ReBoot

Hey guys. Professor WhizzyWig here, writer of Arrival. A few days back, a fan named Wren and I had a lengthy email discussion. I'm posting it here for your interest since I think you'll all be interested.

Wren wrote:

Jeffrey,

I find that I'm in a bit of a quandary, and I hope you can help me sort my way through it. I wrote my review of Arrival's initial plot last night, and afterwards found out that you had decided to completely change the two major plot points of the alien invader and any chance of interaction between Bob's crew and the User.

This came as a shock to me, because your concept was a perfectly viable progression of the ReBoot canon. Maybe this is just an outward projection of some inherent flaw I may have as a young writer, but I just can't help but feel as though you're compromising too much of your originality in order to appease an audience that doesn't seem justified in making a lot of the gripes that they have been.

Now, I stand by what I said about the User and his anonymity, but if you had a plan that you really thought would make it work, then I don't get why you were seemingly so quick to drop it. I guess I just felt like you really knew where you wanted to go with this story. You knew what it was about -- the sheer possibilities inherent in your proposal -- and were confident enough in it to go to Rainmaker (or whomever will actually be doing the publishing) with it, but then just dumped those most vital elements of your story at the drop of a hat.

Maybe I'm being linguistically melodramatic, and a writer of your caliber certainly doesn't owe an unpublished 24-year-old like me any explanations for a business that is probably giving you a huge opportunity. I'm honestly just a little vexed by the whole thing.

--Wren 

Professor WhizzyWig wrote:

Hey man. Your comments make me sigh a little - but only a little. Let me explain.

First of all, I'm 29 AND unpublished, so don't go thinking I know what I'm doing. That said, most writers don't start pulling it together until they're about 35, so we both have a pretty good head-start. Also, only pretend that you know what you're doing when you need to stand your ground. If you ACTUALLY think you know what you're doing, then you're just arrogant.

Anyway... I went into this competition knowing full-well that I'd make mistakes. I AM an old ReBoot fan, but to be truthful I'd given up long ago on more episodes. I watched them all again in preparation for this, but I knew I wouldn't get everything right. The fans out there that have stuck with it for so many years have been breathing this stuff all along - and that's why I'm treating them like the real experts.

Plus, don't think I'm listening to EVERYTHING they're saying. Every aspect of our pitch has been attacked by at least one fan. I've been carefully reading every comment and weighing it against the mean. If the comment turns up often enough, I make the change.

People hated the aliens and the possibility of User interaction in the way we were proposing it, so we cut it. Others loved Ether's character and the return of the Codemasters, so we kept it - and nailed it down. Some people thought Ether looked too much like Maxine, or that Gnosis reminded them too much of Tron; we're not sure if we want to change those because too few people shared that belief.

In the end, it's a lot about listening - and sometimes you have to listen less to what people are saying and more about what they're feeling. Some people looked at the pitches and panned every one - except our revival of the Codemasters (which has been universally accepted). That tells me that, generally, people are ready for ReBoot to evolve - but that doesn't mean that just ANY evolution will do.

Stay tuned this week to see how Arrival has evolved. Hopefully, it will be standing on two feet by that point. :)

Professor WhizzyWig

p.s. Can I post your email and my response on our Arrival blog?

Wren wrote:

Oh man, you thought that made you sigh. The second I hit send on that I said to myself, "Crap, all of my old CRW professors are going to hunt me down".

I've always felt that projects which are epic in nature are more or less impossible to workshop. The scope of vision necessary to create a work that spans an entire world and population is just too great to be boiled down into either a five minute discussion or a 150 word synopsis. There's always more to expand upon but no room or time to do so, so the reader just has to trust the author.

I guess this manages to make me seem like the old guy who holds onto old traditions in spite of the unstoppable changes around him. The web, I guess, is going to completely change the rules of the publishing industry (which, I painfully realize, is the point of this whole web site in the first place), and the way that books are written. The fact that fans are actually given voice in regard to the way their favorite titles are directed is, frankly, mind boggling.

What I think I just realized about writing for established properties is that you're partly creator, and partly an antennae for those who support the story. Nobody is emotionally invested in a novel from the first moment they pick it up. They're either in your passenger seat for the whole ride or off the bus a few stops down the line.

Thanks a lot for responding to my concerns as thoughtfully as you did. This has been enlightening for me. I really look forward to seeing the next draft of Arrival, and feel free to post whatever you'd like on your blog.

--Wren