Alternative timelines.

One of my favourite games is, “What if?“  I’ve spoken about it before. Sometimes it’s a curiosity driven pondering of alternate story lines, sometimes it’s pure self indulgence.

I wonder what might have happened if Sage hadn’t skidded on that dark road. I wonder what might have happened if Sam had gone straight to her parents, or if she’d talked to Kate and Lily before she went to the woods that night. Those are just my own characters.

I know there is a huge array of fan driven fiction being written, some of it shared online, some discussed over tea, or wine, amid giggling between friends. We all do it.

What if a police box arrived in our garden, what would you do if he said, “Come with me?” What would you do if you, or your child, got a letter from Hogwarts? What if Ripley had just said, “No.” when Burke came to ask her to go back.

I know you play the game too. We all do it. We all pretend. Even if we pretend we don’t.

I bet you can all write a short scene featuring a What If from your favourite film, TV show or book. That’s the challenge here. Take a character from a film, TV show or book, find a key moment in the story and play what if.

A couple of rules:

Keep it clean – this is a workplace friendly blog.
Please name, and credit the original creator of the character and story – we’re only borrowing their creation for a short time and they did all the hard work.
If you’re a writer – the character you choose should be someone else’s creation.
If there’s a link for their work then please leave it – it helps provide a reference for anyone reading who may not have heard of your choice.
Bear in mind that hugely long comments don’t get read – so try to limit yourself to around 500 words or so.
Feel free to share on your own blog, site or page but please link back to here – this is my game and I’d appreciate the credit for it.

Go on, I dare you….

I have something in mind for my own contribution but I’ll put it up as a comment later.