Timothy H Dixon

Assignment One: Story Statement (what's the mission of the protagonists) Thera, a tough, smart engineer, and Katya, a determined journalist, join forces to fight powerful special interests who are using misinformation and murder to cover up a sinister plan. Poorly understood natural forces are driving environmental change on their planet, Elpida, Earth’s first successful colony beyond the solar system. Thera and Katya learn that the plan exploits this change and will benefit a wealthy elite, but dooms the rest of the population to poverty and possible extinction. One-sentence version: Thera, a tough, smart engineer, and Katya, a determined journalist, uncover a sinister plan to exploit environmental changes on Elpida, Earth’s first successful colony beyond the solar system. Assignment Two: The Antagonists The antagonists are two generations of a wealthy, ruthless family. The patriarch, Gustak, initiates a multi-generational plan to control access to water on the planet Elpida. His scheme includes corruption of key government officials, misinformation through control of the media, discrediting of journalists and scientists who get too close to the story, and, if necessary, their disappearance. Gustak’s son, Alfrix, is even more ruthless than his father. He murders his first wife, and later his second, when he suspects they disapprove of the scheme and plan to reveal it to the authorities and the public. Thera and Katya have to find a way to alert the public to the dangers of the scheme while avoiding the grisly fates of previous whistle-blowers. Assignment Three: Breakout Title Second Colony Justification: The title has two meanings. The obvious one is that the planet (Elpida) is humanity’s second colony on a planet beyond Earth. The first colony, Mars, failed due to that planet’s lack of water and limited atmospheric oxygen. Elpida is initially a lush, water- and oxygen-rich planet, enabling the colonists to thrive for a few hundred years. However, cyclical changes in the climate, initially not appreciated by the colonists or the mission planners on Earth, force the colonists to adapt and examine their planet more closely. In doing so, they learn they are not the first civilization to colonize Elpida. That knowledge will help Thera and Katya in their struggle. Assignment Four: Genre and Comparables Genre: Science Fiction (SF) Sub-genre: Hard SF (no magic, no time travel) Comparables: Aurora (Kim Stanley Robinson) Seven Eves (Neal Stevenson) In both novels, environmental problems on Earth force some sort of space travel, either to near-Earth orbit (Seven Eves) or to a different star system (Aurora) Assignment Five: Log line I struggled with this assignment, in part because I have two main characters, each with ‘core wounds’ that are not easily described in one sentence. One character has ignored her parent’s advice to be suspicious of government motives, later discovering her naivete has led her to inadvertently support a corrupt regime. The other character lost a sister under violent circumstances and feels responsible for her death. Also, by focusing on these characters, I would not be able to describe the key plot element in one sentence. Help! Here is my first attempt (no core wounds, but it might hook some people): What if humanity colonized a second planet, found environmental conditions changing for the worse, then discovered that an earlier civilization was driven to extinction by the same changes? Assignment Six (inner conflicts of the two protagonists) Thera: rejected her parents’ warning that their government was not to be trusted and made a career for herself in a key civil service position. She realizes too late that she has been deceived. This is her core wound. The main arc for this character throughout the novel is the gradual realization that she has been naïve in a number of ways and has to change many of her opinions and assumptions — about the government, her parents, and, towards the end of the novel, even about the nature of the planet she’s been living on. Example scene: Thera finds herself hiding from the police after a series of false accusations have been leveled against her. She has to remain stock-still while standing in the shadows so as not to trigger the doppler sensor of a nearby surveillance drone. Her thoughts go back to a violent argument with her parents, the last time they’d talked. Her parents had tried to warn her about the nature of their government. Harsh words were exchanged and Thera left the house, never to return. Love interest: At the beginning of the novel, Thera holds a high visibility, high stress job. She realizes she may never have a close relationship. As the novel progresses and her career path is upended, this may change. Example scene: Early in the novel, Thera makes an appointment to visit the manager of an engineering company about a type of scientific data she needs for her job. She is surprised that the owner/manager is quite young, her own age, and has an interesting backstory. After she leaves, she finds herself thinking about him, dreaming up excuses to see him again, then realizing she might be sliding into a relationship she can’t have. Katya: blames herself for the death of her sister, who disappeared under suspicious circumstances two years before the main events of the novel. Katya has vowed to find out what happened to her sister and bring the guilty parties to justice. Secondary conflict: As a result of a childhood accident (one where her sister helped rescue her) Katya has a fear of the outdoors. Overcoming this fear will be a key plot point at a later stage in the novel. Example scene. Near the end of the novel, in the final battle against the protagonists, Katya needs to traverse a large, empty section of desert to save a friend. She is initially paralyzed by fear and must force herself to overcome her phobia for the sake of her friend. Assignment Seven: Settings The novel takes place in three time frames. The main time frame and place is the planet Elpida (Greek for ‘hope’) roughly 800 years in the future. Elpida is a mostly desolate place, a dry, desert-like environment with little vegetation except in the polar regions. Most people live in a single underground city close to the equator, protected by a large wall to keep out the sand storms that rage during the day. Like most deserts on Earth, things cool off at night, and residents come to the surface to watch the stars and play their favorite game, futbol, similar to soccer, except for the rocket augments and robo-goalies. At a later stage in the novel, the protagonists travel to the polar region, which has a more equitable climate, some vegetation, and deep caverns floored by standing water. It is in one of these caverns that the protagonists discover something about their planet that will change their world view, and may allow them to finally destroy their antagonists. The middle time frame is also on the planet Elpida, several hundred years earlier, when the colonists from Earth first arrive. They choose to establish their colony in a lush green, water-rich setting near the equator, unaware that the climate will gradually change due to natural cycles and forcing the colonists to adapt. The early time frame is set on Earth, about 200 years from now, as the mission to send colonists to Elpida is conceived. The setting is kept deliberately vague, as we see the Earth of this time frame through the eyes of the protagonists – they have adapted to their conditions and don’t consider them extraordinary. However, the narrative hints that the Earth of this time period is hot and crowded. Forests and other wild greenspace have been replaced by monocultures of food crops, and there are huge wealth disparities. While some people enjoy great luxury, the great majority have limited options, spending most of their free time immersed in a virtual reality world (the ‘vids’). Sent to: https://algonkianconferences.com/authorconnect/index.php?/topic/24738-seven-assignments-new-york-write-to-pitch-conference/