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Director’s Notes: Ep. 270 Deeper Than Purpose, Older Than Thought
🕑 Added 2025-06-15 13:00:12 +0000 UTCThis was a tricky one.
I am often tapped in to write endings. I wrote the ending to the first Night Vale novel and to It Devours! The final episode of all three seasons of Unlicensed were first drafted by me. (Jeffrey wrote the ending to the Faceless Old Woman novel. He did so very early on in the writing process and it was so creepy that it immediately set the tone and direction for the rest of the book.)
I like endings. I like finding a way to weave everything together, try to pay off stuff that the audience didn’t even think would have a pay off. And I like finding that final moment. That image that will stick with the reader or listener long after the story is over. Generally, I find endings natural. Not easy, exactly, but I have a good gut feeling for them.
This season we had a number of storylines going: the breakdown of the supply chain into Night Vale, the battle for the soul of Steve Carlsberg, the mysteries of Labyrinth, and, oh yeah, also the founder of Night Vale is going around town eating people. The plan was for all of these storylines to collide in our June 15 episode.
And you know what? It was really hard. This one took a long time to write. I kept having to send emails to the Night Vale team that were like “sorry! :( it’s still not done. Sorry sorry!” But I did get it done, as proven by the fact that you listened to the episode.
The trick to endings is that they less about logistics and more about a feeling. An ending should give you a feeling that, while the world of the story may be continuing, this a good place for us to leave it, at least for now.
I hope I did that. If I didn’t: ah well. There are plenty more endings for me to write.
The end.
PS: I had to come up with a few names in this episode, and anytime I need to do that, I click this link in my bookmark bar and pick and choose from what comes up. A very useful tool: https://www.name-generator.org.uk/quick/
-Joseph Fink
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Comments
Welcome to Night Vale
This is the format (and has been for a couple months) but you can always listen through our ad free feed available to Weird Scout members and higher to avoid the ads. (instructions on how to access this feed are pinned at the top of this page.) Hope this helps!
Peter Wilsnack
Quick housekeeping question: This episode had, if memory serves, the first-ever set of ads between the weather and the story's resolution. It also had ads after the final credits. These extra ads weren't even read by the creators, so they were somewhat jarring auditorily. Is this going to be the new normal? I understand you need to make money to run this show, but too many ads make the listening experience off-putting.
Catelia
I loved this episode so much, and that ending was incredible :D
