What do I want to write about? I mean, when I want to write about philosophy, I take course 24 classes. I’m taking a course 21W, and HASS-A class with the purpose of creating, to be able to say that I am seeing something that wasn’t there before. To be able to get some of the ideas I have stored in my mind and to be able to look at how they evolve, to be able to track how they grow, to be able to see them, and nurture them, and to create more. In part, I guess that this is the reason i code, because I like to create, I like to see my work, and I like to feel my work. I love it when I have an idea on my mind and I’m able to translate it into code, or in this case, into a world with characters that feel happy and loved and sad and are human, or non-human, now that I’m writing sci-fi.
Now, what do I want to create?
- A journey; I want my characters to learn and evolve throughout the story, although remember I only have seven pages.
- Perhaps I could write something in the middle of a journey; I really enjoyed the way Burning Chrome does this, you get the idea that Bobby is an excellent programmer, and you get a lot of details without ever getting a POV.
- Maybe about a universe traveller who meets someone new, no plot necessary, just talking?
I’m liking this lone traveller idea. We may get introduced to them very early on in their story, perhaps how they stole their ship and then retired from the action, for a more tranquil and peaceful lifestyle. Perhaps we can get introduced to this character in the middle of nowhere, simply drifting through space.
Could it be that this lonely traveller is the speller of doom? The foreteller of misfortune, the legend throughout the galaxy that when this traveller comes, they bring misfortune to all that they touch. War, famine, drought; why does it follow them? But to be told this story all via his own POV? I think that’d be pretty hard, you wouldn’t know exactly what’s happening. Whose POV could this take? I don’t have the space to write multiple character’s perspectives, I need to focus in and zoom in on one. I think that this is going to be very important point that I need to focus on; if I had infinite space to write, or if it were a novel, I could focus on a much more complex web of ideas, interplay and conflict. But it’s not, so I need to think of a way that I can express a great idea into a few pages.
Think, think. What else do I want to write about? I guess that I have an extra constraint, science fiction. What is science fiction? We have talked about this extensively during class. I have read science fiction stories. The way I see it, we are extending reality. We are thinking about a technology that is not here yet. We are thinking about the far future, about meeting alien civilizations, about constructing faster-than-light travel, about interacting with AIs more intelligent than ourselves. We are thinking “what if?”, we are analyzing counterfactuals, we are creating worlds. Could I write about space tourism? About VR, or let’s call it realistic VR?
Some context (mostly for myself), I’m writing this during a Blogathon at MIT, sitting besides Ezra. Wow, there’s going to be a time when I think back at all of these moments, a menial three hours objectively, but that I’ll think back to whenever I stumble upon my story or this blog in the future. I’m thinking a fourty year old me just browsing through his old blog posts and remembering drinking Boba in 4-149, while Uzay organized a Blogathon, and I went with Ezra. My time at MIT, which I know I’ll look back at fondly. That’s a nice thought.
Anyway, back to writing, I think that I can focus on a little more cliche topic for this first workshop story. I’m trying to be too ambitious for something that I have less than three days to write. I think that I need to be willing to cut back on the scope of the story, and really narrow down a very specific topic, and do it well. I think I can stick to what I know best, programming. There is a very special art to programming, as well as a very special art to competition. I could think of a cyberpunk-like world, just a very cliche— glasses that can change the world’s aesthetic. Why settle for a single aesthetic, when you can have anything you want.
What if two people could look at the world and imagine the aesthetic that they prefer— I think this is too ambitious, too much possibility, too diffuse to actually convey in a single story. If I can’t process it, chances are I can’t write a story well enough so that other people process it. What I can write about it the dichotomy between a solarpunk life and a cyberpunk life in the same story. A hacker by night, a highly positioned executive by day. Think of something like a narrator and a Tyler, but fully conscious about what is happening. Or something like a Major Groom: Plague Doctor, only without the being unaware of what your other part does. You actually know and are fully conscious about what you are doing, and you do it because you like both sides of the coin. The same type of ambition of my glasses story, but focused in on a single character.
I think ambition defines me. Barring luck of course, I strongly believe that it is part of the reason I am here at MIT, and not in Ibero. I’ve written a lot about how my life would be significantly easier if the latter was the case, and I really think it’s a good counterfactual to consider. Would I have the same drive to learn as I do now? Would I be willing to learn topology and electromagnetism and genetics by myself, to a level even comparable to what I’m able to do here? I don’t think so, even if MIT itself may not be the driver of the things that you work on and the things that you value, it is a very strong facilitator. Surrounding yourself by people who are significantly better at the things that you work on.
Okay, so what is the thing. A morality issue. This person lives alone, he’s an emotional loner. On the outside, you can see him hang out with all sorts of people, I’m thinking that socially speaking, he gives a sort of Harvey Specter vibe. Overall I don’t think that he does give Harvey’s vibe. He is very extroverted, that is for sure, and also very mysterious with his personal life. Is the person a he or a she or a they? That is unclear, I don’t want to write a non-male character, because I feel that I’m simply not going to be able to capture a lot of the complexity that I should. I guess I don’t want my character to become the stereotypical “woman written by a man”, because although I’d like to think that I could give her more depth than the stereotype, I am not confident in my ability to do so. So, okay, a man it is, unfortunate.
This character lives two lives at once, they do not mix (until they do, of course). Now, do they mix because of love? aaaaaa. Now I’m having a flood of ideas in my mind and I can’t write fast enough to actually capture what I’m trying to say. I’m not gonna care.
this man lives two lives, one by day and one by night. of course, day and night are metaphorical ways of describing the worlds, one is a very white, very solarpunk, very business aesthetic. think about the starbucks i went to in sanofi, that is the type of thing that i’m imagining for his world by day. now, for his world by night, i’m imagining a very futuristic cyberpunk type of world. of course, these two worlds do not mix, but he likes to live in both of them. i have two options, was he born in day and discovered night? that seems unlikely but plausible, will the people in night ever accept him if he wanted to really join them, knowing his background? of course they don’t know his background, so who cares. is it important? will it be important? the story can take two very different meanings depending on the truth, is he from day and just likes to spend time in night, or is he from night and likes to spend time in day. the latter seems stupidly unlikely, given the way the world i works. so yes, he is from day and simply discovered night. how did he discover night, why does he spend so much time in night, are there others like him? the science fictions will come in the way the worlds can play with themselves, the types of things he does in each, but at the end of the day we are talking about good old human beings. human beings who fall in love. and of course, he falls in love with someone from night.
In trying to introduce nightgirl to day, everything falls apart? Or does everything fit together? She isn’t interested in balancing the two worlds, and she gives him a choice, his exotic lifestyle without her, or to stay in night with her.
I started writing the first couple of paragraphs of the story. It seems slightly confusing at first, it gives the vibe that they are two separate stories joined by the same character, which is exactly the vibe I’m looking for. I’m still unsure about nightgirl, should she be an actual character we know, or should she be an idea, an abstraction in our narrator’s mind?