Dragons...in SPACE!?

Credit to Lori Howe

I've been talking lately with fellow writer and publishing partner (I'm not really sure if that's the proper term.), Kit Bradley, about preawareness and some thoughts on what I'd like to write next. (Don't worry, I'm not abandoning Heroism and Other Lies, although there will be at least a gap after the end of season 1.)

Preawareness

Property of 20th Century Fox

If you check out Kit's blog, preawareness is a topic that comes up there a fair bit. The simple idea is that people are more likely to buy a product if there is something about it that they are familiar with-particularly if that thing is a prominent element of the thing that people are buying.

For instance, when I went to GenCon last year, there were a *bunch* of different booths that had board games and other merchandise. There were a lot of games that I'm sure were good, but the ones I remember looking at were the ones based on discworld and the one that I ended up buying which had a dragon on the front of the box. I was inclined to look at these because I already know that I like discworld, and I already know that I like dragons. I didn't have to dig deeper to determine if there was anything about the game that I'd like. There was a lot of merchandise at GenCon, but the booth that had Doctor Who stuff caught my eye more than those that had generic things. Again, it's not that the other things are bad, it's that I am more pulled towards things I know I like. This is true of everyone.

This is why things like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, are successful. They take things people know and have feelings about, and they build off of an existing fan-base.

It's much easier for people to be willing to pick up these books and actually read them than, say, a story about an unknown hero in an unknown hypothetical future.

Therefore, working on an idea within preawareness is more likely to be successful than something that doesn't.

What's Next?

Like I said, this is largely about what I'm thinking of doing next. So, here are some ideas that are rattling around in my head.

LitRPG and Torn

A few months ago, I became aware of a genre of literature referred to as LitRPG. Basically, this consists of stories of people within game worlds. Often, this is an MMORPG type game, but it can be tabletop as well. Either way, the rules and advancement tracks of the game worlds play a large role in the feel and style of the genre. As someone who likes writing fiction and who likes RPGs, this seemed like a pretty nifty genre for me.

I'd started planning a book within this genre. Up till when I was writing this blog post, I didn't have a name for it, but for now I'm going to call it Torn. There's no way that'd be the final title, but it is a fine way to refer to it for now.

As the story grew in my mind, it became a lot more about the real life drama of the players and less about the plot of their game/campaign. So, the final product would only really be semi-LitRPG and semi-drama.

I like the story a lot, and from what I've seen, LitRPG fans are pretty eager for more stuff to read. However, beyond that there's not a lot of preawareness to work with; I'm not sure I would find an audience for it.

Dracula vs. Cthulhu

Credit: Nocturnal Sea: nocturnalsea.deviantart.com

One of Kit's upcoming projects is a sci-fi horror book based on a Dracula vs. Cthulhu concept. To me, this sounded really cool. Lots of preawareness for things that are in the public domain. I thought to myself 'hey, I can write about vampires (and/or other classic monsters) fighting Lovecraftian horrors and how awful it is for the humans caught in between.'

So, I talked to Kit about the idea of trying to do inter-related stories in a way not unlike how Marvel movies exist in a cohesive universe and reference each other but (especially the earlier ones) don't depend on you having seen the others.

This isn't really a finalized idea, and there'd have to be a lot more work and coordination done between Kit and myself to really figure out what this would look like.

Christian Fiction

Property of Walt Disney and Walden Media

Christian Fiction is a genre that's really desperate for more material. Especially in the sci-fi/fantasy area. And there are millions of readers. There are few things that have as much preawareness as Jesus. Beyond the marketing implications, it would be a way to better devote my art to my faith and possibly reach people (either nonbelievers to give them something of the message, or believers to help increase their wisdom). Either way, bearing fruit, as it were. So, because of that, it's enticing.

However, there are a lot of reasons why I am hesitant to write something that's directly Christian Fiction. First, I feel like a lot of Christian Fiction isn't very good. It can be preachy and heavy-handed and, even aside from it's message, often times lower quality. I know I'm not the only person who feels this way. I know people who, while still being Christian, avoid basically any Christian media (or really any profession/work that is Christian _________, where the blank is any profession/work that also exists without the modifier of "Christian") because they feel that it is lower quality.

There are, of course, exceptions. C.S. Lewis might be the best example. But I'd be at a loss to think of any contemporary Christian fiction author of significant quality. But, again, I don't read a lot of the genre.

While I could see this as a challenge to be overcome, and a reason to write Christian Fiction, I also have to acknowledge that it sort of handicaps me and limits my audience to begin with.

I don't really want to just retell a bible story. Saul's story plays out like a classic tragedy and would be interesting to see written out for a modern audience. There's a lot of stuff in the life of Jesus or even the apostles afterwards the could make good stories. But I don't feel like I have a lot to add to these stories specifically, so I don't really want to focus on them. (Plus a realistic past as the setting is not something I'm interested in writing in at all.)

I do want to write sci-fi/fantasy. With Christian Fiction, that means picking from one or more of the following places:

Allegory/Symbolism-There are stand-ins in the story where things represent other things. Narnia would be a prime example of this, where Aslan=Jesus. This would probably be the space that I'd best operate in, but I'd have trouble with either a) being direct enough in my allegories that people get it or b) having my allegories be exact/true enough. For instance, if I used something in the place of angels/demons, some of the reason for that would be so that they could do things that wouldn't fit exactly for angels/demons to do. But, if I'm trying to have my work be Christian Fiction, I don't want people to take the inaccuracies in the allegory as the lessons and think I'm making claims that I'm not making. I think that this is a part of the problem with any philosophical/theological work of fiction, in that it is impossible to perfectly represent reality, and therefore there can be flaws in presenting genuine ideas.

Spiritual Warfare-Angels, demons, the end times, the war in heaven, everyday spiritual battles for the souls of mankind, etc are all things that are mentioned in the Bible. And they are fascinating topics. They're topics that are personally fascinating to me and that I have a lot of thoughts about. And they can be depicted in ways that are very exiting and interesting to Christian and non-Christian audiences alike. But this is also more dangerous than I'm able to emphasize. There's so much stuff out there today that depict demons and angels in ways that are very exciting/cinematic/good for stories but that are also very inaccurate. A demon isn't going to walk down a street with a whip of fire and massacre a group of people. Demons and angels don't really manifest in physical ways (kindof sortof/to my knowledge), but that doesn't make the influence that they do have any less significant. But it makes it a bit harder to write about in an interesting way without representing them inaccurately (to whatever degree we, as humans, have the ability to represent these beings with any degree of accuracy.) As with the Allegory/Symbolism issue, I don't want to present things inaccurately.

If I am doing Christian Fiction, then it's based on the idea that I believe Christianity is true. If I am working with that basis, I have to be very careful not to assert things about Christianity that are not true. If I am hoping to help people theologically, I have to be careful that I don't harm them instead. Accuracy is a difficulty that might be a part of why I generally stick to fantastical fiction instead of things based on reality in the first place.

Dragons

You know what has a lot of pre-awareness that I like writing about? Dragons. People really like dragons. And what's not to like? They're big, they breathe fire, in some stories they're amazingly intelligent. Dragons are one of the most well known and well liked mythological creatures that there is.

If I put a dragon on the front of one of my books, there's a pretty decent chance that at least a couple people will look at it.

So, starting there, I was thinking about ideas of settings/stories that would be interesting with Dragons.

It is probable that one of these (or a combination of many elements of these) will be what I end up writing next. None of these idea categories are actual book titles. I need to be further along before I name anything.

Dragons in SPACE!

www.pinterest.com/pin/301530137529714848/

So, this would probably be like a fairly normal space sci-fi setting with space ships and planets and factions and smugglers and stuff. Except there'd be something different. Out in space, humanity found that they weren't alone, but the aliens weren't what we expected. They are DRAGONS! The greatest threat to humanity across the galaxy is DRAGONS!

I've wanted to do stuff in space for a while, and I have a lot of thoughts for cool sci-fi space stuff even apart from the dragons. Dragons are just an awesome plus.

Dragons and Sufficiently Advanced Magic

One of the things that bugs me about most magic-based fantasy is that it falls into one of two categories:

Modern Fantasy-All the magicians and magical creatures stay in hiding for fear that normal humans will kill them, despite that it wouldn't be that hard for them to rule over humans and/or join human society and make it vastly better by combining magic with science to have an intellectual revolution.

Maurico Herrera www.berserker-comics.com

Classical Fantasy-Everything always stays the same. We have a kingdom with knights and wizards. A hundred years ago we had a kingdom with knights and wizards. A hundred years from now we'll have a kingdom with knights and wizards. Kit pointed out to me that in classical fantasy there's actually a tendency for things to have been *better* in the past. Given that Progress is a key theme to me, this irks me a lot of the time.

So, for a while, I've wanted to do a story in a world that takes sort of the classical fantasy high-magic setting, but actually lets it advance over time rather than staying stagnant. Magic and technology would develop together, or magic would develop in ways that would replace technology wide-spread, creating a society as advanced as our own, if not significantly more advanced. This would have fantastical creatures in it, among with would be DRAGONS-who everyone is probably pretty afraid of.

For bonus points, I could possibly advance this society to the point of space travel and then have both this AND dragons in space.

Dragons and the Wider World

On Earth, we think we're a pretty big deal. But in truth, we aren't. We're a small spec in a greater universe. No one dares to visit our world because it's controlled by a powerful and possessive DRAGON. Outside of it, however, a weird, surreal, and fantastic world awaits. Here, DRAGONS and other creatures, including a large portion of humanity that is unknown to earth, rule, fight, and live intentional, meaningful, and impactful lives.

I *could* have elements of both of the previous ideas in this, but the focus/meaning of those elements would be a little different than in themselves. For instance, I wouldn't focus on magic as progress, just have things be magically advanced. I wouldn't focus on space being lonely and terrifying, just one of the ways to pass between things.

Conclusion

So, I've definitely been thinking about a lot of things.

What do you think? What idea (or ideas) of the above do you like/like elements of? Especially, what thoughts do you have on any of the three dragon story ideas (since that's what I'm most leaning towards right now.)