Monday, November 12, 2018

Idea Seeds


I can't think of how many times I have started novels.  It is really kind of embarrassing to contemplate. I have thrown away pages and pages of work because I either ran out of gas or ran out of interest.  Plots falling apart and becoming ridiculous.  Of course I always tried to write "hard" sci-fi, which meant a slavish attention to scientific detail and a lot of the plotlines I wrote fell apart when I couldn't make them conform with physics.

So, now that I am in my dotage, and in the middle of a intellectual late-life crisis, I am revisiting my dreams of writing.  I think that I will discard the hard sci-fi bent I so worshipped in the past.  The constraints of physical science are being questioned.  What I see as the limits of science and technology just lead to differing flavors of dystopia's.

So, since we are in the time of transition in the real world (and anyone who thinks that business as usual will continue is in a fool's paradise) I am thinking that maybe a novel about transition will be a way to go.  But what transition do I think will be interesting?  That is the question.

So, since I have been spending time slumming over at JMG' trying to ure out what the hell is all about the old "knowledge" of witchcraft and occultism and other previously untouchable (untouchable to me in my salad days anyway) subjects, I am thinking that those subjects and my not yet discarded yet slavish attention to the scientific method may provide an avenue of writing interest.

Now, I am by no means thinking that I am the first person to come up with such an amazing idea.  Waldo and Magic Inc. came out long ago, and Neal Stephenson's DODO had a pretty fair go at this particular sub-sub genre.

So what I am thinking is a novel about the reintroduction of magic into the world.  As outline above, the genre has been tried before.  One might even say that the attempts have been pretty fair.  But what to emphasize?  Is the protaganist a hard scientist who converts or a soft scientist who is the missionary?  Or do I do a two-protaganist novel that bridges and documents the dialectic?

One of the big questions will be how does the magic rise out of the dead ground that science has relegated it to?  Both the Magic Inc. and DODO novels did quite a bit of hand waving around this subject.  I think that DODO did the best job of generating a believable scenario, but if if go down this genre-path, I will have to define the loosing of magic.

Also needs to be discussed is the physical means of writing such a thing.  I am gradually coming to the conclusion that, for me, writing may not be the solitary activity so enamored by current urban myth.  Characters must be an outgrowth of reality, and if I write dialog between character without grounding the same in actual human interaction, what the writing becomes is an exercise in intellectual masturbation.

1 comment:

Emmanuel Goldstein said...

I think you are on the right track here!
First, get used to the idea that your book is unlikely to be a best-seller, or a seller at all. Think of it more as a part of your legacy to the future. If your relatives like it, you will be speaking through your writings to your descendants, perhaps for centuries. What would you like to say to them? What would you like to talk about with your great-great grandparents, or learn about from them, if you had the chance?

Second, base your characters on people that you know--Not exact matches, but generally.

Third, Start with a plot. Your protagonist is going to re-introduce magic; How does s/he find out that TSW (TM)? How does he get from being a clean-cut, tie-wearing, newspaper-believing 9-to-5 job holder to a dude in a robe with a beard down to his knees, muttering incantations that are amazingly effective? And possibly, he starts out believing he is OK, finds out he has always been an A-hole, and becomes (through his practice of magic) a truly compassionate and good person who, though misunderstood and reviled by his community, is always helping them and saves their collective hindparts, while never being acknowledged or thanked for it.

Fourth, something to try--
Get yourself a copy of FreeMind, and use it to outline the book before your write it. This is mind-mapping software. With it, you can generate a sort of tree- or root-diagram that mimics the way we hold knowledge in our minds. You map out the story, just with general ideas, not the full text. The software allows you to move branches around if you like. When the structure is right, you can then look at the story outline and just speak it aloud into a recorder, or possibly directly to text using Dragon(R) Naturally Speaking. Stumble it all out first, then edit after you have told the story.

Here's a link to FreeMind; scrub out your Cookies after downloading from Sourceforge, and check your screen carefully to uncheck boxes for additional bloatware that you don't want.

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Download


Here's Dragon Naturally Speaking; You can get it cheaper if someone in your family is a full-time student-- Also, this link is to Canada. The amazon.com version may be less.

https://www.amazon.ca/Dragon-Professional-Individual-15-0-English/dp/B01L0COKYS


May your children
Tell their grandchildren
Wonderful stories about your life!

Regards,

E. Goldstein