Ignore this email for all of you that like to read from the Uplift Universe,
but don't want to have the future spoiled...
OK.
I have already nailed certain propositions to the door.
Theme A:
If Alvin has a lodge and sailing ships, he's going to be successful.
If successful, he's going to have a theater.
As Brin is a fan of Gilbert & Sullivan, and Alvin is a sailor, the
first play will be H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Mikado will be the second play.
The Mikado will cause a riot because Pooh-bah is, obviously, imitating
hoon bureaucracy.
Theme B:
Mudfoot stays with Alvin. Because he's Tytlal. And the best joke he could
ever play would be to undermine the planned development of the Hoon's client
race, the Rousit, by giving them, or letting them retain, their sense of humor.
Theme C:
Alvin eventually goes to Earth and wins the America's Cup.
Now, the standard clich� question asked of an author is "Where do you get
your ideas?"
That ain't the problem.
A better question is, "How do your ideas congeal into a story?"
Problems and revelations:
1) Alvin, and POV.
Any story with Alvin has to be in first person. That's his shtick.
But Brin never stays with just one POV, and if mainly from Alvin in first
person, I think the story would bog down with too many daily details.
Solution?
First person Dor-hinuf who often "quotes" from her husband's journal.
And a few first person chapters from Huck and Mudfoot.
[Glory be to the Trickster, the dispassionate, the observer, the originator,
the one unto all punchlines are known... (Too Islamic?)]
Dor-hinuf could start a journal, to be a bit more like her husband.
..and currently, she's nothing.
What was her relationship with her father?
What happened to her mother? (Died in work accident.)
Did they live on Hurmuphta before moving to Kazzkark? (yes.)
Did Alvin meet Twaphu-anuph before he met Dor-hinuf?
(Yes. More humorous when Twaphu-anuph meets Alvin a second
time.....with his daughter.)
Did Alvin get his throat sac dyed while at Kazzkark?
(I don't remember any earlier reference to his sac being dyed.)
And if so, failing to have any family heraldry on Jijo, would it be a
nice touch to have the six races of Jijo pictured on it?
(Boy the things some guys do for a female....)
She has a Rousit.
Are Rousit currently more like pets than clients? (Hers is. More to follow.)
Are they smaller than the Wazoon? (A bit larger and planned for growth.)
If the story is turning into novel length, there has to be an ape. Brin rule.
---I don't have any ideas on this yet.
Conclusions for a better story:
1. Hurmuphta is a colony planet, not the Hoon homeworld.
2. Huck moves to the bay. The kids on training wheels are too much
for Hurmuphta City.
3. Rousit are stage one, and currently mute.
All the Rousit on Hurmuphta and the ones that were at Kazzkark are the
rejects, or the red cards, to put it in Uplit War terms.
When Hoons from the home planet start visiting Alvin, Mudfoot gets to see the
more "livelier" rousit. .......for a while.
The Hurmuphta powers that be put a stop to that. No more white and green card
Rousit to come in contact with Mudfoot. And to also keep all Tymbrimi and
Tytlal from visiting the planet.
(Hurmuphta being too unimportant to have any embasies.)
Giving reason for Mudfoot to cause the riot at the opening of the Mikado.
(The reason for the invention of hoonish heraldry.)
Eventually giving Alvin the reason to personally sponsor a Rousit Uplift
Cerimony on Hurmuphta.
(Yup, he's getting that rich now. What with the daily room occupancy now over
a thousand. And his book having been published on Earth. And everything else
in the way of humicker entertainment he's started.)
Mudfoot meets the Tytlat, and both meet the best of the Rousit, because no
race can be excluded from a cerimony if they want to attend.
The Rausit fail stage two, as expected, but choose the Tytlal as their new
Stage Consorts, along with the Forski--which pisses off the Soro to no end once
they understand what that means.
4. Ur-ron shows up for the Uplift Cerimony. She has a plan for doing a
Drake's Dare on Earth as a whole.
5. To avoid the controversy of elections and the expected change in Hurmuphta
government, and to put Ur-ron's idea into action, Alvin and company visit
Earth to
revive the America's Cup race.
Alvin visits the Krondisfire Monument. (The Streaker is now on the Thennanin
homeworld.)
Etc......
.......and if I'm not good enough to write in novel form, whenever our good
Dr Brin
shifts back into Uplift mode, he's going to get one damn detailed plot
outline.
William Taylor
-----------------------
Typing all through
Austin Powers....
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