A Taxi (Episode 1) Transcript
The audio version of the episode can be found here or wherever you get your podcasts!
Hannah: Hi, and welcome to Somebody Write This, where we use a random plot generator to give us an idea, and then brainstorm how that could be a thing somebody might want to write. I'm Hannah.
Jennie: And I'm Jennie. And we hope that this podcast gives you ideas for your next creations.
Hannah: So yeah, just to reiterate, the plot this time is the story of a lazy, useless brother's youth set in a prisoner transport plane. So we have a useless brother.
Jennie: So this is about the brother, or it's about the brother's youth?
Hannah: I assumed that that meant the brother when the brother was young.
Jennie: It could also mean like--
Hannah: Which was entirely in a prisoner transport plane, which is the fun part of this.
Jennie: It could also be like the brother's friend who is a child.
Hannah: Maybe. Does anyone say, "This is my youth"? "This is my friend who is a child"?
Jennie: "I'm Fred. This is my brother and his youth."
Hannah: I think that means-- Yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of a child who spent their entire childhood in a prisoner transport plane or heavily in one. Like what, why are they there? Were they a prisoner?
Jennie: Right, and why they are lazy and useless?
Hannah: Yeah, is this like the story of how they became lazy and useless? This is tapping into like, really unfortunate stereotypes about prisoners at this point. Like, if he spent his life in a prisoner transport plane, and now he is lazy and useless...?
Jennie: Well, is he a prisoner. Or is he like a guard?
Hannah: As a child? Okay, he could be a teenager. Youth could be teenager.
Jennie: What if he's a guard and reminiscing about his youth in the plane? Like he could be telling the story...
Hannah: So he's in the plane, but he's telling the story of when he was not in the plane.
Jennie: Right.
Hannah: Okay, okay.
Jennie: Does that fit?
Hannah: Um, I think so. I think you can read it that way. We're gonna make it read it that way. Cool. So okay. So, so, I guess if it says it's set in a prisoner transport plane then that setting has to be significant somehow. So, is it going to like cut back and forth between like his childhood and where he is now as a guard on the plane? What is the connection between these two? Why is the story being told here? Is he trying to scare them? Is it a scare them straight kind of thing, but they're already all on the plane?
Jennie: Well, that's kind of what it sounds like. Like a morality play where he's like, "In my youth, I was just like you. Yeah."
Hannah: So the brother aspect, right? He's a brother. So he clearly has to have a sibling who's important. Is the sibling on the plane as well?
Jennie: That's a really good question.
Hannah: Like, is he talking to his brother? This is the worst way to sell that story because it doesn't mention that at all. But is it him transporting his brother or his sister to another prison and talking to them about it, like unpacking their childhood together? That's not at all the story that you get from reading that sentence, but maybe that's where that goes.
Jennie: But those ideas assume that these siblings grew up together.
Hannah: Oh, that's true. That's true. Maybe it's somebody who-- Do they know at the beginning, do you think? Do they know that they're siblings?
Jennie: They might not? I don't know how they would find out on a prisoner transport plane.
Hannah: Because he tells the story of his youth and it coincides and they find-- I mean, I guess that means that the plot synopsis gives away the twist at the end that, "oh my gosh, he's her brother," or his brother. But yeah, maybe the conversation somehow lends itself to finding out to the truth about their family.
Jennie: Right, and I'm also wondering now, the story of lazy and useless doesn't apply to both of them. Now let me see what I'm thinking with that because you asked if the brother of the main character-- I feel like they're brothers. Maybe I've been watching too much Supernatural, but I feel like they're brothers.
Hannah: Yeah. Okay.
Jennie: Um, and so what if the brother who is a prisoner used to be a big wig somebody and made wrong choices and is now lazy and useless as a prisoner, and the other brother started out lazy, useless, ne'er do well, no direction, but now he has a good career as a guard transporting prisoners. And so now he's trying to help his brother who used to be successful.
Hannah: Okay, okay, so in this in this version they do know that they are related, and it's like an active attempt on guard brother's behalf to try to guide--
Jennie: Right, like maybe they didn't know they were going to be assigned to each other. It was just like, "Oh, it's you."
Hannah: Yeah, maybe they like haven't seen each other in a really long time.
Jennie: "Fancy meeting you here on this prisoner transport plane."
Hannah: Well, and maybe to the point where they like cut off contact completely, so like he didn't even know that his brother was going to be in prison, was caught for something.
Jennie: Right, exactly, like mafia connections or something.
Hannah: Okay, yeah, are we thinking like white collar crime stuff? Was he embezzling?
Jennie: Yeah exactly. That's what I'm thinking.
Hannah: Okay, okay. And the guard brother has just like completely cut himself off from that side of the family. Or maybe the other brother did. But the guard doesn't know that he's getting his brother on the plane until it happens. And then they-- this is this is a play right here where they just talk about their childhood together.
Jennie: You're right, you're right. Yeah.
Hannah: And every once in awhile another character speaks up.
Jennie: It's a one act play.
Hannah: It is, it is. But yeah, okay, so they have-- I think maybe to set the the arc of this we need to know was the prisoner brother the one who cut off guard brother or vice versa?
Jennie: I feel like prisoner brother was like so successful and full of it. And the parents were like, you need to be more like Johnny, because he's so successful. And, I mean, that's totally cliche. But you can see like the younger brother getting into all sorts of trouble like maybe he even did time himself at one point, I mean at least in juvie, or something, or drugs or was on the streets for a while. And then he turned his life around and is now working with the corrections system. Because he's been there.
Hannah: Yeah. But he was the one who was like, "Nope, I'm not. " Because it has to be where he has not, like found out about his brother's crime.
Jennie: Right, well, that's what I'm saying.
Hannah: It's a situation where he cut off his brother, like, "I don't want to Google them, nothing."
Jennie: then he would, you know, okay, fine. I'm going to go off and do my own life since you guys aren't helping or appreciating or, and I'll go take care of myself if you guys are just gonna blame me for stuff.
Hannah: Okay, okay. And so he just went off did his own thing. He's living a fairly happy life now. Then his brother shows up and it's kind of startling and they have conversations about that.
Jennie: Oh, interesting twist. I just thought of, and maybe it's not as interesting as I think it is...
Hannah: We'll find out!
Jennie: Okay, so what if the person who was maybe the main influence for helping guard brother improve his life and get a good job and turn his life around, is also somehow responsible for the prisoner brother's... either getting him into the crime or aiding him in something or inspired it or...? So what if there's a person who's connected to both of them, that they have to figure out with this talk with each other on this plane? Also, where is this plane going? That seems like a long trip.
Hannah: Well, I mean, it can be an hour. You can have a lot of conversations in an hour. You know, they're just going... I think it's feasible just moving from one... I mean, even if you're moving across the country, that's going to be, moving from one state to the other or from one part of the state to another. I don't know how many...
Jennie: If you're just going one part of the state to another, you take a bus, not a plane.
Hannah: That's true. That's true. Okay, so I'll tell you right now that prisoner transport plane was obviously pulled from the plot for Con Air. I don't remember where they're going, or why they're on the plane.
Jennie: Okay. Okay. Okay. But so if the prisoner brother's white collar crime, like, why does he need this kind of guard? I'm thinking maybe he knows something about a bigger crime. And so like, they're protecting him now until the trial.
Hannah: Okay. So there's a little bit of like witness protection kind of stuff going in there, but he's still going to jail for what he did.
Jennie: Oh, yeah, of course, but he wants to be in protective jail. That's why the plane and "get him out of here now," you know, so the guy they're really after can't get him.
Hannah: Okay. To throw one more wrench into this--
Jennie: Okay!
Hannah: I just figured I'd share the title that this gave me as well. Because with every random plot we generate, it also gives us a possible title, which could end up being the title of our episode, so that we can differentiate the different stories. The title this one gives me is "A Taxi."
Jennie: "A Taxi."
Hannah: "A Taxi," which clearly does not feature in this story.
Jennie: What if you put the taxi in quotes? This is prisoner transport plane is like "a taxi," finger quotes.
Hannah: Right. I'm trying to figure out is there a way... Or it could be just "Taxi." Either one works.
Jennie: Or the person I was thinking of that connects them both is a taxi driver, and the flashbacks go back to weaving back and forth between their stories, both of the brothers with this taxi driver and one of them getting better in his life and the other one getting worse.
Hannah: Or is there something where... Did a defining moment that separated these two brothers out, did it happen involving a taxi of some kind?
Because that way the title could make sense as a metaphor, a symbol of their-- Depending on how that swings, it could be a symbol of like, their distance or their reconnecting, if it was like, you know, "Taxi" because the taxi changed everything somehow.
Jennie: That's a good question.
Two strangers in a taxi. I've never taken a taxi in my life. I'm just going by what I've seen on movies.
Hannah: I only have twice. It has not been often. I'm trying to think of a situation where that would be significant,. like maybe guard brother used to... like his his previous life was driving a taxi. And so... and... and...
Jennie: And that's all you have on that.
Hannah: And that's all I have on that. And all the significant conversations of his life with his brother happened there. Like, you could you could do it almost as like a series of vignettes in the taxi that tell the story of their lives together, including the moment where they split up. And then it's kind of fun because he's still shuttling people back and forth, just a different situation.
Jennie: Yeah, I like that.
Hannah: And so it could be something about, yeah, like, coming back to the this metaphor that this this guy has always been moving people to where they need to be.
Jennie: It just happens to be his brother a lot of the time.
Hannah: It just happens to be his brother a lot of the time. You could do some interesting stuff with that. So maybe something like that.
Jennie: So listeners, we have a lot of questions about this story. We have how are the brothers? What was their relationship like growing up? Who's driving the taxi?
Hannah: Are they both lazy and useless or just one?
Jennie: Right, or did they used to be and aren't anymore? These are the things we need you guys to decide if you're going to write this one act play or this--
Hannah: Series of individuals scenes in a taxi.
Jennie: Right, or this art film.
Hannah: Yeah, yeah.
Jennie: This is where we leave it up to you to take what we've discussed and turn it into a story.
Hannah: I think we've gone as far as we can go with this. I think any further on in this and we're going to actually be writing it.
Jennie: Right. That's not our job.
Hannah: No.
Jennie: Somebody else write this.
Hannah: We turn our story, "A Taxi," over to you to take this and go with it where you will. And of course if you do end up writing something or creating something off of this and want to share it with us, we would love to share it on the show. You can go ahead and we'll give you the info on how to contact us and we'd love to share the ideas that people come up with, especially if you end up going in a very different direction than where we left it off at or if you change a major detail. We want to know. We had this this odd beginning, and I love that we found a couple of different directions it could go. So if you have more, share them. That would be awesome.
Jennie: Well, that's our episode. As a reminder, you can find us every other Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.
Hannah: And if you do want to contact us, you can follow us on Twitter at @writethispod. And if you have been inspired by this episode and want to send us questions or thoughts or dad jokes or whatever, email us at somebodywritethis@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you.
Jennie: We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. See you then.
Hannah: Bye!
Hannah: Hi, and welcome to Somebody Write This, where we use a random plot generator to give us an idea, and then brainstorm how that could be a thing somebody might want to write. I'm Hannah.
Jennie: And I'm Jennie. And we hope that this podcast gives you ideas for your next creations.
Hannah: So yeah, just to reiterate, the plot this time is the story of a lazy, useless brother's youth set in a prisoner transport plane. So we have a useless brother.
Jennie: So this is about the brother, or it's about the brother's youth?
Hannah: I assumed that that meant the brother when the brother was young.
Jennie: It could also mean like--
Hannah: Which was entirely in a prisoner transport plane, which is the fun part of this.
Jennie: It could also be like the brother's friend who is a child.
Hannah: Maybe. Does anyone say, "This is my youth"? "This is my friend who is a child"?
Jennie: "I'm Fred. This is my brother and his youth."
Hannah: I think that means-- Yeah, I don't know. I'm kind of intrigued by the idea of a child who spent their entire childhood in a prisoner transport plane or heavily in one. Like what, why are they there? Were they a prisoner?
Jennie: Right, and why they are lazy and useless?
Hannah: Yeah, is this like the story of how they became lazy and useless? This is tapping into like, really unfortunate stereotypes about prisoners at this point. Like, if he spent his life in a prisoner transport plane, and now he is lazy and useless...?
Jennie: Well, is he a prisoner. Or is he like a guard?
Hannah: As a child? Okay, he could be a teenager. Youth could be teenager.
Jennie: What if he's a guard and reminiscing about his youth in the plane? Like he could be telling the story...
Hannah: So he's in the plane, but he's telling the story of when he was not in the plane.
Jennie: Right.
Hannah: Okay, okay.
Jennie: Does that fit?
Hannah: Um, I think so. I think you can read it that way. We're gonna make it read it that way. Cool. So okay. So, so, I guess if it says it's set in a prisoner transport plane then that setting has to be significant somehow. So, is it going to like cut back and forth between like his childhood and where he is now as a guard on the plane? What is the connection between these two? Why is the story being told here? Is he trying to scare them? Is it a scare them straight kind of thing, but they're already all on the plane?
Jennie: Well, that's kind of what it sounds like. Like a morality play where he's like, "In my youth, I was just like you. Yeah."
Hannah: So the brother aspect, right? He's a brother. So he clearly has to have a sibling who's important. Is the sibling on the plane as well?
Jennie: That's a really good question.
Hannah: Like, is he talking to his brother? This is the worst way to sell that story because it doesn't mention that at all. But is it him transporting his brother or his sister to another prison and talking to them about it, like unpacking their childhood together? That's not at all the story that you get from reading that sentence, but maybe that's where that goes.
Jennie: But those ideas assume that these siblings grew up together.
Hannah: Oh, that's true. That's true. Maybe it's somebody who-- Do they know at the beginning, do you think? Do they know that they're siblings?
Jennie: They might not? I don't know how they would find out on a prisoner transport plane.
Hannah: Because he tells the story of his youth and it coincides and they find-- I mean, I guess that means that the plot synopsis gives away the twist at the end that, "oh my gosh, he's her brother," or his brother. But yeah, maybe the conversation somehow lends itself to finding out to the truth about their family.
Jennie: Right, and I'm also wondering now, the story of lazy and useless doesn't apply to both of them. Now let me see what I'm thinking with that because you asked if the brother of the main character-- I feel like they're brothers. Maybe I've been watching too much Supernatural, but I feel like they're brothers.
Hannah: Yeah. Okay.
Jennie: Um, and so what if the brother who is a prisoner used to be a big wig somebody and made wrong choices and is now lazy and useless as a prisoner, and the other brother started out lazy, useless, ne'er do well, no direction, but now he has a good career as a guard transporting prisoners. And so now he's trying to help his brother who used to be successful.
Hannah: Okay, okay, so in this in this version they do know that they are related, and it's like an active attempt on guard brother's behalf to try to guide--
Jennie: Right, like maybe they didn't know they were going to be assigned to each other. It was just like, "Oh, it's you."
Hannah: Yeah, maybe they like haven't seen each other in a really long time.
Jennie: "Fancy meeting you here on this prisoner transport plane."
Hannah: Well, and maybe to the point where they like cut off contact completely, so like he didn't even know that his brother was going to be in prison, was caught for something.
Jennie: Right, exactly, like mafia connections or something.
Hannah: Okay, yeah, are we thinking like white collar crime stuff? Was he embezzling?
Jennie: Yeah exactly. That's what I'm thinking.
Hannah: Okay, okay. And the guard brother has just like completely cut himself off from that side of the family. Or maybe the other brother did. But the guard doesn't know that he's getting his brother on the plane until it happens. And then they-- this is this is a play right here where they just talk about their childhood together.
Jennie: You're right, you're right. Yeah.
Hannah: And every once in awhile another character speaks up.
Jennie: It's a one act play.
Hannah: It is, it is. But yeah, okay, so they have-- I think maybe to set the the arc of this we need to know was the prisoner brother the one who cut off guard brother or vice versa?
Jennie: I feel like prisoner brother was like so successful and full of it. And the parents were like, you need to be more like Johnny, because he's so successful. And, I mean, that's totally cliche. But you can see like the younger brother getting into all sorts of trouble like maybe he even did time himself at one point, I mean at least in juvie, or something, or drugs or was on the streets for a while. And then he turned his life around and is now working with the corrections system. Because he's been there.
Hannah: Yeah. But he was the one who was like, "Nope, I'm not. " Because it has to be where he has not, like found out about his brother's crime.
Jennie: Right, well, that's what I'm saying.
Hannah: It's a situation where he cut off his brother, like, "I don't want to Google them, nothing."
Jennie: then he would, you know, okay, fine. I'm going to go off and do my own life since you guys aren't helping or appreciating or, and I'll go take care of myself if you guys are just gonna blame me for stuff.
Hannah: Okay, okay. And so he just went off did his own thing. He's living a fairly happy life now. Then his brother shows up and it's kind of startling and they have conversations about that.
Jennie: Oh, interesting twist. I just thought of, and maybe it's not as interesting as I think it is...
Hannah: We'll find out!
Jennie: Okay, so what if the person who was maybe the main influence for helping guard brother improve his life and get a good job and turn his life around, is also somehow responsible for the prisoner brother's... either getting him into the crime or aiding him in something or inspired it or...? So what if there's a person who's connected to both of them, that they have to figure out with this talk with each other on this plane? Also, where is this plane going? That seems like a long trip.
Hannah: Well, I mean, it can be an hour. You can have a lot of conversations in an hour. You know, they're just going... I think it's feasible just moving from one... I mean, even if you're moving across the country, that's going to be, moving from one state to the other or from one part of the state to another. I don't know how many...
Jennie: If you're just going one part of the state to another, you take a bus, not a plane.
Hannah: That's true. That's true. Okay, so I'll tell you right now that prisoner transport plane was obviously pulled from the plot for Con Air. I don't remember where they're going, or why they're on the plane.
Jennie: Okay. Okay. Okay. But so if the prisoner brother's white collar crime, like, why does he need this kind of guard? I'm thinking maybe he knows something about a bigger crime. And so like, they're protecting him now until the trial.
Hannah: Okay. So there's a little bit of like witness protection kind of stuff going in there, but he's still going to jail for what he did.
Jennie: Oh, yeah, of course, but he wants to be in protective jail. That's why the plane and "get him out of here now," you know, so the guy they're really after can't get him.
Hannah: Okay. To throw one more wrench into this--
Jennie: Okay!
Hannah: I just figured I'd share the title that this gave me as well. Because with every random plot we generate, it also gives us a possible title, which could end up being the title of our episode, so that we can differentiate the different stories. The title this one gives me is "A Taxi."
Jennie: "A Taxi."
Hannah: "A Taxi," which clearly does not feature in this story.
Jennie: What if you put the taxi in quotes? This is prisoner transport plane is like "a taxi," finger quotes.
Hannah: Right. I'm trying to figure out is there a way... Or it could be just "Taxi." Either one works.
Jennie: Or the person I was thinking of that connects them both is a taxi driver, and the flashbacks go back to weaving back and forth between their stories, both of the brothers with this taxi driver and one of them getting better in his life and the other one getting worse.
Hannah: Or is there something where... Did a defining moment that separated these two brothers out, did it happen involving a taxi of some kind?
Because that way the title could make sense as a metaphor, a symbol of their-- Depending on how that swings, it could be a symbol of like, their distance or their reconnecting, if it was like, you know, "Taxi" because the taxi changed everything somehow.
Jennie: That's a good question.
Two strangers in a taxi. I've never taken a taxi in my life. I'm just going by what I've seen on movies.
Hannah: I only have twice. It has not been often. I'm trying to think of a situation where that would be significant,. like maybe guard brother used to... like his his previous life was driving a taxi. And so... and... and...
Jennie: And that's all you have on that.
Hannah: And that's all I have on that. And all the significant conversations of his life with his brother happened there. Like, you could you could do it almost as like a series of vignettes in the taxi that tell the story of their lives together, including the moment where they split up. And then it's kind of fun because he's still shuttling people back and forth, just a different situation.
Jennie: Yeah, I like that.
Hannah: And so it could be something about, yeah, like, coming back to the this metaphor that this this guy has always been moving people to where they need to be.
Jennie: It just happens to be his brother a lot of the time.
Hannah: It just happens to be his brother a lot of the time. You could do some interesting stuff with that. So maybe something like that.
Jennie: So listeners, we have a lot of questions about this story. We have how are the brothers? What was their relationship like growing up? Who's driving the taxi?
Hannah: Are they both lazy and useless or just one?
Jennie: Right, or did they used to be and aren't anymore? These are the things we need you guys to decide if you're going to write this one act play or this--
Hannah: Series of individuals scenes in a taxi.
Jennie: Right, or this art film.
Hannah: Yeah, yeah.
Jennie: This is where we leave it up to you to take what we've discussed and turn it into a story.
Hannah: I think we've gone as far as we can go with this. I think any further on in this and we're going to actually be writing it.
Jennie: Right. That's not our job.
Hannah: No.
Jennie: Somebody else write this.
Hannah: We turn our story, "A Taxi," over to you to take this and go with it where you will. And of course if you do end up writing something or creating something off of this and want to share it with us, we would love to share it on the show. You can go ahead and we'll give you the info on how to contact us and we'd love to share the ideas that people come up with, especially if you end up going in a very different direction than where we left it off at or if you change a major detail. We want to know. We had this this odd beginning, and I love that we found a couple of different directions it could go. So if you have more, share them. That would be awesome.
Jennie: Well, that's our episode. As a reminder, you can find us every other Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.
Hannah: And if you do want to contact us, you can follow us on Twitter at @writethispod. And if you have been inspired by this episode and want to send us questions or thoughts or dad jokes or whatever, email us at somebodywritethis@gmail.com. We would love to hear from you.
Jennie: We'll be back with another episode in two weeks. See you then.
Hannah: Bye!
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