Can you really call it a conversation if everyone’s reading their lines?
I don’t use boards. I don’t use run sheets. I don’t do call times, beat maps, or pre-roll briefs. You’d think that’s a bad idea for a podcast. Maybe it is for some. But it works for me.
This show runs on impulse. I get a topic. Discard it. Think of something ridiculous, and the next thing you know it’s 47 minutes later and there’s a rough episode in the can. It’s a mess – but it’s my mess. It sounds like someone talking, not someone reading out what they wrote the night before.
I’ve considered planning. Thought about setting up segments. Even threw around the idea of having recurring formats for different types of episodes. But I know what would happen. Everything would feel flat. Forced. I’d be dragging myself through beats that don’t land just to hit some structure. You’d hear the effort. The spontaneity would vanish.
There’s something about knowing I’m not boxed in that helps me speak like I actually think. If I wander onto a tangent, I follow it. Sometimes it goes nowhere. Sometimes it turns out to be the best part. That’s the trade. You get the moments that matter because I don’t sand them down first.
You’ve heard those podcasts where it feels like everyone’s waiting for their turn to speak. It’s not a dialogue—it’s a sequence. No one’s really responding, they’re just queuing up the next line in their notes.
I don’t want that. It doesn’t fit what I’m making. This show should feel like you’re stuck next to me in a pub while I bang on about something that’s been pissing me off for years. Not a performance. Not a pitch. Just me, saying what I think, however it comes out.
Some reckon planning makes a show sound more professional. Sometimes it does. But most of the time, it sounds like marketing. Too clean. Too safe. All the edges rounded off. You end up scripting the life out of it.
I record the way I talk. And yeah, that means I’ll start a sentence I can’t finish. I’ll repeat myself. I’ll go on a rant I didn’t expect. That’s fine. That’s what editing is for. But the part that actually lands—that only shows up when I leave space to go off-script.
If I wrote it all out, you’d lose the silences. You’d lose the bits where something clicks halfway through a sentence. You’d lose the moments where I stop trying to sound clever and actually say what I mean. That’s what people respond to.
The plan is simple. I hit record. I talk. I stop when it feels done. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it barely scrapes by. But it always sounds like me. Not like a brand. Not like content.
I’ll take the chaos. It’s honest.
Would you rather hear a show with rough edges, or one where every word was written in advance?
