Sci-Fi author’s dilemma: Whatcha gonna do when your characters refuse to #{*}^@-ing cooperate!
The maddening question sci-fi writers hear all the time from readers (“Where do you get your ideas?” ) has no answer any sane person will understand. If you are cuckoo as a Swiss clock and demand an answer, (no offense to Swiss ancestors or your mental health), read on…
Some writers plan everything out in detail. Outlines. Character sketches. Backstories with dialogue and settings. Converging plot lines that meet in a denouement at the grand finale, followed by a little chit-chat before the hero strolls off into the night. This MO gives a writer ultimate control. They do what I tell them, for I am God in the world I have created with my words. Really good writers who work this way will allow the muse to distract them into side paths unanticipated, but the embellishment usually circles back to the outline and proceeds to The End.
I tried that formula early in my career as a novelist, but my characters were not impressed. They looked me in the eye and said, “Oh, hell no. I ain’t doing that, Mr. Writer Man.” They were unmoved by my authority as King of the Booky Universe.
Take Tyler Noah Matthews IV for example. He’s the main character in my Star Lawyers series. Tyler and I have had this conversation many times. Sometimes I want him to do something interesting, but he flatly refuses. He rejected the polygynous marriage that his wife Suzie and her two friends, Tienna and Sunny, offered him. Even though he had strong feelings for all three women and there was a plot-related reason he should have established the harem, he would not do it. (See whole story in Star Lawyers 9 — Murder by Magic.)
I was shocked! I expected a new scenario with opportunities for complex love relationships, family dynamics and drama. But Ty is a cultural Catholic, albeit non-observant, and cannot shake his monogamy program.
So, here’s one answer to the original, two part question about what to do when characters refuse to cooperate and where do writers get story ideas. I can’t speak for the craft at large, but I enter their world, find characters already in motion, and let them make decisions based on who they are. The identities and peculiarities of a person emerge during this process. Don’t ask me how.
If characters are authentic — whether he, she or it , since this is sci-fi — their behavioral traits, quirks, strengths and weaknesses will show themselves as they work through the challenges presented by the story line. And the plot develops naturally in a way I truly cannot explain. It’s kinda like Michelangelo, who claimed he did not “create” David but saw him trapped inside a block of marble and carved away everything needed to set him free. Except — and this is the cuckoo part — when I’m writing, David carves his way out of the stone.
The process succeeds if it generates a believable Cosmos filled with fascinating alien cultures and appealing characters from a multiple of sentient species. These are ordinary folks who struggle to achieve worthwhile goals and the opposing characters who attempt to stop them. Gripping conflict, occasional humor, with engaging minor characters, too. That’s the Star Lawyers package I unwrap with the help of Tyler Matthews and his friends.
That’s my game plan, and I’m sticking to it. Let me know if it works for you.
Dr. Tom
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