Monday, November 19, 2007

Story Rules Question

I got to wondering recently, just how closely do writers have to adhere to the sequence of events (I hesitate to call it a plot) of the LB novels? I mean does the Anti-Christ have to be Nicky Poconos? Or can we invent someone vaguely plausible? My wondering came to a head with the time line questions on the Newport narrative. I mean, I can fudge "Doctor in the House" in that regard, but some of the other writers have locked themselves into other times for the Event.

I also want to start another narrative centered around a different viewpoint character. She was originally intended to be a secondary character in Michelle's story, but discussions of alternative meanings of the Rapture plus the question of how do the Catholics react made me think that maybe she deserves her own story.

4 comments:

Geds said...

Well, for mine to work I imagined that the story takes place in southern California or elsewhere in the Western Time Zone that would still be warm in in the winter and then used that to fudge the idea that kids could be out playing in the streets and whatnot even though somebody concluded it happened during the winter.

However, I'm pretty sure that no one will mind if you fudge the whole thing. I mean, it's not like we're attempting to create canon here or anything.

As for switching out Nicky Sierra Nevada, I would think that at the very least you could have someone else pop up and claim to be the Antichrist. I'd think that in the wake of such a think there would be all kinds of loonies or opportunists with their own agendas...

Johnny Pez said...

It's perfectly reasonable for different people to decide which elements from LB make some sort of sense and which don't, and to use them or lose them as they see fit. Frex, I've lost the crashing subway trains from my version, since it's been established that subway trains have deadman switches and wouldn't crash if their operators disappeared. OTOH, for my own reasons I've decided to keep Nicky Alps just the way he is in LB. That wasn't just sloppy work on L&J's part the way the subway train crashes were. They deliberately decided to give Nicky his various attributes (and name!) and it would be so, so wrong IMHO to try to make him more plausible. It just wouldn't be LB without the Mountain Man.

Anonymous said...

I just want to know how to leave a story on this post, I've been musing on a scenrio; is it possible to, maybe not lose salvation, but grow weary of the mountainless-oceanless-rainless world of the RTCs?

Rhoadan said...

Panda Rosa: Contact X, who's the owner and see if he/she/it would be willing to add you to the contributor's list.