Planning "Sokka's Eleven" - Part 1
So, I was reading Star Wars: Scoundrels this weekend, a story that could have been retitled "Han Solo's Eleven" and it wouldn't be any less apt. I personally recommend the book to people who like Star Wars, Han Solo, or complicated capers, but that's not what this post is about. I enjoyed the book so much that it revived my enthusiasm for an old fanfic idea that I shelved in favor of other projects:
Sokka's Eleven.
One of the reasons I put it on the back burner was the announcement of The Promise, because my vision of Sokka's Eleven would deal with how the various characters adapt to adult life in the post-war world, and I didn't want the comic stepping on my toes. (It already ruined Last Stand of the Freedom Fighters forever. No need to repeat it.) However, since the comics have turned out to be a blight on everything that was ever good about ATLA, I'm thinking maybe I don't care about writing a story that one-ups the comics. After all, I can't do any worse than Gene Yang. Besides, Legend of Korra gives end-points for the main cast's lives that go far beyond the circumstances of the comics, so I can use work based off that information and perhaps accidentally wind up more or less compatible with what gets filled in later as "canon."
However, I'm writing Retroactive now. (Hey, maybe one or two of you haven't heard yet. Doesn't hurt to get that fact established.) I'm too dedicated to that to shelve it in favor of another novel-sized project, but I figured out the next best thing...
I'll just plan out Sokka's Eleven in public, via a series of blog posts, and see how people respond to my ideas and process.
So, first up, I flesh out the premise and major characters.
Obviously, Sokka's Eleven has two main components, judging by the title: Sokka, and a team of eleven people. Also, the basic plot of these kind of stories is that the titular team tries to steal something from a high-security location, necessitating a complicated scheme and plenty of obscure talents. I decided straight up that I'd go with the original premise of Ocean's Eleven, a casino robbery. Mostly because it's iconic and I really like the idea of exploring a steampunk casino that caters to the Four Nations, but also because it sounds so counter-intuitive. "The gAang is robbing a casino? What?" People would just have to click and read, right? (At least, I hope. I'm horrible at promoting my own stuff, and I've been told that my summaries are so bad I might as well put, "I stink at summaries pleez read anyway!" at the end.) So, Sokka is organizing a team to rob a casino. Simple enough. But what is this story really going to be about?
Well, it's about growing up. Sokka and friends saved the world while they were still teens, with only a handful considered legal adults. (And even then, those ages wouldn't make for adults in the modern world.) So what happens when you accomplish something like that as a kid, then find that you're going to have to spend the rest of your life dealing with the much less exciting fallout? Well, you probably have a midlife crisis on your twentieth birthday. This is the story of Sokka's midlife crisis, how he looks at where his life has gone and where his life is going, and decides that the only reasonable response is to rob a casino for a king's ransom.
So, even as I unfold a fun caper about subverting the most advanced security system in the world, I'm going to have to show the unhealthy aspects of Sokka's behavior, and grow him out of it. At the end, he should be ready to embrace what's ahead of him, because this kind of story needs a happy ending in terms of character growth, at least. In Legend of Korra, a flashback shows that Sokka eventually became the spokesperson of the ruling council. Perhaps this story could be the tale of how he decided to accept or go after that position? That could work, but I'm not setting it in stone, yet. And, because we're all Avatar fans and so also shippers to some degree, this arc is going to have to include Sokka's love life in some way. So, I'm thinking there will be a progression in his relationship with Suki.
Okay, so we have Sokka and Suki as characters. That's two out of eleven. Who else would be involved? Well, Sokka and his sister are close, and Katara is in love with Aang. Toph would round up the group, and since she's close buddies with Sokka, of course he would bring her into the scheme. Great. That's five of the eleven, and we're not even working hard yet. They also provide a mix of Bending talents, with Aang also bringing unique Avatar powers. Who else?
The Fire Nation cast of course springs to mind. Zuko and Mai can be dragged into things by their friends, and Ty Lee is always fun. Plus, Mai and Ty Lee are great examples of those quirky specialists I said were supposed to be on the team. That's eight of the eleven. Now, when I first came up with this roster, I figured that Mai would be a minor character. After all, she pretty much knows where she's at in life as of the cartoon's finale, and she had no real ambitions anyway. I didn't think that she would have anything to contribute to this mid-life-crisis theme. Plus, you know, people associate me with Mai a lot, so it occurred to me that this would be a good way to break out of that rut for a bit, even if I'm still focusing on Sokka.
However, since I first came up with the premise, The Promise came out and broke up Mai and Zuko. Whether or not it proves to be temporary, that leaves Mai in a very interesting place. Perhaps I can incorporate that, or a similar situation since EWW PROMISE and anyway everyone knows they're going to be brought back together soon. So we say that Mai is adrift in the world when Sokka starts recruiting, trying to find a purpose, and has to decide if she wants to compromise her wants in order to make herself take Zuko back and devote her life to being "Fire Lady." (Or as I prefer, Royal Consort. After all, that title didn't appear in the cartoon, and what would Azula's husband have been called if Zuko hadn't won their Agni Kai? But I digress.) That could be an interesting for Mai, no? Sure, it's been done before, but not in a comedic way while a casino is being robbed. And it kind of ties into the theme, as Mai is herself going through a little crisis as enters true adulthood.
Okay, so Mai is a major character. Best not to fight it.
To round out the team, Teo is a must. He's a bland character, but he could be the team's tech expert. Sokka is the brains, but Teo would have access to the Northern Air Temple's technological miracles, and he can pull out a magnet if I decide I need it for part of The Plan. Plus, Teo might find a new place in the world if the casino responds to the theft by hiring him to take over their security. So that fills a whole in the needs of the story and ties into the theme. Not bad for such a minor character.
That leaves two slots. Sadly, we're running out of interesting characters in ATLA who would be involved in something like this. Should I just count Appa and Momo? Or throw Smellerbee and Longshot in for the Freedom Fighter fans? When I shelved this story, I was leaning towards the latter.
Okay, we have our premise, we have our major theme, we have ideas about the ending, and we have our cast. That's a pretty good start, right?
Yeah, but too bad my cast is horrible and I need to completely redo it. But we can focus on that next time.
Sokka's Eleven.
One of the reasons I put it on the back burner was the announcement of The Promise, because my vision of Sokka's Eleven would deal with how the various characters adapt to adult life in the post-war world, and I didn't want the comic stepping on my toes. (It already ruined Last Stand of the Freedom Fighters forever. No need to repeat it.) However, since the comics have turned out to be a blight on everything that was ever good about ATLA, I'm thinking maybe I don't care about writing a story that one-ups the comics. After all, I can't do any worse than Gene Yang. Besides, Legend of Korra gives end-points for the main cast's lives that go far beyond the circumstances of the comics, so I can use work based off that information and perhaps accidentally wind up more or less compatible with what gets filled in later as "canon."
However, I'm writing Retroactive now. (Hey, maybe one or two of you haven't heard yet. Doesn't hurt to get that fact established.) I'm too dedicated to that to shelve it in favor of another novel-sized project, but I figured out the next best thing...
I'll just plan out Sokka's Eleven in public, via a series of blog posts, and see how people respond to my ideas and process.
So, first up, I flesh out the premise and major characters.
Obviously, Sokka's Eleven has two main components, judging by the title: Sokka, and a team of eleven people. Also, the basic plot of these kind of stories is that the titular team tries to steal something from a high-security location, necessitating a complicated scheme and plenty of obscure talents. I decided straight up that I'd go with the original premise of Ocean's Eleven, a casino robbery. Mostly because it's iconic and I really like the idea of exploring a steampunk casino that caters to the Four Nations, but also because it sounds so counter-intuitive. "The gAang is robbing a casino? What?" People would just have to click and read, right? (At least, I hope. I'm horrible at promoting my own stuff, and I've been told that my summaries are so bad I might as well put, "I stink at summaries pleez read anyway!" at the end.) So, Sokka is organizing a team to rob a casino. Simple enough. But what is this story really going to be about?
Well, it's about growing up. Sokka and friends saved the world while they were still teens, with only a handful considered legal adults. (And even then, those ages wouldn't make for adults in the modern world.) So what happens when you accomplish something like that as a kid, then find that you're going to have to spend the rest of your life dealing with the much less exciting fallout? Well, you probably have a midlife crisis on your twentieth birthday. This is the story of Sokka's midlife crisis, how he looks at where his life has gone and where his life is going, and decides that the only reasonable response is to rob a casino for a king's ransom.
So, even as I unfold a fun caper about subverting the most advanced security system in the world, I'm going to have to show the unhealthy aspects of Sokka's behavior, and grow him out of it. At the end, he should be ready to embrace what's ahead of him, because this kind of story needs a happy ending in terms of character growth, at least. In Legend of Korra, a flashback shows that Sokka eventually became the spokesperson of the ruling council. Perhaps this story could be the tale of how he decided to accept or go after that position? That could work, but I'm not setting it in stone, yet. And, because we're all Avatar fans and so also shippers to some degree, this arc is going to have to include Sokka's love life in some way. So, I'm thinking there will be a progression in his relationship with Suki.
Okay, so we have Sokka and Suki as characters. That's two out of eleven. Who else would be involved? Well, Sokka and his sister are close, and Katara is in love with Aang. Toph would round up the group, and since she's close buddies with Sokka, of course he would bring her into the scheme. Great. That's five of the eleven, and we're not even working hard yet. They also provide a mix of Bending talents, with Aang also bringing unique Avatar powers. Who else?
The Fire Nation cast of course springs to mind. Zuko and Mai can be dragged into things by their friends, and Ty Lee is always fun. Plus, Mai and Ty Lee are great examples of those quirky specialists I said were supposed to be on the team. That's eight of the eleven. Now, when I first came up with this roster, I figured that Mai would be a minor character. After all, she pretty much knows where she's at in life as of the cartoon's finale, and she had no real ambitions anyway. I didn't think that she would have anything to contribute to this mid-life-crisis theme. Plus, you know, people associate me with Mai a lot, so it occurred to me that this would be a good way to break out of that rut for a bit, even if I'm still focusing on Sokka.
However, since I first came up with the premise, The Promise came out and broke up Mai and Zuko. Whether or not it proves to be temporary, that leaves Mai in a very interesting place. Perhaps I can incorporate that, or a similar situation since EWW PROMISE and anyway everyone knows they're going to be brought back together soon. So we say that Mai is adrift in the world when Sokka starts recruiting, trying to find a purpose, and has to decide if she wants to compromise her wants in order to make herself take Zuko back and devote her life to being "Fire Lady." (Or as I prefer, Royal Consort. After all, that title didn't appear in the cartoon, and what would Azula's husband have been called if Zuko hadn't won their Agni Kai? But I digress.) That could be an interesting for Mai, no? Sure, it's been done before, but not in a comedic way while a casino is being robbed. And it kind of ties into the theme, as Mai is herself going through a little crisis as enters true adulthood.
Okay, so Mai is a major character. Best not to fight it.
To round out the team, Teo is a must. He's a bland character, but he could be the team's tech expert. Sokka is the brains, but Teo would have access to the Northern Air Temple's technological miracles, and he can pull out a magnet if I decide I need it for part of The Plan. Plus, Teo might find a new place in the world if the casino responds to the theft by hiring him to take over their security. So that fills a whole in the needs of the story and ties into the theme. Not bad for such a minor character.
That leaves two slots. Sadly, we're running out of interesting characters in ATLA who would be involved in something like this. Should I just count Appa and Momo? Or throw Smellerbee and Longshot in for the Freedom Fighter fans? When I shelved this story, I was leaning towards the latter.
Okay, we have our premise, we have our major theme, we have ideas about the ending, and we have our cast. That's a pretty good start, right?
Yeah, but too bad my cast is horrible and I need to completely redo it. But we can focus on that next time.