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Welcome to easystoriesinenglish.com.
The podcast that will take your English from OK to Good and from Good to Great.
I am Ariel Goodbody, your host for this show.
Today's story is for intermediate learners.
The name of the story is a visitor from Chili Bottom.
You can find a transcript of the episodes at easystoriesinenglish.com slash chili, CHILI, where you can also download the episode as a PDF.
This is a story I wrote with Alistair from English Learning For Curious Minds.
Last week, we came up with a story idea and worked on it together.
Then Alistair went away and wrote the story, we edited it together, and today you're going to hear the final version with both of our voices.
After the episode, there'll be a discussion between me and Alistair about the story.
What we think went well, what surprised us, and our thoughts on the experience.
So do keep listening.
You can go back and listen to the brainstorming session where we came up with the story at easystoriesinenglish.com slash together.
OK, we'll just explain some words that are in today's story.
Chili means a bit cold. When you go outside and the wind is blowing and making things cold, it's chili.
When it's chili, you might not turn the heating on. You might just put on some extra clothes.
In the UK, in winter, it's rarely freezing cold, but often chili.
A seal, SEAL, is a tool you use to mark a document or letter to prevent others from opening it or copying it.
Traditionally, seals were made of metal. You poured out some wax onto an envelope and pressed the seal into it while the wax was still wet,
so that it would dry into the shape of the seal.
These days, it is usually only very old institutions that use these seals.
A royal seal, R-O-Y-A-L, is a seal used for the royal family, the king and queen, and so on.
Of course, SEAL can also refer to the animal that makes the sound,
which can lead to all sorts of funny puns.
Bonkers is British slang, meaning crazy or stupid.
If someone is bonkers, you probably don't want to talk to them.
If you're in a bonkers situation, you probably want to get out of it.
A Butler, B-U-T-L-E-R, is the most important servant in a house.
Of course, these days most people don't have servants, but in the past, rich people would have many servants,
and the Butler would be in charge of the other servants.
Jeaves is a character from a series of novels by P.G. Wodehouse.
Jeaves is technically not a Butler. He is a valet, but in popular culture,
Jeaves is often thought of as the stereotypical Butler.
In Murder Mysteries, there is an idea that it is often the Butler who commits the murder,
and so the phrase, the Butler did it, appears in many parodies of these stories.
A tailcoat is an old-fashioned piece of clothing for men.
Tailcoats are worn as part of a suit.
They are waist-length at the front and lower in the back.
The back part is divided into two parts or tails, and so tailcoats are often referred to as tails.
These days, tailcoats are usually only worn for very formal occasions.
Worshipping W-O-R-S-H-I-P means to show respect to God by doing certain actions.
For example, Christians worship by going to church and sharing in the Eucharist,
the body and blood of Christ.
Muslims worship Allah by praying five times a day.
Jewish people worship God by going to synagogue and studying the Torah.
When you spit, and the past tense is spat, you throw water or saliva out of your mouth.
In the UK, it is very rude to spit outside, but in the past people used to chew tobacco and spit it
out. If you eat some very bad food, you might spit it out.
If you talk very angrily, you spit your words out.
Regurgitate, R-E-G-U-R-G-I-T-A-T-E means to bring food up from your stomach and spit it out.
Certain birds go and hunt food, partially digest it, and then regurgitate the food to feed their
young. For example, penguins make use of regurgitation.
A colony is a country or area that is controlled by another country.
Colonies are used to increase a country's resources.
In the past, many European countries colonized other parts of the world, for example,
in order to get more gold and in order to sell slaves.
We also use the word colony to refer to groups of certain animals.
For example, penguins live in colonies.
A crumb, C-R-U-M-B, is a small piece of bread, cake or biscuit.
When you eat bread, little bits of the bread break off and fall on your plate.
These are crumbs. With some food, you have to eat carefully, or you get crumbs all over yourself.
Poo is a childish word for something that we all make, but which is very horrible.
Poo comes out of your behind when you go to the toilets.
When you go to the park, you should be careful that you don't step on dog poo,
because then you will have to clean your shoes.
Foro your brow, F-U-R-R-O-W, means to frown, to make deep lines in your forehead.
People throw their brows when they are confused, angry, or just thinking very hard.
If you throw your brows very often, you'll get wrinkles.
A captive is a prisoner, someone who is trapped and cannot escape.
If you are being held captive, you will need someone to come and rescue you.
A press release is a statement written to put in newspapers and official publications.
Artists often have press releases written when they release new work,
but companies and sections of the government will also issue press releases when something important happens.
Waddle means to move with very short steps, usually with the body swaying from one side to another.
Penguins waddle as they walk, because they have very short legs.
Ducks also waddle for the same reason.
Waddling animals are usually very cute.
OK, so listen and enjoy.
A visitor from chili bottom.
My gosh!
Said the oddly dressed man, as he looked out of the aeroplane window.
What foul weather! I would have been better off staying at home.
This was the gentleman's first trip to England.
In fact, it was the first time he had stepped outside the snowy content of Antarctica.
For hundreds of years, people had lived very happily in the village of Chili Bottom.
Three kilometres east, what was it north of the South Pole?
Robert Falcon Scott, Bobby to his friends, was the first ever Antarctican to go abroad.
When he arrived at Passport Control, he was met by a gruff voice from the Border Control Officer.
Passport, please. Goodness gracious me!
Bobby thought to himself, where are this man's manners?
My good sir!
He replied, I have an important message to pass on to your king.
I trust you will grant me safe passage.
The officer looked over his glasses.
You are, mate, where you from, the 18th century, are need to see a passport.
Fortunately, the traveller had been told that he might run into a few problems that he threw,
and he was well prepared.
Sir, let me explain. I come from the village of Chili Bottom in BAD or British Antarctic territory.
I am, like your good self, I presume, a British citizen.
Here are my papers. I have an important message for your king.
The man slid a pile of old papers under the glass window, and waited patiently while the passport
officer thumbed through them. I'm going to need to show these to my boss.
Wait here a minute, will you?
A several minutes passed before a woman emerged from behind a glass door, indicating for Bobby to follow her.
Mr. Robert Fulkins Scott, correct?
This is all rather unusual, I have to say, but your papers do bear the royal seal.
The royal seal? From the south pole? I had no idea one of my countrymen had come here already.
Err, said the woman. Moving on, I've run this up to my superiors. It's gone all the way up to
Buckingham Palace, and I am told that the king will be happy to receive you. A car is waiting for you
outside. Smashing! replied Mr. Scott, raising his hat to the woman.
This is bonkers.
Mutted the border control officer, shaking his head. Mr. Scott could only assume bonkers with some
modern slang used to describe situations of great importance. He smiled to himself as they moved
him through security. It must be quite a rare occasion to see someone invited by the king himself.
They arrived outside and guided him towards a sleek black limousine, and he wondered when he was
going to meet the royal seal. As the car made its way through the streets of London, the man lent
forward and started to engage the driver in conversation. Sir, may I ask your question?
The driver remained silent, but the man continued anyway. Is it true that your king is holding
penguins prisoners? That he has locked them up in cages for the amusement of the public?
Looking at him in the rear view mirror, the driver's eyes met his, but they quickly turned back
to the road, and a stony expression covered his face.
Don't know about any prisoners, sir. Said the driver in a peculiar accent.
And is it always such bad weather here? The sky is grey and it's pouring with rain.
It might be a tad cold where I'm from, but at least we have blue skies.
Well, yes, you didn't come to me, your kiss, sir.
The pair continued in silence until the car pulled up at the gates of Buckingham Palace.
The door swung open and a red carpet rolled down to greet them. At the top of a flight of stairs,
a man stood dressed in black formal wear. Mr. Scott climbed up and bowed politely.
A pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty. Mr. Scott, I am Sir John Fitzwilliam Patrick.
I am his Royal Majesty's butler. The man replied, his voice emotionless and cold.
The butler? Why are you dressed as a penguin then? And if I'm not mistaken, a king penguin
with that tail coat of yours surely such dress would be reserved for the king.
The butler smiled. Mr. Scott, his Majesty is looking forward to receiving you.
He will do so tomorrow morning at 9 o'clock sharp. In the meantime, I have been told to make
you comfortable and to show you around. A footman will take your belongings up to your room.
Please follow me, we will sit a little and take tea.
They settled into armchairs in a carpeted drawing room and servants worked around them,
pouring tea and offering plates of some snow-coloured food.
Mr. Scott, could I be so bold as to ask you to tell me a little bit about life in
a chilli bottom? Was it not? The Antarctican took a bite of the food. How odd.
It tasted nothing like snow and crossed his legs.
Well, where do I start?
A chilli bottom is a small village in Antarctica, as I mentioned before.
We are about five kilometres from the south pole and my parents, their parents,
all of our ancestors, in fact, have lived there for as long as anyone can remember.
We live a pretty normal and unremarkable life, really. I can't imagine to so different from yours.
We get up, we have breakfast, we sing songs, we worship the penguin gods,
we drink tea with sea oil, it really isn't as remarkable as you. Hang on a minute.
The butler interrupted. Do you worship the penguin gods?
Precisely. The man replied. They bring us our food. Delicious, regurgitated fish.
They stand around us when we are cold and they allow us to ride on their backs when it is slightly warmer
and we want to take a dip in the ocean. Without the penguins, life in chilli bottom simply wouldn't be possible.
The butler looks straight at him, astonished.
Sir, I want to know all about chilli bottom.
But before that, I simply must ask you something. Your voice, your manner of speaking,
it is, how can I put it, it is like mine, it is like his Majesty's.
You speak English like a true gentleman. But am I correct in that neither you nor anyone from
chilli bottom has ever left Antarctica nor had any contact with anyone outside your village?
Well, my uncle did come across an African penguin once who had taken an unfortunate wrong turn.
But yes, I am the first chilli bottomer to ever break the ice, as we put it.
I mean the first to leave Antarctica. If you are wondering why I sound so English,
it all comes down to a book. Now this goes back to the time of my great-grandfather,
1912, to be precise. Our methods of communication were different. Predominantly,
we conversed in the penguin tang, a terribly harsh language but beautifully poetic.
And one day, my great-grandfather found a book in the snow next to a little device with a man's
voice trapped inside it. We never found out who left it. But my ancestors studied the book,
listened to the recordings and started to adopt the language we heard there as our language.
It is, if I'm not mistaken, English that we are speaking now, correct?
The butler nodded. Excellent. Well, anyway, we found it to be a delightful language and much easier
to pronounce than the penguin tang. For one thing, we have the same vocal organs.
So I was brought up speaking English by my parents. And as a little nod to the author of the book,
I am called Robert Falcon Scott. As is my brother, my sister, and in fact everyone in
Chile bottom. We have a real respect for tradition, you know? Doesn't that get a little confusing?
Not at all. We know who we are referring to because we use slightly different tones.
I'm Robert Falcon Scott. My sister is Robert Falcon Scott. And my brother is Robert Falcon Scott.
Is that confusing for you? Well, I guess you get an ear for it. But let me ask you one more
question. Why exactly are you here, sir? The driver told me you were talking about penguins.
Bingo! Mr. Scott replied. We heard, in fact, from that same South African penguin who had heard it
from a cousin of his who had spent some time on a nature reserve in Botswana, that your king has
something called a zoo, where he keeps penguins locked up for the amusement of the public.
As a British citizen, I have come to demand that he release them. Sir.
Fitzwilliam Patrick interrupted. I'm not sure that you are a British citizen.
How dare you, cried Mr. Scott. Chile bottom is a British Antarctic territory. Your king,
our king, or some ancestor of his, claimed it. I have grown up all my life knowing that I am a
British citizen and the suggestion that I am not quite offended me. Besides, that South African penguin
told my uncle that people in Britain have quite a reputation for overseas territories. What is it
you call them? Colonies, yes? Well, do you know who else has colonies? Penguins. But at least we
have the decency to not come to Britain and put your citizens in cages. The Antarctic
and brushed some crumbs off his lap and crossed his arms. For a moment, he said nothing, and the pair sat
in silence. Fitzwilliam Patrick was the first to speak, taking on a peaceful tone. Sir, I do
apologise for the offense caused. Let me reassure you that the king is looking forward to meeting
with you tomorrow. In the meantime, let me show you something of the city. It is your first time
in your home country, after all. Very well. Their first stop was the Royal Oak, a pub a couple of
minutes away from the palace. You must be hungry after your journey, and there are sandwiches
weren't much. Fitzwilliam Patrick placed two points of beer on the table. Shall we grab a bite
to eat as well? Have you ever tasted fish and chips? It is something of a cliche, but they do
it rather well here. His majesty will pay for it. The Antarctic and nodded took a large sip of
beer and immediately spat it out. What rubbish is this? He exclaimed. It has no fizz. It is
completely flat. It's English beer. Fitzwilliam Patrick explained. I'm guessing you are more of a
log, a henryb. Could you pour my friend a pint of codenborg? It is French, he whispered. And his
majesty has a bit of a thing about us not buying British. But I don't see a problem as long as we
keep this between the two of us. Don't you agree? Now where was I? I ask henry two fish and chips
two please and make it snappy. Snappy. That was another new word. And from the way Fitzwilliam
Patrick snapped his fingers, he could see it meant fast. Now that they'd settled down, Mr
Scott looked around with interest. All around there was ugly carpet, sticky furniture and drunk old
men. This must have been what the book was referring to when it said, can't wait to get back
to the pub and have a pint. For a moment he was overtaken by emotion at the thought of this rich
cultural tradition and tears started to form in his eyes. Before he knew it, a waitress had brought
out two plates. The man from Antarctica stared in complete astonishment. Fish and chips Fitzwilliam
Patrick repeated. You're like fish, that's the big long thing covered in batter. I'm sure you're
like chips. I mean who doesn't. And that green thing on the side there is my dear man. Mr.
Scott interrupted. I know very well what this is. And he took a big spoonful of the stuff.
A moment later it met the same fate as the beer. Spat out all over the table.
Pa! I don't believe it! He said. This has to be the worst rotten penguin poo I've ever
tasted. Rotten penguin poo? Sir, I'm sorry to disappoint, but that's mushy pees. It is a small green
vegetable that's been mushed up. It is something of a delixi around here. Pa, I take rotten penguin
droppings over this any day of the week. I'm sorry sir, but I think I'd like to go back to my room
now. I've come a long way and I need to rest before meeting his royal highness tomorrow morning.
Fitzwilliam Patrick nodded and the pair returned to the palace. Mr. Scott slept poorly that night.
He wasn't worried about the meeting the following day. Rather, he couldn't get comfortable in his bed.
They had given him some thin, useless piece of cloth rather than a nice warm seal skin. And he missed
the sound of the sea in the distance. The following morning the man from Antarctica was already
showered, shaved and dressed by the time Fitzwilliam Patrick knocked on his door.
Good morning, Mr. Scott. I shall now take you to his majesty. King Charles III.
I'm jolly good. They walked for what seemed like miles through identical looking corridors
until they reached a door. And Fitzwilliam Patrick said,
May I present to you his royal highness the king. The door opened to reveal an old man sitting at a
table, dipping toast into a boiled egg and getting crumbs on his trousers. Call me Charlie please.
The man said, extending his hand. I really am thrilled to see you.
Mr. Scott looked at the hand suspiciously. Excuse me sir. Is this some kind of joke?
I'm here to see the king. You have no crown. You're dressed like a factory worker. And you'd rather
I call you Charlie. I beg of you, please take me to see the king immediately. Mr. Scott.
The man said his tone becoming friendly are still. I am the king. How can I prove it to you?
Ah, I know. Wilkins. He said, motioning to one of the men guarding the door.
Come over here for a minute would you? Wilkins, please open your wallet and show the gentleman a
banknote. The man carefully took his wallet out of his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper,
handing it to his master. This is a ten pound note. Take a good look at it. He passed it to his guest.
Notice anyone familiar? He added with an artificial smile. Mr. Scott furrowed his brow,
looking down at the note and then up at the man standing opposite him.
You do look very similar to the fellow one there. I have to admit it's just all a bit unexpected.
I thought you would be how can I say different? No matter. Your majesty, I am from the village of
Chile bottom. I am one of your loyal subjects and I am here with an important request to make of you.
With this, his voice grew stern. Release the penguins.
The king looked surprised and then gave a small laugh. Release the penguins.
And which penguins might you be referring to? Your majesty, do you or do you not have a park in the city
called Regents Park? Well, there is a park called Regents Park, but it isn't exactly mine.
And in this park are there or are there not penguins being held captive, forced to do tricks
for the amusement of the common man? The king looked puzzled and turned again to one of the footmen.
Wilkins, didn't you take your son to the zoo for his birthday a few weeks ago?
Do you know if there are any penguins there? Yes, sir, there are. They feed them twice a day.
Wonderful show they put on my son absolutely loved it. The footmen responded evidently pleased
to be involved in something other than opening and closing doors. Well, Mr. Scott, there's your answer.
There are penguins, but I think it's a bit much to say the time keeping them captive.
The zoo really isn't anything to do with me. Why is it that you are so concerned about them,
may I ask? Have you really come all this way to ask me this question? If you have,
I'm awfully sorry that there is nothing I can do.
Mr. Scott then proceeded to tell the king the same story he had told Fitzwilliam Patrick the
previous evening. How they worshipped the penguins as gods. How they learned English from a book
found in the snow. And how the news of the penguins at London Zoo had made it all the way to
Chilly Bottom. The king was very interested. As he listened, he furrowed his brows and stroked his
chin. You know, my dear Mr. Scott. He said, smiling. I think there might be something we can do.
I'm going to have to speak with my legal advisors, naturally, but I just think I might know
way to resolve this problem. Leave it with me, but we must meet again tomorrow at AM Sharp.
The following morning, the Antarctic traveler rose bright and early and made his way to the
king's breakfast room through a maze of corridors. When he opened the door, he saw the king wearing
the same clothes, unshaven, with a mad look in his eyes. Papers covered the table, and several
old leather bound books were piled up on chairs nearby. The king spoke quickly.
My dear Mr. Scott, may I call you Bobby? Bobby, I think we have it. You may know that the king is
the legal owner of all swans in the country, but did you know that he also can grant himself
ownership over any bird in the British Empire if there is a valid ecological or theological reason
for it? The Lord aids back to 1314, but my advisors have told me that it has never been changed.
This means, my dear boy, that we have a solution. You and the residents of Chilly Bottom are my
subjects. I might not have known about you. I mean nobody knew about you, but Chilly Bottom is
British Antarctic territory, and that makes you one of us. As king, it is my duty to ensure that your
religious beliefs are protected, and if your gods, gods, I should probably say, are being held in
zoo, then this is certainly a valid theological reason to call up Statute 1408.A's Section 49.
I'll have my team write a press release immediately. Throughout this speech, Robert Falkenscott
had been nodding away, ming in agreement with the kings every word. When the king finally finished,
all the man from Antarctica could manage was a quiet, thank you, your majesty. He could hardly
believe his ears. And so it was that 48 hours later, all 73 penguins from London Zoo
waddled onto a specially adapted airplane and made the long journey back to Chilly Bottom.
73 penguins and one man, that is, for right behind them was Robert Falkenscott, the man who had
rescued his gods. Mr. Scott kept a diary throughout his trip. The final entry reads as follows.
London, April 2024, leaving now, the people speak with a horrible accent, the weather is
worse than a sick seals bottom, and they've never even heard of rotten penguin poo. I enjoyed my time
in London, but I'm glad to be a waddling home. The End.
Hi, Alistair, good to talk to you again. So how did you find the whole process of writing and
recording the story together? I really enjoyed it. It was a huge amount of fun. It was challenging
in ways that I hadn't necessarily imagined, but I really thought it came together really nicely.
It was kind of fun to document the whole process too, and I hope that people have perhaps
enjoyed watching us go through it, watching me struggle, watching me being taught by you,
and that they enjoyed the final results. Yeah, well, I think my favourite moment was after we
did the brainstorming session, and you went away and wrote the story, and then I read through
the first draft. I actually went and sat in the park in my house to read it, and I was sitting there,
like, laughing out loud, because I was funny. It's so funny, and it's so satisfying to do that
collaborative process, and then to see the result from the other end. I felt really, I don't want to
sound patronising, but I felt really proud of you. Like, oh wow, like, this is really great work,
and it was really great to see how that process went back and forth with suggestions and changes,
and then it was so interesting to record a story that I had had some hand in, some work in,
but then also it was a lot of, you know, original work from someone else. Yeah, it was a really fun
process for me, and although it was different from my normal process, it didn't feel like really
difficult, or I don't think we had any real disagreements over anything, which was really fantastic.
So yeah. I'm glad you enjoyed the bits there. I also really enjoyed the writing of it. I kind of
found myself laughing at some of the jokes as well. I hope that there were enough jokes on
different levels there that people who are non-native English speakers will have been able to
appreciate perhaps some of them, perhaps all of them, and even if you didn't necessarily get all
of the jokes in the story that you will have enjoyed the narrative anyway. Hopefully other people
are sitting in parks, juggling, or at least kind of smiling when they're listening to the story.
Absolutely. I actually had a listener message me the other day and say that they listen to the
stories in bed before they go to sleep. So they were asking if I could make some of the sound effects
a bit quieter because it was waking them up. So hopefully this story, there's not too much like
because I know when I recorded it, I got really into doing the character voices. And quite often,
I do like different accents for different characters in my stories, but because this was, you know,
very specifically British set in London and then King Charles was in it. I got to do a lot of fun
character voices. I did this very exaggerated, ridiculous kind of old school received pronunciation
accent for our hero Bobby. And that was really fun and I enjoyed playing up the theatricality of it.
So yeah, hopefully even if people don't quite understand all the references, it's still fun for
them. And hopefully it won't wake them up just to say, for the asleep.
For people listening to this, Erin and I were deciding how we would split the narration of the
story. Ariel said, I've got some ideas about some of these voices. So if you don't mind, I'd like
to narrate them. And I was very happy for that because I didn't have any particular fixed ideas
about how these characters might sound. So I was thinking, I wonder what Ariel's going to,
what Ariel's going to come up with. When I first listened to the version that you did, I laughed
because I thought, wow, this is amazing. I hadn't necessarily imagined the character like that,
but the final version was much better than anything that I could possibly imagine. So I thought it
was great. Oh, thank you. It's really interesting when you write something and then seeing someone
else interpret it in a different way. And I think that went both ways. There were certain things
that I guess I would read out in a certain way and then hearing your reading. I was like, oh,
interesting. Okay. So there's different emphasis or I think maybe you have a very nice kind of dry
sense of humour as well, whereas I tend to go for much more kind of loud, but I think hopefully
they complemented each other quite nicely. The main character's voice was quite a strain, like it was
quite a vocal workout. I went for quite, I guess, like a over-the-top hysterical character voice,
but fortunately it was okay. I've done character voices before in episodes, like especially if it's
like an old man or someone very rough and angry, where I really like strain my voice doing it.
It was great. I was always a little bit concerned with, you know, making sure that there were the
right speech tags, you know, the kind of he said, you said, they said, you said type thing, so that
the listener was able to properly understand who is speaking. But I think it worked very nicely with
obviously the accents that you were doing, meaning that people knew very clearly who was speaking.
Yeah, it's interesting because I've been telling stories in this way for quite a while,
I've learned to just, even if they're quite similar characters, find some way to distinguish
the voices so that it's clearer to the listener. And I've actually been performing storytelling
in person more recently, and it's quite interesting how also every time you do a character, you tend
to kind of adopt to certain physicality. At first, I had the temptation to kind of stand to one side
for one character and then move to the other side for another character like your two actors
playing two parts. And then I realized it's a bit silly, you're the one story teller, you just
stand in the same place, but you change your voice and how you hold your body to represent you to
character. I could very much feel how Bobby would stand versus the king versus, you know, a passport
officer or whatever. But one question that I really want to ask you that I'm very curious about
is, after this, are you going to do more writing or you think you're doing more stories?
I really enjoyed the process, certainly I think it could be really fun to do if people like this
story, then we could go for another collaboration of some sort or continue the adventures of the
man from Chili Bottom, although it seemed to me that there was a satisfying-ish conclusion and
that we don't want to get into the trap of the series that just roll out their main characters
and just try and get them to go into even more unlikely scenarios.
That kind of story that is either very long term or sometimes I guess people talk about forever
story where it can just keep continuing with the characters and new situations, right? That's a very
different thing to write and honestly I don't know if I could even write that because I don't
have experience with that kind of story, like that kind of comic book story I guess where there's
a new situation every week, but I'm definitely open to more collaborations. I think that would be
really, really fun and I think now that we've got a good idea of how the creative process could go
that opens up a lot of possibilities. How did you find the whole brainstorming process? Was it
challenging or... So it was challenging to be honest, one of the struggles I had when writing was
wondering to what extent we should be true to what we talked about in the brainstorming.
And I always started by talking about someone coming over from kind of France or Italy or Germany
or Spain or something like that to the UK and talking about unusual cultural aspects and of course
the the final story is very different. I think in terms of the brainstorming I found it super useful
to do because you're kind of working through ideas but then when it came to the writing to the thought
I wonder if there's a suitable place to fit this in or if I'm just trying to fit in this idea or
this episode just because we talked about it mainly because I also felt that if we added them in then
it might seem a little bit artificial in terms of where the story was going and I was also conscious
that it was getting a little bit long and I didn't want the characters to go and visit lots
different places do lots different things without those things being properly developed.
Are you familiar with the phrase kill your darlings? I think I've heard it yet so that don't be too
fixated on something that you've initially shown interest in. Is that broadly what it means?
Yeah so it's one of those phrases people use about writing and the idea is you write something
in your story that you think is so beautiful or so interesting and you really want it to be in
the final version but actually it's not really adding anything to the story or it's making it too
long and too distracted so you have to kill your darlings you have to get rid of the parts that you
really like that aren't maybe adding to the overall structure and I think with my own writing
I've kind of learned to do that in the brainstorming process before I get into writing too much
or like you say you're writing the story and you think actually it's going in this direction
and that idea is putting it in another direction and I don't want to make it confusing.
It's very good advice with writing my more non-fictional podcast I guess I often have that where
there's some idea or quote or episode from someone's life that you think this would be a really
good thing to include and I really would like to include it. I sometimes find myself trying to find
a place to put it in even if I know it's not really the best place for it or similarly almost
before I start writing saying like this has to be in there this episode or this quote from someone
I do occasionally fall into the trap of structuring everything around that to the detriment of the
rest of the episode I think. So for example when they went to the pub and they you know they had
some fish and chips and I was in a kind of in two minds there because I thought have we just force
the characters to go into a pub because it is a traditional British thing to do and we want them
to have fish and chips and so on is it really adding anything to the story? In the end we left it in
I think you made some really good edits to tidy things up and make it fit in nicely but I think
in the first version that I had written I think it was not nearly as smooth. That's a really
interesting point that sometimes you have scenes that in isolation are interesting but you have
to find a nice way to sew them together to give them a nice transition and then also I think
that scene yeah it just needed like maybe a few more jokes in writing people talk about punching
something up which is basically just kind of giving it that boost in like humor or drama to make it
clear that it has a place in the story right that it deserves to stay there but I think you know
all the underlying structure was really good and I was just kind of adding some things on top
and also it's really interesting because there were jokes that I would have never thought of myself
I'm not a massive beer drinker so the whole thing about people complaining about like British beer
I just didn't occur to me because it's not something that I'm from Somerset which is the cider
producing region of the UK and I do get very annoyed at how bad the cider is in London like you
can't get good cider almost anywhere in London and then a lot of people don't like cider because
they've only had bad cider and I get very annoyed about that but yeah is there anything else you
want to add about the experience any questions or anything? My last thought probably is to someone
listening to this if you have ever thought I wonder if I can write a story in English you probably
can and if you follow Ariel's advice and just start doing it it can also be a really fun way to
engage with language in a way that you might never have done in your own native language
I always found writing fictional stuff even if it's just like mini stories in the languages
that I was learning I thought I was really a fun thing to do it's a kind of exercise that most
people probably won't do because you think no one's going to mark it and what if I make a mistake
and it's not going to sound very good but but I think it can be a really fun thing to do clearly
you can use any words any kind of structures you like you don't have to worry about someone
thinking that you have made mistakes or anything like that so my last comment is just to encourage
people listening to this to go out and start writing yeah absolutely I think that's a really good
point I will also say I really enjoyed the process and generally I love working with people
who are writing or creating any kind of artistic work so if you listened and you were like wow
I'd love to do a similar thing with Ariel do reach out to me that's something I'm very
interested in doing more of whether that be a brainstorming together me helping you write or
edit your work or what I often do with my teaching is kind of a reverse of the process where I ask
the student questions get their ideas and then I write a story that's a learning resource for them
that still has all their ideas that they can then take away and read as homework I create some
exercises based on the story and so on so if that's something that interests you definitely
send me a message book a class I would love to work with you awesome okay I think we'll wrap up
there then so thank you to everyone who's listened throughout the process we would love to hear
your comments addister is that anything you want to plug or mention before we finish I just want to
say a final thank you to you for allowing me to be part of this process I have learned a lot
I've had a huge amount of fun and it's been an honor to write this story so thank you Ariel
no thank you so much and I really appreciate you reaching out in the first place it was a fantastic
idea so I'm very excited for people's reactions and for future work together so thank you so
much and have a great day thanks Ariel bye thank you for listening to this experimental
episode of easy stories in English make sure to go and listen to Alistair's podcast English
learning for curious minds at leonardoenglish.com slash podcasts if you'd like to hear more episodes
like this in future leave a comment at easystoriesinenglish.com slash chili or email me at aerial at easy
stories in English.com see you soon and don't forget to pray to the penguin gods
