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Hi, I'm Chris Gregory, the producer of The Dex Legacy. Today we're sharing an interview with Dex Legacy writer Emily Inkpen from the Alternative Stories and Fake Realities podcast. Alternative Stories and Fake Realities is the podcast of our production company, Alternative Stories, and it produces lots of audio drama, fiction, writer interviews, and all sorts of other content that you might enjoy. If you'd like to see a video version of this interview,
you can find it on the Alternative Stories YouTube channel, for which we'll share a link in our show notes. If you'd like to back our Season 3 Kickstarter, you'll also find a link in our show notes, or you can go to kickstarter.com and search The Deck's Legacy. Thanks as always for listening, and here's the interview. The Alternative Stories and Fake Realities Podcast. Audio drama, poetry, fiction.
On the Alternative Stories and Fake Realities podcast today, we have an interview with novelist and audio drama writer Emily Inkpen. Emily's talking about plans for season three of her sci-fi drama series, The Dex Legacy, and the Kickstarter campaign to help to fund it. She also talks about other dramas that she's been involved in writing and directing, an upcoming appearance at the fantasy and sci-fi spotlight event, and her teaching and workshops.
As usual, there'll be links in our show notes so you can find out more about Emily and all the things she's talking about. There's also a video version of this interview over on our YouTube channel. So please go there if you'd like to see us as well as hear us. On the Alternative Stories and Fake Realities podcast today, we are speaking to Emily Inkpen. Emily, hello. Hello. Hi.
It's great to have you back on the podcast. Well, you're on the podcast a lot, actually, aren't you? I am, yeah, I get about it. Either acting or directing. I suppose you're not technically on it if you're directing, but your influence is there. Absolutely, yeah, my fingerprint, yes. So you are a novelist, a short story writer, an audio drama writer, a director, a voice actor.
One of the co-hosts of the Writer's Gym podcast, which we make. Author of the award-winning and globally successful sci-fi drama, The Deck's Legacy. And creative director of alternative stories. I feel a bit like Daenerys Targaryen being, you know, all of my titles. Mother of Dragons. I didn't mention Mother of Dragons. Breaker of Chains. Yeah, exactly. The Unburnt. Yeah.
So all of those things, I mean, how do you find time in your day to do other stuff? I don't. You don't? What other stuff? What other stuff? Breathing? Breathing, eating. Yeah, I'm a multitasker when it comes to those things. Breathing, I can do cheering. It's amazing.
We should say as well, anyone watching this, the video of this, you are in a very special cubby hole today, aren't you? Yes. Can you tell us about the cubby hole in which you are standing? This is the first interview I'm doing from my new recording booth, which I have just finished building under my stairs, which is very exciting because previously to this, I was working under Dubé Fort, which was not good on the back.
or um any other things really it was just it was just not a very sustainable option and now i've um completely converted my understairs cupboard i boxed in all of these sort of utility area like utility bits and pipes and i've got panels over them that are all carpeted and have uh soundproof foam on them and i've you know i've basically made it into its own little
room but all of the stuff that is still that was in the understairs is still here it's just behind these panels so it's very neat and i'm very proud of myself so and i should have added um carpenter and interior designer to your uh to your list of credits there oh well no that's that's just me like doing diy and things is kind of like therapy i like building things with my hands every now and again some people bake i i cannot bake i'm a disaster uh but i can carpet walls apparently
and um yeah you know yeah make recording things and put um foam on them which and put foam on things yeah and and it's a it's a lovely little cubby hole and all people should have them and um i'm really glad that you're not going to be sort of kneeling or crouching under that duvet thought anymore when you pulled your bits for the deck's legacy it was not good on the knees it was not good on the knees at all um yeah so and i get to have a nicer microphone
here as well because you know i'm not carting it around and having to hold a duvet up over it just wouldn't work very well having you know a proper microphone and doing that just terrifying well the travails of voice acting we'll we'll come back to that i'm sure um but this is not the principal reason why you're here today what um no no we're not just talking about recording booths um under stairs um
So we're talking about a few really exciting things that you're up to. And the first one, I think, is that you have written season three of The Deck's Legacy. We have. And we're now in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to make it, aren't we? Yes. We launched the Kickstarter yesterday at midday.
so we're coming up last week for when this when this comes out yeah but when we're talking it was yesterday so we're not quite 24 hours into it yet you're going to hear this a week in so all being well it's it's still going well but um right now 23 hours in we are doing pretty well so happy with
where we're at right now um but it is a bit terrifying um a lot riding on it because if we if we can't raise the money then we can't make season three and season two did so well and you know we won an award and you know we got we've got over 240 000 downloads and the idea of it stopping now is just no yeah well especially as the scripts for season three are so amazing i'm not going to give any more away
But yeah, if anyone listening would like to back the Season 3 Kickstarter for The Dex Legacy, we'll talk a bit more about it shortly, but we will post links so that you can do so in the show notes of this podcast. But I wanted to ask you, Emily, you've mentioned...
awards there and and and lots of downloads can you tell us about the award that the deck sluggers who won please yeah so we won a bsfa award uh for best audio drama uh 2023 so the bsfa is the british science fiction association yes british science fiction association it's it's a very um it's it's a key
I think annual award in sort of literary circles. And I have involvement in the BSFA as an organization. That in no way means that there's an advantage happening. It's all member voting happening. So, you know, it's not like any kind of, you know, I don't have any control over anything. You know, some people get funny that if people on the BSFA board.
you know do well at things it's like oh you know you're uh you know you've you've it's all right for you you're on the board and it's like well I mean me and a lot of very accomplished writers actually and um you know it's it's like our vice president is Tarde Thompson and you know he's he's won the BSFA before um you know BSFA award before and you know well and and it's I mean it's really I mean you must feel that that is
recognition for you, particularly as an audio drama writer, because it's fair to say that's not where you started. You're a novelist and short story writer, aren't you? Yeah, by default, yes. The audio drama came later.
At your invitation, actually, you're the one who started all of this nonsense. I apologize for that, yes. You're the one who started this. So I wrote the novel The Blood Road and then you invited me to write a single episode for alternative stories and fake realities, which I duly did. And then it did pretty well. And then we ended up...
on a sort of meandering path making all of season one. And then season two was far more on purpose. So it's almost like The Deck's Legacy as a series crept up on me. And now the audio drama is sort of... I'm starting to see myself more as a writer of audio drama and novels almost on an equal footing, which is really new for me.
Yeah, it's an interesting place to be because naturally novels, when I'm relaxed, writing scripts and writing novels are a different process. I would say that when I'm writing prose, I'm relaxed and that is my happy space. But sometimes when I'm writing scripts, you get into writing dialogue and it does just flow. And that in itself is a therapeutic kind of creative sort of...
scratch uh yeah on its own it's it's different but yeah and i think one of the things um i mean i've i've written a few scripts myself not yeah yeah any anything like the level of yours but um he said modestly but honestly there is that thing about there is a stage between the person
experiencing those those scripts yes between you and the person experiencing the scripts and that is the stage that we do the the recording the actors get involved so your words are actually delivered through this kind of third party aren't they through the actors oh and also through the ears of the listener which is another level of removal um because the listener in audio drama is a part a vital part of the collaborative process um an active component
in a way that when you're reading it's not quite as demanding because weirdly when you're listening you do have to visualize when you're reading. Some people read books and enjoy them without visualizing anything and that's something that I'm trying to wrap my head around right now. When I'm reading it, it's like a cinematic experience. When other people read, sometimes it's just the words on the page, but people get enjoyment from that. When people are listening, it's much more of a visual experience in the brain.
heard and that is interesting and that means that anyone who listens is you know is is playing an active part in it and and what we try to do um we try to make it as immersive and believable as possible. So that comes down to the performances of the actors, obviously. I mean, the scripts initially, but the performances of the actors. We'll talk about directing in a minute because you do that as well. The sound design.
needs to make you feel that you are believably in in that place where they where you're hearing those voices um but also using things like we're both wearing headphones today we we understand that most people listening to audio drama will do so on headphones yeah um or certainly in stereo and they'll be
you know lots of people listen while walking the dog or or doing something like that on headphones so we do a lot of work to make it immersive by using the stereo field as well yeah and i think the more we do that way the more we get that kind of buy-in as it were that immersion from our from our listeners so i think that's a really good point actually i think it's it's vital when you're writing audio drama it's something that i definitely got better at is
Being able to sort of direct sound or put notes in the script where sounds need to happen that help with the world building. When you're writing a novel, obviously it's all on you and it's all on the words on the page. And one of the things that I always come back to again and again for people who are moving from writing novels to writing audio is that when you're writing a novel, what you're writing on the page is the end product. That is what's going to be read and consumed. When you're writing a script,
It is foundation. Everything else builds on top of it. So the script that you make has to be a foundation for all of those people who are going to contribute to the product, the product, the project. And so the directions need to be for sound design. They need to be for performance and they need to be in different places in the script. I have come up with my own way of sort of laying out audio scripts in a way that makes it very in-studio friendly.
And when I look at movie scripts, I'm like, okay, well, I wouldn't do this for an audio script because I know that the way it's being performed is different. And that method calls for a slightly different layout or slightly different way of presenting the information. And so, yeah, the script has to have sections of direction. And I remember when we were first working on the first season.
My directions were very limited. They were pretty bare. I was just thinking, well, Chris has got this. Chris is really, really good at what he does. He'll just fill in the banks and do all of this. It's since then that I've realized that actually giving more information, slightly more information, gives you more support in your role and makes your job easier.
than me just being like okay yeah it's a spaceship go you know yeah well i remember one of the one of the sound directions was a description of what you wanted to hear and then a few dots and it said good luck chris yeah um so um that hasn't stopped to be fair no no there's still a there's still quite an element of that isn't there but um yeah yeah and um
I mean, if you want to read more about that sort of thing, we have a book, don't we? Yes. You have a book. I think I'm listed as a collaborator. You're a collaborator, yeah, because you've wrote bits of it. Yeah, yeah. Contributed. Yeah, yeah. And I collaborated on the events described. So it's the collected...
scripts and commentary for the first season of the deck's legacy and we give we give it a subtitle the subtitle is how not to make an audio drama yeah that one's not on the cover but yes that is that is no yeah the unofficial
It was our learning process kind of played out in a book. So you get all the scripts, as you will hear them if you listen to that series. But you also get the things that went wrong in the recording and all sorts of other stuff. And the deadlines, because we were recording and releasing on the go.
And so the times when we were approaching a deadline and mixing on a full episode was taking longest that we had to write and produce an interlude to meet a release deadline. And then that had a knock-on effect and introduced a character that was accidentally great and all of these things. I always say that season one was an accident and a miracle. Yes.
Not necessarily in that order, actually. No, no. But we did it, and I think our friendship strengthened considerably in that adversity. I think it was make or break, wasn't it? Yeah, I think so, yeah. We could have gone horribly wrong at that point. We could have gone so wrong. I never want to see you ever again. I mean, to be fair, looking back on season one, I do still get anxiety.
about that whole process because oh my god i just lived in fear for three months yes well yeah anyway but we we moved on we did we came out stronger lots of people liked it and we were able to make season two we did a kickstarter for season two we made season two in the studio and this is where you came into your own i mentioned directing yeah yeah um you came to your own as a director and
we sort of co-direct the deck's legacy. But, you know, as the writer, you are uniquely positioned to direct, aren't you? You know more about the characters. You know more about the story than anyone else. So why wouldn't you be directing if you could? So can you tell me a little bit about the process of directing and how you've come to...
take that mantle on as well oh well really i mean i guess i could joke about it being a control thing because the audio drama is a big prequel to my trilogy of novels so i've got quite a lot riding on continuity and the characters are walking a timeline that is sort of as a destination in mind so when it comes to decisions in performance and emphasis on certain scenes
I know that this scene may seem quite throwaway in this moment, but it's going to have significant ramifications much further down in the story timeline. So when it comes to directing, obviously then I want things to be a certain way. Yes.
But at the same time, I know that it's about support, again, with the script supporting people at every stage. I've done a bit of acting before. Directing is about supporting the actor to get the best performance for the piece that you're working on and providing the actor with a kind of anchor point, I think, which is...
incredibly important especially when you're working in a world that is unfamiliar so my world is entirely in my own head now it's so vivid in my head that i could like walk around in it and you know i could give you a guided tour of the cities in my world like they are very very vivid but that's in my head
Nobody else is in my head. So I have to be there to sort of try and explain these things and try and get the key information across. And so I guess my approach to directing in the studio was very much a sort of adding context, answering questions, providing context.
making sure there was continuity in pronunciations and things, but also making sure the characters were embedded in where they are. And sometimes the actors would sort of say, oh, yeah, you know, but wouldn't they be feeling this, this, this and this? And I would say really useful things like, yeah, that will come up, but that's probably something that would happen around season six.
and it would be like oh okay there's this stunned silence and it's like okay we're recording season two and she knows what's going to be happening in season six yeah roughly um yeah yeah there is there is that i mean like
In terms of timeline, obviously we don't know if we're going to be able to make season six. We should probably concentrate on season three. Let's work on season three first and we'll see how we're going. We've got some work to do before that, but because it's a prequel and I know where the books start, I have this
definite end point in mind for the audio drama, this end point that we're going to get to before it ends and then the books pick up. That keeps you on a path and that means that character development-wise, it actually takes a load off because you're not thinking, I've got to get all the character development in the world into this one season. It's like, no, I know that they're not going to be at that point emotionally for the next six years.
This is a slow burn. These kids are 15. Season one spanned like three months. Season two spanned a week. That's not a long time for huge... And season three is going to be similarly compressed. Season three is even less. I think season three is like five days. Things are getting tighter.
yeah definitely one thing i mean just going back to directing i think one thing that you you do particularly well and we in in the studio we're sort of sitting next to each other with scripts on our laps and scribbly pens and with our amazing um sound technician richard campbell who runs orpheus studio and is the producer of the
the red valley yeah so we're there and and so much of the time i'm sort of just letting you speak so we can speak to the actors in the in the studio through an intercom so they can hear what we're saying and at the end at the beginning of every scene and often we have to record in non-chronological order so the actors aren't following the story through they're doing scenes dotted from episode to episode you do this lovely thing where
you just describe where they are, both emotionally, physically, and you talk about pronunciations. And you've got a way of doing that so concisely, I think. It's just amazing to work with. And I'm just sitting there thinking, well, have they pronounced that word correctly? Or, you know, have we got a good take of them saying that? So, yeah, it's...
it's a kind of creative partnership that kind of that really begins in the studio and goes from there doesn't it yeah it really does and you've you've got your technical ear and everything out as well and and it's it's really important to i mean i know that i would second guess myself in a studio as a director um if i was on my own and i would probably get something i think i would be capable of getting something okay but i i would
be less secure and i think you and i work well together when we sort of look at each other and it's like yeah that's good okay right moving on and it speeds things up because you could get into a place where you're like i'm not sure maybe we'll give it another go and it's like no no you don't need to you got that in two you do not need to do a third or a fourth and that means time that means uh efficiency in the studio which is money and yeah
that that's the segue i was looking for because you know we're back to the back to the fundraiser um so it's fair today i think that we are asking well we're definitely asking for a little bit more money than we asked for for our season two kickstarter yep um but and i just want to get an idea really of what what sort of expenses are there in making audio drama i mean what what
What do we have to pay to bring this thing to life? Oh, gosh. Well, I mean, it starts with studio costs, obviously. Actors paying them their day rate because as soon as you're bringing people into the studio, you're not paying by word, you're paying by day for their time. So you can do a lot in a studio setting in a day, but you are paying a day rate as opposed to a, you know, by the hour.
for what they're producing. So it is a chunk of money upfront. And that means that average day in the studio is going to be about
over like potentially 1200 pounds uh more yeah somewhere i mean depending on how many actors you've got somewhere between 850 and 1200 and 1200 pounds yeah so it's like being in a taxi and watching the clock ticking i mean you can't think of it like that because it would just drive you mad and you'd be very stressed out but it is a bit like that isn't it so we are yeah we are both it's the point where we're being both artistic
because we want the best performance, but also business people. Pragmatic. Which probably isn't our biggest forte, is it the business side of it? No, but at the same time, we are very mindful in the studio. We're getting a bit of a reputation for being quite fast.
Fast and loose. Well, no, not loose. That's the thing. We record a lot. And we know that we follow people like Audible in that respect. Audible, when they make audio dramas, will do a scene in two takes and then move on. And we follow that.
model very much if we think that it definitely needs it we'll do a third take but most of the time we try to cut it at two and that means that we are moving on at a pace when we're in the studio and it's i mean like a lot of people will do three takes minimum four takes if they need it maybe more if they think that it could benefit and it's much more chill whereas i think us as a as a pairing we do quite a lot of
pre-work before we go into the studio and that's the key isn't it absolutely it makes things so much faster we know exactly what scenes we're doing in what order we know what needs to be done in the morning versus the afternoon which is especially useful if we've got actors coming in just for the afternoon versus for the whole day which also keeps costs down because you if you've got actors there that are just waiting around
time is money, you're paying them to be sitting there doing nothing. So if you can schedule your time in the studio so that you've got actors coming in just in the morning and just in the afternoon, but then again, organization-wise, that means that you need to know exactly what scenes you have to get done in the AM and what scenes need to be done in the PM.
It requires organization. It requires forethought. It requires estimation of how much time it will take to do these things. It requires a certain amount of, these are the scenes that we must get done. These are the scenes that we could do on a mop-up day or remotely if necessary. And so having a sort of like, if we get everything done in two takes, we'll get all of it done. If we have to do three takes on some of these, which are more meaty scenes, we might need to pick up some things later.
getting the essentials down and knowing exactly what those essentials are, knowing where people need to be, what booths people need to be in and when. Doing musical chairs or as I call it, musical booths where we've got in Orpheus studio, there's two isolated booths in a main room. You do not
want your actors to be moving around between booths and main room too much because that means going in and resetting the microphone and getting the height and everything right all of that is time so if you can say okay Kelsey you are in the right hand booth Charlie you're wherever possible you'll be in that booth all day yeah and then Cam you're in the middle room which is set up I think that we had for season two that's where you're that is where you're going to be for the next two days
instantly you're saving time but you need to have that down you need to know that in advance yeah No, it's so true. And yeah, even that, I mean, this is one of the things that we found, even that process of just changing the height on a microphone. Oh, yeah. You know, you're moving from a five foot five actor to a six foot five actor. Yeah, sometimes genuinely. It takes two minutes. But if you're having to do that for every scene you record, that's half an hour out of your day. And that's.
money that's that's that's money so yeah and that's potentially how many scenes i mean yeah that could be three scenes yeah yeah talking of planning i just i remember that day around your kitchen table in reading planning season two with just paper all over the table
different colored pens a screen with with various things on your very lovely spouse danny coming in and out and going what the hell are you doing it was it was just it was just a chaotic day but it all paid off didn't it oh yeah because of you know and uh that that precision is something that we've we've carried on i think and we work we've worked on it as well because season two was our first in studio directing experience but since then we've done other productions and
In the last year, I think you and I as a team in studio and preparing to go into the studio have improved a lot in our estimations and what we're able to achieve. And so, yeah, I think... There is still a bit of a...
I'm slightly optimistic and you're slightly pessimistic vibe going on but that probably levels things out a bit doesn't yeah you're the time optimist I'm the time double it and add half um whatever you call that very much a pessimist and then somewhere in between we collide and yeah you know the glass is just about level rather than half full or overflowing absolutely in my case so just just a final word then about the dex legacy season three um if people are thinking of
backing the Kickstarter. What sort of things can they expect from season three if we get to make it? Without giving away too much. Without giving away too much, that's a hard one. So we follow on straight from the cliffhanger in season two, don't we? Yes. But I'm not going to say anything more than that. Compressed timeline.
Yes, compressed timeline. It's not what you expect necessarily. That's good. New characters? New characters, yes. A couple of very fun new characters who I think you're going to love. And I think it's going to be a completely different kind of experience. It's an unexpected outcome to the drama at the end of season two.
And it plays out in what I hope is an unexpected way. And then just as you think things are sort of drawing to a conclusion, a whole nother set of unexpected dramas unfold. So it's almost like a layered up effect that we're going for in season three. Very high energy, like doesn't really let up much. And yeah, unexpected is, yeah.
what i'm hoping well i mean i i would just say without any spoilers i read the scripts i read one of the scripts on a train and i couldn't react in the way that i wanted to because i was on a train and there were other passengers and it wouldn't have been fair for me to run up and down the train shouting
goodness me or or something oh yes goodness me that's that's exactly what it would have been my reaction uh it may not have rhymed with goodness me but um yes that was my reaction so it the scripts are amazing and we really hope we get to make this and if you if you have ever listened to the decks legacy and enjoyed it we would love it if you would donate to our kickstarter yeah and so you can find it by um going on to kickstarter.com and searching for the decks legacy but
Obviously, we will also put a link in our show notes for the podcast, or if you're watching this video, there will be a link down there somewhere. So if you can back it, then please, please do. More award-winning, hopefully, audio drama from Emily Inkpen and our amazing cast. Now, talking of audio drama...
We are also about to kind of launch into the world a teaser for a new drama. Yes. Emily, you have been busy. What the hell is going on? Okay, so the new one is a spin-off series called The Dex Legacy Wasteland. It starts, episode one, The Bomb, starts on the same day as The Dex Legacy starts with episode one.
season one the bomb so we are running alongside the deck's legacy i guess in timeline very different settings completely different cast of characters a different nation a different nation yeah yeah yeah but still in the same world and yeah we're seeing the
the the aftermath and the fallout of events that we heard about from a dex perspective but as they were felt in in another nation on exactly and it's a very different feel um the way i sort of uh have realized the way the way i realized i was writing this is that dex island are the baddies
They are not very nice people. I mean, Varianism and Wren are doing their best in a terrible situation. But Dex Island on the world stage are definitely the antagonists. They are not a nice nation to be associated with. In Wasteland, we're with the Zenosi and we are with their military and the fallout of the bomb that was made by Dex Island, but launched by their government.
It's a point of political turmoil. The main characters are mech pilots, so they're driving these massive mech rigs and it's a tightly political military series that deals with that whole event from a completely different angle. And these people are good people. Generally speaking, they are good people. I'm writing goodies.
I'm used to writing baddies and that is so new for me. I was like, I'm like, okay, I'm writing people and everyone's like, oh yeah, you know, what's their sort of, you know, what are their, you know, their bad points? What are the bad points of this character? And I'm like, well, they're just nice, really. They're nice. Yeah. They love their mum. Just very unlike you, really. No.
They're good. They came from a pretty ordinary background, you know, but went into the military and for the best reasons. And I think, I mean, we've got, we've just got some great characters. And so the one I think everyone is going to really, really love is Sarah Sachs, Captain Sarah Sachs, who is a mech pilot.
I won't say too much, but can you say a little bit about who's going to be playing Sarah Sachs? The amazing Marie Claire Wood is going to be voicing Sarah Sachs. You've heard her in other alternative stories productions. She's a fantastic actress. I basically, I wanted to get her involved in some capacity index. And then thinking about Wasteland, I realized...
who i i knew that i wanted her to play the main character from the beginning from the outset uh of the writing process so and thankfully she said yes um that would have been unfortunate it wasn't a given because um that i a couple of days before she said yes i actually saw her in a film acting alongside sir anthony hopkins so yeah you know it's it's fair to say that she is quite a big
player yeah yeah she's just so talented like in the read-throughs and everything I was just like chills the delivery is just so precise and so well thought out and so just accomplished and honestly I cannot speak highly enough of her talent she's amazing and so getting to work with her getting a character that was worthy of her in terms of complexity and sort of yeah role
And it's just been a huge privilege. And we're working with a really, really great cast. And they have to be different to the Dex Legacy. We can't use the same actors because it's the same universe. So if you heard the same character voices on Dex Island, then you're like, okay, but this character is also in a completely different country at the same time. That doesn't work. So we've got this vast sort of set of characters for the Dex Legacy universe, and none of them can cross over.
Because they may meet at some point. Exactly. Yeah. And that would be awkward. So, yeah. So we've got an amazing cast. We've got John Glover, who is an absolute legend. He was in the original Hitchhiker's movie. I was personally very excited to see that he voiced things for Animals of Farthing Wood, which was a key part of my childhood and upbringing. For those of a certain age who remember the Harry Enfield.
tv show um john played mr chumlee warner in that and um just absolute doyen of british voice actors yeah done lots and lots of stage and screen stuff yeah um we also have sarah golding yeah the the brilliant sarah golding who has also been in a few alternative stories dramas but is more famous for being in
pretty much absolutely everything in the world of independent audio drama, I think. And again, a voice that I really wanted to work with. You know, I really, really wanted to work with her on a project. And then writing the role of General Zarekin, she just brings that energy and that texture to the part and nails it.
Absolutely perfectly. She's amazing. She can do anything. And some other names. I mean, Karim Cromfley, a big name. Again, someone I really wanted to work with. I'm basically ticking off. This is like my voice wish list is in Wasteland. We've also got Ethan Reed.
Ethan Reed. I mean, say a little bit about Ethan Reed and where he's from. Oh, well, he's an amazing voice actor. He's got this voice that, you know, like you just don't really know what to do with. It's incredibly deep and, you know, it just resonates at a frequency. Stop, stop, stop.
See, you're making this weird. I'm just trying to describe it. This is a family show. People, when you hear the voice, it's just a different level. Anyway, he was recently in Baldur's Gate 3. He was the male Dreamwalker, the voice of that character. So quite a prominent role for anybody who chose the male version of the Guardian. That was him.
And he's also a main character in one of our other dramas that we're probably going to talk about in a little bit called Burnout. He's just great. And his delivery is fantastic. And he's a really creative person. So he brings a lot to a character. And I think politically, I mean, his character is a political character. Is a politician, yeah. Is a politician, yeah. And I think he aligns or he at least gets.
him as a political character quite well. So yeah, it was an absolute pleasure to work with him in that role. Another one is David Monteith as well. He was another voice I really wanted to work with. And he's playing the new prime minister, Rosette. And all of this, I mean, David's not in it until...
he's in bits of the main series but we've got a standalone episode of season one is called the international confederation this is on the deck's legacy this is the one that's going to be a complete secret and they wouldn't know what to tell anyone about oh was that the case no i didn't think that was going to be a secret oh god don't do that to me i'm sorry i'm sorry a me kind of thing to do as well you can't wind me up like that give stuff away normally normally you've had a drink or two before normally it takes me at least two pints before i start just spilling all of the you know
secret information. We've got the International Confederation. If you've listened to the DEX Legacy, you might be familiar with this episode. In that episode,
Nathaniel Dex is standing trial for the atrocities that happened in episode one, the bomb. So we have an episode for Wasteland called the International Confederation. It's the same event from a different perspective. And that is when David's character, Minister Rosette, he's just taken power in Xenos. The political situation is turning and he
plays a key role and that foreshadows what would potentially come next if we do more of Wasteland which I very much hope we do. I very much hope we do as well and I'm also going to just shout out Sophie McNair who I think
People are going to absolutely love Sophie because she's so... We often talk about characters being co-creations of the writer and the actor. And Sophie is a great example of that in her character, Vorsi or Vorsinza, who is a mech pilot. And I'm not going to say any more, but I just think you're going to love Sophie McNair. And George Stagnall as well. George Stagnall. Absolute treasure. What a voice and what a talent.
has this presence that is so just lovely and he plays a medic and you really get it like when he's doing his medic bits it's like yeah I would trust you with my guts hanging out I would trust you in that moment to keep me alive like this is so weird but you know like he has that kind of presence in voice it's just oh he's perfect yeah yeah so anyway more
about wasteland soon um there is a there's a little prologue uh a teaser um in which you can also hear the voice of nick lamont and um alex white who is kit from the deck's legacy i'm playing kit so kit is a character yes um anyway very briefly it will it will all fall into place
Possibly. We're very excited about this. You can probably tell we're very excited about this spin-off. And I think we should probably stop talking about it now in case we give something really important away. But you mentioned another drama there, which is forthcoming from Alternative Stories. Yes. And that is called Burnout. Burnout, yes. By Lewis Carter.
Well, you say by Lewis Carter. I mean, it's Lewis's creation. He has written most of the scripts, but someone else has written a couple of scripts, haven't they? I wrote one episode and an interlude. I contributed to it, but it's his baby through and through and his world. And when I did my contributions there, I completely slotted into his tone of voice and his characters and just...
carried that energy which he created and communicated so perfectly. These characters are amazing. Burnout is an absolute riot. The days in the studio were just so fun. I cannot wait for people to hear it. It was a joy working on it because sometimes getting outside of your own world is a really good exercise and it helps you
to bring a fresh energy to something a fresh perspective and i loved working with lewis and writing for burnout and i loved working for i acted in it as well well i was i was going to talk about your your voice acting as well because um you play this
amazing character called jess don't you in burnout and well tell us about jess i mean you don't you wouldn't want to meet jess in a barber or would you not in a barber or no but she's pretty reasonable like if you pissed her off i think it would be probably kill you bad news well she'd give you a black eye at least um if not just get your shoulder or something for your troubles um she's she's a very uh she's she can handle herself
shall we say. She's a mechanic. She's been raised within the family of what are called clans, but really are like big mob families. And she was raised in the pit. They have zero gravity racing. It centers around this sort of industry of zero gravity racing and race cars. Which is like the Formula One circuit, but on steroids, isn't it? On steroids, yeah. And clandestine activities happening all as part of this. And the clan leaders are not necessarily the most morally...
excellent there's one there's one called taj brand isn't there which is a particularly unpleasant one yeah yeah excellently voiced by you oh yeah i do get to play baddies don't i you do get to play baddies yeah is he as evil as nathaniel dex uh in different ways but i know i think i think nathaniel is is evil on a global scale nathaniel is evil on a big scale taj is evil
is on a much smaller scale, but probably more intense and immediate. He has a penchant for punishing his henchmen by chopping off their fingers. Yeah. For example. Yeah. He doesn't do it. He gets them to do it. He gets them to do it because that's like a test of loyalty as well. Outsources. I don't know what would happen if they didn't do it. But anyway, maybe we'll find out. That's management for you, isn't it? That is management. Yeah, delegation.
And so burnout, we probably will be hearing burnout in, I would have thought, mid to late November. We'll see on that. We have a potential date on that. Ooh, exciting. We do, we do. I love it so much. And again, another one, we really can't wait to share that with you. Absolutely. Now back to you, Emily, and your writing journey. Yep.
Because with the awards and the nearly a quarter of a million downloads of the deck's legacy and your involvement in other stuff comes recognition and upcoming in a week or so, you're going to be the main speaker, the main guest at an event, aren't you? I am. Yes, I'm guest of honour. Guest of honour.
Yes, Sci-Fi Literary Convention in Shrewsbury. The Fantasy and Sci-Fi Spotlight. Yes, at the Nerdy Cafe. The Nerdy, which is a great name. I want to go and drink coffee in the Nerdy Cafe because I am nerdy and it sounds like a place we should hang out. Actually, all the Dex Legacy cast should hang out at the Nerdy Cafe, shouldn't we? It does sound like the kind of place that should be a sort of central, a pillar of the community.
We'll all move to Shrewsbury. Absolutely, yeah. I'll tell you what it's like. I've never been to Shrewsbury before, but I will be there in an official capacity. I mean, you're saying Shrewsbury, I'm saying Shrewsbury. I don't know. I mean, you'll have to tell us about that. Oh, am I being very Southern? No, I honestly don't know. I might just be very Southern. Let us know when you get back. But about the event, so you're the guest of honour, as you say, and so the format will be that you will be,
You'll be on a few panels during the day. Yes. Yeah. So I'm on a panel about games, storytelling in games. So RPGs. Which is another thing what you do. Another thing what I do. Yeah, exactly. What I does.
I'm going to be on that panel. I'm also going to be on a panel about world building, sci-fi world building, which obviously I've done a lot of. My planet is a complex and varied place. Multifaceted. Multifaceted. Well, I've got to have enough countries there that they can invade each other and keep the story going. That's the thing. Keep the general undercurrent of violence and political unrest going. Absolutely. If I start off with just one country, who are they going to go to war with? Absolutely. Absolutely.
And some of the other people that are appearing at this event, at the Fantasy and Sci-Fi Spotlight. Yes. Who else have they got? So one I know is Fraser Armitage. Yes. Who has been on this podcast. And his drama, this is where, this is all a very kind of meta little world, isn't it? Postcards from another world.
was written by Frasier and featured Marie Claire and Sarah Golding, who we mentioned as members of the cast of Wasteland. Yeah. But we've also interviewed Frasier on here about his books as well. It's fabulous, fabulous. And his script won an award, didn't it? It did. It won the Pen to Print Audio Fiction Award. Yeah. It's a lovely, lovely piece of work. So definitely check that out.
yeah and and we should say kind of mutual friend and and someone who who is a very very lovely person oh my god yeah yeah very talented writer in general um so yes fraser is uh is going to be there and i can't wait to hang out with him some more um we've also got tim hardy
who is also a friend as well, and I can't wait to meet him again. I think we met once briefly at Bristol Con, but it'll be lovely to see him and hang out. We've got Stephen Arian, we've got Alex Bradshaw, Ed Crocker, Emma Adams, Lee Conley.
more besides and quite a lot more yeah yeah yeah it's it's going to be a great event it's going to be lovely um yeah and alternative stories is one of the sponsors of the event as well very recently yeah very recently yes we thought uh that would be a good thing for us to do um because we want to we want to promote um indie sci-fi and fantasy authors and and um it i think it's really important that events like this
link them and also link them to readers so if you are anywhere near shrewsbury which is kind of if you don't know the uk then probably um you won't be going to the event but shrewsbury is kind of on the borders between england and wales so sort of left left west of england on the left up and on the left a lovely lovely town as well yeah i'm very excited so yeah
Oh, sorry, Emily. Oh, sorry. Yeah. I was just going to say like, cause I'm a, obviously I'm an audio drama writer and that's the main reason why I'm going to be there. And one of the things that as somebody who, you know, does create both audio and novels.
For me, writing science fiction, it's a very obvious sort of pairing, audio drama and novels and the whole space should be interlinked. But it isn't at the moment. Very rarely. Absolutely, yeah. And I find that interesting for me because of things like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The War of the Worlds, all of those productions that are so pivotal to the genre. Everyone knows The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Everyone who writes sci-fi knows.
that and knows that it was a radio show. The radio show came before the novels. So it was the original format and the TV show and the film. It was originally for radio. And so the sort of presence of audio drama as an art in the science fiction space is incredibly natural for me, but a lot of people don't get that. And one of my missions I think in being a novelist and audio dramatist is to bring
audio drama people and novel and and and literary people together and get more overlap in these spaces because it is all sci-fi storytelling and yeah and you've proved that that is well first of all popular possible to possible to do but then popular when when you do it you can you know as a as a writer your profile oh yeah i mean your your profile's gone literally global yeah
and you have you know 250 000 nearly downloads yeah um you've got a global fan base as a writer and it's wonderful like you can't build that obviously without work but sure bringing like coming at a story from different angles with different mediums brings new
I would definitely advocate. I mean, apart from the fact that it's fun as a writer, working in different ways is always fun. Hearing your work brought to life by professional actors is insanely, it's a mind trip of its own. It's just amazing. And it never gets old. And it's just...
it helps with everything in terms of skill, in terms of dialogue, in terms of just being able to communicate, in terms of just getting in contact with fans. Writing novels is so solitary and you can get so in a zone and you can get so with the submission process and the rejections and all of the rest of it. I see it as sort of, it's like energy.
you're putting energy out and out and out the whole time you're putting energy into your work you're putting energy into submissions you're not getting anything back because what you get is rejections then you have to find more energy whereas when you've got something out there and you've got people engaging in it and people reacting positively to it you are getting energy back it fills up your energy battery again and honestly doing the audio drama and having that audience and building that audience has kept me going
in a way that I think I would be in a very cynical place right now if I was just trying to get the books out into the world. And another thing I would say, I mean, for writers, if you have any ambitions at all about getting into the world of script writing for film, you know, screenwriting, TV,
or stage actually audio drama is a fantastic kind of sandpit isn't it to to test your skills i mean first of all it's the cheapest way of getting a script into professional production yeah um it probably doesn't seem cheap when we're at the start of a kickstarter but um but it but it really is yeah and you know on a global scale i mean when you think about the thousands and thousands it takes to make a film like
hundreds of thousands that it takes what it costs us to make 15 episodes for a for a series of the deck's legacy yeah would probably buy about 20 minutes of film if that if that yeah not even not even yeah so yeah so it's a it's just a great thing so if you want to hear more about that that world of you know working in audio drama but
but coming from a literary or a novel writing background. Yep. The Nerdy Cafe in Shrewsbury, 29th of September. I think it's an all-day event, isn't it? Yeah, afternoon. And it's called the Fantasy and Sci-Fi Spotlight. And Emily Inkpen, the fantastic Emily Inkpen, is going to be guest speaker at that event. We will put links so that you can find out more where we usually put links. Yep.
Emily, also with writers in mind, writing and writers in mind, we have a new season of the Writer's Gym podcast coming. We do, yes. And if people haven't heard the Writer's Gym, what is it and what's your role in it? So I'm co-presenter alongside Dr. Rachel Knightley and yourself.
I'm kind of the referee. You are the referee, yeah. You try and keep us in line and keep us on topic. We are a bit of a duo in terms of presenting. And what we do is we have a subject of interest every week and we discuss it. And we also end each episode on a writing challenge exercise as set by Rachel.
And everyone who's listening to it, really, it's supposed to be, it's friendly, it's informal, it's a point of sanity. If you are writing and you want to learn something, you want to start thinking about something in a different way, but you also don't want to feel like you're doing things wrong and everything. Because let's face it, there is no right way.
to do this at all and we're the first ones to admit it so we just discuss topics and then uh set challenges and have a nice time it's it's a very cozy show i think yeah yeah and and i think it's it's one where writers may may use it I mean you've talked about writing being a solitary game yeah it might be something nice to you know in a break from writing have a listen to an episode um you know we don't as as Emily said we don't profess to give
definitive advice how how dare we do that but we we just talk around topics and so some of the topics that we've discussed have been uh world building um was one we took we've in in the upcoming series we're talking about conflict and animosity between characters we've talked about um you know narratives
chronologies in in fiction so a linear narrative versus a fractured narrative yeah and and and so each as you say each episode picks a different topic and we just talk about it for we just talk about it yeah 35 minutes 40 minutes and it's it's fun so get a cup of tea tune in yes we've we've also had a couple of guests haven't we and some some quite fun and lovely guests as well and if you're in the world of um
fantasy and sci-fi you you would recognize a couple of these names so who have we had emily we've had um gareth powell uh we have had uh rihanna pratchett
The wonderful Rhianna Pratchett. Pleasure talking to her about her experiences in the gaming industry. Wonderful. And all the things she sort of learned from her dad. From her dad, yeah. And that legacy. And she's kind of carried on writing in the disc world, hasn't she? Yeah, she's an amazing person. And yeah, really fun to have and really great for a chat. And obviously...
Nigel Planer. Yeah, yeah. Nigel Planer was an absolute pleasure. People of a certain age will remember as Neil from The Young Ones here on UK TV. Also a poet and writer. So it's good to have a chat with him as well, wasn't it? Yeah, I'm just pausing because Danny was just walking down the stairs while you were talking. So, yeah. This is when you have an understairs recording boob.
um but yeah so the writer's gym um i think the new series will be coming out mid-october uh but what we'll do we'll put a link um well you can find it by just going to your favorite podcast app and searching for the writer's gym yeah you'll you'll you'll find it there and uh but we will
put a link in the show notes as well so that you can so that you can find it um and i think we record how many episodes did we record because it was a couple of weeks ago we were down in london at um at rachel's house recording them weren't we and we did eight or nine yeah it was eight or nine in a single setting single sitting so it was quite intense my brain was
Pretty fried by the end of it, because if you, like, sounding like you know what you're talking about is quite hard work. Doing it on nine different topics, you know, over and over again, back to back. With only a cup of tea in between. Exactly. A cup of tea and a tunnex is, you know, is really hard work.
Yeah, by the end of that, by like Friday afternoon when I got home, I just sort of lay there in semi-shock. Stared at the ceiling. Yeah, thousand yard stare. But yeah, it's really, really fun because then we get into the swing of it and we're just sitting there on the sofa chatting really and it's, yeah, it's a good time.
You mentioned tonnecks there. I mean, we should say other caramel wafers are available. No. No, tonnecks caramel wafers are, we won't go into this in any detail, but they are a very, very integral part of our recording experience. Absolutely. Yes, they are very important. Cannot record without tonnecks caramel wafers. And these are the little things you don't think about in the studio. The last thing you want, because the microphones are so sensitive, is an actor with a rumbly tummy.
So you've got to have little snacks and feed them. And what better than Tunnock's caramel wafers? No complaints so far. No complaints so far. Now, Emily, just before we wrap this up, one of the other things that you do with all this kind of wisdom and knowledge that you've... kind of gathered and that we've discussed is that you teach and you do workshops as well don't you yes yeah
Yeah, I do. Yes. I do impart knowledge. Yes. Impart knowledge. So we've got a season of workshops coming up. So alternative stories from workshops. We do some of them together, some of them just me, some of them just you. Topics like we can take you. We have one, an introduction to writing for audio drama, which is exactly what it says on the tin. And it's just a... you know, whistle-stop tour of the world of writing for audio drama. And you'll hear from...
You'll hear bits from some of our dramas behind the scenes. You'll hear from an actor and you'll hear from both of us. But then we get into a bit more detail, don't we? So we've got, you then go into page to production, don't you? Yes. Taking a script into the studio, which is more you than me, I think. I mean, I think we're both there, but it's a lot of you. Definitely a joint effort on that one. I think we've got some new ones coming up as well because, you know, we've got. Yeah, tell us about those.
So one of the ones that I'm going to be doing is branding and marketing. And my career as a copywriter has always been in marketing teams. So I'm going to be talking about as soon as Danny's gone up the stairs. Yep. So I'm going to be talking about how you get your online space, how you sort of carve out your particular niche.
or the niche of your product online, and then how you build marketing on top of that, because brand is the bedrock upon which you do your marketing. And if you don't have the brand underpinning the marketing campaigns that you do, it's not going to be half as effective. So working out exactly how to present that, how to build that from the ground up, foundations, then house on top.
So that's going to be one of the new ones, which I think could be very interesting. And that's very specifically aimed at writers and maybe small independent publishers, people who maybe don't have much of a social media presence, don't know about social media, don't know about how to brand and market themselves and just need that bit of help. Especially if you've got a product. So, I mean, I know there are people out there who have a website as a author.
But then they have an audio drama, for instance, and they just put the audio drama on an author page. But then, of course, when people Google the audio drama, that doesn't come up. It doesn't show up because the URL is all author page.
focused so nobody can find the audio drama nobody can find all the book you know because it's not linked in the same way so you've got to think about how people are going to find you online and give everybody the directions they need to get to you and make you as discoverable as possible because generally speaking when somebody looks at a marketing campaign they might not click on the link but they'll google it to find out about it if they then google it and can't find it
then that's them gone. They've fallen off. You've lost their interest. So a marketing strategy, a marketing campaign not underpinned by good branding and online presence is going to be, you're just losing so much.
Yeah. Well, and I will say Emily is a great person to talk you through that process. Other sessions, we've got one about monologues. We have sessions about voice acting. We've got one about recording and podcasting, the very basics of those things aimed at writers. So if you want to sort of record some of your own work, put it out as a podcast, we can take you through all of that. Lots of different stuff. But you also offer...
one-to-one don't you one-to-one coaching uh editing of scripts for first-time writers or even more advanced writers i yeah when it comes to translating sort of when it comes to translating scripts from visuals audio or translate helping writers move from prose to audio i know a lot of tricks when it comes to going into the studio when it comes to what can be achieved
in an audio context and what can be brought across from visual. It can be surprising for people who, when they're writing for screen, will think that something is entirely visual and must be lost if it goes to audio. Not necessarily the case. The kind of things that you can put in the soundscape that will keep those visuals going, but just in the mind of the listener. Things like that.
I have learned over the years that I can definitely, that I have worked with writers and helped them to sort of see those things and help them to weave those things into their work. So yeah, you can book me for a chat and I will give you all of the information in my brain.
And you do it over an ongoing period as well if people need. So you can talk to them about a topic, get them to do a bit of work, then review it and come back to them and do that over a few weeks as a sort of coaching and mentoring type arrangement if that's what people want. Yeah, yeah, definitely, yeah. And people would find you through your website? My website, yes. Which is emilyinkpen.com.
yes as it absolutely should be and yeah and i've got a contact page there so if you just drop me a line on the contact form i will get back to you yeah we can talk about that indeed and um you're also all over social media aren't you i am everywhere you just see this is the branding thing just google emily ink pen and i will be right there wherever you uh wherever you want me yep
So, yes, and of course, I keep saying this, but we'll put those links in the show notes as well. So, Emily, I mean, it's been a whistle-stop tour through stuff that's going on in your life and your world at the moment. Thank you so much for being with us today on Alternative Stories. Thank you for having me.
yeah really really looking forward to hearing all of these things that are that are going on in your in your world yeah there's a lot going on yes and donate to the kickstarter donate to the kickstarter and i'd i just want to i just want to just end on on one thing which probably very good for people who are watching this on video but not so good if you're listening on the podcast
So merch, I mean, Dex Legacy merch, can you just talk us through what you're wearing at the moment? Oh, I'm currently wearing a jumper that says, Osa made me a killing machine. So Osa being a character in the Dex Legacy. Osa being a character in the Dex Legacy. It's a bit of an in-joke, these ones that I designed. So yes, there is merch available. I'm actually moving shop at the moment, but there is a link to the merch store. So yeah, check it out.
And one of the rewards in the Kickstarter will be, as it was last time, will be exclusive merch for just for that Kickstarter. Yes, it's limited edition. For season three, it's Dex Laboratories. Yes. Yes. Yes. So anyway, so Emily Inkpen, thank you so much. And best of luck with all of these projects. Thank you very much.
The Alternative Stories and Fake Realities Podcast. Audio drama, poetry, fiction. The Fable and Folly Network, where fiction producers flourish. In the year 1889, there was nowhere in the world more exciting than London, England. Free cheers for Inspector Lestrade and the bad boys of Baker Street themselves, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson! Solved. I Sherlock bloody Holmes of 221 B Baker Street. Well, with any luck, we'll get a new brutal murder any day now.
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