[UA] Collaborative Novel

[Twist0059 at aol.com]

In a message dated 12/23/99 12:54:30 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
holycrow at mindspring.com writes:

> 
>  The idea I'm kicking around starts with a character.  Don't know her name
>  yet, but she's an old lady Duke, probably in St. Louis, probably a
>  Cliomancer.  She finds lost children.  Unfortunately for her, she's caught
>  the eye of the Sleepers, who make the tough decision: Even though she's
>  doing good things on the individual scale, she's being too blatant and
>  threatening everyone on the big scale.  So they dispatch one of their
>  Executioners.  
>  
>  The duke gets tipped wise that the Executioner is on the way.  She has a
>  chance to bail out, but she's just started the search for a new lost child.
>   She continues her search, even though she knows it puts her in danger.
>  
>  The Executioner finds her.
>  
>  "Look," she says.  "I'm not going to fight you.  You'll just win.  And I'm
>  not going to run from you, because I'm too damned old.  But I'd like a last
>  request.  Let me find this one last child."
>  
>  The Executioner thinks this is ludicrous, even though he finds this job
>  particularly distasteful.
>  
>  "Okay," says the lady duke.  "I'll sweeten the pot.  Help me find the
>  child, I'll let you kill me AND I'll let you blame me for kidnapping her.
>  I'll SET IT UP.  All the lost kids I've found -- I'll take the fall for all
>  of it.  Isn't that what your bosses want?  You won't have just cut off the
>  problem, you'll have erased it.  All my previous 'magickal' successes will
>  be revealed as the mechanations of a deluded, sick old woman."
>  
>  He checks with his superiors, and they agree.  Of course, she's looking for
>  a chance to dust him.  He's on the alert for it.  And there's more going on
>  than either one of them suspect.


That is sweet.  Maybe the entire novel, precluding the first and last 
chapters, should be told by other characters, and the with only the beginning 
and ending chapter dealing directly with the POVs of the Sleeper agent and 
the lady Duke.

In fact, maybe Chapter 1 could be the Lady Duke's POV, and Chapter X (ending 
chapter) the Sleeper agent.

However, I think it'd be important for the chapters outside of these not deal 
obviously with the conflict.  We could explore more of the Occult Underground 
by making each chapter deal with a different element of the OU that ties in 
with the plot.

And this way, we could also show how ripples in the OU effect everyone else.

Using that old Shadowrun novel as yet another example:

Chapter 1:  Briefly mentions how a Lone Star cop was killed accidently by a 
sniper aiming for someone else.  The rest of the chapter deals with one man's 
battle with Mantid Insect Spirits.  The sniper's true target was an exec at 
Natural Vat, who is killed later and his open job slot begins the power play 
by Cortez and Mirin.  This chapter lets you know the NatVat exec is a marked 
man.

Chapter 2:  Deals with a couple of hackers who are posing as corporate office 
painters to break into a dead exec's office at Natural Vat (see Chapter 1) to 
use his passwords and get rich.  While there, they meet Sam Cortez and Nadia 
Mirin, and we get to see them sparring off.  These are the two execs 
jockeying for power during the novel.  This chapter lets you know that 1) the 
exec is dead, and 2) that these execs both want the job and they viciously 
hate each other.

And so on, we see the effects of these two exec's mini-war spill out as jobs 
in the shadows.

Just an idea.  Still waiting to hear back from John, Ken, and Tim.  If anyone 
has some charges that could help persuade them, now would be the time. :-)






-Twist

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