Writing Druthers in 2024: Approaching 100th unique Druthers story

As Barnaby Druthers Audio Theater continues to entertain listeners on community radio with our stories, I wanted to take a few moments to look back quickly at the exceptional stories in the first half of the year and then share some thoughts on writing as we approach the second half of the year and our 100th unique Druthers story.

In Season 5 we shared some stories by Edgar Allan Poe (The Raven, Fall of the House of Usher and Purloined Letter) and we introduced some new villains to the Druthers canon (The Baronet and the Orb Weaver) and we developed more Modern Druthers stories this year taking place in Delaware, Oregon, and Louisiana. I am happy we also created many single episode stand alone classic stories like The Cursed Mirror, Death’s Horizon, Heart Shaped Locket, Miracle in the Bottle and more). But we also added to the Druthers-Lore, specifically Confessions in the Deluge and the Wake of Barnaby Druthers, that provided insight into our protagonists and their journey through life.

Our listeners may notice that we create stories that fall within different points in the lifetime of the characters. Why aren’t the stories written sequentially? As the writer of Barnaby Druthers, I can tell you that inspiration does not occur on a straight line. There are days when ideas of youthful energy or exploring the effects of mistakes from a lack of experience means the stories should take place earlier in the timeline. There are days when the weight of years and thoughts of the passage of time necessitate the stories take place later in the timeline.

Inspiration is not a bolt of lightning that shocks the writer with immediate insight and pages of material. Inspiration is not a gift of gods magically bestowed by beautiful muses in dreams. For me, at least, Inspiration is hard work and a clock. Nothing informs the creative process more than a hard deadline. I learned this lesson when I had a daily comic strip. Every week I needed to have six daily cartoons worthy of publication in newspapers. That’s a story for a different day but the fact remains that the drumbeat of new stories sets a rythym that is easy to write to and plot points in some stories pave the way for new ones. If you’ll forgive the Yogi-Berra-like phrasing, when you write more, you find you write more.

Some stories take longer to write. The most recent story, the recorded but not yet edited “Harper Thorne and the Great Library”, took two weeks to write because I rewrote the majority of the story twice before finally resolving it with the third version. The cast voluntarily offered after recording that they loved the story so I must have made the right choice. (I promise I didn’t fish for the compliment!) Conversely, the Confessions in the Deluge was written by creating a loop of the rain effect, listening to it and then writing the story in a day and it was equally complimented at a separate time.

Television programs back in the years before “cable” used to have 20 to 26 new episodes a season. Now in the era of streaming, any program having a season with more than 10 episodes is rare, but then again, there are many other factors involved in the visual medium that are not factors in the world of audio theater. My stated goal this year, the gauntlet that I threw down for our team, was to create at least 34 new episodes and with The Great Library, once released this weekend, we will have shared 26 new episodes and that does not even count the four “All We Bring to Bear” series and the New PRB of which there will be two that are new to the new incarnation of Barnaby Druthers as we know it today.

There are times when I would like to do a Barnaby Druthers/Harper Thorne comic book or a comic strip. (Some Barnaby/Harper art is shared here in this post). A long term vision includes a novel featuring the characters. And we would all love to do a Barnaby Druthers video project. But all of it takes time and planning and time is not an infinite resource. Our goal and focus is to have new audio stories for community radio almost every week and that takes priority.

A writer who inspires me is Walter Gibson who wrote 283 Shadow stories under the pen name Maxwell Grant and those stories stand the test of time. With Druthers, when the two already recorded but not released (the New PRB part 2 and The Great Library) episodes are aired, we will have completed 99 original stories. (note: with Barnaby Druthers Mystery Hour you will note we have almost 160 episodes but this is because stories can be mixed and matched and repeated (just not often. We always like to share something fresh and new with some material from our other audio series Nutmeg Junction.) This means the very next story I write will be the 100th unique Barnaby Druthers story. What might stymie me as a writer could be the gravity of the moment but I have to remember is that we have many more stories to tell and a new one will be needed that week.
I have some ideas. There are always ideas. There are always plot threads to follow. As Harper Thorne says, we can follow a thread until we unravel the web of intrigue! So tomorrow I will begin to pen a story that will represent the 100th and then…we will continue with the next episode to 101 until perhaps we match or exceed the output of Walter Gibson!

If there are any questions on process or on specific episodes, I’ll be happy to answer as best I can. Until then, thank you for reading and thank you for enjoying Barnaby Druthers!

-J Timothy Quirk