Tyler (Episode 23) Transcript

You can find the audio version of this episode here.

Hannah: A detective must protect a group of dancers who have become protectors and mentors. 

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. Let's welcome Sheeva from Fancy Comma. 

Sheeva: Hi. 

Hannah: Hi, we're so happy you could join us. Tell us a little bit about the kinds of work that you do with Fancy Comma. 

Sheeva: Well, I am a freelance science writer. I started freelancing in 2013, after I had to get a job. And I just kept doing it because I needed money and eventually became a company because I just decided to incorporate and now because I liked the name Fancy Comma, I thought of it, I wanted to start a business. So that's basically the like, really boring version of how I became Fancy Comma, LLC. And really, I really like writing. And I've always thought it was really important to communicate science effectively to people. And especially right now with the COVID-19 pandemic, there's so much misinformation. And it can really help to have like, a science writer that knows the science, like I have a Master's from Georgetown, and a bachelors from MIT in both in neuroscience, slash brain and cognitive sciences. So yeah, I'm finding it really fun and cool to explain science to people. 

Hannah: Where does your work get used? If you're writing science stuff? Where does that then go? 

Sheeva: Well, I've had all kinds of clients like I've worked with the government, I've worked with academic scientists that were like applying for grants, I've worked with industry, I worked for some people doing COVID-19 work, just kind of everywhere, my writing, you can see my writing on various websites around the web. I'm under NDA for a lot of it, because it's really technical. So you may see, I may see my writing here and there. My goal is that someday the internet will be mostly my writing.

Jennie: That's awesome. 

Hannah: So talk to me about science writing, and how that differs from maybe creative writing or something else. What makes somebody a really, really good science writer? 

Sheeva: Well, to be a good science writer, you have to have a science background, because science is like organization of thoughts and concepts, and a way to discover different truths about the world. And you have to know about the scientific method to be able to be a good science writer. You don't have to be like a PhD level scientist. I have discovered that you can have any kind of science background and you can be a good science writer. But I think the one thing that sets it apart from regular writing is critical thinking skills, which you do have like, and I don't have a creative writing background. So although I did do creative writing and as a high schooler and I won some awards from scholastic, but yeah, it's just having the scientific mind frame and being able to critically analyze information. And actually science writing for anyone that's listening that may want to get into science, writing can actually be really lucrative. I make six figures, as a science writer, not that it goes on to my, to myself, it goes back to my business, but I've actually found that it pays more than academic science that I have had in terms of my career, that pays better than being like a researcher. So that's, that's one benefit. And it also helps people understand that research that's so important that's happening worldwide. 

Hannah: I'm intrigued by the crossover between scientific informational and creative writing where you know, especially since science fiction is having this huge rise in attention, and I'm curious how, as you've been working on this stuff, and writing other stuff, whether you've either seen examples of somebody using really rigorous scientific concepts in creative writing, or whether you've gotten ideas for "Ooh, what if I wrote a story and incorporated this information that I know and turned it and brainstorm?" I'm just curious as to whether you've seen that as an overlap anywhere.

Sheeva: Yeah. Well, actually there are a lot of people writing science fiction novels that actually come to me and ask for information. Or they may be reading an article about-- I edited a book on techno futurism or whatever. It's like this idea that we will become robots, cyborgs. And that kind of stuff is really prevalent in science fiction. Like I don't read a lot of science fiction, even though I'm an MIT graduate, but like, a lot of my friends read science fiction. So I know it has a lot of like really weird stuff that honestly my brain can't process because it's so complex, but people love that stuff. And the really complicated part for me is reading those books and realizing there's no way that science is really even possible right now. So if you want to make your science fiction book more realistic, you can. People like me can help you with the science. So I don't know, I think the crossover is really interesting because I was just thinking about the pandemic and how I really loved like, I think it was Outbreak or something, is a book that I really liked growing up, or I read it in a Reader's Digest that I bought from my library, because it was like the discard pile of books at the library. So those, and like Jurassic Park really influenced me. And it was kind of secretly about gene editing and stuff. So, I think that that kind of science fiction actually does have a lasting impact on people and influence. I think it even though I'm scared of Jurassic Park, I think it helped influence my science career. 

Hannah: Yeah, this was an area I really didn't know anything about. So I'm glad that you were able to share some of those with us. With that in mind, we are going to jump on into our brainstorming, which at this point doesn't have any science involved. But who knows where this will go? Our synopsis is, "A detective must protect a group of dancers who have become protectors and mentors." There's a lot of protecting going on in here. 

Sheeva: Yeah, it's confusing, because the detective is protecting a group of dancers, but the dancers have also become protectors so I guess the protection level is so high, they have to call in extra protection for themselves. Because their protection is actually becoming very dangerous.

Jennie: The dancers need protecting. What are they protecting, that put them in danger that they would need protecting? 

Sheeva: Well, they're also becoming mentors. So and I mean, maybe they're like mentors, that their mentees have gotten angry that they're actually they're such harsh mentors. Their mentees are now causing, they're seeking to revolt. And so they're having to call backup. And like a detective has to come in, investigate why the situation has really escalated to this really bizarre point. But then dance mentorship is...

Hannah: I mean, dance is notoriously a very rigorous field. I'm wondering if-- This makes me think of Whiplash, which, if anybody hasn't seen it is it's about a music teacher, who is extremely overbearing, and like pushes his students to like beyond reasonable points, because he thinks it's going to make them a better artist. And so it's all kind of about like the the psychological backlash of that, how that is damaging to the student and how he becomes very, very angry at his teacher for pushing him to this point. And so that's kind of where my mind is going, is that it's the group of dancers who have such an unreasonably rigid and rigorous practice, that they're fantastic. They're, you know, everybody, they're super renowned for their actual dance prowess. But they're also really psychologically damaging mentors that they, you know, push people way beyond where they should go.

Jennie: To where their students are now, rebelling. And in violent ways? 

Sheeva: I can't even process this sentence. A group of dancers-- So like a group of dancers have become protectors and mentors, like they're kind of blurring the line between mentors, because good mentorship does try to protect you because I've done a lot of mentorship as a scientist as a writer. Mentorship is actually really hard. I don't know, maybe I'll just make this about mentorship. Because as a scientist, as a woman in science, science has a lot of bias issues that a lot of these things are coming to light now. And mentorship is one way to help improve science or really anything that involves learning skills and navigating a complex career. I mean, like, I've also done dance. 

Hannah: But you didn't revolt against your dance teacher

Sheeva: I did not revolt against my dance teacher. I didn't, because I love dance. And I kept taking dance classes. My parents made me take like, let me take all these different ones. And I had like, all these cool tutus.

Hannah: To come at it from a different angle then, is there a way that maybe these, I'm trying to find a way that the dancers could be training people to do something very specific, maybe in like government work or spy work? 

Sheeva: Maybe they were doing legislative dance? I mean, I greatly worked in Congress and I think that would have broken the ice a lot like you're having a hard day. You're just at odds with each other like, if you had like a ballerina, come in, just like do like a cool dance that would've fixed things in two seconds. 

Jennie: For a filibuster, just get up there. And now I shall perform an interpretive dance. 

Sheeva: I would have loved that so much. And you know, that doesn't get covered by CNN. But that's exactly why it's so needed. We need more random dancing in Congress. 

Hannah: So for real maybe this is some kind of, maybe there's some kind of hypothetical branch of diplomacy or have international relationships that does involve creating dance programs. 

Sheeva: Yeah, I think that the Armed Services Committee could really use some dance because you're like, I, like, as a Congress person that works in Congress, you got all these important meetings, you grab some cookies, like if the actual event was like a ballet, some kind of tribal dancing, any kind of dancing because dance is universal. you're attending something on like block grants, the block grants also has like an interpretive dance about block grants sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute, like I would love, I would have loved that. That would have made the writing the memos so much easier than the event had a dance, it was fantastic.

Jennie: So the phrase that's sticking out to me that I want to explore is, is "who have become", which makes it sound like the dancers didn't necessarily choose to be protectors and mentors. And so I'm wondering if that means like they were made to like assigned to be protectors and mentors of somebody like, say for maybe for legislative dance like your government needs you, or I'm wondering if it's some sort of codependent relationship where they have students maybe, but who have dissolved the boundaries of teacher-student relations. And it's become sort of like a misery type situation like, "You will stay here and you will teach me to dance." 

Hannah: Yeah, so this ties absolutely to what I was thinking the former one. Because, I just read not that long ago, Mother Night. Which is about a guy who is in Germany during World War Two and is brought on as an American spy who reads German propaganda, but is given specific things that make it a code, he doesn't understand what he's transmitting. So what if these are code dancers? What if they are given, what if they're choreographing pieces that then are seen and broadcasting information about something? So, yeah, they're spies. They're undercover. They're teaching these rigorous dance routines, they're inventing new dance, but and so are renowned. But it's really all like a code. And so that would explain why they're protecting it would explain why they're mentoring because they are legitimately teaching dance. But there's ulterior motives and the dancers that they're teaching to, that they're mentoring and protecting don't know that that's what they're doing. They don't know that they're broadcasting codes, only the group of dancers teaching, maybe this secret is getting out and people are finding out about it. Like for a long time, it was only a handful of people who knew that this was happening. And who would go to these dance performances. 

Jennie: You have some like beautiful mind person is like watching the dance and going "Oh, my gosh, it's a code!"

Hannah: Exactly, exactly. 

Sheeva: Yeah. So we need to get some, like the NSA needs to learn dance interpretation so that they can attend legislative briefings. 

Jennie: I'm kind of loving this world. Yeah. 

Hannah: And you can play with it, like the detective who comes in to protect them, you can play with it with that he doesn't know any of this, like there would be no reason for him to have to know why to protect these dancers. And they'd want to keep that you know, very much under lock and key what's going on with the codes. And so he just is told you have to protect these dancers who who are gathering together and they're in danger and he starts finding out what's going on. That is fascinating. 

Jennie: Who's this detective?

Sheeva: Inspector Gadget, perhaps.

Hannah: Well, we maybe have a name for him because I've just generated the random title and our story is called Tyler.

Sheeva: Tyler!

Jennie: Oh! Tyler the detective.

Hannah: So, I'm assuming Tyler is the detective, although there could be like, you know, we shouldn't just assume they're only female dancers in this group, either. They're obviously you know, if you're doing full pieces. So Tyler could be one of the dancers. Tailor could be the name of their new dance form. 

Jennie: Tyler could be the name of the codebreaker who is after the dancers now.

Hannah: Does that make him too much the main character if the title is his name? 

Jennie: That's a good question. I don't know. Sometimes really good stories are told from the villain's point of view. Like Friday the 13th. You know, it's like it's all about the villain. It's not about, you don't care about who they're killing.

You watch it for the monster. 

Hannah: Yeah, I think whatever, Tyler could be so many things. I think whatever we name it has to be.

Sheeva: Well sometimes like Tyler could be like a complete ethos of dance detective detectiveness dance detection.

Jennie: Is that the name of the of the dance troupe? Tyler?

Sheeva: The Tyler dance troupe. Tyler dancers. 

Hannah: It would be cool with something like this, especially where we have like this. This espionage story. It'd be nice if Tyler had like a surface meaning and then a deeper meaning that you uncover later on. 

Sheeva: Maybe Tyler has like a meaning in an ancient alien language. 

Hannah: Oh man. We're getting these codes from the aliens?

Sheeva: Yeah, like I truly believe that aliens are real. I just, I have a feeling they're out there. If they knew the hot, cool dances, and dance, protectorship and dance mentorship, they would really want to come visit us and that would be really good for space exploration and our knowledge of aliens.

So I would like to invite all aliens interested in dance mentorship to definitely hit up Tyler, he will definitely help you out with all of your endeavors. 

Hannah: I like the idea of Tyler as the name of the troupe. And then Tyler being the name of the source that they got this from whether that's aliens, whether that's somebody, the president of some country or something, or, you know, like somebody higher up who were like, Oh, we didn't know that they were behind this. 

Sheeva: Or maybe it's like a front. It's like not really named Tyler. It's named something very complex, or it's named something in a different language. And they just went by the acronym that it was tight, like, totally. Yo, yo. I don't know any words that start with a letter Y, but like,

Jennie: Totally Young, 

Sheeva: Little Expert, 

Jennie: Purewinters. 

Sheeva: Yes. 

Jennie: No, that's a P not an R.

Hannah: I was like, Tylep? 

Sheeva: Maybe it's actually Tylep. And we just, I don't know, like, do words have any meaning? Sometimes they could just maybe it's like, I don't even know like, I don't know if you've read. Jorge Luis Borges, he has like this whole thing. I was going to talk about it. I know you guys have always asked people to talk about their favorite stories. He does a lot of magical realism books. My favorite short stories book by him is Labyrinths. And he talks about words. He talks about all these weird concepts. And like words, like lose, there's this one he has, I think it's called tun vukovar something tertius, I'll just call it Tlon. T-l-o-n. And he talks about words not having meaning. I'm not sure if it's in that story in a different story. But like the letter is just kind of neat become different stuff. And like, but like magical realism. It's like real, but it's also like has magical elements. So like, it's kind of become something more than words, but at the same time they don't make sense because their letters don't cover,

Jennie: They have power to them, but not necessarily through because their language. 

Sheeva: Yes, exactly. So maybe it's like that kind of.

Jennie: Which makes me think what if Tyler is based on what the dance moves of the code look like? And they look kind of like letters, so they chose to call it Tyler. 

Sheeva: That sounds interesting. 

Jennie: T is standing up with your arms out to the side, right? You know, YMCA. But like,

Sheeva: You really can't actually do Tyler, maybe if you did it like, cuz I'm trying to work. I'm like, standing up on my desk. I'm trying to do like all the different letters to Tyler like, I'm an L right now. And then like E you can do like lowercase E and then R you can just kind of I think I did the R backwards. 

Hannah: If you got a whole troupe of dancers, you could do anything.

Jennie: The dance craze that swept Washington D.C.

Sheeva: The briefing begins with them doing the Tyler dance.

Hannah: So what if the part of the problem is that they've been using they have been using these dances to communicate things, but one of them, the Tyler, has caught on and has become like, a meme. Like, just doing this everywhere. And somebody.

Jennie: The people who know the secret are going oh my gosh, I oh no, everybody's doing it. 

Hannah: And there's somebody who's like, starting to be like, hey, like they're close to being able to like figure out pieces of it. And so it was like we have to shut this down. We have to shut this down. We have to protect these people. 

Sheeva: I think that if Yeah, cuz like if you tried to like your congressman, your chief of staff is advised you to speak on Tyler on the House floor requires you to do the Tyler dance. You're gonna be out of order. Like they're gonna be like, I'm sorry, what are you doing? Like this is not why we're here.

Jennie: Tt needs to be a movie because I want to see Congress people dancing. The Tyler. 

Hannah: The one piece that I think we might need to figure out before we let it go is, so we fleshed out this world of these code dancers. But we haven't really talked much about the detective. How much does the detective know? The detective is the central character in our initial plot synopsis. And so how much does he know? Does he, h much does he find out? Is he able to protect any of them? What does that even look like? Is that shutting down the program and putting them all in? Like, you know in hiding? 

Jennie: Is being a detective their mild mannered, alter ego? Are they a superhero? 

Sheeva: Maybe it's like a person that is just like some random janitor, kind of like Good Will Hunting where the guy's like a janitor, but then he is actually this brilliant math genius. I mean, like that. But like, I think it just, this actor should have like a cool superpower. That allows him like, he enacts a forcefield around the dancers, whenever they're doing a dance that's very controversial, or something just so they can have extra protection, because he's also a researcher. He's like a detective, and he's also like a Tony Stark kind of guy. 

Jennie: Because like, whatever superpower he has

that he uses to protect the dancers is probably also something that helps him in his detective work, which is why he chooses to be, you know, like, Oh, I just happened to be a good detective wink. Does he have a personal connection to one of the dancers?Is like one of them his sister or something? 

Sheeva: that would probably help him to protect better.

Jennie: Like, maybe he was originally going to be a dancer, but like he's got BCL or something.

Hannah: Oh, so he's a former dance, that is interesting. Yeah, I'm trying to figure out I'm trying to unlock this character, because I feel like there's something there and I can't quite figure out. Why is he there? How did he get there? 

Sheeva: Well, I think whenever being a protector is actually very hard. So it doesn't surprise me that dancers that have become protectors now need protection themselves,

you would think that they'd be able to protect themselves, because they're protectors. But I think that just goes to show that life never goes the way you want it to.

Hannah: Well, they might not even know, you know, I mean, obviously, they know there's a level of risk if they're doing spy transmissions. 

Jennie: Yeah, that's true but do they not know about the immediate danger?

Hannah: There might be an immediate risk that they are not aware of, and that they shouldn't be told about for security reasons, for their own safety or something that they can't be given the details. And so this guy is in there to try to keep them safe. Maybe he maybe he joins their troupe, or attempts to join their troupe. 

Sheeva: Yeah, like, sometimes when I was at MIT, there were like, weird groups like we would have, like graduate students at MIT are like, really, really weird. They're like, really hardcore. Sometimes they would like, come to an undergraduate event. And we'd be like, why are you here? And they would just be like, I'm really interested in this topic. Like I was on the debate team. We had like a graduate student chunk, and we're like, oh, wow, you're weird go away. So maybe it's like, that kind of thing. Or like a detective yhat showed an interest in dance. And then they got this, somehow got to know these dancers because they want to expand on their dance skills. 

Jennie: So like, at first, they just think he's a groupie or something? 

Sheeva: Yeah, he's like, he starts out as a groupie. And then he turns out to offer them some skill set, it's like a skill share. Like he's, he used his detective skills in exchange for some dance knowledge. 

Hannah: There you go. We are right at time, where we need to close things out. So listeners, we turn this over to you. There are a lot of pieces that we couldn't quite make fit. But it's so close, I think. 

Jennie: So close. 

Hannah: So figure out what exactly is going on with Tyler, what the underlying meaning of that is, what does this dance look like? Do the dancers know that they're at risk? Whereas is the detective going to be a dancer too? I don't know. Gonna toss this over to our listeners. 

Sheeva: That was a lot. I can't believe someone will actually listen to this and make sense of this entire conversation. 

Hannah: It's gonna be great. Before we close out today, we are going to take a second to each shout out a story that we think our listeners should check out. 

Sheeva: I've already recommended my book. It's Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths. A collection of short stories, the best short stories ever. I was a Spanish major in college at MIT and my professor, my professors always talked about these stories, and they're so good. Especially if you like science fiction kind of stuff, but also like reality like me. 

Hannah: Well, then I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna also recommend one that I mentioned in the episode, I'm going to recommend Whiplash. It's a great movie. It's got Miles Teller, I think, and JK Simmons. And they're both amazing. And it's a really, really good look at what is worth doing for the sake of your art and what is not. And the final, like 10-15 minutes are just some of the most electrifying cinema I've ever seen in my life. It's so, so good, so I highly recommend it. Whiplash. All right, Jennie, we'll end with you. What do you want to share?

Jennie: in honor of Chadwick Boseman, who passed away just yesterday, as of this recording, I want to recommend his movie 42. In 1947, Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to play in Major League Baseball in the Modern Era, when he was signed by the Brooklyn Dodgers and faces considerable racism in the process. And on the surface movie's about baseball, but like it's also about history, and racism. And about this man in particular, and he was just amazing. And Chadwick Boseman's portrayal was just moving and influential. 

Sheeva: He was such a great actor. I can't believe he did Black Panther as someone that had cancer. 

Jennie: Yeah, while he was getting cancer treatments.

Sheeva: That just speaks to like the resilience of humans in general. I can't, I'm so glad he made that movie. 

Jennie: If like me, you primarily know him from the Marvel movies, please check out 42. It's a wonderful movie.

Hannah: I gotta check that out.

Jennie: And rest in peace T'Challa. 

Hannah: All right. Before we end Sheeva, is there anything you'd like to plug for yourself? It could be your business, could be social media. It could be any other projects, anything you want to share for our listeners as to where they can find you?

Sheeva: Yes, you can find me in all corners of the internet at @FancyComma on Twitter, @FancyComma on LinkedIn, at Fancy Comma LLC on Facebook, @FancyComma on Instagram and on the web at www.fancycomma.com. 

Jennie: Woohoo.

Hannah: Awesome. Well thank you so much for joining us today we ended up with a really intriguing story that I really hope somebody adds to and puts the pieces together. Yeah. 

Sheeva: Yeah, this has been amazing. This has been my first podcast ever, total pleasure. I have really enjoyed every bone of this. Thank you so much for having me.

Jennie: Yay!

Hannah: Oh, yay! Alright, 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 video of what the Tyler dance might look like, email us at somebodywritethis@gmail.com we'd love to hear from you. 

Hannah: We'll be back with another episode in two weeks, we'll see you then. 

Jennie: And as they say, he who has no wishes, has no eyes.