The Plot Less Traveled

Matt gave a warm reception to my latest chapter. It involved him running into the living room, grabbing me up, jumping up and down, shouting "Gimme more, gimme more! Want next chapter! More! More!" I think that's the most encouraging reception I've ever received.

Any writer knows, no matter how you plot your novel, no matter how detailed the outline or extensive the notes, sometimes an event happens that you just don't expect. In my case, Matt has been watching Charmed reruns for months, going through the entire series, and is now going back through for episodes he particularly liked. He has ideas he wants to see done in Shadowstrider. Some things I think are intriguing, some I just raise an eyebrow and tell him firmly "No!"

I have a character with psionic abilities. Matt's idea was to have this character able to, for lack of a better word, teleport. It's a lot cooler explained than simply she can go from one place to another instantaneously, but I'm trying to keep things vague so I won't spoil any plotiness.

This concept of teleportation was solely Matt's idea, having watched a dozen ways the demons, witches, and white-lighters do this on the television show. A cheap plot device, hero has to get ten miles away to save helpless dame from evil demon, but jumping into your car and driving that far, especially in San Francisco where the show takes place, will take such a long time, our hapless dame would be worse than dead by then. How do we shorten the episode time and make things more fast-paced and exciting? Oh wow, look, they can teleport anywhere, and lookie, simple computer graphics make it all so pretty!

Matt basically wants to turn my character into a white-lighters, "orbing" from one place to another, with the body dissolving into white glowing orbs of energy that float away. The concept of turning into energy was one I established back in Book 3, and this is Book 8, so it's not something new. In Book 7, it is a major issue in almost a third of the story. Other characters have turned into energy, but energy has to travel. Going from point A to point B can be done super quick, but teleporting? I dunno...

So we've been haggling how to handle this. Charmed is all about magic. Shadowstrider makes fun of the possibilities that exist in the realm of science being passed off as impossible and therefore shoved into the catch-all phrase of "magic." So whatever it is I'm doing, it has to be within the laws of physics. E=mc^2

Of course, all of Books 7 & 8 are Matt's idea. If I stray from the usual pattern, I can blame him. The two of us, over dinner at Shari's, came up with an outline for these two books, but it was generalized for the most part. I have strayed from so many key issues. Just a few days ago, I went through and changed the names of three characters, including one who is mentioned in all ten books. About to wrap this story up, and I'm making massive changes like that!

Then again, the fun things about plot outlines is deviating away from them and seeing what strange areas we end up in.

At least the reception he gave me after reading the finish chapter was good.