Fighting For Our Right To Party

[zvi]

So, I am not actually directing you to go talk to people in an anon meme, but there's a long discussion about posting a story podfic first, text delayed, in the Inception anon meme on LJ.

It raises a few interesting questions which you might care to discuss.

Some questions:

1) How do you convince people to give podfic a try, if they don't intuitively grasp why it might be cool?
2) If a story only ever gets posted as podfic, are you keeping something from people who prefer text?
3) What are the arguments for and against simultaneous release of podfic and text versus podfic first release?
4) How do you present the idea to people of a staggered release without annoying them? How do you let the people who didn't want to listen to the audio that the text is finally available?
5) If a story is released podfic first, is that first podfic of it the canonical version of the text?
6) How do you write a story to be read?

Comments

[melannen]

I was probably venting a lot more anger about general lack-of-transcripts on the internet than the situation outlined in the link required. A fest with the purpose of putting the podfic first clearly outlined, and the fic all going up a month later, is probably fine - I doubt I would bother/remember to go back when the text was up, and I suspect a lot more people won't either, and I personally wouldn't go promoting that fest around, but there's plenty more fic in the sea.

If it became a generally accepted practice, though, or people started saying the podfic was it, there would never be a text version (as some people are speculating, and as question 2 proposed) then it would start to be a problem.

Re: allowing people to request a transcript: generally, with accessibility, not having the accommodation at all is worst; having an accommodation that requires people to ask for it is better; having something they don't have to ask for is best. I suspect most people who wouldn't bother coming back a month later wouldn't bother PMing, either, because having to ask for the special treatment every time gets old fast. But definitely better than nothing.

I'd say that if I wanted to do something like this... I would make them both freely downloadable but frame it such that it's clear the podfic is primary and the transcript was just that, a transcript, not 'the real fic'. One way might be to make the post all about the podfic and then link to a downloadable .txt or .rtf file of the transcript in a footnote at the bottom, particularly if it's formatted like an audio transcript rather than a fiction story. Or something like that. (That might even be a better way to frame it - withholding the text version is basically saying that you are resigned to the fact that everybody will pick text over audio if they have a choice. Whereas making them both available but making the audio a lot shinier is pointing out to people that audio can be their first choice.)

Also - and this is touching on question 6 - while audiobooks/podfic of prose fiction can be done amazingly and add a lot of art to an existing story, a work that is written primarily to be performed as audio ought to be written differently than one intended to be text, ought to be written such that anybody just reading the written text will realize they're reading something that's not in its intended format, because a good audio text has different strengths than a written one.

[klb]

That's really helpful, thank you.

(I am involved in a plan to run an upcoming challenge that would involve something like this.)

I see what you mean about the problems of never making a text version available, and I agree after reading your explanation that that would be a bad thing to set a precedent for.

I like the idea of making the transcript available immediately but having it as a text or rtf file. I agree that that takes away a lot of the traditional sense of the text version of the story being primary, and it also takes away the issues of withholding or making people ask for accommodations. I wonder if at that point it would still be good for the story to be posted a month later, or if it would be better for the point that was being made to have it as text-only anyway.

Now I'm trying to think of the author side. I wouldn't want to downplay their really valuable contribution to the podfic by making it seem like their writing wasn't super-important to the final piece. I mean, The Social Network needs Jesse Eisenberg *and* Aaron Sorkin, to give an example that totally shows where my mind's at lately. (And hm, thinking that way, I'd definitely want to use the term script instead of transcript, I think.)

Re: the last part, these stories would be written primarily to be performed as audio, but they'd be by authors in the habit of writing fic, so I am not sure how different they would end up being from normal fic. That would probably vary author to author.

[cantarina]

I've actually got a project similar to Penny's on the go and I've been trying to figure out balancing accessibility needs to the fact that the story will never have been meant to be read.

I though I might have both files available in the same download, which would hopefully encourage people to go audio first without alienating accessibility needs, although I'm not sure if forcing a larger download actually qualifies as the latter.

[klb]

I don't see why not have them as separate downloads. I doubt there are a lot of people who wouldn't want to listen to the audio otherwise but then, once they already have it on their computer, decide to go ahead with it. It's more likely that the choice they make about format will be influenced by what's presented in the post as the idea behind the challenge and so on, and perhaps a request you make that if people are on the fence, they give the podfic a try and experience the story the way it was intended to be or whatever.

I do think having the text as DL instead of straight in the post takes away the sense of "the default is to read, and since this is right in front of me I will go with the default." It makes it more of a measured decision which format you'll go with.

Also, as people say, if the text actually is written in a way that fits better with reading than writing, some people may choose text, read, and then be like, "you know, now that I'm seeing this, I actually think I'd really like to hear it acted, because it doesn't seem like I'm getting the full experience just seeing it." Perhaps.

[naraht]

...while audiobooks/podfic of prose fiction can be done amazingly and add a lot of art to an existing story, a work that is written primarily to be performed as audio ought to be written differently than one intended to be text, ought to be written such that anybody just reading the written text will realize they're reading something that's not in its intended format, because a good audio text has different strengths than a written one.

This is what I was thinking, basically. Something made primarily to be an audio art form would, I would expect, be more like a radio play than like a story being read aloud. Different format.

And it would only be polite and good practice to offer the alternative of a script or script analogue to those people who can't/won't listen. Having scripts available doesn't stop people watching movies and having scores available doesn't stop people going to concerts. They are transcriptions of the art form rather than the art form itself.

[klb]

Having scripts available doesn't stop people watching movies and having scores available doesn't stop people going to concerts.

Right, but I think people are so used to the relationship of podfic being a secondary format of written stories that it would have to be marked as different in some way (like having it in a .txt or .rtf file or something) to shake up this kind of thinking. Movies and concerts didn't have the same history of being seen as secondary to a written artform (that I know of) so it may be that podfic creators in a challenge like this would have to be a little more thoughtful about how we present the text and non-text components than a creator of one of those would have to be.

I agree with your overall point that both should be made available from the beginning, though.

[naraht]

My main thought was that a text companion to an audio story would be different than an standalone fic, probably more like a script than a short story. If you were writing to maximize the possibilities of the new medium, that is. So that in itself would help to reinforce the primacy of the audio version.

But I have no issue with idea of making text available in a .txt or .rtf format, with the possible exception that I wonder about long-term archiving potential. (Would the file be available on a Rapidshare/Megaupload type service? What if the download expired? Would it eventually be archived in its standard form on the AO3 or a similar site?)

[klb]

Would it eventually be archived in its standard form on the AO3 or a similar site?

I am thinking yes, after a month it would be posted and archived like normal? Like, that might step on the point we were making a little bit, but I think it would be unfair to the author to ask them not to do that. And as you say, long-term archiving potential is a consideration as well.

Re: the writing being different, I suppose authors and podficcers would need to experiment a bit to get a feel for that. This gets into question 6 above. I could see it being written as a monologue, which would look different than most fics (at least because few fics I see these days are first-person). Or perhaps more like a notfic than a normal fic—I just made a podfic of a notfic, and it did feel in some ways much more natural to speak aloud (with the exception of the emoticons). Or would it look different from either of those two? Either way, I don't think it would be radically different from at least some of the fics out there, because fics cover such a wide range of styles and a lot of fics already have a really strong sense of voice and rhythm, which is part of what makes podficcing such a fun hobby.

Anyway, half of the point of this challenge that a friend and I are planning to run is to explore the answer to that question: what does a podfic script look like, and how is it different from a normal fic?

[naraht]

I would certainly like to try writing one someday. One of my favorite fandoms is a radio play and it was actually hard for me to shift formats and write fic about it. Might be far easier to write for podfic.

(Personally I think I'd dive in and go straight for script format.)

[luzula]

Just a question: what is a notfic? *curious*

[klb]

Notfic is like when someone tells out a story that would be fic, but they're not really *writing* it like they would if they did it properly. It tends to be more conversational, more like oral storytelling, sometimes uses chatspeak and emoticons and stuff. I just made a podfic of a notfic and it was really fun to perform.