Been doing lots of thinking about writing lately. And, surprisingly enough, some actual writing. Even though I wrote one real chapter, and one pseudo background chapter, people still leave reviews on a 28 weeks later fanfiction I started, over a year later. I'm going to pick up the project again, but it's kinda difficult to plot.
I think that my core problem here is that I'm trying to genre jump to Techno-Thriller. The techno-thriller is really a very weird genre, because it focuses largely on things other than characterization, namely weapons, tactics, logistics, and strategy. When people read a techno-thriller, they really expect something believable, especially if it's set in near-modern times. In my mind, trying to take a zombie novel and make it "realistic" tries to push the genre from zombie (a subset of horror, really) into tech-thriller. The problem is, works like this (The movie 28 weeks later, the book Patient Zero, and especially especially the Battle of Yonkers in World War Z) tend to get wonky because trying to be realistic brings things into conflict. Pondering on guard, I concluded that there's three things that trip each other up: Realism, Plot, and Setting.
In my own example, I'm trying to work within the setting confines of 28 weeks later, although I'm allowing myself minor changes, I'm trying to present a great deal of Realism, with the Army being competent (while not sueish, which is helpful a great deal). However, to no small extent, if the Army is doing their job as well as I think we would, within the setting, there *wouldn't* be another outbreak, which means that I've got no plot to write about. Now, if I want the plot, I could either make the Army less competent (sacrificing realism like the movie) or change the setting (like making the Rage virus airborne or something, which makes it much less fanfictionish, thereby defeating the main purpose of the exercise).
Now, for actual purpose-built worlds for Techno-thrillers (including, to some extent hardish level sci-fi, which is often just focused like a techno-thriller), one can change the setting such that the plot will happen realistically. However, if you want to write a techno-thriller in a setting that's *not* tailor made for it (namely real life, or a setting following common zombie conventions), you're going to have problems getting both plot and realism to stay intact. I'm a big Tom Clancy fan (his works, not those written after his name no longer became his), but almost all of his books require really big suspensions of disbelief for the initial incident (Japan invades again? Conventional WWIII?), which I think is because his world tries to mimic ours.
Now, in my specific case, I think that I've found a way to keep my 28 weeks later fanfiction working, namely by making small concessions in every section (some effects of the Rage virus unmentioned in the movies, a slightly non-traditional plot structure, and by making the Army do some non-optimal, but understandable things [which I mitigated as much as possible, the Army won't be doing anything that isn't understandable, like locking a bunch of civies in a giant room secured with a bike lock and turning out all the lights])
I'm aiming to do at least one hour of writing a day (except Note-taking Mondays and Tuesdays, which will be editing day). I'll put stuff online on Wednesdays, just because I'm in the MWR when no one else is for oft interrupted Dark Tides session, so no one will bug me about the against-the-rules personal flash drive.
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Topic: Life and Times of Strife26 (Read 142519 times)