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October 5, 2006

Crisis on Infinite Plots

I've got the first act of the book (assuming a three act structure, but not necessarily a
word count that reflects those subdivisions) finished, and lo and behold, I've come
across some plot elements that on inspection don't work the way we intended. The very
nature of the primary adversary in Omega is then called into question, and I call up Mr.
Latosa and we start trading ideas - yours truly can be truly harsh with his own plotlines if
they don't seem to behave themselves. So we discuss possibilities. One in particular
involves a particular Year One episode (several, actually), where we need to question
what we actually saw. So we propose a new take on some events, and then we watch it
ripple across a complicated plot line, and begin to skirt dangerously close to some
concepts used in other franchises, so we steer the ship away from those rocks and
suddenly, we've got a solution that's not only better than what we had originally, but is
also easier to convey to readers. Frustration in plotting out a novel, for you writers out
there, is like the Chinese word that means both crisis and opportunity. If it's frustrating
to think of as a plotter, there's a good possibility that you can surprise the reader with
your solution to the frustration. When I think back to similar points in Resurrection, it
came down to: How the hell do I kill somebody who's immortal? How do I turn a good
man (Koenig) into a crazy dictator, and do it quickly and believably? In Eternity
Unleashed, it came down to: Balor is in total control of his home planet, but I have to
defeat him - how?

When you're wrestling with issues involving the MUF, you're basically trying to define the
nature of the gods. The gods are not consistent from culture to culture or even from
generation to generation. Trying to find consistency, or even some element of
predictability, enough to establish the nature of the MUF, is hard.

Let me give you an example. In Black Sun, the MUF potentially rescues the Alphans
from certain death (it was either the MUF or Victor's shield over the base - I'm inclined to
think it was the MUF that saved them). It provides no warning that it's going to save
them. It just does it, and kind of nods its head for thirty seconds, leaving the Alphans
somewhat awestruck, but grateful to be alive. Now, we switch to Collision Course
(which depending on your perspective, may or may not involve the MUF at all). If we think
for a second that Arra and her people were at least MUF-like, they're cruel. They
demand faith without evidence, and Koenig must risk his credibility as commander of
the base to help Arra. Ultimately, the Alphans aren't harmed (just Koenig's credibility).
What I've always found troubling with the episode is the somewhat confusing character
arc in Collision Course. What lesson does Koenig learn? It's okay to trust (e.g., his
trust in Arra) and it's okay not to trust (he tells Helena that she was right to doubt him
and his "ravings" about allowing the collision to happen). I don't think we learned
anything new from Collision Course - all Arra had to do was talk to all of the Alphans,
reassure them that they'd be safe, and ask them to please allow the collision to happen.
But it's the Alphans' suspicion of Koenig that is the heart of the story - so what's the
lesson there? Always trust your leaders, even if they're leading you into what looks like
certain destruction? I don't think that's the message they'd ultimately want to leave us
with. Now, go back to Black Sun - it's nice knowing there's a deus ex machina out there
who can bail the Alphans out when they're really in trouble, but that seems to go against
the idea that the Alphans must do all they can to guarantee their own survival in a hostile
universe. Why would the MUF come to their rescue sometimes and not others?

I do not mean to fault the writers on the show - not by any means. The shows are the
shows. We have to analyze the reality presented to us as part of developing this book.
So my criticism is of the reality that Alphans live in - they get wildly diverging "messages"
from the MUF, and Latham and Latosa are sitting there trying to make heads or tails
about intent from very inconsistent messages. We ask ourselves: What does the MUF
want?

The answer to that question, unfortunately, is often: To confuse us.

This introduces an interesting part of the process. How do we judge an idea as
acceptable in a novel, particularly, a Space:1999 novel, when it's yours truly working on
it? Note that the process may be very similar to the process used by the ML and the
other authors.

The process of introducing an idea, not necessarily in this order, goes something like
this:

1.      Propose the idea

2.      Search the Latosa knowledgebase of Space:1999 lore - does it:
a.      Negate anything that's happened before?
b.      Negate anything that's going to happen later?
c.      Conflict with established lore?
d.      Conflict with a particular character's typical behavior?
e.      Send a message that ultimately we don't want to send?

3.      Search the Latham/Latosa knowledgebase of various media (films, television,
books, comics, cartoons, etc.) - does it:
a.      Closely resemble something that's already happened in an existing property?
b.      Somewhat resemble something that's already happened in an existing property?
c.      Rely on standard clichés? Rely on non-standard clichés?

4.      Search our collective understanding of science - does it:
a.      Violate known science? That's bad.
b.      Violate series science? That's worse.
c.      Violate commonly-accepted science fiction science? That's no so bad, as long as
the author can back it up.
d.      Potentially anticipate something that could be discovered someday? That's
interesting.
e.      Exploit some little-known concept in science in a cool way that we haven't seen
before? That's the reason we write science fiction in the first place - these are the
absolute nuggets of gold in these projects.

5.      Feel the plot - does it fit in the story?

6.      Measure the significant events in the story - does it need to be there? Could it work
better in another story?

7.      If it involves coincidence in any way, shape, or form - does it hurt the protagonists
(which can be okay) or does it help the protagonists (which is NEVER okay)

8.      Can it be presented successfully in the context of the franchise and its characters?

9.      Does it move the plot along or support the plot in some way, or is it just being
inserted because it's cool or fun?

Quite a task we set for ourselves, huh?

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