Question 1

This question asked about themes that were appropriate for different categories of stories.

Themes appropriate for suspense

  • Pawns can become queens
  • Nothing is as it appears / no-one is as they appear
  • Trust no-one / anyone can betray you
  • Be afraid … someone is watching / you cannot hide anything

Themes appropriate for murder mystery

  • Crime doesn’t pay / you’ll never get away with it / status doesn’t protect you from the law
  • There is always someone smarter
  • The end doesn’t justify the means
  • As a twist in the tail: if you have enough money or power, you can get away with anything

Themes appropriate for modern day fantasy

  • Beauty can be found (and experienced) wherever you look
  • You are more powerful than you believe
  • You are part of a greater story with a role to play in a great adventure
  • There is more to life than what you see with your eyes
  • There is the regular “good conquers evil” theme, but what is “good” and what is “evil” is being increasingly blurred by the advent of anti-heroes such as Thomas Covenant and Deadpool

Themes appropriate for science fiction

  • There will always be dangerous unintended consequences
  • Lack of knowledge can kill you
  • Whatever the odds, humanity will overcome
  • Human nature remains the same despite the setting … whether utopian, dystopian or anything in between

Question 2

This question asked me to develop a plot around a nominated theme. I chose “dangerous unintended consequences”.

Causative action

A biomechanical researcher develops nanotechnology that can rebuild people’s ocular lenses in-situ to make the person’s vision perfect. Her employer takes the product to market before a proper course of testing and trials.

Complication 1

The manufactured lenses don’t last, and decay within a couple of years. The people who have undergone the initial treatment face further treatment or blindness.

Rising action 1

Lawsuits are brought against the company, and the company holds the researcher responsible for the problem, despite her opposition to having the technology released so quickly. She has to come up with a solution to the problem, and spends a lot of time in the lab, neglecting family and friends.

Climax 1

The researcher discovers the problem with the technology and produces a fix that allows the manufactured lens to last indefinitely.

Falling action 1

Patients are brought in, undergo a procedure that introduces still more nanotechnology into their eyes, and their lenses are built as required.

Complication 2

Some patients’ original nanotechnology hadn’t completely degraded before the second application. There are adverse reactions between the two versions of the treatment, and over time, they produce a corrupted form of the lens material that escapes the confines of the eye, causing deposits to form in the brain.

Rising action 2

We see personality changes in the patients we’ve been following from the start. People around them become suspicious, and one patient’s spouse (a neurologist) recognises the changes as being similar to a brain tumour. The patient undergoes a scan, the deposits are found, and the cause is identified. By this time, the effects are irreversible, and patients start to die.

Our researcher (the protagonist) experiences crushing guilt. Her employer starts talking to her, endeavouring to keep her quiet in case she starts pointing her finger at their procedures. Her grief turns to rage, and she publishes all of her notes and memos to the internet. The company attempts to discredit her, then kill her.

Climax 2

The company’s manipulations misfire, and it is exposed.

Falling action 2

The researcher lives, but still feels guilt at what has been happened to her patients. Outraged and bereaved relatives still seek revenge and/or compensation, but from company rather than the researcher.

Denouement

The reality of what they’ve done is brought home to those in the company responsible for pushing the technology to market, and they are imprisoned. The researcher leaves her profession because of her grief, and joins (or founds) a technology watchdog organisation.

Question 3

This was an analysis of the first few pages of two stories from the same categories. I chose Jack and Jill (the third book in the Alex Cross series) by James Patterson, and Tripwire (the third book in the Jack Reacher series) by Lee Child.

Because there was nothing particularly creative in this analysis, I’ve not included the text here.