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So I’ve been tinkering a bit with the first contact scene, and once again, I have come down with a bad case of Runaway Characters.
In this case, it’s the two aliens on the other side of the first contact. The narrator, and thus the readers, don’t really get a look into these aliens’ thought processes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t. It’s good to be the author.
In point of fact, I’m sort of obligated to know what they’re thinking and where they’re coming from so at least I know why they’re behaving like they do. So, even though it’s always a little dangerous, I sat back, gave the characters a synopsis of the scene, and then let it play out while I kept an eye on each of them.
And now the scene works beautifully from the point-of-view I’m actually going to use for the story—and is also brilliant from the poor first contact aliens’ point of view. It may have been the female’s efforts to grasp what was going on leading her to exclaim the equivalent of “By Jove, Reggie,* I think these are moon men!”, or may have been my revelation as to why Reggie, who was fine the first day, hauled off and tried to beat up my poor battered linguist the second day. It’s a very emotional story, with lots of background, and some sorta soap-operatic stuff woven in with their own alien tale, a Shakespearean love tragedy that got rather rudely interrupted by space pirates. It would make a positively swell story.
Unfortunately, it’s all shoved into background for the characters whose story I’m trying to further along right now—characters have very little idea what’s up with these two except that they’re lost in space. Damn. Perhaps I can write it anyway and make it added value to the book someday.
*No, I do not know why “Reggie,” but I assure you that won’t appear anywhere in the story. It’s my own placeholder name because these aliens speak in a twangy pizzicato-y unpronounceable unwritable language. Although given that my other placeholder names include “Betty” and “Veronica,” I am starting to get nervous, because even I draw the line at Jughead Jones, Space Alien.
In this case, it’s the two aliens on the other side of the first contact. The narrator, and thus the readers, don’t really get a look into these aliens’ thought processes, but that doesn’t mean I don’t. It’s good to be the author.
In point of fact, I’m sort of obligated to know what they’re thinking and where they’re coming from so at least I know why they’re behaving like they do. So, even though it’s always a little dangerous, I sat back, gave the characters a synopsis of the scene, and then let it play out while I kept an eye on each of them.
And now the scene works beautifully from the point-of-view I’m actually going to use for the story—and is also brilliant from the poor first contact aliens’ point of view. It may have been the female’s efforts to grasp what was going on leading her to exclaim the equivalent of “By Jove, Reggie,* I think these are moon men!”, or may have been my revelation as to why Reggie, who was fine the first day, hauled off and tried to beat up my poor battered linguist the second day. It’s a very emotional story, with lots of background, and some sorta soap-operatic stuff woven in with their own alien tale, a Shakespearean love tragedy that got rather rudely interrupted by space pirates. It would make a positively swell story.
Unfortunately, it’s all shoved into background for the characters whose story I’m trying to further along right now—characters have very little idea what’s up with these two except that they’re lost in space. Damn. Perhaps I can write it anyway and make it added value to the book someday.
*No, I do not know why “Reggie,” but I assure you that won’t appear anywhere in the story. It’s my own placeholder name because these aliens speak in a twangy pizzicato-y unpronounceable unwritable language. Although given that my other placeholder names include “Betty” and “Veronica,” I am starting to get nervous, because even I draw the line at Jughead Jones, Space Alien.
