“A Peek Ahead at The Farpool: Exodus”

In this post, I’d like to give you a sneak peak at where I’m going in the Farpool series.  The original title The Farpool is already available at Smashwords.com and fine ebook retailers everywhere.  The sequel The Farpool: Marauders of Seome is in progress now and I expect to make this available for the holidays in late 2017.  The next story in this sequence is entitled The Farpool: Exodus.

To summarize, the home planet of my marine beings is doomed to destruction because their sun has been poisoned with starball impacts from an enemy known as the Coethi.  The star-sun Sigma Albeth B will soon supernova and we learn this toward the end of Farpool:Marauders.  But the Farpool itself is a wormhole in space and time, and a bridge between Seome and Earth. Learning how to manipulate and transit this wormhole, some factions on Seome realize that the Farpool is an escape path from their doomed world.  The problem is that they will be escaping, in large numbers, to the oceans of Earth.  And some Seomish realize that the current residents of Earth might not take too kindly to the appearance of another intelligent species on their world, even if they are basically talking fish and live in the oceans.

That’s the underlying conflict of Exodus. 

Below, I’ve provided a synopsis of the Prologue and Chapter 1 of The Farpool: Exodus…

Prologue

Seome

Six Thousand Light Years from Earth

Time: 785.2, Epoch of Tekpotu

Story opens with the cataclysmic explosion of a supernova in space, a star called Sigma Albeth B, detonating and spewing its contents through space for light years in every direction.  Beyond the confines of the Sigma Albeth B system, a small fleet of Coethi jumpships quietly withdraws, having just let loose a final volley of starballs, which impacted the sun and initiated the deadly sequence of events.

We follow the sequence of events as the star’s core suddenly collapses, followed by the rebound explosion as the collapsing envelope collides with the outward shock wave.  Two hours later, the gas envelope of Sigma Albeth B is explosively ejected away.  Every moon and planet in the Sigma Albeth B system (there are 12 in all) is incinerated.  One of the planets was a world called Seome, a world of vast oceans, a world home to twenty million intelligent inhabitants.

Several hundred thousand of these inhabitants were able to escape the death throes of their sun, through a wormhole they called the Farpool.  The wormhole linked the fates of two worlds, Seome and a world called Terra…Earth. 

These two hundred thousand inhabitants rode the wormhole of the Farpool in a fleet of sleds, lifeships, and other assorted craft, anything that would hold people, cobbled together in the frantic last days of their world and flung into the Farpool in desperation.  Some ships didn’t survive the trip.  Those that did landed in a bewildering array of times…some landed in mid-20 century Earth, some in the 16^th century, among Spanish galleons and English men-of-war, some in the 28^th century, when the seas had swallowed almost every continent and there were two moons in the sky.  One group of emigrants landed in the Cretaceous epoch of ancient Earth history, with the skies darkening as a giant asteroid called Chicxulub approached. 

And some landed in the early 22^nd century, in a bevy of waterspouts centered on a range of underwater hills north of Bermuda, a place the oceanographers called the Muir seamounts.

This is the story of the Kelvishtu, the great exodus of the lost and the desperate from the doomed ocean world of Seome.  Millions perished in the supernova of their sun Sigma Albeth B.  Two hundred thousand survived in a harrowing series of trips through the Farpool.

They were not alone.

 

Chapter 1

Earth

The Atlantic Ocean, near Bermuda

May 1, 2115

Several hundred thousand Seomish, from all kels, have managed to emigrate through the Farpool to Earth.  Twenty million others died in the End Times…the great ak’loosh. The Farpool has been destroyed…for now.  The Time Twister created the Farpool.  To re-create the Farpool, another Time Twister (wavemaker) would have to be built.

The emigrants (known among themselves as tu’kelke) have mostly traveled in lifeships and modified kip’ts to 22^nd century Earth.  However, some of the emigrants did not have proper control of their lifeships and wound up on Earth in different time periods…mid-20th century Earth, 16-century Earth, 28^th century Earth and one small group in the Cretaceous period of Earth, just before the big asteroid Chicxulub struck, dooming the dinosaurs.  None of these tu’kelke have any way of communicating with each other, or traveling, since the Farpool is gone.

In a small cave near the growing encampment of the tu’kelke at the Muir seamounts, Chase (still em’took-modified) finds a familiar face in the form of Tulcheah li, half-Omtorish, half-Ponkti, working with other members of her em’kel to unpack pods and cases and make some kind of home in the dim warren of caves.  They are glad to see each other and embrace.  Chase invites Tulcheah out for a roam about the settlement.

For the time being, the settlement is to be known as Kee’nomsh’pont (Little Omsh’pont), a way of remembering the great capital city of the Omt’or, back on Seome.  Tulcheah describes the frightening trip through the Farpool…some of her em’kel in other ships didn’t make it.  In fact, she’s lost several close friends and, although glad to be alive, is somewhat despondent.  Chase knows what to do about that.

The two of them roam about the scattering of settlements, encountering first Eep’kostic, then Sk’ortish emigrants, who are already gathering themselves into kel-related camps.  They then encounter a school of Ponkti midlings, engaged in learning tuk moves from none other than Loptoheen himself.   They stop to watch, but it’s clear that the Ponkti want to isolate themselves from the others and after some harsh words with Loptoheen, Chase and Tulcheah leave.  They discuss how even in this difficult setting and their new home, the kels are already organizing themselves into water clans once again. 

As they roam about the camps, they learn of a great roam being organized by the Metahs of the kels: Mokleeoh, Lektereenah, Okeemah and Kolandra…a roam for the purpose of settling disputes and setting conditions for how the settlement will operate.  Already, great crowds are gathering near the edge of Keenomsh’pont.  It will also be a chance to study and learn about their new surroundings.

Tulcheah and Chase find an isolated niche on the other side of the great seamount and couple vigorously, all the while keeping an eye on the strange and nosy sea life flitting by.  After lovemaking is over, they are startled to first hear, then see an odd submersible vehicle nosing about nearby, seeming to observe them (it is the unmanned autonomous submarine Beagle from Woods Hole, investigating acoustic and seismic anomalies around the Muir seamounts.  In the multiple landings of the Farpool, seismic tremors and strange waterspout activity have been set off and marine scientists want to know why).

Startled and somewhat frightened, Chase and Tulcheah make their way back to the settlement and join the gathering roam crowd.  The submersible Beagle discreetly follows.

The roam gets underway and each Metah has her say.  First, a compressed history of all the kels is recited and sung by all, then the Metahs sing their wishes for what is to come and how the kels are to be organized.  For now, Keenomsh’pont will be home, but the kels will move to their own territories and waters within the seamount complex, while exploratory expeditions are organized.  Once the Separation is accomplished, all kels will contribute to these expeditions.  The overall effort is to be led by Likteek of Omt’or, with assistance from every kel.  Five teams will assemble into a sort of Corps of Discovery, and each team will be responsible for navigating to the farthest corners of this marine world that the Tailless call Urth, reconnoitering and surveying and collecting specimens from what they find.  After one mah, the exploratory teams will re-convene at Keeomsh’pont and report their findings. 

The Metahs sing out their choices for who is assigned to each team.  Chase finds that he will be part of the Omtorish team, which it to be commanded by veteran kip’t pilot Manklu tel himself.   Their route will take them west in this great ocean.  Once he fully understands where they are now, Chase is excited by this news.  West means toward the Gulf Stream and North America…seas and lands he’s familiar with. 

The great roam returns to their makeshift settlement of Keenomsh’pont, only to find the strange submersible Beagle nosing about their encampment.  Startled and incensed at the intrusion, Ponkti Metah Lektereenah orders a squad of her prodsmen and suppressors to attack and drive the craft off.  They do so and the Beagle is soon lying on the seafloor in a shallow ravine, shattered and still. 

But at the surface, scientists aboard Beagle’s mother ship Darwin are fully aware of what has happened.  Beagle no longer responds to their commands to return to Darwin, but the scientists aren’t concerned about that….for what they have seen through Beagle is so startling and unexpected, they can scarcely believe it.  The news flashes around the world from Darwin in minutes: some kind of lost civilization has just been discovered near Bermuda. 

Some are already calling it Atlantis. 

***

This little pre-excerpt will give you a flavor of what’s coming in The Farpool: Exodus.  Look for it next year, probably late spring of 2018.

In my next post, July 3, I’ll provide a sort of basic outline of where I want to go with The Farpool Stories from here.  Check in on July 3 for another sneak peek.

See you then.

Phil B.

“Excerpt from ‘The Farpool: Marauders of Seome’”

 

As of this post, I’m about 50 pages into my next science fiction novel, a continuation of The Farpool with the title indicated above.  Herewith, an excerpt from Chapter 1, of this work in progress.

Chapter 1

“The sea is only the embodiment of a supernatural and wonderful existence.”

Jules Verne 

Earth

Off the coast of North Carolina

November 20, 1942

4:30 pm

 

It was the Julie Lane’s second officer, Alonzo Henry, who first spotted the funnels of the waterspouts.  They were a curious, even foreboding sight, to the fatigued crew of the old beam trawler.   Since sunup that morning, the Lane had been trawling for tuna, snapper, drum, anything they could find.  Pickings had been slim for days and Henry had blamed the Navy, the Coast Guard, German U-boats, bad weather, the moon, anything he could think of for why this trip had been such a dud.

Now it was late afternoon, the sun shining in shafts through scattered clouds and this…funnels?  Waterspouts?  What else could happen?

Captain Curt Klamath stood against a door on the forward weather deck of the Julie Lane and tried for the fifth time to light his cigarette.  Fortunately, his first mate, Gallagher, was nearby and came to the rescue, cupping his hands around Klamath’s stiff fingers. 

All three men were still shaken from what they had just witnessed.

“Never seen a spout like that, Lon…quite a sight that was.”

Alonzo Henry agreed.  He lit his own cigarette.  “Never this far north, eh?  Like something out of the tropics.  Sky split open, crack of lightning.  It’s a wonder that whole school of tuna didn’t scatter to the winds.  They got up a good frenzy but they seem to be settling down.  Shall I put the nets further out?  Otter boards are flapping like there’s not much inside the net.”

“Yeah, give the order.  She’s probably a small school but we might have some good ones in there.  Run the bobbins out as far as they’ll go, though.  This is some fierce chop.”

It was just then that first mate Gil Gallagher, of the trawler Julie Lane, out of Okracoke, North Carolina, lead ship of the Robson Line and always loaded to her gunwales with good meat after a run, saw the ghost, the apparition, the pulses of light climbing down the waterspouts like fireflies on a ladder, for that’s what he would insist on calling it in all the reports and debriefings that would follow.

“What in name of Neptune’s hair is that?” he pointed to the flickering lights.

The men studied the phenomenon for a moment.  Half a dozen waterspouts danced across the wavetops miles out to sea, like slithering ropes dropped down from heaven.  That in itself wasn’t terribly unusual; all the officers had seen stranger things than that in twenty- two years of trawling and shrimping off the Carolina coast.  But the largest of the spouts flickered like a string of Christmas lights, as pulses of reddish-white light coursed down her length, ending in the sea somewhere beyond the horizon.

The apparition ended almost as soon as it started.

Klamath tugged at a pipe and rubbed bristly stubble on his chin.  “Lightning, most likely.  Chain lightning.  Heard of it, but I ain’t never seen such.”

“St Elmo’s, maybe?’ suggested Henry.  “But climbing down that spout, now that’s a sight.  Nobody’ll believe it.  Maybe we should—‘

But Henry’s ruminations were suddenly interrupted by a shout from the first mate.  Gallagher was leaning on the railing, starboard side, gesturing at something.

“Look out!  She’s rogue wave, coming this way--!”

And that’s when the deck and forecastle of the Julie Lane was suddenly filled with shouts, curses and scurrying men, trying to lash down everything they could reach.

“Turn her into the wind, Bryan!” Klamath yelled over the roar of the building surf.  “Secure those hawsers too!  I don’t want to get broadsided!”

Henry, Gallagher, Munsey, everybody was thrashing and sliding across the wet foredeck of the Julie Lane as the chop worsened and the first waves crashed over her bow.  Something groaned, then cracked…it was the portside beam, now bent down at an impossible angle—Lane was already listing badly to port, and gear careened around the deck, slamming into knees and legs and faces as the trawler tried to answer her helm.

Henry’s voice strained over the howl of the wind as he grabbed Klamath by the arm and spun the captain around.  “We got to cut the lines, Curt!  Cod end’s still hung up thirty fathoms down, she’ll drag us right into that wave—“

Klamath shook his head, cried out, “No way, Lon!  We’re worked too hard for what we’ve got.  We’ve got to show something for all this effort—“

The waves built steadily, Himalayas of water rising up out of the troughs and slamming and hammering Lane from all sides.  The trawler had barely enough way to get herself turned bow into the waves, when the front slopes of the monster lifted them fifty feet into the air.  For a split second, Klamath, Henry and Gallagher had a glorious view beyond…mottled gray-green surf like a puckered sheet marching off to the horizon, and behind it, more waves, bigger waves and a strange swirl to the ocean, like they were caught in God’a own blender.

And that’s when they saw the lights. 

In the days and weeks that followed, Curt Klamath would remember this moment as if it were branded into his brain for all time.  The puckering of the ocean in the troughs of the waves, the swirl of the water and the flicker of two lights, just below the surface, devil’s eyes, he called them to anyone who would listen, including his long-suffering wife of thirty-one years Suzanne.  The glare of Neptune’s revenge.  Sea monsters.  Dragons.  Words failed Curt Klamath at times like this, for there were no words to describe what the crew of the Julie Lane had witnessed, in those fateful seconds, before the monster wave hit.

Klamath yelled at the top of his voice.  “Belay the nets…unlash the life--!”

But his words were lost in the unearthly howl of the rogue as the full force of the wave hit them at quarter-bow.  The Julie Lane upended bow to stern, standing like an uncertain child just learning to walk, before tipping backward, slamming into the water upside down with enough force to split her hull, smash her deckhouse, splinter her gunwales and scattering men and debris like so much kindling.  The lifeboats—there were two nicknamed Abbot and Costello—were ripped from their davits and splintered in pieces, then tossed fifty yards into the foam and froth of a boiling sea.

Klamath found himself tugged down by the undertow of the wave’s back side and stroked for all he was worth to avoid the falling beams of the dragger mounts, plummeting out of the sky like broken swords.  He thought he heard cries before he ducked under, but he couldn’t be sure.  It was every man for himself now and he had no idea where Alonzo Henry, Gallagher, Munsey or any of the others were.  Chairs, tables, splintered paneling, snatches of netting and assorted gear fell like rain out of the sky and floated on the white-topped crests of the wave.

With all his breath, Curt Klamath snagged something in the water…it turned out to be a broken piece of wooden board-- and held on hard as he could, looping some kind of rope around his arms ad body so as to lash himself to the only thing floating he could reach.

Then, in the last moments before he passed out, Klamath saw the lights again.  Two glaring eyes, seemingly not connected, yet traveling in unison, dull yellow-white, coursing just below the surface, in the trough of the rogue wave and those that followed.

Klamath puzzled over the sight, as consciousness slipped away.  Lanterns torn loose from the Lane, perhaps?  Midget U-boats?  The Germans had been hunting in these waters for months now and many an unsuspecting tanker or freighter had been caught in their crosshairs and torpedoed to the bottom off the Carolina coast.  Strange phosphorescent fish, stirred up in the freak storm that had overturned them?

Klamath had no answers.  And the black tunnel quickly overcame any last thoughts.

 

A loud horn kept blaring and bleating and Klamath fought his way back to something like a dull stupor.  His chin hurt, and there was dried blood—he could taste it and feel it as he wiped his face.  He sat up, wobbling around as the waves bounced the little board back and forth.  A big wall blocked out the early evening sun, now setting to the west.  The wall had a big red stripe on it.

With a start, he realized he was staring at the gunwales of a Coast Guard cutter.  He could dimly make out the words Diamond on her sides.

Klamath bobbed in a daze while a small boat circled closer and closer.  Soon enough, hands reached in, strong hands, and hoisted him in.  Voices filled his ears, questions, comments, orders.  He understood nothing save one thing: he was safe, for the moment.  He was dimly aware as heavy cloth covered him and made him comfortable, that the rogue waves had passed and the sea was preternaturally calm.  The sun was gone but the sky was lit with a soft pearly light and the first stars were already out.

Klamath wondered briefly if he had died and this was fisherman’s heaven, but a burly, bearded face appeared in front of his and offered himself something.  He drank.  It was coffee, hot, rancid, but still it tasted good and it warmed him well.  He dozed off as the boat circled back and approached the cutter, making herself fast in Diamond’s aft well deck.

Crewmen secured the boat and helped Klamath out.  He stood wobbly on the deck for a moment, then made out a familiar face: it was Alonzo Henry, cut and bleeding, but alive.  The captain and first officer of the Julie Lane embraced.

“Jeez, Lonnie, you look like hell.”

Then, they were whisked above decks to a sick bay crammed with beds and equipment.  Corpsmen checked them out, head to toe. 

After the examinations, Klamath and Henry were escorted by two bearded yeoman to a room along a narrow passageway on the Diamond’s main deck.  It turned out to the captain’s stateroom. 

“Stay here and don’t try to leave,” one yeoman told them.  “Cap’n will be by in a few minutes.”  They shut the door.  Klamath tried the lock—it was unlocked—but he could hear movement just outside.  They were under guard.

Klamath and Henry glared ruefully at each other.  Klamath spoke up in a rattling voice, still coughing up salt water, sipping Coast Guard coffee like it was champagne.  “Lon, I seen monster waves before.  I seen spouts before.  I even seen ball lightning and St. Elmo’s before.  But those lights under the water—“

Alonzo Henry shook his head, ruffled his wet hair with towels.  “Subs, Skipper, had to be some kind of U-boats—“

That’s when they both realized the door had been opened and a face appeared.  It was Commander Wilcox.  The Diamond’s skipper came in, shutting the door behind him.  He was tall, with a buzzcut and gray temples.  A faint line of moustache arced over his lips.  The moustache twitched like a mouse.

“What about the rest of my crew?” Klamath asked.  He rubbed a hot thermos of coffee against the stubble of his cheeks, then took a few sips.  Something about Coast Guard coffee—

Wilcox scanned both men with suspicion.  “We only found the two of you.  How large was your crew?”

Klamath mentally ticked off names in his mind.  “Seven in all.”  The realization that four of them had been lost in a freak storm weighed heavily on his mind.  And it wouldn’t go down well at Robson Line offices in Wilmington either…there would be hours of questions, investigations, paperwork. 

Wilcox shrugged.  “We did what we could.  Corpsman said you two will be okay…mind telling me what you were doing out in such rough seas?  There were all kinds of weather warnings this afternoon.”

“Well, we are fishermen, Commander.  Julie Lane was out trawling for drum and snapper.  And the fishin’s none too good around here anymore what with you and your ships carving up the waters day and night.”

Wilcox forced a thin smile.  “There’s been U-boats sighted around here, you know that.  Tanker went down just twenty miles north, off Nags Head…day before yesterday.  Fifteen men too.  The Coast Guard can’t keep you out of these waters but you’d best watch yourself.  Stay inside the ten-mile line.  We and the Navy are pretty busy further out…U-boat pickets and the like.”

Alonzo Henry shook his head.  “She was a freak storm all right, Commander.  But it wasn’t the waves or the spouts that spooked us.”

Wilcox snickered.  Fishermen were all alike, superstitious as all get out.  “Ghosts, I assume?”

“Lights,” Henry said.  “Weird lights.  And it wasn’t no lightning either.”

That made Wilcox’ face harden.  “What kind of lights?”

Henry glanced over at Klamath, who nodded silently.  Tell him, his eyes said. 

“First the big spout had lights, like Christmas lights.  They came down out of the clouds…little blobs of lights, at least two of them, kind of slow, like a bomb maybe, but I didn’t see an explosion.”

Klamath took up the story.  “Then when Julie Lane capsized and we were in the water, we saw ‘em again, under the water.  Below the surface.”

“How many?” Wilcox asked, now more concerned.  “How far away, what bearing?”

Henry took a deep breath and shrugged, pulling long on the thermos of coffee.  It tasted like bilge water.  “Hard to say.  I only saw two.  Steady yellow white lights, maybe a few feet below the surface.  They passed between us and the Lane, then circled us for a few minutes.  Thought they might be shark, but we don’t get shark up here very often.”

“You think they might be U-boats?” Klamath asked.  The prospect made his heart race.  “German midget subs, maybe?”

Wilcox backed out into the corridor and conferred with someone else for a second, then stuck his head back in the cabin.  “I don’t know, fellas, but the Navy needs to know about this.  We’re putting in at Fort Macon in an hour.  I want you guys to speak with the Navy boys when we dock.  Tell ‘em everything you saw or heard about those lights.”

Henry made a fist.  “It’s the Germans, ain’t it?  They got some kind of weird U-boat and you need to investigate, don’t you?  Sure thing, Commander, we can tell ‘em what we saw.”

Wilcox started to withdraw.  “Get dried off, men.  And don’t say a word of this to anyone. “ He backed out of the cabin and shut the door.  Both survivors heard the lock click.

Klamath shivered, tested his own coffee.  “Guess were stuck here, Lonnie. 

The Diamond put in at her dock at Ft. Macon Coast Guard Station forty minutes later.  Escorted down the gangway, Klamath and Henry spotted Coast Guard beach patrols on horseback gathering at the end of the wharf.  The ship’s executive officer was a jolly, barrel-chested nearly bald officer whose name plate read Dennison.  Lieutenant Dennison was mainly interested in food, from his description of what awaited them.

“Oh, you’ll love it,” he told them, as they headed across the dock area to the stationhouse.  “This time of night…wow…doughnuts, bagels, sandwiches, Coast Guard coffee, that’ll grow hair on your chest…just follow me—“

They wound up at the Security shack, a small cabin just inside the main gate off Spencer Road.  Lieutenant Melvin Betters was the base Security Officer.  Just as Dennison had said, a table full of sodas, coffee and cookies and sandwiches occupied one corner of the conference room.  Klamath wondered if everybody rescued got the same treatment.

That’s when they saw the Navy commander in the corner, flanked by men with M-1 carbines.

 

Thirty miles northeast of the Ft. Macon Coast Guard station, two Ponkti lifeships settled to the sandy bottom of the ocean in strong currents.  A large underwater vessel was coming.  They had sounded it from miles away, then circled the splintered wreckage of the eekoti ship that had just sunk to observe this strange vessel of the Umans.

 

 

So that’s the excerpt.  Let me know what you think.  Farpool: Marauders should be essentially done this fall and be ready to be downloaded by the end of the year.

 

The next post to The Word Shed will come on June 26.

 

See you then.

 

Phil B.

 

“Why Johnny Had to Rob That Bank: Giving Your Characters Believable Motivation”

No character in your stories is believable without some kind of motivation.  Motivations can be as simple as love, money, revenge, honor, glory and there are plenty of others.  The website Novel Now lists 7 tips for developing character motivations:

1: Give each character their own contrasting motivation

2: Use character motivations founded on rational and irrational beliefs

3: Decide how aware your characters will be of their own motivations

4: Let characters’ drives develop as new plot events occur

5: Don’t give characters what they want too easily

6: Try to be subtle in revealing what drives your characters

7. Make motivations complex to increase readers’ interest

 

In my own stories, I like to develop motivations of key characters as a part of writing a background bio.  For example, in my upcoming science fiction short “In Plutonian Seas,” the main character is a fellow named Joe Skellen, who commands a mission to the (presumed) subsurface ocean on Pluto.  In his bio, I said this:

1. Joe is strongly driven to prove himself as a man due to guilt over how he ran out on wife Kristen and son Tyler in 2126.  He intends to try and make up for his failures, both as a father and for losing most of his Trieste crew on Europa by having a successful mission at Pluto with Trident.  Joe is strongly driven to make Trident a success. 
2. When Joe Skellen encounters the Plutonian Bugs who template his memories and fashion nanobotic re-creations of those memories, he finds himself confronted face to face again with his past failures and having to live them all over again.  When he encounters the swarm simulation of his son Tyler among the corpses in the wreck below the Plutonian ice, he loses all control. 
    
   In this little snippet, I’ve given Joe a reason to be somewhat fanatical about making his current mission (on Pluto) a success.  It’s personal.  In this case, the motivation is residual guilt and a strong desire to make right what wasn’t right in the past.  Joe is also keen to reclaim a sense of honor for his name and reputation, as both were tainted by an earlier accident and his supposed part in that.  This is why I do fairly extensive bios of main characters.  I’ve now got motivation and readily re-callable memories of specific incidents and events to flesh out my character as a believable person.
    

I’d like to address Novel Now’s 5^th and 6^th points from above.

Point number five tells us not to let our character achieve what he wants too easily.  In other words, a successful story shows our hero struggling at some level to achieve what he wants.  Characters, like real people, grow when they struggle to achieve something.  They learn things about themselves and others.  They try different tactics only to fail again.  Then they try something else.  Only when the end looks bleak and it seems that our hero will never achieve what he wants do you allow him to surmount his difficulties and triumph in the end.   Or not.  Sometimes, our hero never achieves his dream but perhaps achieves something else he might not have ever suspected.  When that happens, he gains insight as to what drives him…and the reader gains insight too.  

Point number six tells us to be subtle in how you reveal what drives your characters.  In other words, don’t just put in a sentence that says: “Joe was motivated by guilt.”  It’s almost always  better to show than to tell.  Put Joe in a situation where this notion is revealed, by what Joe does and says.  Maybe a conversation with a crewmate.  Or Joe remembering something.  Or reacting strongly to something that reminds him of the earlier accident.  The point is: let the reader discover for themselves what Joe’s motivation is.  That makes for a more engaging story.

Providing and illustrating motivation for your characters is a true art.  Success depends on how well you know your characters—yet another reason to do a bio at least for the main ones.  How would Joe react in this situation?  You’ll find yourself asking that question over and over again.  Answering that may well provide you with insights as a writer too.

The Word Shed will take a short hiatus for the next 2 weeks.  The next post comes on June 19.  Look for it.

See you then.

Phil B.