Welcome to my final blog post on “My Favorite Murder,” a mystery/comedy podcast where the hosts, Georgia Hardstark and Karen Kilgariff, share fan submissions of murder mysteries with an exciting twist. I have enjoyed every episode that I have listened to. As I previously mentioned, my favorite aspect of this podcast is that each episode is very different as a result of the conversational recording style. I now realize that I enjoy this so much because this format gives me, and other readers, the freedom to skip around between episodes and choose ones to listen to based on a current mood. Listening to the podcast does not feel like a homework assignment. I plan on continuing to listen to it throughout the rest of the class, and once it is over. Now that I have listened to a substantial amount of episodes, listening to the hosts talk feels like listening to a conversation with friends. I recognize each of their voices, understand their different senses of humor, and connect with them and their opinions in different ways. By the last episode of my group’s podcast, I hope that listeners feel the same way. I hope they can connect with each of us in different ways and feel comfortable and entertained to the extent that they feel like they are merely listening in on some friends’ conversation.
This week, I chose to listen to the most recent episodes of “My Favorite Murder.” Of the episodes that I listened to, my favorites were episode 194, a fun, Halloween special with a variety of themed stories, episode 196, an exceptionally long episode detailing a case about a burger chef murderer, and the most recent episode, which I will be breaking down in this post.
Georgia and Karen detail a story submitted by a man from Ireland. Before beginning the story, the hosts set the scene. They described the location of the murder, which was a tiny town in Ireland. They explained how everyone knew each other and mentioned the town is extremely safe. They used these details to emphasize how intense this case was considering nothing like it had ever happened or would have been predicted to happy in this town. In their typical causal, humorous fashion, they cracked some jokes about Ireland and spoke in their attempt at Irish accents, making comments such as “Heidi Ho Partners.”
They introduce the story as a “fucked up hometown murder in rural Ireland.” The aggressive swear word was a great way to grab readers’ attention and get them excited for the story to come. Although we may not utilize swearing as a strategy in our Sherlock Holmes podcasts, it is important to note this technique and the effectiveness of using a hook at the beginning of an episode.
The hosts explain the murder of a 17-year-old girl in a tiny town of Ireland that occurred in early December of 1998. This case was extremely notable as it was the first instance of crime ever to be reported in this town. One night, the girl was driving home with some friends when she asked to stop to use the restroom. She tried to enter a pub, but because they would not let her in as a minor, she walked to the nearest chip shop to use their restroom. On the way to the shop, a 28-year-old man offered her a ride. She accepted because she was familiar with him due to the nature of the small town. Unfortunately, he ended up brutally raping her and leaving her on the beach to be taken by the tide. The next day, a man found her on his morning dog walk and reported to the police immediately. Solving the case was a bit complicated because the murderer changed his outfit quickly after the incident and caused a scene at a nearby bar to use as an alibi. Luckily, they eventually caught him with traces of fibers from the girl’s sweater socks found in his car and on his clothes as proof. He was sentenced to a lifetime in prison and an additional ten years. However, there are currently rumors spreading around town that he will be free any day now.
In this episode, the hosts read the story word for word as the fan-submitted it, without interruption. Typically, they would pause to laugh, mention personal anecdotes, or make small talk. I like it when Georgia and Karen do this because it breaks up the story and keeps me engaged. However, I think that they intentionally did not interrupt this story because it was so much more intense and sad than usual. The extremity of the story, and telling it in one breath, definitely kept me on my toes and wanting to hear more. It is fascinating to see how the hosts shift their narration techniques based on the topics they discuss. I would have expected them to be consistent with their dialogue style throughout each episode. However, I was pleasantly surprised by this change and thought it was very strategic of them. I now realize that different strategies work best for various episodes. To create a good podcast, it is crucial to take the time to decide the best way to discuss a particular topic or arrange a specific episode and avoid getting attached to one particular formula or recording method.
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Hi Paige,
I like what you discussed about the podcast giving listeners a lot of freedom. This isn’t something I had considered but the podcast I’m following is sequential and so you really do have to listen to every episode in order to understand what is going on. I didn’t think of this as being constrictive before, but it definitely is in comparison to a podcast where each episode can stand alone. I also think that the conversational style is important for the reasons you mentioned and because it makes the listener feel so much more involved in each episode. The more conversational a podcast is, the less it becomes about someone talking at you and the engaged the listener feels. I think the connection you describe feeling with the hosts is a perfect example of how the conversational style really brings the listener into the story in a more relaxed and comfortable manner. I would certainly never day that I felt a friendly connection with the narrators of the podcast I followed and that is because they maintained a more formal approach in their delivery that keeps the listener at a distance. I agree with you that it is can be more entertaining for the hosts to interject between narrative pieces, but also that it speaks to the seriousness of the story that they chose not to do that in this particular episode. I think these strategic changes to the podcast style that you have discussed are very important. I also think it provides a nice change of pace between each episode which would be more important if you had to listen to the episodes in order, but still adds nice variety to begin with. I also found the podcast that I have been following to get rather repetitive because the format is so consistent and I would have appreciated the creator’s spending more time trying to diversify the episodes.
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Paige –
After reading through your blog post, I am so interested in listening to this podcast myself. It is awesome to hear that while this is a class assignment, you also find enjoyment in you’re the podcast you have chosen! As for the podcast itself, I think the unusual and somewhat extreme murder is such a good (but also messed up) way to get listeners hooked from the very beginning. If every podcast was introduced the way this one was, I would not be able to stop listening to any story! It sounds like Georgia and Karen used all the common skills found in most suspense and murder stories, whether that be in book, movie or podcast format. Similar to how the hosts read the story out word for word as the fan submitted it, I also read your summary without interruption and felt as though that added to the suspense of the story! I agree that this is a super important technique and that if the hosts were to pause to laugh or add personal anecdotes, it would have lost some people. After analyzing my own podcast, the one I have chosen for these blog posts, and other people’s blog posts, I have also began to understand methods and strategies that work for specific instances. For example, my podcast is more interview and conversation style, and our stories were to be told with the others format, a lot of the feelings would be lost in translation. It is sad that this is the last of the blog posts but I am excited to hopefully check out My Favorite Murder soon!
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Hi Paige,
This is the second time I read one of your blogs and I have to admit, they make me want to listen to the same podcasts you listened to. I have to agree with you, the use of swearing does grab the readers’ attention, and I feel like that it the most important thing to do while making a podcast, because without having that, one’s podcast would not be interesting to anyone. It is a shame that we cannot do it in our Sherlock Holmes podcasts, but I am sure that if we did, they would probably be a lot more fun rather than professional and school based.
As I read on your last blog and as you stated it on this one, Georgia and Karen normally pause to crack jokes or to tell personal experiences somehow related to the story they are telling, but it makes sense that for this one they decided to go ahead and tell the story from beginning to end without interruption. Just like you I feel like the use of different methods to narrate podcasts is really useful because it causes different feelings to the listeners and it is basically adapting the narration according to the situation, in this case, the brutality of the story.
Reading your blog, listening to my own podcasts and other groups makes me realize that there are tons of ways to elaborate a narration, and that the most important thing is to have fun while doing it. I am excited to check out My Favorite Murder. Thanks for sharing your experience and your thoughts with all of us.
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