The Writing of "The Triangle"
By Nathan Hoobler, writer/director for Adventures in Odyssey | September 8, 2001

---

Writing an Adventures in Odyssey episode is a difficult but exciting task and it's probably even more difficult and exciting for a first show from a writer. "The Triangle" was my first foray into Odyssey writing and it was one of the most exciting things I've done. It showed me the joy it is to write for Odyssey, but also what a hard task it is. It also showed me how much of a "team thing" that Odyssey is, and what a great benefit it is for a writer to have experienced and excellent writers (like the other Odyssey team members) analyzing, suggesting, and correcting my work.

The process of writing a show almost always begins with an idea. I had been interning with the show for a little over a month when Paul McCusker, the executive producer, suggested that I write an episode. He went on to suggest that I should write one about the comment that Jack made in "For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll." (Jack said, "When I was growing up, my friends always stole my girlfriends away…how do you think Whit met Jenny?"). We talked for some time about how the story should be told and he came up with the idea that Jack would give Whit an object of some kind that would trigger the memory of how he met his wife Jenny. We continued discussion and landed that a book should be the item, since it seemed to fit Whit's personality.

After our discussion, I eagerly started outlining the show. I got about eight or nine scenes into it (about up to the end of one part) when I reached a stopping point and went back to Paul. He and Kathy Wierenga and I spent a few hours talking over the outline. The original story had Jack and Jenny dating, but it also had Emily (Jack's penpal) dating Whit. It ended with the two couples breaking up because the other wasn't a Christian. We ultimately decided this story had been done a number of times already on the show ("The Turning Point," "A Question about Tasha," "First Love") and thought that it should be a different kind of show than that-it became more of a story of love and friendship in general rather than a story about dating a non-Christian.

Paul had thought that the story should begin with Whit doing something embarrassing in front of Jenny (I remember talking about Whit knocking Jenny's books over). Along those lines, the first outline also had a scene where Whit, working behind the desk at the library, acted rudely to Jenny who was checking out a book. Paul also wanted the episode to have two storytellers and we talked about a few of the past Odyssey episodes that have used that technique ("Deliver Us from Evil," "Modesty is the Best Policy"). The meeting ended with the three of us outlining the final half of the story together.

After the outlining, I wrote another outline based on all our discussions. Paul approved the outline (after making some adjustments) and I started to work on the first draft. We didn't have a name for the show at first and I simply called it "Jack/Whit/Jenny story." I began my writing with about two days of research. Since I had often noted "goofs" on the program and this was a story about Whit's past (which we had heard a lot about before), I wanted to make sure to get all my facts straight. It was from this research that most of the previous episode references in the show come from. After that I wrote the first draft of the show in about a week. Since the team was in the midst of writing and recording a number other shows, this one wasn't as high a priority to read through and give notes. I remember distinctly, however, the first time that I saw "Jack/Whit/Jenny" on the schedule I was terribly excited. It didn't really seem like a real show before then (and in fact throughout the writing process, it didn't seem real), but when I saw it on the schedule, it felt more like an actual episode.

A week later or so, Kathy Wierenga read the first draft and made notes on it. We talked through them and I made a number of significant changes in the script (including fixing a lot of the lines that sounded stilted. We briefly discussed the script at the next Odyssey writer's meeting in August and talked about a title. Marshal Younger said that it should be "something with ‘triangle.'" The title eventually ended up as "The Triangle." (We talked about it after the episode aired, however, and decided it was really more of a square because there were four people involved-Whit, Jack, Jenny, and Emily.)

A few weeks after the writer's meeting (after I was back in college), the team went through the script and relayed their notes to me. There were a lot of notes and changes, but I could see the script improving. The team also noticed a few of my writing "ticks"-mistakes that I made over and over. One of them was that I used the word "Well" at the beginning of a line 53 times in the original script. Another was that I too often used the character's name in the dialog (for example, "Jack, that's great." "Yes, Whit, it is.").

I wrote a third draft and sent it off to them. I got more notes on this draft and wrote a fourth draft, which was the final draft I would write. Paul McCusker went through this draft and did what we call a "polish" on the script-he tightened up and fixed some of the dialog and added great humorous touches as well.

Finally, the episode was recorded in November and December of 2000. The "frame story" parts with Whit, Jack, and Connie were recorded in Burbank in November as usual. Paul McCusker directed the show and Rob Jorgensen engineered. The team had such difficulty finding several of the voices for the flashback segments that the scheduled recording of those scenes in California was cancelled and moved to Colorado Springs in December.

Jim Custer was already cast as the voice of Young Whit. He played Whit in the episodes "Rescue from Manatugo Point" and "Operation: DIGOUT" and we agreed he sounded like someone who could "grow up" into the voice of Whit. But the parts of Young Jack, Young Jenny, and Young Emily were still uncast. The team looked into numerous talent agencies in Colorado and auditioned dozens of voices. The role of Jack presented an extra difficulty since Alan Young (who plays Jack Allen) has a very distinct voice. Writer and director Marshal Younger had a softer voice like Jack's and was standing in for Young Jack opposite another actor when several team members noticed how similar his voice quality sounded to Young Jack. After a few test readings, they cast Marshal as Jack. Many of the comments and reviews of the show later noted how much young Jack sounded like "older" Jack. One comment even said, "He really sounded like Jack, only Younger," which I thought was remarkably appropriate.

That left only Jenny and Emily to cast. Since these were demanding and emotional roles, it proved difficult to find these characters and Marshal well remembers reading his Jack scene against many, many possible Emilys. Finally…success. The team found two excellent actresses who could fill out the critical roles. The "flashback" scenes were recorded in early December and Rob Jorgensen immediately started on the voice track editing. When he finished, I was back at Focus in December and I got to hear the raw voice tracks. It's a very useful process to hear just the voice tracks without sound effects because minor changes are much easier to make here. Rob worked on the sound effects, foley, and mixing and a production engineer's usual magic on the show.

For the music, Rob wanted something a little different and something that would give this show a different sound than the usual show. He wanted a "1940s" feel due to the show's time period and wanted a big band/swing type of music for several sequences. The process with the music is to write detailed notes on a script for the composer and send him or her a copy of the edited voice tracks. John Campbell, AIO's main composer, did the music for "Triangle" and he came back with some excellent cues. (My favorite two cues are actually the music while Jack is reading his letter to Jenny and the cue that ends Part One.)

Finally, Rob had a playback of the show for the team. By that time, I was back at college once again, so they sent me a tape of the show once it was completed. I remember listening to the show with glee for a few reasons. Of course I was enthusiastic about hearing "my first show" but also I was relieved that it was over. It was liberating to hear the final product and realize that the process of writing was completely done. It also showed that by the time the show was finished it wasn't really "mine." I had written it, but it was Paul McCusker's idea and he had polished it. And the whole team made notes and fixes on it. And the actors took and the lines, made them their own and brought life to them. And Rob Jorgensen had done the production and made it all "real." So, in a very real way, it was far more than I could have imagined it being. After hearing the show, there was only one thing left to see-what the fans would think of it.

I'll now go through the script with some specific notes about where lines came from or how they changed through the scripting process.

I can't remember how the Antiques Shop was chosen as the location for the story, but I know that we wanted to re-establish it as a place since nothing had happened there in awhile. (We also used the name of the Treasure Room because we didn't want that room to just disappear.) Originally, the first scene (like many of them) was much longer with more dialog. Whit was picking up some "Chatwick" painting for the Treasure Room. He rambled about how Ray Chatwick painted them when he was younger and how he had eventually started a charitable foundation and how you never know how God will use someone as an integral part of your life. It was overly long and probably boring and the team pointed it out at the first draft.

The book that weaves its way throughout the story (and that Jack gives to Whit) was originally Compromising the Case for Christianity by C. S. Lewis. I had wanted to use a C. S. Lewis book since I love his writing so much (and AIO often references him), but the team thought the title was a bit wordy since it's said a number of times throughout the script. We decided instead to use a book Lewis wrote, The Four Loves, which seemed appropriate, considering the episode's theme. After looking into it, however, we found the book was published after the time period the episode was set in. Instead we used The Allegory of Love.

The Pasadena Library was used as the place Whit and Jenny meet because it had been set up in The Complete Guide and in "The Mortal Coil." In fact, in that show, when Whit is flashing back on his life, he hears someone say, "…Jenny. You've seen her at the Pasadena Library, I think." Since that was an established part of Odyssey canon, I thought someone should say it in this show, so I had Jack say it when Jenny and Whit meet (again) outside the baseball game.

Whit says he was going to the University of Southern California because The Complete Guide establishes he went to Duke before the war and USC after it. If I could go back and change a few things about the show, one thing I would add was an explanation from Whit about this. Even though it's clearly stated in the Guide, it's never been stated on the audio series, so it almost sounds like he went to Duke and USC (on opposite sides of the country) at the same time.

We used an elevator as Whit and Jenny's meeting place because we thought the sound effects would be interesting and it seemed a fun place to have two people meet. It was indeed fun with the sound effects and you may notice that Rob did a clever trick with the music. The music begins like typical background music, but then when Whit gets into the elevator, it becomes the "elevator music." When Jenny and Whit leave the elevator, the music stays in the elevator behind them. I actually called the Pasadena Library to see if they had an elevator and indeed they do and did in 1947.

The original script didn't have Whit's friends in the room who make fun of Jenny's writing, but the team suggested them as a way to heighten Whit's awkwardness later. It gave me a chance to introduce the names "Landon and Nolan" who are two of my brothers and big Odyssey fans. It's also interesting that script also has Emily in it, which is my sister's name, but that was simply providential since "Emily" was introduced earlier. Another part I enjoy about this scene is that I got to play a part. I'm the one who says, laughing, "Not yet. Did you read her article yesterday?" From my performance on that one line, I'm guessing I don't have much of a future on that side of the microphone.

Whit mentions he wrote "Of Men and of Angels." Many fans will note that article came from "Malachi's Message" and apparently interested both Malachi and Jenny.

One of my favorite lines in the show is "I'm Guinevere Morrow. My friends call me Jenny. You can call me Guinevere." This line wasn't mine, but was suggested by the team.

When Whit and Jenny are talking in the coffee shop, it gave us a chance to introduce several elements that would be important in Whit's future, such as his majoring in philosophy and literature. We purposefully had Whit say that he couldn't imagine himself teaching even though he eventually became an award-winning teacher. It often seems to happen that the thing you can't believe that you would do is what you end up loving. We also introduced Whit's dream to write books, which he would eventually fulfill in a big way.

Jack Allen's working at an auction house in Pasadena matched up his owning an antique shop now and seemed to fit his conversations about antiques in "For Whom the Wedding Bells Toll." It also let us show what Jack did between being in Bath, North Carolina with Whit in "Blackbeard's Treasure" and when he took Whit to Nebraska in "Clara." We also made Emily, who eventually became Jack's wife, his penpal. It seemed to be something Jack would do since he was a more quiet person.

All of the dialog about G. K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man, Lewis's quote, and The Man Who Was Thursday come from discussions in a literature class I had at college with Dr. Strait. Since I was so indebted to his class, I named the teacher that introduced Jenny after him.

The debate on the nature of man was meant as a precursor to Whit's similar debate in "Hold Up!"

In the original draft of the story, when Jack said he went over to talk to Whit after seeing he and Jenny hugging, they had another of their little discrepancies. Jack says it was the next afternoon, but Whit corrects him and says it was that night. We cut it out because it seemed to break the high emotion during those scenes.

The most significant restructuring in the show between drafts came toward the end of part two. Originally, after Whit tried to call Jack, the story cut right to the scene where Whit tries to confront Jack as he's going on stage at the auction. Since the show was going to be short, the team suggested adding the scene where Whit stops Jack outside his apartment and the one where Whit and Jenny talk about their relationship and wonder if it's worth it. Adding the scene outside the apartment also gave a chance to show Whit and Jack arguing whether it was a baseball or basketball game in the past and the present. Adding the scene where Whit and Jenny talk allowed us to add a prayer to the show, which pushed the spiritual aspect a little more clearly.

The most significant addition to later drafts of the script, however, was the scene where Emily shows up to set Jack straight. In the first few drafts, Emily sent Jack a letter with the advice which Jack read at the end, but it turned out to be much more dramatic for her to show up in person. Jack's personality throughout the story is partially based on my own and the Emily character is directly based on a person that I know in real life.

The idea of Jack giving Whit a book at the end (in the past) was in the show from the very beginning, though the circumstances changed several times.

All in all, I think that working "The Triangle" is one of my favorite things I've ever done. It really showed me how great the Odyssey team is and how much fun it can be to write for the show.

Back to Articles