title: BONUS: Inside "The Spot off the Side of the Highway"
author: The Truth
contenttype: podcast
publication: The Truth
published: 2026-02-19T05:00:00+00:00
sourceurl: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/495/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/SBP6944859800.mp3?updated=1771468700
word_count: 3300
This is the truth, I'm Jonathan Mitchell, and for the past few stories we've been releasing conversations in between episodes where we talk with writers about where the stories came from and the ideas inside them, and today I'm talking with writer Mary McDonnell, who wrote the spot off the side of the highway. And this will be a spoiler-filled conversation, this is really intended to be listened to after you've heard this story, so please go listen to it first if you haven't already. We'll talk with Mary after the break, and if you'd like to listen to our show without interruptions, go to the Truth podcast.supportingcast.fm. If you've been listening to this show lately, you know that last month was my wife's birthday, and I surprised her with a gift. You got me my Kashmir hoodie sweater. From? From Quince. Quince.com, who also happens to be sponsoring this episode of The Truth. I love this sweater, I've actually worn it twice this week, it is so soft, it is a very flattering fit, so I can wear it with jeans, I can wear it with sweats, it looks cute no matter what. They've got wardrobe staples with quality that's made to last, and they work directly with safe ethical factories, and they cut out the middlemen, so you're not paying for brand markup, just high quality clothing. Mother's Day's coming up, do you think they sell flowers on Quince? I don't think they sell flowers on Quince, but they definitely have jewelry on Quince, they have purses on Quince, they have accessories. Professor Wardrobe with Quince, go to Quince.com slash truth for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too, that's q-i-n-c-e.com slash truth to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash truth. I've been working with Mary McDonnell since 2018. The first story she wrote for the truth was called Murderer at Cakery Bakery, and she's written many, many stories since. Last fall she wrote the joke, and many of her stories are very funny and slightly demented, but her latest is not a comedy, yet it still has her same sense of irony and richly observed characters. A lot of times stories start with characters for me, but really the character that started this story for me was the spot, I would say. I remember you pitching a story where it was all from the spot's point of view. Yeah, from the spot's point of view, which isn't exactly how he ended up telling it, but the visceral idea that started this for me was from the perspective of the spot, like two people talking, and then one of them disappearing, and then you're just hearing the silence around them. I think the thing that was really engaging me with that was you felt the suddenness of something was there, and now it's gone. This was always a story about loss for you. The moment that you can't come back from, I think, is really what it is. It's like something was there, and now it's gone. It's the moment you can't take back. Yeah. That sort of central story of the Charlie character who we never meet in the story, and his disappearing wife, that was in the story early on, and in fact, I think the first draft or two started on that story. Yes. Yeah. The Charlie character was a very central. He's no longer actually in the story as a speaking character, but he was for a while and is like a very central character in the lives even of these kids. They grew up seeing him probably around town and definitely seeing videos of him, and it was kind of like, you know, I had to adjust to the idea that he wasn't going to be in the story anymore because eventually it did become really, I think, powerful to have the story go. What it is now is basically all the way through story from start to finish, you're with these characters, there's no time jumps or anything. Why did you take him out, and what did that offer you? I think having him become fully more of a legend to the kids allowed us as the audience to feel him, I guess, more as a legend too. When he was in the story originally, like we knew immediately the spot was real because it originally started with the disappearance of his wife, and then these kids coming in, and we as the audience knew that there was definitely danger, and the kids didn't. They thought it was a joke. Whereas this puts us more in there, the kids' point of view. Exactly. We're with the kids the whole time. The story is interesting in that it's sort of like a slasher movie, but it sort of turns it on its head in a way because the spot, like the monster in the story, doesn't really chase anyone. It just there, it just exists, and I'm wondering, what did that do for the story, what challenges did that create, and how did that shape the way that you wrote the character conflicts? Yeah, I think once you present this thing where people could disappear into it, I think everyone knows one to some of the characters will disappear, and then the game becomes who and how, and is it going to surprise you, and should it surprise you? But the way that we landed on the run of disappearances in this story, I think, was the thing that I like about it is the first one you maybe do see coming. It's like Justin's kind of being a goof. He's like the teenagers who are smoking pot or having sex in a slasher movie. And then you might briefly think, like, so it's going to fall into it when he asks for her help, but no, it's still Justin, and he doesn't listen to anyone, and then yeah, he's gone. Maybe the only surprise is that it's so obviously him and that it is him. But he's like the only one we see get devoured by the spot. By the end of the story, Kat is alone, and the rest of her childhood friends have disappeared in one way or another, but we're not 100% sure how soath has disappeared, and David has disappeared. Yeah, yeah, he just bandends them. Like a totally different heartbreaking way. Right. So this sort of becomes a story less about running from a monster or trying to avoid a monster and more about the way that people disappear from our lives. Yeah, like going back to the idea of like a moment you can't take back, like, you know, Kat says something mean to self, and it might be the last thing she ever said to her. And you know, she said it in a moment when she was feeling really panicked and scared herself. It doesn't mean she's like an evil person, but sometimes we do say things that are hurtful to people we care about, and we regret it. And that feeling is something that I wanted to leave people with. In a more traditional horror story, someone would try to fix things like fix the spot or fix the relationships, and you don't let anyone do that. Yeah. I mean, maybe if there was like an act five, but I think I don't even know how you would go about fixing a hole that makes things disappear. It seems very... Well, it seems like the next chapter would be some sort of like institution will come and build a building around it and start conducting experiments. Yeah, very like... Stranger things, Ash. Stranger things, season two or whatever. What do you hope the audience understands at the end, and what are you maybe more comfortable letting them not understand? I think I'm comfortable with not knowing where Sof is at the end of the story. I mean, I have my thought on what definitively happened to her, but it is a field, and it's possible she just walked in a different direction. I guess what I want people to walk away with is like that feeling of like saying something you can't take back or like doing something you can't take back. It is like such an awful feeling, but also so many people do those things and then have such sincere regret for it, and maybe we can forgive ourselves for those things and forgive people who have said those things to us because maybe they carry that regret with them. What do you think the story reflects about friendships? Oh, it's kind of sad. I love friendship, and I think friendship is very important, but this particular story is I think speaking to kind of outgrowing high school friendships, which you don't outgrow all high school friendships, but I do think there are like seasons of friendships, and sometimes we outgrow them, and there is kind of like a grief to that. So that's definitely another theme that's going on in this story, besides just like specific impulsivities that these characters have is like in general. They're all going through the graduation of teenhood and like the things that you end up having to leave behind when you exit that part of life. It leaves us in a very unsettled place, and I'm wondering if is that something? Are you fine with the audience feeling uncertain at the end or uncomfortable? Yes, I think that's the feeling that I want to end with because I think that's the feeling you feel when something like this happens in real life. When you actually do something like this that you regret or say something that you wish you hadn't said to someone, and you're left with this feeling of, oh, I kind of wish I could take that back. I feel like that's the feeling with like the music you add to the story and where cat is emotionally that you're left with. And as I'm saying it, that is why I think we end up following cat because she spent like the whole story avoiding a lot of stuff, and then she's the one that has to sit and deal with it at the end of the story, even though we don't watch her deal with it for that ultimately she's the one who's going to be left with the repercussions. After the break we'll talk some more with Mary about the inspiration for the setting of the story, and which character she relates to the most. Spoiler, it's not who you might think. That's after the break. And if you're listening to this episode, and especially if you've listened this far into the episode, chances are you really enjoy the show and you love the stories we make, and they mean something to you. And we want nothing more than to keep making these stories forever, you know, for as long as we can still hear. But the only way to do that is to pay the people involved. I have to pay all the writers, I have to pay all the actors, and I need to eat too. And so the show has to generate money. And ads don't make what they used to. They make a little bit of money, and we're really happy for the ads we get. But the only way to really make this show sustainable is through subscriptions to our ad-free feed. And so if you want to support the show, and if you want to help ensure that we can keep making these stories, the best thing you can do is subscribe to the ad-free feed. It costs $5 a month or $50 a year, and you'll hear the show without interruption. You won't even get messages like this. Go to the truthpodcast.supportingcat.com as also a link in the show notes. Subscribing to the ad-free feed helps keep our show alive. Yes, online shopping is quite literally at our fingertips, but that doesn't mean it's always simple to buy. Whether it's trying to remember one of a million different logins so you can actually place your order, or getting almost all the way through checkout before realizing your card is nowhere near you. There are many hiccups that can get between you and placing that order, which is why it's such a relief when you see that purple pay button that has all of your information saved, making checkout as simple as a tap of your screen. That iconic purple shop pay button is why Shopify has the best converting checkout on the planet, meaning less cards going abandoned and more sales going to you. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, and 10% of all e-commerce in the US. From household names like Thrive Cosmetics, Gymshark, and all birds to brands just getting started. And they're not just great at converting sales. If people haven't heard about your brand yet, Shopify can help you find your customers with easy to run email and social media campaigns. And they have world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. Tackle all of those important tasks from one place, making your life easier and your business operations smoother. See less cards go abandoned and more sales go with Shopify and their shop pay button. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com slash realm. Go to shopify.com slash realm. That's shopify.com slash realm. When we first started talking about the story, we talked a lot about how it reminded you of where you're from. I don't know. We didn't like delve too much into this specifics of that as I was writing it. But yeah, I grew up in central Illinois. I actually looked based on the roads that you put in the script. It's not near where I grew up. It's actually closer to St. Louis that spot. And I was more like central Illinois. But we would go to, you know, when we were teenagers driving around, we had a car. We would oftentimes just go out to the country and and find some place to park and hang out, you know. And I remember a big party spot, although I never went to a party there, but I know everyone talked about the grain elevator as being like the place where the grain elevator. It's an elevator for grain. There are a lot of farms in the area. But like it's very flat and very like you have city and then you have nothing for miles and miles. Because we had talked about different places potentially to set this and the idea of like a field was very appealing. Although this story, I mean, I kind of like the way I sound designed it and the way that I mean, we're not really asked to imagine that necessarily. It could be in a wooded area or it could be some place with a little bit more picture-esque setting. Did you grow up around places like that? Did that was that a familiar kind of setting for you? No, not at all. Yeah, I grew up in partly Massachusetts and partly London. So I was pretty much around hills and trees and green and houses. What did you think of the recording process? Did anything emerge from that that you didn't expect or was it was surprising for you? Yes, actually. For me, actually, the David changed a little bit with hearing the actor in a way that I liked. Yeah, I like it too. Yeah. When I was writing him, I was sort of imagining like the younger version of Chris Evans character and knives out like a very steady good guy who has like a very specific flip to bad guy. But I think that Brendan played him a lot more like believably teenage boy. Yeah. And a much like more sort of like both good and bad like flawed like insecure realistic way. He's sort of more like the nice guy who turns out to be not so nice. You could tell a little bit more right from the beginning that he was a little like nervous, like he was more nervous like to begin with than I was thinking. But in a way that I think was like tied the ending together better. Yeah, I could hear that too. What are recording in the car? I felt like that too. Like, oh, this isn't exactly what I think how Mary was really describing the character or the way he's playing it. But I kind of think this works. Yeah. You know, in a really cool way, it's going to make me a little bit more upset with him. Yeah, I think he was a little bit more of an underdog. And I think also I think a more realistic teenager than I was writing. So what was their character that you think you're more most like? You know, did you did you draw from your own experience and thinking about who these characters were? To be honest, I feel like they're often is. But in this story, that might actually not be true. I might be a little bit of every one. I feel like the answer I probably should say is cat, right? Because she's the person we end up following the most. But maybe I was slightly more of a soap? I don't know. I know who cat is like she's in my head. She's like, I mean, we've talked about this. She's the type of popular girl who was also on the debate team and like played lacrosse versus like the popular girl who was a cheerleader. Like, it's a very specific type of popular girl at a very specific type of suburban high school in my mind. And the way that Shunba plays her, I think she's sort of more sardonic a little bit than even what was written on the page, I think. Which I think is like a little bit more like you. Yeah. Yeah. But I don't know if I was in high school. Like, I think I wouldn't have been as over it. Yeah. I think I identified most with soap and David. Yeah. I was going to say it to be honest. I would, in high school, I was probably the most like David except I anger would not have been the emotion I would have turned to. So like, that's where me and David would have pivoted. I would have been like a David at the beginning of the story, even to the point of probably being like, hey, best friend who's of the opposite gender, we're really flirting, right? Like, I probably would have been him. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I definitely had those kinds of conversations all throughout my school. Yeah. That was, I'm glad I'm not there anymore. Our next story is called Garden of Evan. It's written by Mac Rogers. And it's about a guy whose compost heap develops a mind of its own. It's coming to the truth next week. And again, if you're listening to these interviews we've been doing and you care about the stories we make, please subscribe to our ad free feed. You can go to the truth podcast that's supportingcast.fm. Not only will you hear the show without interruptions, you'll also be helping us continue to bring you new stories. That's the truth podcast that's supportingcast.fm. I'm Jonathan Mitchell and you have been hearing the truth.