“Dissecting an Opening Scene”

In my last post, I uploaded an excerpt from Episode 19 of my serial Nanotroopers.  In this post, I want to look more closely at this excerpt with an eye toward explaining why I chose to write this opening scene the way I did.

To begin with, we see right off that the scene takes place at an archeological dig near a Mayan temple in Yucatan.  So we immediately get a sense of place.  The two archeologists have made a major new discovery and they’re very excited.  But very quickly, we see there is a difference in how the two scientists react to the new discovery.

The female, Erika Volk, knows more about what the discovery means than Dr. Heinz Richter.  Indeed, we quickly learn that Dr. Volk is a member of a criminal cartel and sports some kind of  neural device in her head that keeps cartel members under control. 

As we continue reading, we see that Dr. Volk has ambitions to move up and become somebody inside the cartel and views this discovery as a means of doing that.

So early on, we see background, character relations, the seeds of a conflict and motivation to do something unsavory already established.

We also see that the cartel’s long-time nemesis, Quantum Corps, has a base nearby and we can presume Dr. Volk knows that nanotroopers from that base will find out what she and Dr. Richter are up to.

It seems, from what we have read so far, that Dr. Erika Volk is ambitious enough to undertake a substantial risk in bringing this new discovery into the cartel and that, if she is successful, not only will her own standing inside the cartel be enhanced, the bad guys will have a powerful new weapon in their on-going conflict with Quantum Corps.

Dr. Volk activates the device that is at the core of their new discovery and she is instantly whisked away to another time and place.  For further details, you’ll have to read Nanotroopers, Episode 19, available from Smashwords and other fine ebook retailers on January 27.

I had several intentions in writing the opening scene this way.  First, I wanted to establish a strong sense of place…using the mystery and foreboding naturally available when you go rooting around unexplored Mayan ruins in Mexico.  Hopefully, this was achieved. 

I also wanted to lay out some background for the two characters who show up in this scene.  While it’s clear that Erika Volk is the junior scientist to Heinz Richter, it’s also clear that she is more than an archeologist and knows a great deal more about this unusual discovery they’ve made than Richter does.  Moreover, she’s ambitious enough to be motivated to use this discovery to further her own position in the cartel she’s a member of.  Thus I’ve laid the basis from substantial conflict later on. 

The final thing I wanted to establish in this opening scene is that the conflict mentioned above is part of a larger conflict with the good guys…the nanotroopers of Quantum Corps, who just happen to have a new base near the dig site.  This is in keeping with the continuing story cycle of the Nanotroopers serial.

One of the challenges of doing this serial (and its older brother, Tales of the Quantum Corps), is the need to plunge the reader immediately into the action and set before them a problem that the main characters are trying to solve.  You don’t have the luxury of time and space to lay out a conflict and a problem leisurely, when you’re committed to writing a story that is complete in 40-60 pages and making it a part of a larger story cycle. 

I hope I achieved this in the excerpt you read last week.  As a reader, if you’re intrigued or mystified enough to want to know more about what happens, then I’ve done my job.  Every storyteller is faced with the same dilemma but we all go about it in different ways.

So that’s a peek behind the curtains at how an episode of Nanotroopers is constructed…at least, the opening scene, which is probably the most important scene. 

Next week, I want to look at some details of how to develop empathetic characters, fictitious people that your reader can identify with.  This is one of the most important tricks any story-teller can deploy to hook his readers. 

This post to The Word Shed will come on January 23, 2017.

See you then.

Phil B.