Her Last?”,

“File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents”,

“Shouldn’t You Be In School?”, & “Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?”

“The Dismal Dinner”,

“The Bad Beginning” and the notes from “The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition”,

From “The Reptile Room” to “The Hostile Hospital”,

“The un-Authorized Autobiography” and “Calendar of Unfortunate Events”,

From “The Carnivorous Carnival” to “The End”,

“The Beatrice Letters”.

And here’s my prefered, recommended order:

From “The Bad Beginning” to “The Grim Grotto”,

“The un-Authorized Autobiography”, “The Dismal Dinner”, “Calendar of Unfortunate Events” and the notes from “The Bad Beginning: Rare Edition”,

“The Penultimate Peril”,

“The Beatrice Letters”,

“The End”,

“29 Myths on the Swinster Pharmacy”,

“Who Could That Be At This Hour?” & “When Did You See Her Last?”,

“File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents”,

“Shouldn’t You Be In School?”, & “Why Is This Night Different From All Other Nights?”

A lot of the supplementary material can’t really be enjoyed if you don’t have a basic knowledge of what happens during most of “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. This also applies to “All The Wrong Questions”, which is admittedly difficult to understand if you don’t have any idea of  what VFD actually involves.

hey before this app gets shut down completely does anyone wanna fuckin uhhhhh fall in love together or smth?

• An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.

• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

• A question mark walks into a bar?

• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."

• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

• A synonym strolls into a tavern.

• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• A dyslexic walks into a bra.

• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony

- Jill Thomas Doyle

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In case no one told you growing up

Bras last longer if you let them air dry. Don’t put them in the dryer.

If you have a problem with frizzy hair, don’t dry your hair with a towel. It makes the frizzies worse. (I recently read an article that said to use a t-shirt? I brush mine out and let it air dry.)

Whites wash best in hot water. Everything else can be in cold - save on your electricity bill.

You can kill 99.9% of germs in a sponge by putting it in the dishwasher for a cycle or by microwaving it for 2 min (be sure to make the sponge damp before microwaving and to put a cup half full of water in with it and please DO NOT squeeze the sponge until it has cooled off)

Airing out your room/house and letting sunlight in every so often can decrease the number of household pests like silverfish and ants.

Black underwear is best during your period as stains are less likely to be visible.

To save money, put aside 10% of each paycheck into a savings account. It’ll add up.

Unless your hair has something on/in it (like grease or mud or something), using conditioner first can actually be the better choice. The conditioner holds in the good oils that help you hair look sleek and beautiful, which shampoo would otherwise wash away.

Speaking of shampoo - if you have long hair, washing just the bits that touch your scalp is generally enough. The rest of your hair gets cleaned with just the run off from your scalp.

If you put a tampon in and it’s uncomfortable/you can feel it, you didn’t do it quite right. A properly placed tampon is virtually unnoticeable by the wearer.

Apply deodorant/antiperspirant a couple hours in advance of when you need it. This gives the product the chance to block your sweat glands. Using deodorant just before going somewhere where you’ll sweat (this means walking outside for people in high humidity places) results in your sweat washing the deodorant off and starkly limiting its usefulness.

After running the dryer, use the dryer sheet from that load to brush out the lint catch - it gets everything off in a fraction of the time it’ll take you to get it clean with your bare hands. Paper towels also work well.

Wash your face everyday, or as often as possible. Forget which brand of cleanser is best. Just washing your face everyday will guarantee you clearer skin. And do you best not to pop pimples, as tempting as the urge may be.

Fold laundry asap after taking it from the dryer to avoid wrinkles. This may seem obvious for dress shirts and silly for things like t-shirts, but you’ll notice the difference even then once your shirts stop looking like unfolded paper balls.

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Fantasy Book Rec Masterpost

Here is every fantasy book I’ve ever enjoyed (plus some short stories thrown in). List will be updated regularly as I read. There are books repeated as some fit into more than one category; I designed it this way so that if you’re looking for one specific sub-genre you can look at just that list and not miss out. Enjoy!

*last edited November 27, 2017*

High Fantasy

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Prophecy of the Stones by Flavia Bujor

The Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

The Shades of Magic Series by V.E. Schwab (sort of)

The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

The Land of Elyon Series by Patrick Carman

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

Redwall by Brian Jacques

Deerskin by Robin McKinley

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima

Down-the-Rabbit-Hole

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver

UnLunDun by China Miéville

The Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke

Gregor the Overlander series by Suzanne Collins

The May Bird series by Jodi Lynn Anderson

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

Magic in the Real World (sometimes called fabulism)

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

The Magician Trilogy by Jenny Nimmo

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

Half Magic by Edward Eager

Urban Fantasy

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

UnLunDun by China Miéville

Fairy Tale Retellings

Snow, Glass, Apples by Neil Gaiman (short story)

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

Rags and Bones edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer (this one is a very mixed bag but i really enjoyed some of the stories

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

Deerskin by Robin McKinley

The White Road by Neil Gaiman (short story)

Dragons

The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley

The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini

The Girl Who Drank The Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima

Fairies

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer

Ghosts

Ghostly edited by Audrey Niffenegger

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

The May Bird series by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Witches and Wizards

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell

The Thickety series by J.A. White

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

Vampires

Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot by Neil Gaiman (short story)

Other Magical Creatures

Unnatural Creatures edited by Neil Gaiman

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

The Smile on the Face by Nalo Hopkinson (short story)

Intelligent Animal Characters (may not be fantasy exactly but close enough)

Watership Down by Richard Adams

The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams

Redwall by Brian Jacques

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

Enchanted Forests

Uprooted by Naomi Novik

The Thickety series by J.A. White

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Graphic Novels/Illustrated

The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman (also short story and audio versions available)

Instructions by Neil Gaiman

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

Short Story Collections

Ghostly edited by Audrey Niffenegger

Stories edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman

Unnatural Creatures edited by Neil Gaiman

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

Rags and Bones edited by Melissa Marr and Tim Pratt

My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me edited by Kate Bernheimer

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

The Language of Thorns by Leigh Bardugo

YA

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

The Prophecy of the Stones by Flavia Bujor

The Seven Realms series by Cinda Williams Chima

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

The Shades of Magic Series by V.E. Schwab

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo

Flamecaster by Cinda Williams Chima

Middle Grade

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver

A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

UnLunDun by China Miéville

The Land of Elyon Series by Patrick Carman

The Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi

The Magician Trilogy by Jenny Nimmo

Pretty Monsters by Kelly Link

The Inkheart series by Cornelia Funke (sort of in between middle and YA)

The Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale (again, could be considered YA)

Gregor the Overlander series by Suzanne Collins

The May Bird series by Jodi Lynn Anderson

The Thickety series by J.A. White

The Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer

Redwall by Brian Jacques

Half Magic by Edward Eager

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

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So you want to start a podcast: a collection of resources

So @borinquenaqueer requested resources for podcasters, and I started collecting mine and typing up info about them and then it turned into a Whole Thing, so I decided to just make it its own post in case other people also find it helpful. Below the cut, we're gonna cover:

Microphones (what types are out there + personal recommendations)

Recording your show

Editing your show

Audio hosting (what is it + how much does it cost + personal recommendations)

Website hosting (why I recommend having a website + cost + recs)

Music

Cover art

Transcripts

Press kits (what are they + why you might want to have one + how to make one)

Other resources (a collection of articles about podcasting that people might find helpful)

(Quick note: this is all geared towards a general audience, so any “you” in this post should be taken to mean a vague “you, any podcaster reading this” rather than a particular person!)

Microphones

There are two types of microphones commonly used in podcasting: XLR and USB.

XLR microphones connect to an audio interface with an XLR cable; the audio interface then connects to your computer with a USB cable.

USB microphones connect directly to your computer with a USB cable.

Here's a quick rundown of how they compare:

XLR Microphones

Cost: Cost varies depending on what you get, but all of the pieces together will probably come out to around $100 minimum

Audio Quality: Reliably crisp and clear even on the lower end of the budget

Background Noise: Generally good at picking up only your voice and filtering out background noise

Components: You'll need a microphone, mic stand, audio interface, XLR cable, and USB cable

Replacing/Upgrading: While the whole kit and kaboodle will probably come out to around $100, each individual piece can be found in the $20-40 range, which makes them easier to replace if one of them breaks. You can also upgrade your equipment one piece at a time (e.g. I started with a $20 mic and later upgraded to a $100 mic without changing any of my other equipment)

Set-Up: Can take slightly longer to set up, especially when you're just getting used to it. None of the set up is particularly hard (it's really just plugging things into other things and fiddling with knobs), but it can take a few minutes

Portability: Can be taken out of the house if you get a portable audio interface

USB Microphones

Cost: Starts around $25, with most falling in the $50-100 range. Most don’t come with a pop filter, which will cost an extra $5-15 depending on the type you get

Audio Quality: The $25-40 range will probably be a little grainy/poppy, but that’s not a huge deal if you don’t mind that it might cost you some listeners (there are some people who are just picky about what quality of audio they listen to and others who have hearing issues that means they genuinely need high-quality audio to understand anything). You’ll get more reliable audio quality once you hit the $50-100 range

Background Noise: Can pick up a lot of background noise, which can be an issue if you live somewhere with a lot of ambient sounds (like near a highway or in an apartment with a toddler above you)

Components: You just need the microphone and a USB cable, which are generally sold together

Replacing/Upgrading: There’s really just one main component to this set-up (the microphone), so if it breaks, you’ll have to replace your whole set-up. Same with upgrading—if you want to upgrade to a better mic at some point, you’ll probably be looking at replacing your set-up entirely (though this can also be an upside if you’re able to sell your old mic, since that can offset the cost of getting a new one)

Set-Up: Very quick—you just plug in, adjust the knobs, and go

Portability: You can generally only use it if you have a computer to plug it into, so it’s about as portable as your computer happens to be (and, of course, is reliant on your computer’s battery life)

Bonus: Pop Filters

No matter which kind of microphone you use, you’ll probably want a pop filter. There are two kinds: one looks like a piece of very thin fabric stretched over a plastic hoop that’s attached to a long, flexible neck; you attach the neck to either your microphone or the table you’re recording on, then move the screen so it’s between your mouth and the microphone. The other kind looks like a foam ball with a hole cut through one side; you just put it over your microphone. The first kind usually runs around $15, the second around $2-5. You can use either or both, but I highly recommend using at least one.

This is because of plosives. A plosive is a kind of sound you make by stopping your airflow, followed by a sudden release of air—like the p or b sounds in English. When you record yourself saying those sounds (and you’ll be saying them a lot), the microphone picks up the burst of air as a sudden spike in noise, which can be really unpleasant and jarring to listen to. When you use a pop filter, it dampens the burst of air and stops the audio from spiking. If you don’t have the money to buy one, you can find tutorials for making your own online!

Microphone Recommendations

XLR: I started out using a Behringer Ultravoice XM8500 microphone ($25) connected to a Behringer U-Phoria UM2 Audio Interface ($50). After buying cords, a pop filter, and a mic stand, the set-up came out to a bit over $100.

USB: The Blue Yeti is considered somewhat of a gold standard for USB mics in podcasting (I believe Welcome to Night Vale is/was recorded on a Yeti, though I could be wrong). It’s about $100-140 depending on where you buy. For a more budget-friendly option, I know people who have gotten great results from the Blue Snowball, which can be found online for around $45-50.

Tip: Buy Extra Cords

Whatever kind of microphone you buy, I highly recommend getting an extra of each kind of cord you need. Cords have this habit of breaking right before (or in the middle of) recording sessions and that is much easier to deal with if you have an extra on hand!

Resources

30 of the Best Podcast Microphones (For Any Budget)

21 of the Best USB Microphones for Podcasts (That Won’t Break the Bank)

Recording Your Show

To record your show, you’ll need some kind of program on your computer that can record sound. My go-to is Audacity: it’s totally free, has a pretty robust toolset, and is (at least in my opinion) pretty user-friendly. It’s also been around for ages and is super popular, so it’s really easy to find how-to guides online (both general “how do I use this program at all?” and more specific questions like “how do I reduce noise?”). You can also just play around with whatever recording program came pre-installed on your computer. 

If you have multiple people on your show and you’re recording together online (e.g. over a Discord call), I extremely extremely recommend having everyone record their audio individually and then stitching them together rather than just recording the call. It’s more work, but it will sound worlds better. 

Editing Your Show

So, I have done editing before. I’m not going to pretend I’m particularly skilled at it, and I would feel bad passing on advice that could be bad, so instead I’m gonna skip right to the Resources part of this section and pass you on to people who know more than me.

Resources

Why I Edit Actual Play Podcasts on an iPad

A Massively Oversimplified Guide to Loudness

Podcast Problems: The Love and Fear of Silence

Audacity Tutorial for Podcasters: How to Setup, Record, and Edit a Podcast

That last one is obviously geared specifically towards Audacity, but if you use a different program, just Googling “how to edit a podcast in [program]” can usually get you some great in-depth tutorials.

Audio Hosting

To submit your podcast to podcatchers like Apple/Google Play/Spotify, you need to have an RSS feed. To get an RSS feed, you need to use a hosting service, like Libsyn or Pinecast. Many of these (though not all of them!) cost money, but they can be pretty cheap—I started out using Libsyn, which starts at $5/mo per podcast. As a heads up, at least with the paid services I’m familiar with, you don’t just pay for the service while you’re actively uploading your podcast; you’ll have to keep paying for as long as you want your feed to remain active (meaning that people can still listen to your show). 

I currently use Pinecast, which I highly recommend if you’re going to do multiple shows, because you can have multiple shows on the same $10/mo plan (vs services like Libsyn which charge per show).

Resources

The 9 Best Free Podcast Hosting Services in 2022

The 10 Best Podcast Hosting Services (for new & experienced podcasters)

Website Hosting

I extremely recommend having a website. This will provide a handy dandy place for people who interested in your show to find out things like when/where your show releases, who makes it and where they can be found, and how people can contact you. If you have a Patreon/ko-fi/other way for people to pay you, you can also link it here. Same with transcripts. This doesn’t have to be anything fancy or even cost you any money—I’ve seen great websites that are just based on Tumblr or Carrd, which you can make totally for free.

Here are some examples of podcasting websites on a variety of different platforms:

Re: Dracula (Tumblr, free—I believe they do have another website, but this is a great example of a Tumblr blog for a podcast)

Starlight Audio Productions (Squarespace, $17/mo—this one is mine!)

Sidequesting (Carrd, free—though I believe you have to pay extra for a custom domain, like this website has)

Hug House Productions (Wordpress, which has a range of costs starting around $4/mo; this particular website plan is $25/mo, which allows them to have a store on their site)

Zebulon Podcasts (Wix, free—though you can pay money to remove the banner at the top and get a custom domain)

You may also consider getting a custom domain name, which is how the Starlight Audio website is starlightaudio.com instead of starlightaudio.squarespace.com. You can hook a custom domain up to a lot of different website builders, including Tumblr blogs, though some of them (like Wix) will charge extra for it. Custom domain names do cost money, though usually not a ton—I pay $10/year for the Starlight Audio domain and Hug House pays $20/year for theirs (thank you to Anne at Hug House for answering my questions!).

Music

For music, you have a few options:

Find music online that’s free to use—just make sure that it’s free to use, not just free to download; and if you plan on running ads at any point, make sure that it’s free to use for commercial rather than personal use. My old queer history podcast (RIP) used a Jonathan Coulton song because he, bless him, releases his music for free non-commercial use with attribution 

Find music you like from an independent artist and ask their permission to use it—not every artist will let you use their stuff for free, but many will, especially if you credit them in every episode

Commission an artist to make a custom song for you—this will have a huge range of costs depending on who you get and how much they charge; in my experience it’ll usually be in the $100-400 range. If you plan on having ads on your show, make sure that the artist knows that and is okay with it!

If you’re a composer, you can also make your own song and use it however the heck you want. You make the rules now.

Whatever you do, I do recommend having some kind of opening music, because it’s a great way to set the tone for your show and make it more distinctive (think about how the light, bouncy Parks & Recreation theme song sets up the show as a lighthearted comedy while the dark, eerie Hannibal theme song sets up the show as a bloody horror show). If you can’t afford to pay any money for your opening song, that’s totally fine—you can find tons of music online that’s free to use and will sound great!

Resources

Where to Get Music for Podcasts Free of Royalty Issues

Cover Art

We’ve got two main options here:

Do it yourself. I tend to make my covers in Photoshop, but Canva is a very popular and user-friendly option. Canva is free to use and has tons of free assets available, though you can also pay $10/mo to have an expanded asset catalog. There are also tons of free tutorials on Youtube for how to make good art in Canva!

Commission someone to make it for you. Cost for this will vary wildly depending on who you go with (anywhere from $50-400 or more), and will also vary according to whether you plan to sell merch with your show art on it (if you plan on making a profit from it, you’ll probably need to pay more to the artist you commission it from, though some will also be open to you paying less upfront if you give them a cut of merchandise profits)

Resources

The Sound Barrier: Does Cover Art Matter?

Canva podcast templates

Fiverr and Upwork (websites for hiring freelancers)

Transcripts

Transcripts can be used to make your podcast accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people, like me! I’m not going to spend tons of time in this post going into why you should have podcasts and how to edit/host/format them—I’ve already written a pretty extensive article that covers those things, which I’ll link under Resources below. 

However, that article is geared mostly towards turning recording scripts for fiction podcasts into transcripts, which is a bit of a different process than getting transcripts for an unscripted show. If your show is unscripted and you want to provide transcripts, there are three main ways to do it:

Hire a transcriber. You can find transcribers on Fiverr and Upwork (linked above). Usual rates are around $0.30-2.00 per minute of audio

Transcribe it yourself. This is a huge amount of work and I don’t really recommend it if you’re not an experienced transcriber with a bunch of time on your hands. Instead, if you can’t afford someone to transcribe your show from scratch, try…

Generating an auto-transcript using a service like Otter.ai. This can be a great budget option if you can’t afford a transcriber. However, if you do this, please edit your transcripts. You know how Youtube autocaptions are infamously bad? Services like Otter have come a long way, but they’re still going to have those same issues. Most of them also only reference English dictionaries and will massively fuck up non-English words and names. Please edit your transcript to make sure it’s actually accurate

A lot of people will say that you absolutely have to have a transcript for your show—that if you don't, you're Evil and Personally Hate Accessibility. I actually disagree with that, because at the end of the day, having transcripts does take require either time or money, and I know a lot of podcasters just don’t have either of those. But if you’re able to have transcripts, it means your podcast is accessible to deaf and hard-of-hearing people (as well as people with audio processing issues), which is a really kind thing to do and helps make the world a more accessible place.

Resources

How to Make Your Podcast More Accessible Using Transcripts (written by me!)

I don’t currently know of any how-to guides for editing auto transcripts, but I’m asking around and will update if I find one

Press Kits

A press kit is essentially a handy little packet that people can view or download that includes a bunch of info about your show all in one easily-accessible place—think things like your cast/crew, what your show is about, how it started, when and how to listen to it, your cover art, that kind of thing. It’s called a “press kit” because it’s most commonly used by journalists (press) to make it easier for us to write about your show. This isn’t a requirement to have a podcast or anything, but it makes it easier for people to give your show free publicity, which is a very useful thing!

Here are some examples of podcast press kits:

Love and Luck (Squarespace)

Twilight Over Midgard (Squarespace, with a bit of a different format—this is my upcoming show)

Sidequesting (Carrd)

VALENCE (Wordpress) 

Zebulon Podcasts (Wix; click on “Menu” then “Press Kit”)

I can’t explain how to make a press kit better than my friend Elena Fernández Collins already has, so I’ll just link that below—give it a look!

Resources

Press Play on a Podcast Press Kit

Other Resources

Finally, here are some general podcasting resources that didn’t fit into any of the above categories:

Discover Pods (disclaimer: I used to write for them)

How To Start A Podcast The Right Way (The Definitive Complete Guide for 2022)

Podcaster Resources

Simplecast blog (disclaimer: I currently write for them)

Less is More: Refining the Scope of your Audio Drama

How to Tumblr as a Fiction Podcaster

“As You Know, Bob…”: Creating Natural-Sounding Dialogue in Audio

Bello Collective

The blogs of Wil Williams and Elena Fernández Collins and the “Podcasting Resources” page of Tal Minear (disclaimer: I’m friends with these people, but I do genuinely think their writing is great and I’d be recommending it even if I didn’t love them as people)

 I’ve also written several articles on podcasting; here’s links to a few of my favorites

I Have a Podcast—Now What the Heck Do I Call It?

Avoiding Podcasting Burnout When Your Love Your Work

Writing Mentally Ill Characters in Horror (Without the Ableism)

Thanks for reading this massive post! I hope at least a few people find it helpful. If you liked this post, reblogs are super appreciated. If you like how I write, you can find more in my writing portfolio and on the blog on my website, where I’m currently chronicling my journey trying to get a book published.

If anyone has questions, feel free to ask and I’ll respond as best as I can!

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Who burned down the Baudelaire mansion?

The series ended on an island but its bad beginning is still rife with controversy, confusion and contempt. As of today, we have no idea how the Baudelaire fire happened, or who escaped it, or why it was so important. In one of the most infuriating and frustrating pieces of dialogues Daniel Handler has ever written, we, the readers, are denied any answer to this mystery:

Klaus knelt down beside his sister, and stared into the villain’s shiny eyes. “You’re the one who made us orphans in the first place,” he said, uttering out loud for the first time a secret all three Baudelaires had kept in their hearts for almost as long as they could remember. Olaf closed his eyes for a moment, grimacing in pain, and then stared slowly at each of the three children in turn. “Is that what you think?” he said finally. “We know it,” Sunny said. “You don’t know anything,” Count Olaf said. “You three children are the same as when I first laid eyes on you. You think you can triumph in this world with nothing more than a keen mind, a pile of books, and the occasional gourmet meal.” He poured one last gulp of cordial into his poisoned mouth before throwing the seashell into the sand. “You’re just like your parents,” he said, and from the shore the children heard Kit Snicket moan. [Lemony Snicket - The End, Chapter Thirteenth]

There are about a million different ways to interpret Olaf’s reaction:

Someone else was actually responsible for burning down the mansion.

A group of several people (including Olaf) burned down the mansion for different reasons.

Olaf did burn down the mansion but the Baudelaire parents’ death had nothing to do with the fire, as at least one of them escaped the fire.

Olaf was coerced into killing the Baudelaire parents and was only an accomplice to the murder

Olaf feels that Bertrand and Beatrice are responsible for their own death and that they essentially brought it upon themselves

Klaus is more or less right but Olaf just enjoys not leaving the Baudelaire orphans any closure or certainty on this topic as a final “screw you” to his enemies.

The ambiguity of the universe and the inability to acquire perfect knowledge are major themes throughout the series, and Olaf’s ambiguous response is a testament. Nevertheless, there seems to be a kind of poignant sincerity in Olaf’s flippant dismissal. This is a dying man who has nothing left to lose; why would he lie? If a drama-queen has to make a final speech, said drama-queen uses it to send a deeply personal message. And the message here is that Klaus is… not wrong, exactly, but that his understanding of his parents’ death is biased and simplistic. Let’s take some time to examine Olaf’s point of view on the day of the Baudelaire fire.

Simply put: what the hell happened?

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Basic Story Structure

Basic story structure looks like this:

Setup/Exposition - we meet the protagonist in their every day life, possibly meet a few other important characters, and learn important basics about the setting. We also learn about the protagonist’s internal conflict.

Rising Action - The inciting incident turns the character’s life upside down, the character responds by forming a goal. The protagonist pursues this goal while the antagonist/antagonistic force throws obstacles into their path, which they must overcome. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail and have to try again or find a way around it. This struggle builds the conflict and increases the tension as the story races toward the climax.

Climax - this is the “big showdown,” where the protagonist faces the antagonist/antagonistic force head-on, and usually (but not always) succeeds.

Falling Action - this is the aftermath of the big showdown, where the dust settles and all the final pieces come to rest. Most of the story’s loose ends will be tied up here if they weren’t tied up already.

Resolution/Denouement - this is where the story is wrapped up once and for all. We see the protagonist (and other characters) settled back in their old life or getting used to a new normal. If there is a moral to the story, it is revealed here. If the story is leading into a second book, a little bit of set-up for the new story will occur here.

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Stupid Dinner (2023)

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