When Andrew Scott voices your erotic story
Tyler McCall’s new Quinn series landed a narrator in the Hot Priest.
Embedded is your essential guide to what’s good on the internet, written by Kate Lindsay and edited by Nick Catucci.
I’m more of an Andrew Scott reading poetry girl, myself. — Kate
The audio boom of the early pandemic has all but faded out. Clubhouse is still technically live, but I can’t remember the last time I saw a Twitter Space on my timeline. One listening experience, however, has endured: audio erotica.
Audio erotica predates the pandemic, but it wasn’t until the app Quinn, among others, swooped in with its sleek, cute design and, more recently, the reading talent of Andrew Scott, that the content achieved more mainstream legitimacy. The brand, a subscription-based platform that’s normally home to audio creators responsible for their own erotic scripts, began teasing their new celebrity original on TikTok, showing just glimpses of the arm and neck of what thousands of commenters immediately knew to be the Hot Priest.
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On May 16, Scott’s identity as narrator was officially revealed, and the first episode of his series, The Queen’s Guard, dropped. Episode two arrives on May 23.
The person behind it all? Writer Tyler McCall, who came up with the original story without any idea it would later be read by the Irish heartthrob.
“It's quite the pivot,” McCall says of her foray into erotic writing. A fashion editor for 10 years, including a stint as the editor-in-chief of Fashionista, she went freelance in 2022. One of her first pieces was about Quinn, and after establishing relationships with the company and creators, she was invited to submit her own ideas for originals. The Queen’s Guard was her idea.
In this interview, we chat about the logistics of writing for audio, the reasons behind the smut boom, and what it’s been like for her fantasy to go viral.
Were you a Wattpad girly or fan fiction writer before this?
Not recently. I've been working on a romance novel, which I feel like is adjacent, but I am a fanfic girly from way, way, way back. The most trouble I ever got in in high school was that I got busted either reading or writing *NSYNC fan fiction—which like, what was I doing at that age? No idea what I was talking about. And I was definitely deep in Harry Potter fanfic in college. Like I was on fanfiction.net.
Same. My username, which I keep a secret, is still accessible.
Oh. It's still up there. And nobody can ever know what this was.
Tell me a little bit about The Queen's Guard.
This story is basically a medieval fantasy-style romance. Andrew plays a character called Robb the Protector, who is the right hand to an evil queen that he has not yet realized is evil. And his former lover, Mira, or he pronounces it Myra, is the leader of a resistance movement that's trying to overthrow the Queen. It's three half-hour long episodes, so the story develops over those three half-hour episodes.
What is the balance between erotica and plot?
I can only speak from my perspective. I definitely approached it more like a romance novel with some smut in it than it is more traditional audio erotica, for a number of reasons. Again, it's three half-hour [episodes]. You have a lot more runway for plot just to begin with. It's not a one for one, but like The Idea of You, where this stuff is happening and you're seeing it happen.
Is there anything that was different about the writing process, knowing that it was gonna be listened to?
It is such an interesting way to write and a challenging way to write. It's not voiced by multiple actors. So the idea is that you're listening to it and you are this character, Mira. Also thinking about it in terms of sound effects. I did not do that, that's somebody else's job, but trying to, in my head, keep in mind that kind of atmospheric stuff.
It didn't occur to me that it wouldn't be like an audio book, it's more like POV, which makes sense. I can imagine someone doing voices would really take me out of it.
It would be weird.
What's it been like seeing the reactions?
So crazy. I've been talking about this with my husband, and I've been writing on the internet for 12 years now. It's not like I'm not used to putting stuff out there, but this is just such a different feeling because the reaction has been insane. Sitting on it was insane—because they told me and they were like, “This is strictly confidential.” The teasers were so cool, ‘cause obviously I knew, and seeing people freak out and figure out that it was Andrew, which is wild. Having something that I created have a teaser trailer at all, and having something that I created have all this content and this buzz surrounding it, was crazy. It has a theme song.
We're not used to an industry that has a budget to support our writing in this way.
They did a promo video shoot. They did teaser trailers. It's really wild. And I am so grateful. It was very, very kind of the Quinn team to make it as clear as possible that I—obviously, they would've credited me regardless—but they've also been really nice about trying to put me forward.
Have you had people coming to you with thoughts?
I think it's one of those things, to be really honest, that people that know me feel strange about consuming. Like, my husband won't listen to it. My husband's name is Sam. I was like, “Sam, are you gonna download the app?” I'm making him pay for it. I'm like, “Are you gonna download the app and listen to it?” He was like,” I don't know if I can do that.” And I was like, “Why? I don't know how to break this to you. We're married.”
I caught up on Bridgeton this weekend, and that kind of romance—women embracing smut, Quinn, it all feels like part of a shift. Why do you think that is?
I think we're in a moment where people feel more comfortable being horny on main. I don't think I really read a lot of romance novels until the pandemic happened. But also Quinn and to your point, Bridgeton, and The Idea of You, it does seem like we're in a moment where there are these outlets, for women especially, a safe outlet to explore that and work through sexuality in a way that I don't feel like existed. I think so much about how porn gifs were so popular on Tumblr, and you'd have to find these in niche pockets of the internet. It's nice that now there's this moment where you can read a smutty romance novel and be like, “I loved this book.” Or you can listen to Quinn and recommend it to your friends. I'm sure that the pandemic had something to do with it.
Looking at Quinn's interface, it's just nice. It's a nice website to be on. I almost wonder if it's Tumblr cracking down on porn, people finally saw that there was an audience there for other kinds of sexual consumption that's not...
It's not aggressive, and it's a pleasant interface. The power of great branding also.
With how crazy the reception has been, is this something you're interested in writing more of?
I still love getting to go out and do interviews and doing reporting and all that. But this is one of the most rewarding writing experiences I've ever had, just in terms of it being a creative project that I kind of saw through beginning to end. I am working on my romance novel, which also I felt like this dovetailed really well with that. I would really love to do more. It was a lot of fun.