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Posted By: Magus Sep 26, 2004 - 06:43 am

I got this really awsome idea for a Sci-Fi series last night, while watching Satr Wars, even though, oddly enough, it doesn't resemble it in the slightest... unless you count it being sci-fi.

But, anyway, here's my problem. I have it planned to span several volumes. It focusses on a pretty Bad-Ass protagonist who lost his innocence in yesteryear, his lover and wife and their (either wolf or giant eagle) companion. They're seeking to find a way to get home, and have to jump from universe to universe to find it (NOT SO MUCH LIKE SLIDERS AS YOU'D THINK).

So now I have an idea, and an awsome plot twist and "master plot" to follow. But I'm a little confused on how to arrange it. I figure I have two options, and I haven't the foggiest on which on is better. Can any of you help me?

A) It starts off after one of the group's dimentional hops. You see the protagonists and you see how they are. You see them for a volume or two, or even three, the way they are. Not even his wife knows the story of his past. Then, finally, he decides to tell her. The back story takes up a volume, and then it goes back to the main plot and story.

B) It starts off with the backstory. You see the protagonist as he was, an innocent child. You see his struggles and how he grew into a leader of sorts after the loss of the leader of his space "colony". Then he gets lost in the dimensional hops and we start off where option A starts. Then I go through the story to the finish.

What do you think? Which one would you say is the better?

Posted By: Spiderkeg Sep 26, 2004 - 07:19 am

I have some questions, and hopefully they're ones that can be answered.

1. How did he/they get lost in the first place?
2. Does he/they remember the way home at all or not at all?

Posted By: Magus Sep 26, 2004 - 07:23 am

The ide is still very basic in my mind. But the way I'm thinking of taking it is this...

A crimelord creats a sort of rough tear in reality. Then he somehow forces them into this tear and they're in another dimension. But the world is a multiverse, policed by those like the leader that was killed originally. And they find a way to "hop" between these tears in reality, which act as wormholes to other dimensions, trying, by trial and error, to make their way back home.

Posted By: Kevin Sep 26, 2004 - 08:17 pm

Sounds interesting, Magus. How many volumes did you think the story would be comprised of? It sounds as if you've had a revalation of sorts. Those are usually the best ideas, just so long as isn't like SLIDERS. I don't have any suggestions really, but don't give up on your idea.

Posted By: Magus Sep 27, 2004 - 03:49 am

I honestly have no idea. I haven't planned much out yet. I just have the basic ground work now.

Posted By: chowder Sep 27, 2004 - 06:50 am

Magus

I'd go with your second idea (B). You're going to have be dropping bits of the backstory throughout your volumes, so you may as well tell the story from beginning to end.

Posted By: Neurolanis Sep 27, 2004 - 09:43 am

I like A. better, as it starts off in the middle of the action. You can always mention parts of the past, or have a flashback scene or something.

Posted By: Magus Sep 27, 2004 - 12:59 pm

O.K.

That's 1 for "A" and 1 for "B".

You both give very good points. I'm getting more ideas and it's fleshing itself out more and more. But it's still this one part giving me some trouble.

Any other thoughts?

Posted By: ForeverZero Sep 27, 2004 - 03:07 pm

I would go with A, but use B for the VERY second volume. I would think it'd be frusterating to wait until volume seven to actually find out the character's past.

By the way, this reminds me more of The One with Jet Li than it does Sliders. Story for that was that there was another "you" in every dimension, and you all share a collective "lifeforce". Whenever one of you dies, that lifeforce gets divided and is given to the remaining "you"s. Basically its about an evil Jeyt Li who's universe-hopping to kill all of his other selves in an attempt to get ultimate power.

Anyways, that was way off topic...

Posted By: Magus Sep 27, 2004 - 05:37 pm

I saw that movie, but didn't think to much of it.

The way it works is that the multiverse is connected. They are policed. But only these "tears" in reality allow passage between them.

I probably wouldn't be having this problem if it wasn't for me reading Stephen King's post apacolyptic sci-fi western epic fantasy series The Dark Tower. There he tells the story of Roland Deschain, the last Gunslinger in a world that has moved on. There are flashbacks to his child hood, and some stroy telling with the other characters. But the fourth book, Wizard And Glass, is reserved exclusively to his back story, when he first earned his guns and met his first true love.

If it wasn't for that then I may not even be thinking about this. But now both options seem just as likely for me to write.

But, if I do go with opption A, I will do as you suggest, having it pretty much be volume 2. But right now everything is pretty much up in the air.