Vacation is over! It was a great trip. I spent a fair amount of time revisiting Isaac Asimov's Foundation Series, it was highly enjoyable, as you'd expect from the series that won the Hugo for Best All-Time Series against Lord of the Rings in the same year that Dune won best novel.
Today's exercise will be inspired by the style of Foundation's storytelling.
1) For a science fiction vignette find a title from this title generator (On my first batch, The Seventh Machinist stuck out to me right away as a possibility.)
2) Imagine a future world/universe for that title. Come up with at least one novel location, one extraordinary ability or technology, and examples of two types of conflict.
3) Write a summary for two plots involving the world. Don't get too detailed, describe at least one character for each in some detail (though not necessarily very fully, it could be all description of the character's voice if that is what you deem the most important thing about the character).
4) Pick one of the summaries and edit/excerpt a small portion (60-120 words) to read like a quote pulled from a future history book reporting on the incident. Be sure to include at least a short bit of the character description.
5) Flesh out that summary in a real-time story, with the character described as the main character. You decide if it's first or third person, the omniscience level of the narrator, all the fun stuff. Also, go read The Foundation Series. It's a little dry at first, and you have to understand that the sheer scope of the 1000 year timeline means you'll have multiple main characters over time, but it's well worth the read, and not all that long.
Today's exercise will be inspired by the style of Foundation's storytelling.
1) For a science fiction vignette find a title from this title generator (On my first batch, The Seventh Machinist stuck out to me right away as a possibility.)
2) Imagine a future world/universe for that title. Come up with at least one novel location, one extraordinary ability or technology, and examples of two types of conflict.
3) Write a summary for two plots involving the world. Don't get too detailed, describe at least one character for each in some detail (though not necessarily very fully, it could be all description of the character's voice if that is what you deem the most important thing about the character).
4) Pick one of the summaries and edit/excerpt a small portion (60-120 words) to read like a quote pulled from a future history book reporting on the incident. Be sure to include at least a short bit of the character description.
5) Flesh out that summary in a real-time story, with the character described as the main character. You decide if it's first or third person, the omniscience level of the narrator, all the fun stuff. Also, go read The Foundation Series. It's a little dry at first, and you have to understand that the sheer scope of the 1000 year timeline means you'll have multiple main characters over time, but it's well worth the read, and not all that long.
