Tag: scifi

Pondering The Midpoint of The Treatment Of My Backup Scifi Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve pretty much gotten the first half of the treatment for the backup scifi novel I’m developing wrapped up. But I’m at the midpoint and, for the moment, I’m struggling as to what the “midpoint switch” will be.

I’m very pleased with the first half of the treatment. I have interesting characters and I get to talk about some weird problems in the world that I’ve come up with. But I just don’t quite know at the moment what should happen at the midpoint.

I have a number of ideas, but nothing really seems to provoke the type of thought I need. I’ve been using AI to help me develop this treatment and some of the ideas have, in general, been pretty good. But even that has only given me mixed results.

Update:
I may have come up with a midpoint switch just now using AI, but I’m not sure. The second half of this treatment is shaping up to be a lot more difficult than the first half. But I am very pleased that I have, at last, figured out how to mentally have two different creative tracks.

Things Are Moving Fast With My Backup Scifi Novel

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Because of how “racy” my mystery-thriller is, I’ve finally decided to work on a backup novel. The novel is a scifi novel with a pandemic element to it. As I’ve said before, it’s a pretty obvious way to talk about pandemics — at least in my opinion — so I keep expecting to wake up and read in Variety or The Hollywood Reporter that a movie with the exact same premise has started production.

But I really like the idea and it gives me a sense of insurance against my main novel being too “racy’ to ever get published. I have a few other novel ideas to pivot to if disaster strikes and even the scifi novel I’m working on is somehow co-oped by someone else.

One key thing that I’ve learned working on the mystery-thriller is you have to have a proactive protagonist. Too often in the past, I’ve had very passive protagonists, which has made for a dull story. So, now that I am very aware of how important having a proactive hero is, the scifi novel concept is moving a lot faster.

At the moment, I’m just at the treatment stage for the scifi novel. But things are moving a fairly nice clip. I’m beginning to struggle with the second half of the novel at the moment. And once the treatment is done, I think the next step is to do some rough character studies so I won’t be where I am now with the main novel where I have to reverse engineer character development in a story that is pretty much all plot.

I have developed a hero for the scifi novel that resembles me, which is bad because you’re not supposed to have a “proxy you” in the novel when you write one. And, yet, at the moment the elements that are similar to me work, so, lulz, why bother fixing them.

And I’m still pretty early in the process.

I continue to worry that all of this will be moot because of the looming possibility of a “perfect storm” involving the so-called political Fourth Turning and a technological Petite Singularity.

But while there’s life, there’s hope.

I May Have To Split This Story In Two & Connect It With A Cliffhanger

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve decided to just write the story without worrying about word count. Once I actually finish the novel, I will assess things. I will either split the story in two and have it connected by a cliffhanger, or I will try to pitch a backup novel that is the “proper” length.

I hope my heroine is as compelling as Lisbeth Salander.

I just don’t know yet. It could go either way.

But I am really interested in a scifi-Western. I think that is going to be my backup story. It shouldn’t be too difficult to bone up on how to write a Western then use the scifi universe I’ve thought up in the same story. The Western element would allow me to have a number of ready-made plots that I could fuse with scifi elements.

(L to R, foreground) DANIEL CRAIG as a stranger with no memory of his past and director/executive producer JON FAVREAU on the set of an event film for summer 2011 that crosses the classic Western with the alien-invasion movie in a blazingly original way: “Cowboys & Aliens”.

I do know I have to hurry up, though. I can’t keep screwing around. I now have just about six months to wrap up this third draft of my first novel, regardless of how long it turns out to be.

I Have A Few Scifi Concepts I Want / Need To Develop

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that things have stabilized with the third draft of the mystery-thriller I’ve been working on for years and years now, I think it’s time I seriously try to have a backup story ready. I understand how to — I — develop a novel, so I can use that to hopefully develop a new novel a lot more quickly.

The three scif novel concepts are, in general — one about a pandemic and its consequences, another about the consequences of a pandemic, one that is similar to Silo / Wool and one last one about how difficult it would be to get humans to agree that all human life should be valued equally.

But I really want to push myself out of my comfort zone. I need to read and watch more as well as develop. I just hate that I’m in such a unique situation –that could end at any moment — and I’ve not taken as much advantage of it as I should have.

But that’s just part of being a human, I suppose.

A Scifi Western Would Be Fun To Write

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of my favorite movies growing up was Outland, which, as I understand it, is High Noon set in space. After about 20 years of contemplating a particular scenario, I realize that one way to give it a plot would be to have something akin to a scifi Western in the sense that it would have a lot of the elements of a traditional Western, but it would also lean heavily into scifi.

‘Outland’
I might look into this a little bit sometime soon. I was thinking of looking up “how do you write a Western?” then use the modified tropes of a Western in this scifi story.

But I dunno. I may just keep focused on the mystery-thriller I’ve been working on for so long. I’m beginning to get a little nervous about what I’m going to do when I finally start the very-serious process of querying.

Oh boy.

Mulling A Scifi Screenplay Concept

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m officially at an age where I am constantly reminded of how precious my remaining days of life are. I wasted way too many years grieving over the demise of ROKon Magazine and now, here I am, at 50, troubled by all the doors that have closed behind me for good.

And, yet, I continue to be consumed by delusion to the point that I still have hope that somehow, someway, I will “blow up with my DJ money” and pull of a third hattrick — this time for a national / international audience.

As such, I continue to chung away at a mystery-thriller novel that I hope will be the cornerstone of a six novel project. What’s more, despite all the mental energy devoted to such an endeavor, I still find myself dreaming up other story concepts.

That sort of thing just happened to me today when I returned to a time-travel story that has been rolling around in my mind for some time. I like it because it deals with multiverse concept while also addressing some major issues of the day.

The more I’ve thought about the idea, the more I’ve come to realize it has the storytelling dynamic of a screenplay rather than a novel. The thing about screenplays is you can get away with a lot of things that you simply can’t with a novel.

I have long wanted to write a screenplay, but I fear I’ve just waited too long. Or, to put it another way, a screenplay would be something I might be able to pull off once I blow up with my DJ money. I’m delusional, yes, but I am still connected to reality enough that I’m not prepared to spend all that much time on a screenplay when I’m both too old and live in the wrong place for it to ever be produced.

But I just don’t know. I really like this scifi concept enough — and I do continue to have a lingering interest in writing a screenplay — that I might just dabble in writing such a screenplay to get it out of my system.

Continuing Mulling On A Second Creative Track

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve decided that given the potentially lengthy post-production process of the whole getting traditionally published thing that I need to back up and start working on other novel ideas (and maybe a short story or two.) I keep saying this and then, lulz, don’t do it.

But this time, given how much my looming 50th birthday sucks, I’m really going to do it. Or, at least, try again.

I have two really good scifi novels concepts, but no plot. One has to do with global warming and the other is a pandemic novel. I’ve mentioned the global warming novel concept to a manuscript consultant and she flipped out with excitement to the point that I’m worried SHE is going to write it. I think she monitors this blog now and again and she has the means, motive and opportunity to scoop up my general plot idea and get it published.

That sounds pretty paranoid, but the older I get, the more I realize that that is exactly how showbiz actually works. It’s very competitive and people will cut you for no reason if they think they can get something out of it.

It is because of my paranoid fears about the manuscript consultant “stealing” my global climate change themed story that I’m going to also work on the pandemic novel. I’m going to use all the experience I have about how *I* write a novel to hopefully speed the process of writing these novels up considerably.

But there is the issue of focus.

I have a lot of momentum when it comes to my first novel and I don’t want to stop cold working on it. I need some way to multitask between different projects that allows me to progress apace with the first novel. I THINK what I’m going to do is pick a specific day of the week where I piviot to working on something besides the first novel so I can actually have something brewing when I begin the beta reader process then querying when things are pretty much out of my hands.

Anyway.

I have a very limited amount of time on this earth. I really have gotten to the put up or shut up point fo things.

The Paradox Of Plenty

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a long-running scenario in my mind that involves turning the traditional idea about humans leaving the planet on its head. Instead of just a few survivors, what if a few BILLION people could survive, but they would have to establish some sort of common human civilization on whatever new, habitable planet they colonized?

The reason why I have often called this the “impossible scenario” is despite what Americans might think, there is very little done by all humans across the globe in the same way. Even things connected to the body — like how we use the toilet — can be very, very different depending on where you are.

As such, I’ve long been fascinated by how you might settle a new livable planet if all of humanity had to co-operate using nothing more than the technology we currently have. The only advanced technology used would be zapping a few billion people to the new solar system.

This is a very, very interesting problem that I have thought about a great deal over the years. Just as I think I have it figured out, I change the conditions or make elements of the scenario stricter and i have to think about it from a different direction. It’s a lot of fun and unless I sit down and finally give the whole thing some sort of plot — a huge waste of time. Though, to be honest, it does keep my mind in shame because I push my imagination to the limits.

Anyway.

This Novel Project Has A Dollop Of Speculative Fiction To It

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

One of the reasons why I’m feel pretty good about this novel series is I’ve finally — finally got it through my thick skull that your protagonist can not, should not be in any way passive. As such, I’ve figured out a way that a novel scifi / speculative fiction element of this project can be a real integral part of the plot because we see its use through the eyes of our Amerasian heroine.

Even though I don’t have a wife or a girlfriend to be a “reader” to tell me I’m full of shit in this regard, I do think the speculative fiction part of the story makes it a bit more interesting, a bit more spicy than it might be otherwise. This particular plot point is found in another series of novels, but it’s used in a magical mystery way, while my use of the trope is set very much in speculative fiction.

I hope there isn’t too much comparison between the two uses of this little bit of scifi / fantasy. I suppose it’s inevitable that it will be. But there’s nothing new under the sun as they say. But anyway, as I’ve said before, the framework, at least, is there for a pretty good pop novel.

A lot of what happens next is out of my hands. I need a lot of luck. I need to strike the zeitgeist in just the right way in about a year. The idea that anyone with a traditional career would take my little dream seriously is kind of deep. It would be one of the greatest — if not THE greatest — event of my life to date if I managed to get an actual normal person to take my novel seriously enough that they would be my literary agent.

I’m still concerned that, of course, if they do due diligence on me they’re going to think I’m completely bonkers. Which, maybe I am. But I make no apologies for who I am. I’m an eccentric. I get drunk and rant on this blog — and on Twitter — sometimes.

But as the late Annie Shapiro said of me, I’m a “delusional jerk with a good heart.”

Settling A New Planet Would Be Incredibly Difficult

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have an idea for a novel that would take the principles of The Martian and apply it to not just one person, but, say, 1 billion. If an Alien Empire could zap a big chunk of Humanity to a new, inhabitable planet on the conditions that we work together and we could only use existing 2022 technology to do, how would you do it?

The answer, after thinking about this for 15 years is — it would be very, very hard.

The chief reason is bootstrapping a new civilization on a new planet would take far, far longer than you might think. Think of all the different products we use everyday that would be extremely difficult to build without a number of years of development to get there.

Even under the best of conditions — say, the Alien Empire gave us the absolute basics of electricity and the Internet — where would people live? You might have a very surreal situation of people using laptops and cellphones while otherwise living in some pretty primitive conditions. A least for a few years, maybe a few decades.

And then, there’s one of the biggest issues — how do you organize your new global government and society? The most obvious answer is you use the USA as the basis of your new mega colony. If you were trying to settle that 1 billion people on a new planet, you could use 200 of the 335 million Americans as the core of the settlement.

But that, unto itself, would be the source of a great deal of conflict. Which, if you were trying to use all of this as the basis of a novel or a movie would be GREAT. And, of course, using the USA as the basis of a global civilization would allow you to pander, hard, to your American audience.

The whole thing is a lot of fun to think about because there are so many different ways to look at it.