The difference in opinion is what makes our conversations interesting - else Mimblewimble would just be 30 minutes of us going “I completely agree” or “That is awesome”.

So, unless you have a limited series in mind, pick something you can talk about and pick something you’ll enjoy talking about also. Something that, if you have a partner, enjoy arguing about. (You can, of course, argue with yourself but trust me, that gets old pretty quickly).

Also, internalize the idea that you might not love the topic any more by the end of the series and you’re golden.

1.5) Picking a format for your podcast

Our go-to podcast inspiration is The West Wing Weekly. Prashanthini is a big fan of The West Wing and the podcast brings her an additional dimension of enjoyment through behind the scenes trivia, plot discussions and lots of guest stars including actors, writers, politicians and the creator of the show. So, when we need inspiration, there’s only one obvious choice.

The West Wing Weekly, has a very simple format: the hosts examine a single episode of The West Wing in a podcast episode. When Prashanthini and I set out to do a Harry Potter podcast, we did something very similar - a chapter for an episode.

We recorded six episodes before we were ready to admit that it was a drag. A chapter per episode meant we were getting lost in the details and discussing things that we doubted even hardcore fans would care about. Plus, the point was to have meaningful discussions and not nitpick the crap out of the series we love. So, we revisited our format and decided to pick major events in the book as our stops.

Our advice: Do a test run and figure out if the format works for you. It’s okay to admit anytime down the run that it’s not working and start over.

2) Naming your podcast

This is...actually pretty difficult. A podcast’s name has to immediately convey what the podcast is about and what kind of tone you’re going for. Heavy stuff.

Take Harry Potter and the Sacred Text for example. You immediately get that it’s about Harry Potter and that it’s probably a podcast with serious, soul-searching discussions (you’re not wrong).

We wanted our Harry Potter podcast to be laid back and low key so we decided to go with the name of a spell to showcase er goofiness. We needed it to indicate that if you’re looking for a manual for life, our podcast is not for you.

So, we opened up a Harry Potter wiki article and did a scan of all the spells. I tried to be self deprecating and go for something like “Muffliato” - a substitute podcast for the random coffee shop/rain sounds/whale song that you use as background noise. Thankfully, Prashanthini is a more sane, level headed human being so she kept scrolling down the list until we hit Mimblewimble. Mimblewimble is a tongue tying spell - something that felt perfect because we felt very tongue tied ourselves, every time we began to record an episode.

We just appended a descriptor - Mimblewimble, the Harry Potter podcast - and we were ready to roll.

Our advice: Pick a name that’s easy to spell because that’s your website URL too. If you want to go with a long name ala Pop Culture Happy Hour, you can also just create an acronym (PCHH) that you can use to identify your podcast.

3. Episodes

Preparing for a podcast episode

Different podcasts require different types of preparation.

I imagine that a single episode of Hardcore History takes Dan Carlin months of prep work. Every episode is jam packed with information that he has to research, collect and shape into a narrative.

Mimblewimble, thankfully, takes us a few hours every week for prep. We read the chapters that we’re going to be discussing in the episode, take notes about points we want to bring out, and then look up anything that we think might lead somewhere interesting. I, for instance, love etymology so I tend to look up all of the names as soon as characters are introduced because I know JKR sometimes deliberately chooses names (Yes, I am aware that I’m a dork).

The notes are a plenty but they’re nothing more than talking points because Mimblewimble is meant to sound conversational. If we were focussing on delivering a message, we’d write a script and practice but since that isn’t the point, we just do our best to have interesting discussions.

We also make it a point to not discuss anything from our reading sessions with each other before we actually record. Neither of us are voice actors and are generally terrible at faking surprise/amusement. So, we try to keep our reactions to each other’s material as unrehearsed as possible. This will get harder to do as we get to more...exciting events in the series but we’ll attempt to preserve the tone as much as possible.

Our advice: Prepare for discussions but don’t script them, entirely.

Recording a podcast episode: the equipment

The first episode of Mimblewimble was recorded on an iPhone. Now, iPhones are jacks of all trades and masters of none, so the audio turned out to be average but not amazing. After some of the feedback for the first episode turned out to be, “Have you guys tried editing your podcast?”, we decided to not use an iPhone anymore. From the second episode, we decided to freeload and use the Blue Yeti we had in our workplace. It’s amazing (obviously, given the price).