Makers come in all different forms. Some meticulously craft audio dramas with a cast from around the world.
For WGLT's Maker to Maker series, Lou Warner sat down with audio producer Bren McQuillan, a graduate student in Illinois State University's creative technologies program, to talk about their audio drama Dustwalker.
An audio drama is a dramatized story told in the audio format, typically featuring music, sound effects and more. It’s not unlike an audiobook. But, unlike a traditional audiobook with a single narrator, audio dramas typically have a fully voiced cast.
The most well-known example would likely be The War of the Worlds by Orson Welles. Another more modern example would be Welcome to Night Vale.
In the beginning, McQuillan couldn’t quite find a story that satisfied their criteria. Eventually they were so fed up searching, they just made it themselves.
“I’m combining some sci-fi elements with fantasy elements, because I like both and I’m greedy, and I want both,” said McQuillan.
“It follows a teenage mercenary who gets approached by a powerful politician. And they agree to try and take down their government.”
It’s important to McQuillan that the story includes themes of queer and trans representation, found family, and mental health.
McQuillan has spent over three years developing the story, initially writing three novel drafts. It wasn’t until one of their professors at Illinois State University proposed an independent project on the material that McQuillan found the audio drama genre.
Actually making an episode of Dustwalker is no small feat. McQuillan has extensive credits on each episode page. They write, direct, produce, and even design the episode art.
Each episode begins by looking at the novel's 3rd draft.
“If there are good dialogue moments, I take those and I put them in the new script doc. I get all my thoughts out, and then from there it's just going over and over the script.”
“I schedule sessions with actors. I do the sessions with actors. I edit the audio.”
“While I'm doing this, I'm also making the cover art. I want to give myself as much time to make the cover art, because I think having a longer process of, maybe not looking at it for a week and then coming back will make it a better product… at least I hope it does.”
“Once I have the audio from actors and I start doing the sound design, that takes a long time. I usually do the ambience first. And then I love dialogue editing. That's probably my favorite part, is combining the two voice files to make a conversation.”
McQuillan adds pauses, sighs, and other things to make it all sound natural.
“Around that, I do the sound design. Both like the big magical sound design and the less magical kind of mini narratives."
Even the smallest action, like a character taking a drink, needs a string of several sound effects to build immersion.
“It's tedious sometimes, but it is fun. I do like doing it.”
While having a wide cast of actors is expensive for a student, it’s worth it to McQuillan.
“And if it was single narrator, I don't think it would really work the same because I think the story really relies on interpersonal relationships.”
The larger cast of actors allows for different interpretations of the characters, something that McQuillan has come to value.
“They can say things in different ways, they can put emphasis on different words than I've put in the script and it always, almost always, comes out much better than what I did.”
It can be hard to let go of creative control, but McQuillan says they’ve really come to love directing.
“I was not expecting to like directing so much, and maybe I would have changed my career at this point if I knew I liked it before now.”
Adapting a novel to sound has some unique challenges.
“The main character, Kove, has a pretty strong internal monologue in the book. In the audio drama, I had to cut back on that quite a bit.”
Too much narration can make the pacing drag and bore listeners.
“Now she shares more of her thoughts out loud, which, when looking at the character in the book, is somewhat of a departure. But I think that is necessary to have an audio-only story.”
When it’s all said and done, McQuillan hopes that Dustwalker is remembered as a strong story with trans characters.
McQuillan wants you to consider making the stories you want to find.
“Because that’s what I did and it turned out pretty well. I personally recommend audio drama, it's great. I might be biased… But yeah, make your own stories. It’s awesome.”
Bren McQuillan just published episode 7 of 10 in Dustwalker Season 1. You can find links to listen.
This conversation was part of WGLT’s Maker to Maker series. Are you a niche maker in Central Illinois? Send an email to news@wglt.org and Lou Warner might reach out for an interview.
