Two sf story ideas

[pozorvlak]

A couple of ideas for vaguely Singularitarian short stories that I've had kicking about for a while, but which I can't see how to take from "idea" to "completed story". If anyone wants to write them, be my guest. There are no doubt lots of reasons why these ideas are stupid, and I'd be grateful if you'd point them out to me. On the other hand, if

Comments

[half_of_monty]

Gorgeous, both of them! Write them!!

[pozorvlak]

OK. What happens in the second one after the opening scenes? :-)

[pozorvlak]

Come to that, what happens in the first one after the opening scenes? And how do I handle such a massive infodump?

[half_of_monty]

Oooh, er, gosh.

I fear the nonexistence of any non-parody writing by me is largely due to my inability to work out anything resembling a plot.

On the other hand, I'm going through another Woolf phase at the mo. For the first, why not just stick inside one of the characters' head, and detail the mental back-and-forth and doublethink and anguish, and not bother with any additional plot to that above?

You don't even need to specify the decision they reach -- just take it to the point where a decision must finally be made.

I don't know about massive infodumps. How does good SciFi cope? I don't read much.

For the second, I would put all the writing into the mountain, esp with building up the relationship between the brothers, and in conversation about the wife. And end it where you've ended it above. [If you want to go on from there, it seems so easy to fall into farce; beware Blithe Spirit!]

[pozorvlak]

Yeah, plot's hard. As is characterisation. And language. Tough job all-in-all, this writing lark.

why not just stick inside one of the characters' head, and detail the mental back-and-forth and doublethink and anguish, and not bother with any additional plot to that above?

That's a really interesting idea. Thanks!

The preferred way to handle world-building is via Heinlining - rather than having infodumps in the narratorial voice (terrible) or having a character unrealistically tell another "Ever since the first billionaire was uploaded ten years ago, the uploads have exerted a stranglehold on world politics..." (pretty bad - Asimov was often guilty of this), you're meant to drop little hints into the text from which the reader deduces features of the world being described. This style is usually attributed to Robert A. Heinlein, hence the name. Eric Raymond's written a good essay about thisThough it occurs to me that activists do, in fact, say things like "Ever since the first billionaire was uploaded ten years ago, the uploads have

[ciphergoth]

Could the wife fork off a copy of herself for each brother? This is certainly the most elegant ending - the tricky thing is not just going there immediately. You don't want to create one of those infuriating characters that run away before people have a chance to tell them things.

[johnckirk]

This technique was used at the end of another novel: "Gur Fgnvayrff Fgrry Eng tbrf gb Uryy" (rot13 for spoiler protection)