This is my first blog, so be gentle with me.
I'd like some help picking two of the twists for my first pitch (which I'm working on slowly but surely). In A Means to The End, the heroine develops a cure for all diseases. She was actually just trying to invent a new pesticide, so she views her invention as a gift from God. But of course itisn't. The "cure" works, but it's actually a ploy to make mankind complacent. Once a couple generations have passed and all doctors, vets, and medicine of any kind have disappeared, the true creator of the cure infects the world with a deadly disease. So, my questions are:
--Should the villain be the devil, an alien warlord, or someone else that I haven't thought of?
--Should the evil endgame be to wipe out humankind, enslave us, or something else that I haven't thought of?
Thanks for helping me past my indecisions!
Comments
05:50 Mon Mar 24th, 2008
I just heard that Marvel is going to be doing a comic version of the Stand, so this would be a very bad time to do anything in the same vein. Aliens it is. And I like your shortform of War of the Worlds in reverse. Thanks for your input.
06:11 Mon Mar 24th, 2008
I read that too,I'm sold. I'm not ashamed to say that I'm a huge King fan. You're totally welcome. M!!
21:14 Sat Mar 29th, 2008
If you want a more unusual twist, make it SEEM as if it's aliens . . . but then reveal that the villain is the disease itself. A sentient organism that wipes out all other diseases because they're competition, and then moves into the vacant "houses" left behind. You could even have a "good virus" battling them--the ones that they infect get super-powers, instead of just being turned into mindless hosts. Just a suggestion.
23:00 Sat Mar 29th, 2008
Good suggestion, Don, thanks. I just might use some variation of that. I wonder, though if bringing a sentient virus to life might be better accomplished in a novel than a comic. Hmm.
23:04 Sat Mar 29th, 2008
Here's another way I could go with the twist. Since the inventor thinks the Cure is a gift from God, the expected twist would be to make the virus be a trick from the Devil...and then twist it around to have it be an alien pretending to be the devil. Just a thought. Still brainstorming. Thanks everyone.
23:06 Sat Mar 29th, 2008
Busted. Okay, so I used a variation on that in one of my books. But I went a very different route, more like nanotech than a disease--you could still use the idea without looking like you stole it.
23:18 Sat Mar 29th, 2008
For some reason when I think of battling the sentient virus, I think of Fantastic Voyage, Innerspace, and Osmosis Jones. Heh.
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MorganJ
23:01 Sun Mar 23rd, 2008
The disease wiping out humanity, and subsequent battle between Good and Evil was done well in The Stand, so you may not want to go in that direction--unless of course you have a different take in mind. Perhaps then, the alien plot to facilitate a smooth take over, or annihilation of the human race would be the way to go. It could be sort of akin to War of the Worlds in reverse, the aliens develop a virus to wipe us out subversively. A small group of aliens living among humanity that is, like an alien terrorist cell maybe? ... M!!