This is called architect vs gardener. In my experience though if you don't have some kind of structure it's very noticeable. Even if you don't have all the details you need to have an idea of the shape you want a story to take. Most authors favor one over the other but most use both to some level
I don't know if I'd call it impressive just because pantsing an entire story does come with it's downsides. I probably have a lot more loose ends and threads to nowhere in my first draft than someone who plots out every little detail before writing a word. I'm sure if a developmental editor ever looked at my work they'd probably cry 
Plotting is probably the better way to go for someone who wants to take their writing seriously. I don't know if I'll ever be more than a hobbiest so I don't really have to worry about that too much. I'll usually keep a list of things I want to fix/change as I'm writing if/when I ever do get to the second draft (which I 100% admit only 2 of my books have officially made it to a second draft out of 10 full length novels) but I'll still otherwise go with what my gut says is good for the story at the time. It really is just what feels natural to me.
I tend to do a mixture of both. As a whole, I know what I want to do with my novel, I have the major arcs and themes planned and I know how the story is going to end, but there’s certain details I make up as I go. I have characters with major impact on the story that haven’t even been named yet. Exactly how I’m going to transition from Point A to Point B isn’t always completely fleshed out, and that sometimes gets me into trouble, but I’m constantly experimenting with things so sticking to a plan has never gone too well for me. I’m sure my ADD plays a factor in all this as well lol
It seems to make sense to me. It also makes me think a discussion thread about conflict types would be useful, because they are so fun to think about. I think my favorite is Man vs. God/gods in terms of structure, but it is hard to do that sort of story in anything other than a fantastical setting... I gotta figure out how to do a man v. god narrative in a sci fi world.
Definitely, I don't think one is superior to the other. I bet writing pure dialog for an audio drama requires a bit more planning than written dialogue though, because it has to SOUND good when read aloud. People underestimate how tricky that is to pull off.
I started writing in theatre so dialogue comes naturally to me (I'm also a talker from a family of talkers lol).
The part that's hard with audio drama, especially if you don't use narration, is creating what's going on around you without saying "on the nose" things like "I see that's a $25.00 ticketyou have for the play" You have to change the dialog to something like "How much do I owe you?" answer "25 bucks" answer "okay, gimme the ticket" and then, of course, have the appropriate sound effects in the back. That's WAAAAAY over simplified but it's doable. One of my plays for my old company was done on a dare and it was a story without narration but only one actor.
I mean the "god" in that sense could be something like in Psycho Pass where there's a "mother computer" that determines good vs. evil for example. Or a govt that acts like a God/god which could be cool. But you're right that trope is definitely steeped in fantasy/supernatural elements. I think that thread would be worthwhile to see what tropes people are aware of and their unique spins on the classical tropes!
That sounds mildly confusing, haha. Audio production has whole other levels of design involved too, yeah. Foley artists are very impressive and editors have to use the audio to help visualize information. I bet it was fun to work on a project like that. I did voice over for an audio story like that once, but I have not tried writing one myself
The computer from Psycho-Pass is probably a perfect example of that, yeah. Although, (SPOILERS for Psycho-Pass) once you see how the computer actually works, you realize as an audience member that the story is more man v. society, and the "god" computer is sort of a manifestation of society's will. That is also an interesting subject, to be fair.
You will figure it out, I am sure. On the subject of naming characters, I think sometimes you could name a character after finishing the entire story and it might end up being more poetic. If you find that they mirror a particular historical figure or something, giving them a similar name could be a nice tip of the hat. A lot of the time, my characters' names reflect something about them or the story in the meaning (sometimes they don't though).
It's okay I didn't like PP but that's an interesting "twist." Man v. society can be really intriguing as well depending on what society you put what character in. I'm not big on those because I feel like they can be taken so many different ways from what's intended and I dislike "getting into it" with people lol.
I've done a bit of all of it, foley, design, voice. My most fun piece sound wise was a cigarette boat coming up on the right side of an old river clunker with machine guns (on the Amazon so all the bird sounds) then crosing the bow and going down the left side. Took days and days and sometimes I still see the tracks in my dreams after all these years.
Usually I left all of that to the guys who do it all the time. It was a fun 12 years but frustrating too as it was not lucrative. Still, audio is getting more and more and that's great. It was thrilling for me to see all the podcasts etc. My first show was done on tape... can you imagine? (Yeah, I'm an older fart)
Nothing wrong with having years of experience haha. I am curious what you think of audio editing now vs. audio editing before. I think there has been a bit of a resurgence in audio media content. NPR alone has seen an uptick and you are right, there are so many podcasts. I listened to the radio every day as a kid so I am happy to see a return to audio storytelling and talk. Also makes it easier to consume while I am busy working on something else
I definitely used to be able to churn out full length novels fairly quickly (like within a year at most) but my self confidence is in the tank right now so that has come to a stand still. I don't think plotting the books out instead would have any better result LOL but once I learned to embrace what was natural to me and just go with it, I did good with getting out a first draft in a decent amount of time. A friend of mine used to get jealous because I'm very prolific but I have the self confidence of a turd so being prolific didn't amount to much when I didn't think highly of my writing, where as she has all the confidence in the world in her writing but can't get anything finished in a timely fashion. She was working on the same novel for about 6 years.
