R. Leib's Blog: Dream State - Posts Tagged "science"

When I read articles either online or in Scientific American, I think about how the research and theories behind those articles might influence our lives in the future. This is not as simple as it sounds.

For example, flying cars have been a mainstay of Science Fiction stories for quite a while. The writers of these stories viewed the technology of their times and extrapolated that flying cars would be technically feasible in the future. Whether or not the production of a device is possible is not the only obstacle to its implementation. It must fill a need. It must be cost effective. It must be controllable. It must be marketable. Flying cars fail one of these requirements; they are not controllable. Can you imagine your next-door neighbor at the controls of an aircraft? How long would it take before you would be picking pieces of that neighbor out of the side of your house? For there to be flying cars, there would need to be some system of altitude control that would prevent the added dimension of movement from increasing the level of danger. This could be accomplished by equipping the cars with governors that only allow altitude changes at certain locations and that would separate these altitudes into distinct strata. This would establish a computer generated system of passageways through the air that allow traffic congestion to be alleviated by spreading it across different elevations. The system also would have to assure that the cars did not run out of fuel or fail while in the air. Maybe this will be practical some day, but I do not see today's average driver graduating to pilot status anytime in the foreseeable future.

So no air cars in my stories.

It's been four days since the beginning of my new project. Here is what has happened so far:

The major characters have been blocked out. This is not to say that they are set in stone. I might tweak their descriptions and traits to fit how the story develops, and I might add more characters, discard characters, or split or merge them.

The primary and main back stories have been summarized. Once again, these may be modified to refine or improve the flow of the narrative. This summary gives me a framework and a rough roadmap to guide me, while I construct the story. I have a plan for most of who does what and what happens to them. A list of suspects have been formed, but I have yet to decide who is the culprit, if there is one. That information will evolve on its own during the writing process.

The basic research into the science behind the events outlined in the plot summary has been done. Notes and Excel spreadsheets have been created containing the information necessary to make the details and occurrences as scientifically reasonable and as consistent with each other, as I can make them. This does not mean that I am done researching. New elements that arise during the writing of the "Tourist of Infinity" will require further checking. Things that I have not considered yet will need to be resolved. Research never ends. It outlives the writing process itself.

The first few pages have been written.

Last night, it occurred to me that an element of one of my subplots was not imaginative enough. I thought about it for a while, and came up with what I think is a much better idea. This is where writing a plot summary comes in handy. It was easy to change a bit of description in the summary, and now that concept is very different. I have started writing that part of the book, and I have to say that I am much more enthusiastic about how it is going than I would have been with the way it was originally.

Things are going well although slowly. The change to the subplot is working out well. I have written about the equivalent of a short story. Research continues. As does refinements of some of the concepts behind the story. It is important for Fantasy and Science Fiction writers to establish base concepts that delimit the circumstances and actions in their stories. Other fiction writers are bound by the realities we all share. Our genre allows us to create "realities" for our readers that are the product of our imaginations. This advantage, like all advantages, comes with responsibility. Without a logical construct to which our readers may anchor their suspension of disbelief, we lose their trust.

Progress on the new book has been off and on. I am definitely behind on the schedule I set for myself, but that was inevitable. That's the bad news. The good news is that the story is emerging better than my original imagining of it. Characters and plot elements are developing like seedlings breaking through the earth to revel in their cotyledons. This has become something that breathes on its own. All I have to do now is provide the words to feed it.

It's hard to believe, but the first draft of the "Tourist of Infinity" is finally done. It took me months more than I planned, and I am disappointed in my poor work ethic. I'm going to have to concentrate on my writing to bring it to a publishable state. It needs a lot of work. So the rewriting begins tonight. Wish me good prose with a touch of poetry.