![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
I've told this story to a lot of people in person, but I don't think I've ever written it here, so here goes:
Once upon a time when I was working as a Naval defense contractor in the D.C. Metro area, back in another life (or so it seems now), we had a couple of captains swing by the office to tell us about the then up-and-coming AEGIS ships that were going to be the next generation of sea warfare. One captain was up in front of us explaining all the AEGIS innovations while another stood off to the side watching silently. One of those innovations was how much of ship operations, including weapons systems, were to be run by computer. Almost a central computer, was the impression I got. When Speaking Captain asked if there were any questions, I chimed in, "How would you protect your computers against an EMP?"
"A what?" Speaking Captain asked.
"An electromagnetic pulse. If an EMP exploded above the ship, how would you protect the computers? Or if it took out the computer, how would you run the ship and its defenses?"
Speaking Captain spluttered for a moment, then finally made a rather lame assertion that he was sure all of that had been taken into account. From the corner of my eye I noticed that Silent Captain wore a big grin.
After the meeting, Silent Captain came up to me and offered a general explanation of the shielding around the computers--including in the hull itself--and the backup redundancies in case of a computer-frying event. He wanted to know what made me think of an EMP. I explained that I was fascinated both by science and science fiction, and my mind simply came up with catastrophic exercises as a challenge to try thinking up ways out of them. The captain then asked me if I'd like to do a little extra work for a project he contributed to.
That "project" was coming up with catastrophes. I wouldn't be trying to think up solutions--just potential problems. The sky was the limit. At least as far as the captain was concerned. But here is where I ran into the blockade of the famous hidebound military mentality. When I would suggest certain possibilities for problems, the response would be some variation of "That would never happen". I would respond with a variation of "But what if it did?" "It wouldn't." I didn't necessarily think my imagined problems were unreasonable--things like, say, a country where the ships make port having a revolution and cutting us off from the port. Or ships being cut off from some supply station in the middle of the Pacific. "That would never happen." Well, I asked a few times, what if there's a nuclear war, and the ships find themselves cut off from help and alone?
"That would never happen." Even a nuclear war was outside the realm of thought of these otherwise intelligent officers, despite the ongoing presence of several thousand nuclear missiles--including on U.S. Naval submarines--and, we know now, several holocausts almost triggered by accident over the years.
So what does this have to do with writing? I was reading over some of my editor's comments for Lest Camelot Fall the other day, and while she wasn't telling me "Your character would never do this", she did ask about the motivation in several cases. Then I remembered the old standby of writing advice that says "Make sure your character never acts out of character".
This is good advice in one respect. You don't want to throw your reader out of the story by having your peace-loving socially shy research assistant suddenly jabbing a knife into a friend's spine for no reason. But while writers don't usually have to make world-altering decisions (though my job was a kind of world-building), the officers' adamant refusal to consider all possibilities is the same thing I see sometimes in writers (including myself) who get too stuck on what they're sure their characters wouldn't do. All too often "Make sure your character never acts out of character" is the equivalent of "That would never happen". Don't assume that. Don't assume anything. Instead of throwing away a potentially good idea because "That would never happen", ask instead, "What would it take to make this happen? What would it take to make my character act this way?"
Some of the best conflict comes from people who are acting out of character--with the reader either waiting to find out why or realizing that this was the culmination of a slow buildup to the explosion. I'm a believer that most people are capable of doing most things if pushed long and hard enough, and staying "in character" becomes increasingly hard if someone is being constantly crushed--or perhaps elevated--beyond what they can handle.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a nuclear war, or a revolution, or an EMP. The tipping point could be something small, for all that. As long as it's there. Don't let hidebound thinking block you from what could be a really awesome plot point, background story, revelation, dramatic twist, or ingenious solution. You may not fully realize what kind of writing you're capable of until you thoroughly determine just what your characters are capable of.
Once upon a time when I was working as a Naval defense contractor in the D.C. Metro area, back in another life (or so it seems now), we had a couple of captains swing by the office to tell us about the then up-and-coming AEGIS ships that were going to be the next generation of sea warfare. One captain was up in front of us explaining all the AEGIS innovations while another stood off to the side watching silently. One of those innovations was how much of ship operations, including weapons systems, were to be run by computer. Almost a central computer, was the impression I got. When Speaking Captain asked if there were any questions, I chimed in, "How would you protect your computers against an EMP?"
"A what?" Speaking Captain asked.
"An electromagnetic pulse. If an EMP exploded above the ship, how would you protect the computers? Or if it took out the computer, how would you run the ship and its defenses?"
Speaking Captain spluttered for a moment, then finally made a rather lame assertion that he was sure all of that had been taken into account. From the corner of my eye I noticed that Silent Captain wore a big grin.
After the meeting, Silent Captain came up to me and offered a general explanation of the shielding around the computers--including in the hull itself--and the backup redundancies in case of a computer-frying event. He wanted to know what made me think of an EMP. I explained that I was fascinated both by science and science fiction, and my mind simply came up with catastrophic exercises as a challenge to try thinking up ways out of them. The captain then asked me if I'd like to do a little extra work for a project he contributed to.
That "project" was coming up with catastrophes. I wouldn't be trying to think up solutions--just potential problems. The sky was the limit. At least as far as the captain was concerned. But here is where I ran into the blockade of the famous hidebound military mentality. When I would suggest certain possibilities for problems, the response would be some variation of "That would never happen". I would respond with a variation of "But what if it did?" "It wouldn't." I didn't necessarily think my imagined problems were unreasonable--things like, say, a country where the ships make port having a revolution and cutting us off from the port. Or ships being cut off from some supply station in the middle of the Pacific. "That would never happen." Well, I asked a few times, what if there's a nuclear war, and the ships find themselves cut off from help and alone?
"That would never happen." Even a nuclear war was outside the realm of thought of these otherwise intelligent officers, despite the ongoing presence of several thousand nuclear missiles--including on U.S. Naval submarines--and, we know now, several holocausts almost triggered by accident over the years.
So what does this have to do with writing? I was reading over some of my editor's comments for Lest Camelot Fall the other day, and while she wasn't telling me "Your character would never do this", she did ask about the motivation in several cases. Then I remembered the old standby of writing advice that says "Make sure your character never acts out of character".
This is good advice in one respect. You don't want to throw your reader out of the story by having your peace-loving socially shy research assistant suddenly jabbing a knife into a friend's spine for no reason. But while writers don't usually have to make world-altering decisions (though my job was a kind of world-building), the officers' adamant refusal to consider all possibilities is the same thing I see sometimes in writers (including myself) who get too stuck on what they're sure their characters wouldn't do. All too often "Make sure your character never acts out of character" is the equivalent of "That would never happen". Don't assume that. Don't assume anything. Instead of throwing away a potentially good idea because "That would never happen", ask instead, "What would it take to make this happen? What would it take to make my character act this way?"
Some of the best conflict comes from people who are acting out of character--with the reader either waiting to find out why or realizing that this was the culmination of a slow buildup to the explosion. I'm a believer that most people are capable of doing most things if pushed long and hard enough, and staying "in character" becomes increasingly hard if someone is being constantly crushed--or perhaps elevated--beyond what they can handle.
It doesn't necessarily have to be a nuclear war, or a revolution, or an EMP. The tipping point could be something small, for all that. As long as it's there. Don't let hidebound thinking block you from what could be a really awesome plot point, background story, revelation, dramatic twist, or ingenious solution. You may not fully realize what kind of writing you're capable of until you thoroughly determine just what your characters are capable of.
