Director's Notes: 191 - The Many, Many Lives of Frank Chen

Hello from the past,

Specifically I am writing this in late May, before my daughter is born and I go on paternity leave. I’m trying to get everything squared away, and so am scheduling this director's note from 2 and half months ago. It is fine back here. The sun is out and everything is finally bursting green. I took a bike ride and then reported all the animals I saw on my bike ride to my wife, as is our way.

Fittingly enough, this is a time travel story. Time travel stories are fun to write, although this one does not get too far into the complicated mechanics that usually make up a time travel story (reversed cause and effect, paradoxes, loops, etc.) This is just a wholesome story about a man trying to avoid death by flinging himself through the entirety of human history, only to find, as these stories always end, that death cannot be avoided. Poor Frank Chen, but at least he got one hell of a ride before he (once again) exited our story.

This episode spent a lot of time on a broken continuity, which was fun to write, but was also simultaneously difficult to write. Usually, I just look for a character or aspect of Night Vale we haven’t visited in a while, and then I pick up where we left them, seeing if I can spin out their story just a bit more. But this was a different game. First, I had to find the characters I wanted to write about, but then I had to disregard their entire continuity and invent new ones that still somehow worked together as a cohesive present. This might not sound like much, but so much of Night Vale for me is just letting it flow, and anything that interrupts that flow by making me do some kind of jig-saw puzzle in the middle of it makes it tricky for me to get the thing done.

One change is from Judge Chaplin to Judge Keaton. I watched a lot of Buster Keaton as a child, and very much loved his work. I was never much one for Chaplin, despite his reputation. Anyway, this has been Silent Movie Beefs. (I watched a lot of old comedies as a child. I cannot even try to guess how many times I watched the Marx Brothers’ Duck Soup and A Night At The Opera before the age of 12.)

Another reference in this episode happens immediately after the weather, in which I paraphrase the opening sentence to Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. I believe this is not the first time I have quoted the Dark Tower in Night Vale, but here’s the thing: I haven’t read the series since I was in high school, and I didn’t even like it very much when I read it then. I am not clear why I keep referencing it, other than that it’s fun to weave in language from different sources.

Frank Chen will of course return soon. The Sheriff’s Secret Police aren’t done trying to bring him back. How will they break reality the next time they try? We’ll just have to wait to see. (I know. Again, I wrote all of these back in May before I went on paternity leave.)

-Joseph Fink