Director's Notes – Episode 121 (Patreon)

I’m a firm believer in the use of limitations and random constraints in the making of art.

When I first moved to New York City, almost a decade ago (!!!), I encountered the work of the New York Neo-Futurists. They made theater, but under a set of very specific rules. Their work was strictly non-illusory, which meant that you were never allowed to pretend. If you did something on stage (take a shot, cut your finger, tell a secret you’ve never told anyone) you had to actually do that thing and accept the consequences. You weren’t allowed to fake your reaction, which meant you couldn’t write surprise into a script unless the person you were surprising genuinely had no idea what was going to happen next. No one could play characters. All works had to take place during the time they were performed and in the theater they were being performed in. 

On first encounter, these rules felt incredibly onerous. I am absolutely most comfortable in the world of fiction. It’s most of what I read and write. It’s where my entire toolbox of techniques come from. The idea of writing without being able to pretend felt like trying to do ballet while chained in a canvas sack. My work was all about trying to wriggle around in those constraints. To find loopholes, and do my best to continue the same kind of writing I had always done.

But gradually I understood that I had been seeing these rules all wrong. They weren’t constraints but a toolbox. They were an entire basis for making art. Once I stopped working against them, and started working with them, it pushed what I was doing in all sorts of directions I had never considered before. It is a toolbox that Jeffrey and I still regularly dip into when designing Night Vale live shows, and it taught me just about everything I know about writing for a live audience. 

Which brings me back to how constraints can be amazing launching pads for art, especially if you don’t control the rules. In order to abdicate control of the rules, I frequently make use of random number generators to force that choice out of my hands. This three parter is a prime example of that. 

Over the last several months, I had made a list of Night Vale people, places, and things I wanted to write stories about again, either because we hadn’t talked about them in awhile, or hadn’t fully explored them as much as I thought they warranted. I eventually had quite a long list, and I was trying to figure out what to do with them. So I did what I like to do. I assigned each one a number, and used a random number generator to pick 4 of them. My rule for myself is I would write a three part story that centered around all four of whatever names I picked. I made no plans about the story before doing the random selection.

The names picked were the following:

1.    Nazr al-Mujaheed, football coach at the high school

2.    Frances Donaldson, owner of the antiques mall

3.    Barks Ennui, lovable cartoon dog mascot of the Sheriff’s Secret Police

4.    The Brown Stone Spire.

This is the story I made about those four things. It’s one of my favorite Night Vale stories I’ve ever written.

- Joseph Fink
February 1, 2018