53 lines
2.3 KiB
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53 lines
2.3 KiB
HTML
From: Jms at B5
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<TITLE>JMS: Kudos and a Question (95-12-13 21:35:52)</TITLE>
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[America Online postings by JMS]
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<A HREF="/cgi-bin/lurkfind">Search</A>
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- <A HREF="71.html">Previous</A> - <A HREF="73.html">Next</A>
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<H2>JMS: Kudos and a Question</H2>
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95-12-13 21:35:52
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<PRE> One of the hardest questions for any writer to answer is where did the
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story come from. It's often a synthesis of lots of elements that sometimes
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bursts through all at one shot, other times trickles out a bit here and
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there.
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With B5, I started from wanting to do a saga, wanting to produce an SF
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show in a fiscally responsible manner (thus encouraging more of it), and to
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do real SF. The usual strategy used by other shows is the man or show on the
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run...going in search of new worlds, or escaping from something, or trying to
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get somewhere. The Immortal, Battlestar Galactica, the various Treks, The
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Hulk...all these and others used that approach, 'cause it's the easiest kind
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of story to construct, and needs the least amount of work. The downside,
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though, is that you end up creating a venue in which you are constantly
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distracting your story from your main characters by having to introduce the
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Alien Of The Week, or the Planet Of The Week, establish them, their culture,
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the problem they bring in...which leaves you very little room for real
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character development. And I wanted also to get into some of what's
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happening on Earth, do a little extrapolative writing in politics, law,
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criminal justice, sociology, religion, and other areas.
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This led me to the notion -- used in shows like LA Law or St. Elsewhere
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-- of creating a place where the stories came to you, rather than vice versa.
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This led me to the notion of a space station, a freeport in space. Onto
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this, I began to stitch the notion of a saga, a war, certain mythic and
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archetypal constructs...anyway I was playing with all this, when one day the
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whole story just sorta exploded in my head. I saw the whole B5 sage, start
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to finish, in one big flash. I then spent the next year, as I gathered my
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notes, and wrote the pilot screenplay, trying to write down and clarify what
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I saw in that one moment of absolute clarity.
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It's those notes, written in 1986/87, which formed the basis for the
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arc, and which I'm still using with some modifications today.
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jms
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</PRE>
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