Horns (Episode 13) Transcript
The audio version of this episode can be found here.
Hannah: A police psychologist only has an hour to decide to fight back as an outlaw.
Jennie: Somebody write this.
Hannah: Hi and welcome to Somebody Write This where we use a random plot generator to give us an idea and then we brainstorm how that could be a thing somebody might want to write. I'm Hannah.
Jennie: And I'm Jennie. And to help us with our brainstorming today, we have a guest. Welcome Calissa Wall.
Calissa: Hey you all.
Hannah: Hi. I'm so glad you were able to join us. We had one of our other guests unable to join us at the very last minute. And so I'm very happy that you were available and willing to jump on. So thank you so much for that.
Calissa: Oh, it's no problem. Jennie's awesome. I knew anything she was involved in had to be good. There you go.
Hannah: Fantastic. So as we were talking a little bit in preparation for this, you talked about wanting to, in our little interview portion, to talk about how storytelling has connected you with people. A lot of times people think about writers as being sort of this solo loner, locking themselves in a cabin to finish their great work. But I love the idea of collective or collaborative storytelling. So tell us a little bit about your experiences with that. How has storytelling connected you to people?
Calissa: So for me, storytelling has never really been a solitary activity. From the time that I was just a little kid, our dad would sit in the hallway next to our bedrooms and he would read aloud from his favorite books. I remember the Hobbit, Harry Potter, all kinds of different stories. And he'd just sit there and read a chapter every night.
Hannah: Awesome.
Calissa: Yeah. And then as we grew older, I'd sit down with my sisters and we'd just sit and each write a little piece of the story. And of course our stories were a little bit, well, we were 10 and 11 at the time. They went off the rails pretty fast, but we still have those stories and we go back to them and say, "Hey, remember when we made that story about the squirrel who was a biker and ended up blowing up a tree. That was cool, wasn't it?" Yeah. Wow. We were so strange. We haven't really changed, but that was fun.
Jennie: It sounds like childhood Calissa would have gotten along with childhood Hannah.
Hannah: I think. This whole podcast is based on similar kind of silly writing exercises I did with my sisters.
Calissa: Those are some of the best memories I have from my childhood, just sitting down and making stories with my sisters. And it wasn't only the traditional type of storytelling. It was also making songs and the songs would have stories in them or playing with toys outside. We lived right next to the woods, so that was kind of fun. And just using props and things to tell the stories or just all of those other kinds of things, even creating movies. So storytelling is not confined strictly to either writing a thing or creating a screenplay, that kind of thing. There's so many different mediums and each and every one has had an impact on how I relate to other people and how other people have related to me.
Jennie: Yeah. Even now, you guys might remember an episode or two ago, I shouted out my Dungeons and Dragons group. And that's actually how I know Calissa. She's from my Alinor group and we have a great time storytelling together, playing that game.
Calissa: Absolutely, we do. Yeah, and D&D itself, that was kind of a funny story. I don't know if I ever told you about that, Jennie?
Jennie: I don't think I know how you joined the group. No, just "Hey, a new person is joining us" and we said "Okay."
Calissa: It's hilarious. Let me explain.
Hannah: Yes.
Calissa: Okay. All right. Before I got back from my first time at college, I had heard about D&D and what I'd heard was it's a game for geeks and nerds. The cool people don't play that game. It's so weird. And I was like, "Well, okay, I don't want to be a geek or a nerd. I'll never play that." Then my little sister said, "Hey, Calissa, you know how I've been writing six boys on their mission for the church and how they all write back to me and like me a whole lot. Well, I've been cultivating a harem for you. One of them is coming back."
Jennie: What?
Calissa: I know I was surprised too. Like Kaylen, you know me, you shouldn't be doing that. But she's like, "Calissa, come on, give it a shot. There's this one guy. He's coming back. I really like him, so you should date him." So he gets back and I'm like, "Well, this guy is kind of cool." And as I'm trying my best to seem in return, cool and not a nerd, not a geek, someone at church is like, "Hey, we've got a D&D group, you want to join?" to the boy. He's like, "Yes, that sounds so fun. I love D&D." I'm like, "Well, I love it too. Let's go." And so we go, and by the end of the first night I was hooked, I was hooked so hard. The storytelling was so engaging. The interactions were so intense and emotional. And that guy left the group after a couple of weeks and I was just like, "Bye Felicia, this is more fun." So my sisters' cultivated hopeful date for me was my gateway into D&D, as a medium.
Jennie: That's awesome. That's a great story.
Hannah: I have one more question for you before we move on to our brainstorming. Whether it's D&D or writing stories with a family member or whatever it is, what do you find to be the key in successful collaborative storytelling? I know even in this podcast, sometimes when we have three different voices going, it's hard to figure out where should I push for, "No, I really want this to happen." Where do I say, "Ah, let's take it your direction." What do you find to be the key to really successful collaboration in telling stories?
Calissa: Genuine interest, and a bit of bravery, honestly. There have been times when I'm in the process of writing story or collaborating, like in D&D, with other people, you get to a point where there are risks. There's a point where you decide that to make the story work, something needs to happen. And there's a chance that it'll result in a difficult circumstance in the story for this character, or for the direction of the story as a whole. And you have to decide is the risk worth it? Will this conflict that gets introduced enrich the story, or is it just going to create more difficulty for everyone in moving the story forward as time continues? And overall, it's just having respect for the other people who are making the story and understanding that their perspective is valuable and their contributions are so necessary and making sure that everyone understands that no matter what, as long as the story itself continues in a way that everyone is satisfied with, even those moments of conflict and difficulty for the characters in the story in the moment can be overcome and can end up resulting in some of the most poignant and emotionally enriching moments of the entire thing.
Hannah: Awesome. I love that. Thank you. Cool. Well, with that being said, we're going to collaborate now together and get into our story. As a reminder, our plot is, "A police psychologist only has an hour to decide to fight back as an outlaw."
Jennie: There's so much not given to us here.
Hannah: I feel like this has to be a real time filmed-- maybe a short play. Because it's too short for a movie if it's an hour, unless you do a little bit before and after. But I feel like this has to be a real time tension where the audience can count down the time to see, have you decided to fight back as an outlaw or not? I feel like that real time element has to be part of this.
Calissa: You guys, this is really speaking to me because I am actually in school right now to be a psychologist.
Hannah: Really? Okay.
Calissa: And recently, we've covered three classes and all it was, was ethics. And what do you do when the people who are in charge are directly contradicting the oaths that you've taken to protect your clients to ensure fair treatment? What do you do? What can you do? Who can you turn to? So when I'm seeing this prompt, all I'm thinking is this person has been put in a position where the superiors are saying do this, but their knowledge of what is ethical and morally right, and the promises they've made, the oaths they've sworn are saying, don't do it. Don't do it.
Jennie: Yeah. Wow.
Hannah: Interesting. Okay. So what, maybe inspired from classes or from whatever, what kind of situation might that be for a police psychologist? What would people maybe be demanding that they do that they feel like they can't?
Jennie: Because if this character obviously has a strong, personal, moral code, if they're even considering fighting as an outlaw, really.
Calissa: And how old is this psychologist? Like have they been in the business for a long time. Is this a tough seasoned dude? Or is this someone who's just freshly graduated, this is their first position, and they're trying really hard to stick to the company line basically and build some experience? Are they motivated to have a good relationship with their bosses or are they at the end of their line and they're like, "I'm out of here in two more years. Doesn't matter to me if they're happy with what I decide."
Jennie: That's a very good question. Wow.
Hannah: I think I'm leaning toward it being an older, more experienced one, because I think there's more experiential weight to that for me, that they have worked so well, so successfully within the system for so many years. And so now when they may have to choose to step outside of it, it's not just them going against the training and the code that this is not new information. This is how they've been living.
Jennie: Right. So they'd be going against their own support of the system.
Hannah: Exactly. And so I think that's really interesting that what would push them to that point of saying, "I am not going to fight within the system. I'm going to step outside of it and fight the system itself."
Calissa: Yeah, that really works too, because the code of ethics gets updated every couple years. And there are more restrictions placed on what you can do and what you can say. And so if this seasoned psychologist, working with the police department someday gets an update like, "Hey, listen, check the code of ethics. There's something relevant to your job in there."
Jennie: Right. We don't do that anymore.
Calissa: Exactly. Like, "Hey, this thing that we've been doing for so long is now deemed ethically and morally reprehensible by the governing body of psychologists in America." And they're saying, "Don't do it anymore." But my chief, who I've worked with for 23 years, still wants me to do this thing we've been doing, because it's really important. There's something going down right now. We need the answers. But this tried and true technique is now no longer acceptable. So I got to figure something else out, or I got to just-
Jennie: Right. And not only not acceptable, but illegal. If he's going to fight back as an outlaw, you see, he's got to be breaking actual laws.
Calissa: That's right.
Jennie: So are we seeing the psychologist as a he then?
Hannah: I think at this point I am.
Jennie: Yeah, me too.
Hannah: I think I say that primarily because I'm just seeing him as Morgan Freeman's character from Seven, is who this is, this old, jaded police psychologist, I guess, is who I'm picturing in my mind. And I didn't realize that until you asked that question, that that's exactly what I'm seeing.
Jennie: Okay. Okay.
Hannah: I'm still intrigued by like, yeah, if he's fighting back, is he fighting back simply by refusing to abide by what his boss is telling him to do? Or is there some way in which he is trying to overthrow the system? Or has this been a scenario where maybe he's been maybe unhappy with the way that this particular precinct has been using him in ways that weren't specifically against the official ethical code, but stuff that like didn't sit well with him? And he's using this as an excuse to kind of undo everything somehow. Or, I don't know. Is he fighting the entire system or just this particular instance?
Calissa: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Okay. Guys. Think about it. So if we're imagining Morgan Freeman in this situation, he's an old black guy, and he's been in here for a long time. That means he started when racism was a much bigger issue and more blatant.
Hannah: More overt.
Calissa: Yeah. So it could be that when he started in his position as a police psychologist, he legally, and just for his own personal safety, was forced to toe the line and make decisions that he didn't agree with in order to keep his job at this police department. Over the years, they've gotten used to just saying, "Oh, you know what? We can get a confession. We'll send in this guy. He's the best. He'll do what we say, because he's never done anything else." But as he's getting older, as he's getting wiser, as he's getting more fed up, he's sort of biding his time waiting for that moment to break free. And this is it. This is the moment, and he makes his choice.
Hannah: Yeah. So he'll be on the back of all these little, not even violations, these little maybe violations of his conscience only. And that eventually, like this gives him a reason to fully go for it. But in his mind, it's still part of all the things that he's been asked to do over the years that have not set well with him.
Calissa: Yeah.
Jennie: Okay. So why only an hour? What's the deadline here from the beginning of realizing this is a decision he has to make to having to have made the decision? What is going on?
Calissa: Because the person he's interrogating is a whistleblower from his own department and internal investigations are coming. The press is waiting outside. They have the hour to figure this out.
Jennie: I like it.
Hannah: Okay. I like that. That there's somebody on the way. And you can play with that as well. You can play with the timing. Maybe there's a traffic accident and it buys them a couple more minutes or something.
Jennie: Oh, gosh.
Hannah: So he has an hour to decide. Surely that hours isn't just spent with him sitting and thinking and it's not just a video of him going-
Jennie: With him, like discussing, like he's interrogating this person, like you said, maybe a whistleblower. And really seeing his side of the story, this is a whistle that needs to be blown and he's got to decide, "Well, do I just interrogate the guy and keep things under wraps like I'm supposed to, or do I side with him and tell the press everything? And then you'd also have to discuss it with his superiors. Maybe he has a partner or a detective that he works with.
Hannah: Okay. So the decision comes out slowly, like he might not even start making that decision until halfway through until the half hour mark.
Jennie: Maybe, maybe.
Hannah: So it's just gathering the information and learning what's going on, what he's expected to do. I feel like I'm missing, I feel like this is one where I need to know the details of, I think what he's being asked to do, what is he being asked to do that would be unethical and possibly newly unethical?
Jennie: Is our title going to help with that or not yet?
Hannah: Let's find out. Almost certainly not because it doesn't help with anything ever.
Jennie: It's helped before. Come on.
Hannah: So our title is the name of an actual book. Our title is Horns, as in the horns of a creature or horns of a orchestra band.
Calissa: Oh, I know what it is.
Hannah: Oh, okay. What is it?
Calissa: I know what it is.
Jennie: Tell us the story. Tell us the story.
Hannah: Calissa sees it.
Calissa: This fresh young cop has just found out that the tenured police chief has been abusing his children.
Hannah: Oh gosh, whoa.
Calissa: And as a mandated reporter, this police psychologist, after he has heard the testimony, is required to report it to his superiors, but information got leaked. Now the press wants to know, is the police chief a wife beater, an abuser of children? Has he been breaking the law all these years? And why did no one blow this whistle? Why did no one know? And so now this Morgan Freeman character has to figure out how he's going to handle this while the environment changes around him from being his place of work, where others support him, into the enemy territory, as the observing cops, as his boss, are watching him interrogate. And it slowly changes from, I got to find the truth to, I got to make sure that we are not disappeared before this is over.
Jennie: That's sinister.
Hannah: So the title in this, the title of Horns refers to?
Calissa: Horns of the dilemma.
Hannah: Oh, of course.
Jennie: So we think the police chief is seriously dirty. Not only because he abuses his family, but because he exercises?
Calissa: Unlawful authority.
Jennie: Yes. Yes. Like, "Oh, just sweep that under the rug, it'll be fine. You'll get a bonus in your paycheck kind of thing." So he's been doing that in little ways in the department this whole time, but like not enough for any one person to really see it. But now that all this is coming out and they realize how much control he has over everybody's lives, like blackmail type stuff like, "Oh, too bad I won't have to tell your wife about that thing" or whatever.
Hannah: So the police psychologist, his dilemma is does he, the outlaw action would be sharing this information. Yes?
Calissa: Yes. The police chief wants him to certify this new, fresh cop as having PTSD from a recent, a robbery he was involved in as being an unreliable witness, as having psychosis, having mental issues that make him-
Jennie: So that you'll believe him.
Calissa: Exactly. He wants this young cop who found all the secrets to be ruled as inadmissible. Everything he says is unreliable. Prove to all of these reporters that they can't believe him. So now he is faced with, "Okay, do I support this dude who can wreck my life? Or am I going to make a stand?" After all of this time.
Hannah: I guess I don't understand yet how making a stand is illegal. Why would him speaking out and saying, "Hey, I've learned this about the police chief. And he's asking me to do this clearly unethical thing." I don't understand. I feel like I've lost that. Why is taking a stand illegal?
Jennie: Maybe not an outlaw, like in relation to written law, but an outlaw in relation to the department environment.
Hannah: On the wrong side of law enforcement.
Calissa: Exactly.
Jennie: And maybe there's even stuff that the police chief has over his head that he doesn't want to come out. And he has to decide whether or not to make that personal sacrifice for his own career and life in order for the truth to come out.
Hannah: I mean, if he's been doing this for years, the chief has a whole career of small ethical violations and illegal changes. So yeah, I like that as being an outlaw, not in the sense of actually breaking the law, but in the sense of putting himself at odds with everybody else and effectively ending any future he would have had with them. So maybe he needs to be not old Morgan Freeman, because we want to make sure he has something to lose. So maybe he's like mid tier. Maybe he's like mid career, maybe like on the verge of like a big step forward or something. He has plenty of corrupt career to draw on as well as something that he wants going forward. He can't just say, "Oh, that's fine. I'll do it and retire. And I'm good."
Jennie: Right. Yeah.
Calissa: Now that only makes it better if you rewind and put this even further back in time. Could you imagine how dangerous that would be?
Jennie: No kidding.
Hannah: Absolutely.
Calissa: Especially if it were set in like a more rural area.
Hannah: Maybe he's the only person, maybe he's the only non-white person working in law enforcement at all in that area.
Jennie: And the only reason he has a job, because he's not like an enforcing officer, but he's just a psychologist.
Hannah: Yeah.
Calissa: Exactly.
Jennie: That's probably why he has the position.
Hannah: Yeah. That would be interesting.
Jennie: And that explains why he keeps doing favors for the cops.
Hannah: Because he just doesn't feel like he has any other options. That is interesting. We are right at time at talking about this. Is there anything else that we want to make sure we touch on before we turn this over? I feel like there's a lot of the intrigue level details that can be fleshed out by somebody else, by somebody who chooses to write this.
Calissa: The rookie cop that blew the whistle is the police chief's son.
Hannah: I like this. I think that would be, especially if this is in a more rural area, you could play so much with the idea that everybody knows everybody. Like you work in those places and they have like these deep seated political personal relationships, just interwoven through everything.
Jennie: And everybody thinks they know everybody.
Hannah: Exactly. Yeah. No, I think that's fascinating. All right. Well, we are going to turn this over to you listeners to delve into this deeper, figure out what else we need to add. So yeah, send us your fan theories, send us your blurbs, send us your posters for the movie, whatever.
Jennie: Yeah.
Hannah: We would love to share any of the ideas that you come up with. All right, well before we close out today, we'll, as we always do, take a second each shou out a story we think our listeners should check out. I'm going to this time, go ahead and share the book I just finished reading last night. I finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.
Jennie: Ooh, I love that book.
Hannah: It's really charming. It's really fun. It's the story about magic coming back to England and these two magicians who have very different views of how to make that happen. And it's fascinatingly written. It's very much got kind of a classic Victorian prose style, which is really fun. And there's a mini series made of it, which I have not yet seen, but that's next on my list. So I highly recommend it. It was just a really solid, really entertaining read. So Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is my choice. Jennie, I'm going to toss it to you. What do you want to share?
Jennie: I'm going to share an old favorite of mine. It's The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt. Just a lovely little older children, young adults size type novel. And I'll read one of the reviews on the back. It says, "What is the definition of delicious? The king's all for apples, the queen favors Christmas pudding. And soon the entry in prime minister DeCree's dictionary is a bone of contention throughout the court. Alarmed, the king dispatches young Gaylen, DeCree's foster son and special assistant, to take a poll of the whole kingdom. In short order, the country is on the brink of civil war." So it's like the prime minister is trying to make this dictionary. And he says that delicious is one thing. And then the king disagrees and the queen disagrees. And so the whole country is in uproar over what the definition of delicious should be. And that's just the surface story. You start coming out with all these, I'm not going to spoil it, but it's lovely, lovely story. There's mystery, there's intrigue, there's the interpersonal relations. And then there's the whole idea of how people come together in a crisis. And it's just a delightful book to read. Very good for reading to children. And one of my favorites since I was a child. So I highly recommend it.
Hannah: Fantastic. All right, Calissa, go ahead and share. What is a story that you think more people should check out?
Calissa: I definitely recommend The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It was written in 1959 and it was named one of the best ghost stories written in the 20th century. And it's pretty short. It's a fast read, but there's a whole lot of psychological horror mixed in with the supernatural. And through the whole thing, you're just kind of wondering, "Okay, how much of this is going on in this woman's mind and how much is actually physically happening to her as she's trapped in this place with these people, trying to prove that ghosts don't exist?"
Jennie: Intriguing.
Calissa: No more spoilers for that. I'm just going to say it was one of the best ghost stories I've ever written.
Jennie: You wrote it?
Calissa: Oh, no, no, no. Sorry, cut that part.
Hannah: Surprise, celebrity guest everyone.
Calissa: It was one of the best ghost stories I've ever read. And I read that at least once a year because it's just so delightfully macabre and it never fails to give me chills. Highly recommend for anybody who likes to be just a little bit freaked out.
Jennie: Nice.
Hannah: Love it. All right. Calissa, is there anything that you would like to plug for yourself? Any social media or personal projects that you want guests or listeners to be able to find?
Calissa: Not for me, but everybody check out the other things on this podcast. They're definitely fun.
Hannah: Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us, Calissa. We're so glad you were able to your story to this. And I loved hearing, especially with a little bit more knowledge than we had, about psychology and the ethics involved. So that was super helpful. Thank you so much.
Calissa: Thanks for the invite. This was a lot of fun. Thanks.
Hannah: All right, folks, that is our episode. As a reminder, you can find us every other Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Jennie: Follow us on Twitter @writethispod and if you've been inspired by this episode and have questions or comments or a ghost story or anything else, email us at somebodywritethis@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.
Hannah: We will be back with another episode in two weeks. See you then.
Jennie: And as they say, do good and don't look back.
Hannah: A police psychologist only has an hour to decide to fight back as an outlaw.
Jennie: Somebody write this.
Hannah: Hi and welcome to Somebody Write This where we use a random plot generator to give us an idea and then we brainstorm how that could be a thing somebody might want to write. I'm Hannah.
Jennie: And I'm Jennie. And to help us with our brainstorming today, we have a guest. Welcome Calissa Wall.
Calissa: Hey you all.
Hannah: Hi. I'm so glad you were able to join us. We had one of our other guests unable to join us at the very last minute. And so I'm very happy that you were available and willing to jump on. So thank you so much for that.
Calissa: Oh, it's no problem. Jennie's awesome. I knew anything she was involved in had to be good. There you go.
Hannah: Fantastic. So as we were talking a little bit in preparation for this, you talked about wanting to, in our little interview portion, to talk about how storytelling has connected you with people. A lot of times people think about writers as being sort of this solo loner, locking themselves in a cabin to finish their great work. But I love the idea of collective or collaborative storytelling. So tell us a little bit about your experiences with that. How has storytelling connected you to people?
Calissa: So for me, storytelling has never really been a solitary activity. From the time that I was just a little kid, our dad would sit in the hallway next to our bedrooms and he would read aloud from his favorite books. I remember the Hobbit, Harry Potter, all kinds of different stories. And he'd just sit there and read a chapter every night.
Hannah: Awesome.
Calissa: Yeah. And then as we grew older, I'd sit down with my sisters and we'd just sit and each write a little piece of the story. And of course our stories were a little bit, well, we were 10 and 11 at the time. They went off the rails pretty fast, but we still have those stories and we go back to them and say, "Hey, remember when we made that story about the squirrel who was a biker and ended up blowing up a tree. That was cool, wasn't it?" Yeah. Wow. We were so strange. We haven't really changed, but that was fun.
Jennie: It sounds like childhood Calissa would have gotten along with childhood Hannah.
Hannah: I think. This whole podcast is based on similar kind of silly writing exercises I did with my sisters.
Calissa: Those are some of the best memories I have from my childhood, just sitting down and making stories with my sisters. And it wasn't only the traditional type of storytelling. It was also making songs and the songs would have stories in them or playing with toys outside. We lived right next to the woods, so that was kind of fun. And just using props and things to tell the stories or just all of those other kinds of things, even creating movies. So storytelling is not confined strictly to either writing a thing or creating a screenplay, that kind of thing. There's so many different mediums and each and every one has had an impact on how I relate to other people and how other people have related to me.
Jennie: Yeah. Even now, you guys might remember an episode or two ago, I shouted out my Dungeons and Dragons group. And that's actually how I know Calissa. She's from my Alinor group and we have a great time storytelling together, playing that game.
Calissa: Absolutely, we do. Yeah, and D&D itself, that was kind of a funny story. I don't know if I ever told you about that, Jennie?
Jennie: I don't think I know how you joined the group. No, just "Hey, a new person is joining us" and we said "Okay."
Calissa: It's hilarious. Let me explain.
Hannah: Yes.
Calissa: Okay. All right. Before I got back from my first time at college, I had heard about D&D and what I'd heard was it's a game for geeks and nerds. The cool people don't play that game. It's so weird. And I was like, "Well, okay, I don't want to be a geek or a nerd. I'll never play that." Then my little sister said, "Hey, Calissa, you know how I've been writing six boys on their mission for the church and how they all write back to me and like me a whole lot. Well, I've been cultivating a harem for you. One of them is coming back."
Jennie: What?
Calissa: I know I was surprised too. Like Kaylen, you know me, you shouldn't be doing that. But she's like, "Calissa, come on, give it a shot. There's this one guy. He's coming back. I really like him, so you should date him." So he gets back and I'm like, "Well, this guy is kind of cool." And as I'm trying my best to seem in return, cool and not a nerd, not a geek, someone at church is like, "Hey, we've got a D&D group, you want to join?" to the boy. He's like, "Yes, that sounds so fun. I love D&D." I'm like, "Well, I love it too. Let's go." And so we go, and by the end of the first night I was hooked, I was hooked so hard. The storytelling was so engaging. The interactions were so intense and emotional. And that guy left the group after a couple of weeks and I was just like, "Bye Felicia, this is more fun." So my sisters' cultivated hopeful date for me was my gateway into D&D, as a medium.
Jennie: That's awesome. That's a great story.
Hannah: I have one more question for you before we move on to our brainstorming. Whether it's D&D or writing stories with a family member or whatever it is, what do you find to be the key in successful collaborative storytelling? I know even in this podcast, sometimes when we have three different voices going, it's hard to figure out where should I push for, "No, I really want this to happen." Where do I say, "Ah, let's take it your direction." What do you find to be the key to really successful collaboration in telling stories?
Calissa: Genuine interest, and a bit of bravery, honestly. There have been times when I'm in the process of writing story or collaborating, like in D&D, with other people, you get to a point where there are risks. There's a point where you decide that to make the story work, something needs to happen. And there's a chance that it'll result in a difficult circumstance in the story for this character, or for the direction of the story as a whole. And you have to decide is the risk worth it? Will this conflict that gets introduced enrich the story, or is it just going to create more difficulty for everyone in moving the story forward as time continues? And overall, it's just having respect for the other people who are making the story and understanding that their perspective is valuable and their contributions are so necessary and making sure that everyone understands that no matter what, as long as the story itself continues in a way that everyone is satisfied with, even those moments of conflict and difficulty for the characters in the story in the moment can be overcome and can end up resulting in some of the most poignant and emotionally enriching moments of the entire thing.
Hannah: Awesome. I love that. Thank you. Cool. Well, with that being said, we're going to collaborate now together and get into our story. As a reminder, our plot is, "A police psychologist only has an hour to decide to fight back as an outlaw."
Jennie: There's so much not given to us here.
Hannah: I feel like this has to be a real time filmed-- maybe a short play. Because it's too short for a movie if it's an hour, unless you do a little bit before and after. But I feel like this has to be a real time tension where the audience can count down the time to see, have you decided to fight back as an outlaw or not? I feel like that real time element has to be part of this.
Calissa: You guys, this is really speaking to me because I am actually in school right now to be a psychologist.
Hannah: Really? Okay.
Calissa: And recently, we've covered three classes and all it was, was ethics. And what do you do when the people who are in charge are directly contradicting the oaths that you've taken to protect your clients to ensure fair treatment? What do you do? What can you do? Who can you turn to? So when I'm seeing this prompt, all I'm thinking is this person has been put in a position where the superiors are saying do this, but their knowledge of what is ethical and morally right, and the promises they've made, the oaths they've sworn are saying, don't do it. Don't do it.
Jennie: Yeah. Wow.
Hannah: Interesting. Okay. So what, maybe inspired from classes or from whatever, what kind of situation might that be for a police psychologist? What would people maybe be demanding that they do that they feel like they can't?
Jennie: Because if this character obviously has a strong, personal, moral code, if they're even considering fighting as an outlaw, really.
Calissa: And how old is this psychologist? Like have they been in the business for a long time. Is this a tough seasoned dude? Or is this someone who's just freshly graduated, this is their first position, and they're trying really hard to stick to the company line basically and build some experience? Are they motivated to have a good relationship with their bosses or are they at the end of their line and they're like, "I'm out of here in two more years. Doesn't matter to me if they're happy with what I decide."
Jennie: That's a very good question. Wow.
Hannah: I think I'm leaning toward it being an older, more experienced one, because I think there's more experiential weight to that for me, that they have worked so well, so successfully within the system for so many years. And so now when they may have to choose to step outside of it, it's not just them going against the training and the code that this is not new information. This is how they've been living.
Jennie: Right. So they'd be going against their own support of the system.
Hannah: Exactly. And so I think that's really interesting that what would push them to that point of saying, "I am not going to fight within the system. I'm going to step outside of it and fight the system itself."
Calissa: Yeah, that really works too, because the code of ethics gets updated every couple years. And there are more restrictions placed on what you can do and what you can say. And so if this seasoned psychologist, working with the police department someday gets an update like, "Hey, listen, check the code of ethics. There's something relevant to your job in there."
Jennie: Right. We don't do that anymore.
Calissa: Exactly. Like, "Hey, this thing that we've been doing for so long is now deemed ethically and morally reprehensible by the governing body of psychologists in America." And they're saying, "Don't do it anymore." But my chief, who I've worked with for 23 years, still wants me to do this thing we've been doing, because it's really important. There's something going down right now. We need the answers. But this tried and true technique is now no longer acceptable. So I got to figure something else out, or I got to just-
Jennie: Right. And not only not acceptable, but illegal. If he's going to fight back as an outlaw, you see, he's got to be breaking actual laws.
Calissa: That's right.
Jennie: So are we seeing the psychologist as a he then?
Hannah: I think at this point I am.
Jennie: Yeah, me too.
Hannah: I think I say that primarily because I'm just seeing him as Morgan Freeman's character from Seven, is who this is, this old, jaded police psychologist, I guess, is who I'm picturing in my mind. And I didn't realize that until you asked that question, that that's exactly what I'm seeing.
Jennie: Okay. Okay.
Hannah: I'm still intrigued by like, yeah, if he's fighting back, is he fighting back simply by refusing to abide by what his boss is telling him to do? Or is there some way in which he is trying to overthrow the system? Or has this been a scenario where maybe he's been maybe unhappy with the way that this particular precinct has been using him in ways that weren't specifically against the official ethical code, but stuff that like didn't sit well with him? And he's using this as an excuse to kind of undo everything somehow. Or, I don't know. Is he fighting the entire system or just this particular instance?
Calissa: Oh my goodness. Yeah. Okay. Guys. Think about it. So if we're imagining Morgan Freeman in this situation, he's an old black guy, and he's been in here for a long time. That means he started when racism was a much bigger issue and more blatant.
Hannah: More overt.
Calissa: Yeah. So it could be that when he started in his position as a police psychologist, he legally, and just for his own personal safety, was forced to toe the line and make decisions that he didn't agree with in order to keep his job at this police department. Over the years, they've gotten used to just saying, "Oh, you know what? We can get a confession. We'll send in this guy. He's the best. He'll do what we say, because he's never done anything else." But as he's getting older, as he's getting wiser, as he's getting more fed up, he's sort of biding his time waiting for that moment to break free. And this is it. This is the moment, and he makes his choice.
Hannah: Yeah. So he'll be on the back of all these little, not even violations, these little maybe violations of his conscience only. And that eventually, like this gives him a reason to fully go for it. But in his mind, it's still part of all the things that he's been asked to do over the years that have not set well with him.
Calissa: Yeah.
Jennie: Okay. So why only an hour? What's the deadline here from the beginning of realizing this is a decision he has to make to having to have made the decision? What is going on?
Calissa: Because the person he's interrogating is a whistleblower from his own department and internal investigations are coming. The press is waiting outside. They have the hour to figure this out.
Jennie: I like it.
Hannah: Okay. I like that. That there's somebody on the way. And you can play with that as well. You can play with the timing. Maybe there's a traffic accident and it buys them a couple more minutes or something.
Jennie: Oh, gosh.
Hannah: So he has an hour to decide. Surely that hours isn't just spent with him sitting and thinking and it's not just a video of him going-
Jennie: With him, like discussing, like he's interrogating this person, like you said, maybe a whistleblower. And really seeing his side of the story, this is a whistle that needs to be blown and he's got to decide, "Well, do I just interrogate the guy and keep things under wraps like I'm supposed to, or do I side with him and tell the press everything? And then you'd also have to discuss it with his superiors. Maybe he has a partner or a detective that he works with.
Hannah: Okay. So the decision comes out slowly, like he might not even start making that decision until halfway through until the half hour mark.
Jennie: Maybe, maybe.
Hannah: So it's just gathering the information and learning what's going on, what he's expected to do. I feel like I'm missing, I feel like this is one where I need to know the details of, I think what he's being asked to do, what is he being asked to do that would be unethical and possibly newly unethical?
Jennie: Is our title going to help with that or not yet?
Hannah: Let's find out. Almost certainly not because it doesn't help with anything ever.
Jennie: It's helped before. Come on.
Hannah: So our title is the name of an actual book. Our title is Horns, as in the horns of a creature or horns of a orchestra band.
Calissa: Oh, I know what it is.
Hannah: Oh, okay. What is it?
Calissa: I know what it is.
Jennie: Tell us the story. Tell us the story.
Hannah: Calissa sees it.
Calissa: This fresh young cop has just found out that the tenured police chief has been abusing his children.
Hannah: Oh gosh, whoa.
Calissa: And as a mandated reporter, this police psychologist, after he has heard the testimony, is required to report it to his superiors, but information got leaked. Now the press wants to know, is the police chief a wife beater, an abuser of children? Has he been breaking the law all these years? And why did no one blow this whistle? Why did no one know? And so now this Morgan Freeman character has to figure out how he's going to handle this while the environment changes around him from being his place of work, where others support him, into the enemy territory, as the observing cops, as his boss, are watching him interrogate. And it slowly changes from, I got to find the truth to, I got to make sure that we are not disappeared before this is over.
Jennie: That's sinister.
Hannah: So the title in this, the title of Horns refers to?
Calissa: Horns of the dilemma.
Hannah: Oh, of course.
Jennie: So we think the police chief is seriously dirty. Not only because he abuses his family, but because he exercises?
Calissa: Unlawful authority.
Jennie: Yes. Yes. Like, "Oh, just sweep that under the rug, it'll be fine. You'll get a bonus in your paycheck kind of thing." So he's been doing that in little ways in the department this whole time, but like not enough for any one person to really see it. But now that all this is coming out and they realize how much control he has over everybody's lives, like blackmail type stuff like, "Oh, too bad I won't have to tell your wife about that thing" or whatever.
Hannah: So the police psychologist, his dilemma is does he, the outlaw action would be sharing this information. Yes?
Calissa: Yes. The police chief wants him to certify this new, fresh cop as having PTSD from a recent, a robbery he was involved in as being an unreliable witness, as having psychosis, having mental issues that make him-
Jennie: So that you'll believe him.
Calissa: Exactly. He wants this young cop who found all the secrets to be ruled as inadmissible. Everything he says is unreliable. Prove to all of these reporters that they can't believe him. So now he is faced with, "Okay, do I support this dude who can wreck my life? Or am I going to make a stand?" After all of this time.
Hannah: I guess I don't understand yet how making a stand is illegal. Why would him speaking out and saying, "Hey, I've learned this about the police chief. And he's asking me to do this clearly unethical thing." I don't understand. I feel like I've lost that. Why is taking a stand illegal?
Jennie: Maybe not an outlaw, like in relation to written law, but an outlaw in relation to the department environment.
Hannah: On the wrong side of law enforcement.
Calissa: Exactly.
Jennie: And maybe there's even stuff that the police chief has over his head that he doesn't want to come out. And he has to decide whether or not to make that personal sacrifice for his own career and life in order for the truth to come out.
Hannah: I mean, if he's been doing this for years, the chief has a whole career of small ethical violations and illegal changes. So yeah, I like that as being an outlaw, not in the sense of actually breaking the law, but in the sense of putting himself at odds with everybody else and effectively ending any future he would have had with them. So maybe he needs to be not old Morgan Freeman, because we want to make sure he has something to lose. So maybe he's like mid tier. Maybe he's like mid career, maybe like on the verge of like a big step forward or something. He has plenty of corrupt career to draw on as well as something that he wants going forward. He can't just say, "Oh, that's fine. I'll do it and retire. And I'm good."
Jennie: Right. Yeah.
Calissa: Now that only makes it better if you rewind and put this even further back in time. Could you imagine how dangerous that would be?
Jennie: No kidding.
Hannah: Absolutely.
Calissa: Especially if it were set in like a more rural area.
Hannah: Maybe he's the only person, maybe he's the only non-white person working in law enforcement at all in that area.
Jennie: And the only reason he has a job, because he's not like an enforcing officer, but he's just a psychologist.
Hannah: Yeah.
Calissa: Exactly.
Jennie: That's probably why he has the position.
Hannah: Yeah. That would be interesting.
Jennie: And that explains why he keeps doing favors for the cops.
Hannah: Because he just doesn't feel like he has any other options. That is interesting. We are right at time at talking about this. Is there anything else that we want to make sure we touch on before we turn this over? I feel like there's a lot of the intrigue level details that can be fleshed out by somebody else, by somebody who chooses to write this.
Calissa: The rookie cop that blew the whistle is the police chief's son.
Hannah: I like this. I think that would be, especially if this is in a more rural area, you could play so much with the idea that everybody knows everybody. Like you work in those places and they have like these deep seated political personal relationships, just interwoven through everything.
Jennie: And everybody thinks they know everybody.
Hannah: Exactly. Yeah. No, I think that's fascinating. All right. Well, we are going to turn this over to you listeners to delve into this deeper, figure out what else we need to add. So yeah, send us your fan theories, send us your blurbs, send us your posters for the movie, whatever.
Jennie: Yeah.
Hannah: We would love to share any of the ideas that you come up with. All right, well before we close out today, we'll, as we always do, take a second each shou out a story we think our listeners should check out. I'm going to this time, go ahead and share the book I just finished reading last night. I finished reading Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.
Jennie: Ooh, I love that book.
Hannah: It's really charming. It's really fun. It's the story about magic coming back to England and these two magicians who have very different views of how to make that happen. And it's fascinatingly written. It's very much got kind of a classic Victorian prose style, which is really fun. And there's a mini series made of it, which I have not yet seen, but that's next on my list. So I highly recommend it. It was just a really solid, really entertaining read. So Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is my choice. Jennie, I'm going to toss it to you. What do you want to share?
Jennie: I'm going to share an old favorite of mine. It's The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt. Just a lovely little older children, young adults size type novel. And I'll read one of the reviews on the back. It says, "What is the definition of delicious? The king's all for apples, the queen favors Christmas pudding. And soon the entry in prime minister DeCree's dictionary is a bone of contention throughout the court. Alarmed, the king dispatches young Gaylen, DeCree's foster son and special assistant, to take a poll of the whole kingdom. In short order, the country is on the brink of civil war." So it's like the prime minister is trying to make this dictionary. And he says that delicious is one thing. And then the king disagrees and the queen disagrees. And so the whole country is in uproar over what the definition of delicious should be. And that's just the surface story. You start coming out with all these, I'm not going to spoil it, but it's lovely, lovely story. There's mystery, there's intrigue, there's the interpersonal relations. And then there's the whole idea of how people come together in a crisis. And it's just a delightful book to read. Very good for reading to children. And one of my favorites since I was a child. So I highly recommend it.
Hannah: Fantastic. All right, Calissa, go ahead and share. What is a story that you think more people should check out?
Calissa: I definitely recommend The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. It was written in 1959 and it was named one of the best ghost stories written in the 20th century. And it's pretty short. It's a fast read, but there's a whole lot of psychological horror mixed in with the supernatural. And through the whole thing, you're just kind of wondering, "Okay, how much of this is going on in this woman's mind and how much is actually physically happening to her as she's trapped in this place with these people, trying to prove that ghosts don't exist?"
Jennie: Intriguing.
Calissa: No more spoilers for that. I'm just going to say it was one of the best ghost stories I've ever written.
Jennie: You wrote it?
Calissa: Oh, no, no, no. Sorry, cut that part.
Hannah: Surprise, celebrity guest everyone.
Calissa: It was one of the best ghost stories I've ever read. And I read that at least once a year because it's just so delightfully macabre and it never fails to give me chills. Highly recommend for anybody who likes to be just a little bit freaked out.
Jennie: Nice.
Hannah: Love it. All right. Calissa, is there anything that you would like to plug for yourself? Any social media or personal projects that you want guests or listeners to be able to find?
Calissa: Not for me, but everybody check out the other things on this podcast. They're definitely fun.
Hannah: Yeah. Thank you so much for joining us, Calissa. We're so glad you were able to your story to this. And I loved hearing, especially with a little bit more knowledge than we had, about psychology and the ethics involved. So that was super helpful. Thank you so much.
Calissa: Thanks for the invite. This was a lot of fun. Thanks.
Hannah: All right, folks, that is our episode. As a reminder, you can find us every other Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Jennie: Follow us on Twitter @writethispod and if you've been inspired by this episode and have questions or comments or a ghost story or anything else, email us at somebodywritethis@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.
Hannah: We will be back with another episode in two weeks. See you then.
Jennie: And as they say, do good and don't look back.
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