Meet an Unusually Brave Mouse (Episode 18) Transcript

Catching up on transcripts! Only seven more to go! The audio version of this episode can be found here.

Hannah: A nightmarish hippie cult is on trial for retiring in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Jennie: Somebody write this!

H: 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 to help us with our brainstorming today, we have a guest. Welcome, Bethany Megill!

Bethany: Hi, everybody!

H: Hey! You are the second of my sisters that we've had on the podcast, of my many sisters, so I'm glad to have you here, because you were one of the ones who did this experiment with me way back when we were writing it on notebooks. Actually, before we get into our actual question, I want to ask you the same question I asked Rebekah when she was on. Do you remember any of the stories you wrote when we did this game when you were younger?

Bethany: You know, I knew you were going to ask that question, and I was even thinking if I had time I was going to go run and see if I could find any of the old notebooks and rummage through them. But the one I remember most distinctly might have been the same one that Bekah shared, but I don't remember. It was the one about the scarecrows that you wrote. I think that was yours.

H: That was mine. Yeah, the scarecrow one was intense. If you want to go back and listen to that one, folks, that was in episode two, and I talked about the scarecrow story I wrote. It was an intense one. All right, so what I actually want to talk to you about, Bethany, is you've been doing sort of a book challenge where you've been sourcing your book suggestions from other people. So talk to me a little bit about what you did -- and I think this is your second one, so maybe why you did this, how you did this, why you made the decision to do it this way. Tell our listeners what you've been doing with that.

Bethany: Sure. I've always been a big reader, and a couple years ago-- The challenge, getting things from people, I had two reasons for that. One is because I did a book challenge that I saw some of my library friends post about. It was an article that said, "Hey, read a book of these kinds. Read a book that's intimidating, and read a book that you were supposed to have read in school, and reread one." It was a fun challenge, and I was like, "Hey, I like reading. I'll go ahead and give that a go." And that was fun to do because I realized for years I've kind of had the same niche of genres that I read. I tend to read a lot of Christian fiction, a lot of young adult dystopian books, and a lot of classics -- Jane Austen, that kind of thing. So I was just kind of ready to get out of those exact genres, because I know there are lots more books to read, and lots of them are great. So I just kind of wanted to get new ideas from people on Facebook as a way to make it social, you know, connecting with people over their choices, and actually reading their books and then giving them a review back. So I think it was a year or two ago when I listed five categories. I'm trying to remember what they are, but it's an unusual book, something modern fiction, something non-fiction -- because that's something that I don't read at all -- a book by a famous author who's not famous for that book, and I think I might have just said "your pick" for the other one. I can't remember what the other one is. But anyway, I took five suggestions from everybody who wanted to contribute, and I've been reading through those in groups of five, one from each category, and then I will blog about my review of those. I'm about 3/5 of the way through. The last section I read through -- almost all of those books of the five, those were all ones where I made the comment somewhere in there that I probably wouldn't have finished it if I had picked it up on my own, because one of them had lots of crudity in it and vulgarity, and another one was-- Just lost of them were not my style initially. But it was really interesting to be able to get through those. It's a book challenge because it was challenging. I had to get into these stories that I wouldn't normally read that are very different than my typical taste. It was really nice to get to know some different characters. Like the one that had-- It was so much vulgarity, and one of the characters, the main guy, I really really liked him. I rooted for him the whole way. So it was worth it. The last bit was a little tougher than before, but I'm definitely glad that I'm doing it and being able to talk to people about their book choices and why they like them and that kind of thing. So it's been fun.

H: You shared a little bit of this, but what are maybe one or two other books that you would never have picked up on your own that you ended up enjoying or getting something out of?

Bethany: Like from this challenge specifically?

H: Yeah, from this challenge specifically.

Bethany: The one that I specifically mentioned-- I'm trying to remember the title of the book, because the title sounds like the author. There's an author name and then there's the title, which is the name of a character, and I forget which is which. I think it's Tietem Brown by Mick Foley. It's the one that-- His father character is a horrible person, and he has a very raunchy mouth, but the main kid, he's surrounded by all these horrible people and he's lived through these abusive situations all of his life, and he is such a likable character. He's looking for the good in people around him and every time he finds someone he can tell has good character, he clings to that, and I just remember really liking him as a person. So I was really glad that I got through that just to know him as a character.

H: Is there anything that this challenge has inspired you to seek out more of in your books? Like a genre that you realized you maybe like more than you thought or a style of writing that you think, "Oh, this is new to me but I want to check out more of it"? How do you think this might change future reading choices?

Bethany: I don't know if I could pick a specific genre yet that I'm like, "Ooh, I'm going to check that out," because I think so far it's been varied enough that I can't necessarily pinpoint genres. I definitely like reading young adult stuff but I probably should get into more-- I've been getting into more adult fiction through this. Oh, one author that I read in the first bit. I read a book by Sarah Dessen. She does young adult, but hers are very realistic teenage fiction. I've been really getting into her books. The one I read by her, Just Listen, was the first I'd read of hers. She just has-- I think she has creative characters and she tells everything realistically in a way that feels very natural. So I've read like five of her books since then, so I like her. And I think I will definitely keep doing the challenge again. I like being able to interact with people on my Facebook and making it something to connect with people over. I like having a challenge to complete.

H: Awesome. We got a little bit of a glimpse into who you are as a reader and a storyteller, and that will give us an interesting perspective going on into our actual brainstorming, which we will jump into now. So, as a reminder, our synopsis is "A nightmarish hippie cult is on trial for retiring in post-Katrina New Orleans." This is intriguing because...

Jennie: For many reasons.

H: So many reasons! What is this cult? How does this affect post-Katrina New Orleans, where everything is kind of a mess and there's a lot of clean-up and infrastructure happening and a lot of unrest? Mostly-- I guess the biggest question to start with is, why does retiring get them in trouble with the law? Does retiring have a different meaning in their cult? I don't know.

Jennie: And the whole cult is apparently on trial, not just, say, the leaders.

H: Right. Is there like a retirement ritual that involves them doing something terrible?

Bethany: I mean, I feel like-- Maybe I'm making it up, but I feel like in spy stories, "retiring" is like when you go and kill someone.

H: It's when you are killed, yeah.

Bethany: So like if you go and "retire" other people.

H: Oh, so maybe they're just murdering.

Bethany: I don't know if it means they're retiring from being a cult or if they're going around retiring other people, and that's why they're so nightmarish. 

Jennie: That would make them nightmarish, yes.

H: That would. Although not particularly hippie.

Jennie: Right.

H: Which tends to lay more pacifist.

Jennie: Like I was thinking "nightmarish hippie cult," just that phrase by itself, and I kind of got like... The 'Burbs meets Woodstock vibe. So they're weird, like Addams Family, they're nightmarish, but they're nice people.

H: Well, I guess the question right now is, were they nightmarish before they retired, or are they retiring their hippie ways and becoming violent and becoming nightmarish? Because you would think that nightmarishness retiring would be good.

Jennie: Yes.

H: So that's what I'm wondering. Maybe they always had this potential but they've decided to step back from maybe previous cult teachings.

Jennie: I'm so confused! What's confusing is the group dynamic, the fact that the whole group-- Because if you have a cult, you have to assume there's people of all ages in there.

H: Well, how big is it? This could be a cult of like seven people.

Jennie: I guess that's true.

H: And so it could be a group-- maybe just a tight-knit group of 8-10 people.

Jennie: And they just choose New Orleans?

H: This is where my mind is heading, and it can be re-moved wherever, but I think bringing in this post-Katrina New Orleans thing is interesting as well, because this is a time where there was a lot of demand for people to step up in supporting things and in providing better funding for rebuilding and that kind of thing, so I'm wondering... I'm leaning toward this, that they have this, "We bring peace to the world through being peaceful ourselves." And then they see their community torn apart and nobody's doing anything about it, and so they "retire" their original peaceful plans, and maybe they start violently protesting, or maybe they start taking down people who they see as hindering the reconstruction of the state. Maybe they completely lose their minds and go after somebody who really has no connection to this. Maybe they decide-- Maybe their beliefs make them think that somebody in particular controls the weather or something. Maybe they get stuck on some weird conspiracy where they think that this has been specifically targeted to them and they go after them. So I don't know. That's kind of where I'm leaning. So you bring in the chaotic scene of post-Katrina New Orleans and you bring in this hippie cult dynamic, and you bring in the retiring being illegal in some way.

Jennie: Okay, so in your scenario, the cult was already based in New Orleans.

H: I think so. I think so.

Jennie: Because I was leaning a different way.

H: Like they go down there to retire?

Jennie: Well, that's what I was saying, because it's a cult--

H: That's their vacation home?

Jennie: Well, no, no, no, no. You can give them all kinds of-- We don't know what their beliefs are. We could put anything in there. So what if they're retiring in the sense of-- Whatever the cult was about, wherever they were based before, it's time-- not necessarily retiring as in they're not going to do it anymore, but like a major change in what they do. And part of that involves post-Katrina New Orleans has been devastated. I'm thinking immediately post-Katrina.

Bethany: Like day after?

Jennie: I'm thinking stuff has been destroyed and washed out--

H: Like within days.

Jennie: And they come and take over like a city block or something--

H: Oh!

Jennie: Like, it's all broken, nobody needs it anymore-- right?

H: They move into the mess and decide to-- Maybe they think of it as retiring from their layperson lives and stepping up into the leadership of bringing this.

Jennie: Maybe like Katrina was the sign they were waiting for, and this is where you will build the new kingdom.

H: I like that. What do you think, Bethany?

Bethany: That's interesting.

Jennie: (laughing) Thanks!

Bethany: Yeah, that puts a different fun twist on it. The one thing that's running through my head is you could have them being on trial by the legal courts, but if it's a big enough cult-- and it's hard to do this because it says that the whole cult is on trial-- but if somehow you have it-- you could possibly have it so that these people are out of line from the cult by retiring, and the cult leaders, if it's big enough, they're putting them on trial through their weird cultish ritual of--

H: Interesting.

Jennie: Like "You're not allowed to retire from the cult."

Bethany: Yes, like either they're acting out by being less hippie-ish or by taking-- I don't know

Jennie: Ooh, maybe they were supposed to do what I said, like "It's been destroyed, go and build a new..." Like we're branching out.

H: Build our new utopia, yeah.

Jennie: Right. And so there'll be two of us or more, we don't know how many they already have. So they're just a branch of the cult, and because they get there and decide, instead of taking over, maybe they're going to help or something, "now's our chance to leave the cult," and now the actual cult is after them.

Bethany: Yes.

H: You could do some interesting stuff with playing with perspective there and starting with-- If they're former cult members, maybe a lot of the cult rituals and language is still part of them, so as we first meet them they seem like they are the nightmarish hippie cult, like they are the bad guys, and it seems like the folks who are putting them on trial, who are sentencing them, are the "normal ones," the ones like us. And then it becomes clearer as we go on that our sympathies are supposed to lie in the other direction, and that might be really interesting, playing with how that looks. I do have to pause, because we have a title, and I don't know what to do with it.

Jennie: Oh good.

H: Because this sounds like a children's book now. Our title is "Meet an Unusually Brave Mouse." (laughter) Which is clearly a children's book about a mouse who was brave and teaches children how to brave, and that does not jive well with a nightmare hippie cult.

Jennie: It doesn't.

Bethany: Okay, okay, hold on. I've got--

Jennie: Go, Bethany, go!

Bethany: It might not make any sense. The way that makes it work for me is if the people who are on trial are the protagonists and they go down there as their cult tribe or whatever to take over New Orleans, and then they end up seeing that they're not supposed to do it, whatever, and they end up retiring their evil ways, I guess, and then they're on trial. The main leader of it could be-- They all have nicknames in cults. She could be called Mouse or her name means "mouse" or something.

Jennie: Or maybe the title mouse, like there's different levels of authority.

Bethany: Right, and maybe she has some kind of personality that's unlikely to be the rebel of the group but she ends up taking-- and she ends up kind of leading a bunch of that. Then you could call it that. It's just kind of a weird title.

Jennie: I mean, that makes sense, because hippies have nature names anyway. You can have Violet and Feather and Mouse.

H: I was on the same wavelength, of trying to think of it as something to do with their cult language and the dialogue that they use. I wondered-- and this doesn't necessarily have to go against that-- I wondered as well if it was like a phrase that they used, and it meant somebody who had no power standing up to those in power, kind of thing.

Jennie: "Well, that's an unusually brave mouse."

H: Yes, and so at first their initial goal was for them to be the unusually brave mice standing up against the terror of the world that they were trying to turn upside down, and now maybe it's this offshoot that is trying to stand up against the cult who is doing what they're not supposed to do. I don't think that those have to be incompatible. Maybe their cult is modeled after mice. Maybe the mouse is an important symbol to them, as a symbol of something very small that can cause big reactions or something.

Jennie: Strength in numbers and that kind of thing.

Bethany: I like the idea of-- Say that there's, I don't know, a growing-up ritual or an initiation ritual when you officially become part of the tribe, and they give you your nickname or your title or your adjective or something, and so they would say something along the lines of, once the main chick was presented, they would say, "Meet an Unusually Brave Mouse." And that's how they welcome her. But maybe that's not who she is, that's who she becomes. I don't know. You could have it be a different name and adjective at the beginning and then change it as she grows.

Jennie: This is fascinating.

H: I think that could be really interesting.

Bethany: Something along those lines.

H:  Yeah, no, I like that. I love the idea of it being a ritual phrase of some sort, and I love this "Today we meet an unusually brave mouse" and they bring the next graduate forward or whatever, and then it becomes something that this off-shoot can kind of reclaim in their stance against this group that they are now realizing does not have-- I don't know, maybe good intentions.

Jennie: Symbolic of their rebellion.

H: Yeah. And trying to stand up for themselves despite being very much in the minority and seemingly without power.

Jennie: Because they'd be fighting both the city and the mother cult.

H: Yeah, yeah.

Jennie: Oh wow.

H: And I like how re-positioning it to be about the ex-cult people trying to fight the people, that puts the emphasis back on the trial, because originally when we were looking at it, the focus was on what the retiring did, but I like that this can make the trial the centerpiece of it, that they are being accused and being condemned for what they're doing as they're trying to either change people's minds or bring in somebody who can kick this group out.

Jennie: And I love the element here of the personal struggle involved, whoever we decide our protagonist is, because it's a person who obviously has these beliefs or they wouldn't be in the cult, they wouldn't go on the mission to New Orleans to take it over, and then to decide what they believe versus what they don't and what they choose to do about that.

H: Yeah, it might even be interesting for one of the folks to do this-- Okay, so say this cult wasn't originally based in New Orleans, they were based elsewhere and then moved to New Orleans, partly to take advantage of the fact that it was in a state of unrest, to set up their new dominion, whatever it might be.

Jennie: People are lost and confused, "Come join us!"

H: Exactly. So maybe one of the people was originally from New Orleans, and this is her home, and the way that they're talking about it, that they're talking about the people there, maybe that kind of prompts her-- I'm going to say "her," because we haven't had nearly enough female characters in our stories yet-- that that is what prompts her to step away from it, that seeing her own home and the people that she lived with portrayed a certain way by the cult or spoken of as if they are just there to be fodder for the cult's dream, that's what pushes her out. And so you could have this very deep connection for her, this cultural connection for her, and then the warped view of it that the cult has, and seeing those two shakes her out.

Jennie: And vice versa, you could have somebody who maybe was raised in the cult come to New Orleans and meet the first gal and see the warped vision of what her cult looks like to the people of New Orleans. And so this cross of viewpoints would be fascinating to explore.

Bethany: Yeah, I like that.

H: We are right at time to wrap this up, but I--

Jennie: Well, and that was a perfect way to wrap up. I want somebody to write this now.

H: I like this one because it feels a little bit more-- A lot of the ones that we do are silly and fun and adventurous, and this one feels like even though it's got these adventure-y trappings, I feel like there's something that could really be discussed here, that it could have substance and depth to it in a way that-- I mean, not that our others can't, but this one feels a little bit more grounded in deeper thought, which is really interesting.

Bethany: A little weightier.

H: Yeah, which I like. I like having that variety. Then we're going to leave that to you, viewers. If something in this inspires you, write something and send it to us and we will share it. I would love to hear people's takes on this and how they respond to this. So before we close out today, we will each take a second, we'll share out a story we think our listeners should check out. Today I think I'm going to share-- I don't share a lot of TV shows, so I'm going to share one that I was not initially into, but my husband was, and I started watching it with him kind of casually and kind of fell in love with it, and that's Steven Universe, which, if you haven't checked it out, it's a kids' cartoon. The episodes are like 10-15 minutes long. And it starts off as very silly monster-of-the-week kind of story, and then as it goes on it has one of the most incredible narrative arcs of a cartoon ever. It gets into some really fascinating worldbuilding. It has a bunch of amazing characters. And especially as it gets on, it deals with a lot of really intense questions about dealing with terrible things that people around you are doing and how to be the one who's standing up for the right thing, and what happens when you run out of strength to do that. It's a show where characters are given the opportunity to be in the best possible light. There is such a sense of optimism about a possible way forward out of darkness, and that's something that I find very refreshing. It doesn't hide from the darkness, it doesn't hide from things being bad, but it has such optimism about "we can find a way if we do what we need to do and we take steps to help things, and we are the right people and are doing the right things" that it makes a difference, and that people are capable of that. I found it very refreshing and very encouraging, so I highly recommend it if you haven't checked it out. Most of it's on Hulu. It just finished, and I highly, highly recommend it. I'm going to toss it over to Jennie. What would you like to share with us today?

Jennie: I'm going to recommend another TV show. I've been going through old favorites later and introducing my roommate lately to new TV shows to binge, and we just finished watching all eight seasons of Monk. If you have not watched the show, I recommend it to anybody. It's starring and produced by Tony Shalhoub, you know, Academy Award winner. He's been in a lot of stuff. The show is about a detective who is recovering from the trauma of losing his wife to a car bomb, so he left the force and now he's working as a private consultant in order to earn money, but he's a very unusual man with a lot of phobias and obsessions and compulsions that he has to deal with. It is exaggerated for comedic effect, but I think the show does a really good job at balancing the comedy of that with real emotion and real attention to the struggles that he goes through, and even though it reaches parody level proportions with some of the issues, I think it's a really good show about neurodiversity and finding your own strengths even if you don't do what everybody else does and finding your own little joys in life and how to get through struggles and friendships and all kinds of things. It's one of my favorite shows ever. Go watch it.

H: Awesome. All right, Bethany, it's on to you. What would you like to share?

Bethany: Okay, as people who know me would be expecting me to talk about The Scarlet Pimpernel, which is a book I'm obsessed with-- But I'm actually more obsessed with the character than the book, so instead I'm going to recommend a series that I recently just reread, which is-- I don't know if it's dystopian but I think of it as dystopian. It is young adult. I recently reread the quartet for The Giver by Lois Lowry. I know a lot of people have read The Giver. I don't know how many people know that there are three other books following it. But The Giver has always been one of my favorite examples of some kind of a dystopian world where people create this community of rituals and all these things to create safety and keep people from feeling the way that they're supposed to be feeling. Anyway, The Giver in itself is an amazing book. It's very simplistic and it doesn't overcomplicate itself with political agendas as some of the other ones tend to do. I think I love the simplicity of it and the story of Jonas as he's trying to figure out his journey into learning things about what the world was like and things that their community is missing out on. The second book in the quartet is Gathering Blue, the third one is Messenger, and the fourth one is Son. The interesting thing about the series is that each one focuses on a different character in a different community and culture but they all still kind of connect, especially by the end. The second one is about a girl-- her name's either Kara or Kyra, I can't remember-- in a different community, and then book three takes a character who showed up in book two and has him as the protagonist, and he ends up being in the village where the character of book one has ended up by the end of the book. And then book four has somebody who showed up in book one as well. It's all kind of intertwined, but I'm really intrigued by the way that each book has different communities with different cultures and different ways that they do the names for the characters. Book three and four kind of have some villains that are involved that get resolved. And, again, I'm trying not to do anything too spoilery.

Jennie: That sounds like some complex worldbuilding.

H: It very much is.

Bethany: Yeah, and I think it's really well-done. I think the first one is my favorite, but #3 is my second. I think it's just a really good quartet, and if anybody really liked the first one, even if you're not as into sequels, I would definitely recommend going and checking out the other three because I think it's a really good conclusion to the story with lots of added depth and characterization to it, which I like.

H: Sweet. All right, before we close things out, Bethany, is there anything that you want to share for our listeners for yourself? Any blogs or work that you're doing that you'd like to let our listeners know about?

Bethany: I do have a blog. The web address for it is bethanymegill.com, which is fairly easy. The title of the blog is "Cheerful BAMblings of Whatsherface." I don't write on it too often, as much as I used to, but I do upload movie reviews when I do movie challenges, and my book reviews, and occasional other blogs that I post. I have a lot of backlog, I just haven't written very consistently as of late, but I do put my book reviews up there whenever I finish a section. So, yeah, if anybody wants to give that a look, I've got all the past ones I've read so far.

H: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast, Bethany. It was a lot of fun.

Bethany: Thank you for having me. This was fun to do.

H: Good. 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 knock-knock jokes or anything else, email us at somebodywritethis@gmail.com, we'd love to hear from you!

H: Well be back with another episode in two weeks. See you then!

Jennie: And as they say, let your ear hear what comes out of your mouth.