Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Prescient

I wrote this mail to Chandrachoodan in Dec 2011. An idea for a story which I had in mind, but couldn't write. Thought will post it here for posterity.
C,
Guess I wasn't clear on what I intended. It will NOT be a parody of social media players. What I have in mind is far more cynical, sort of cross between 1984 and Catch 22.

Chapter 1 - Introducing the cyber stalker - a grade 4 officer in Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, in charge of collecting defacement statistics of Indian Websites. Real job is to snoop around Twitter / Facebook to find any activity that is detrimental to my boss, the Minister of IT and his boss, the prime minister.

Chapter 2 - Minister of IT calls me to flush out the cabal that is leaking out information about the lesbian tendencies of the PMs daughter. Cyber stalker informs that it is a fact, that he himself has seen her in Lesbian sites. Minister says that it is an open secret, but it shouldn't be on the net.

Chapter 3 - Stalker infiltrates groups and finds out that it is a group of ultra national capitalists that is putting up these messages about The PMs daughter. Their reason, they want to discredit her as heir apparent

Chapter 4 - Stalker presents stuff to minister - and suggests a law to remove derogatory stuff from internet. Minister says public might object. Stalker proposes that it may be made to look like a law to protect religion from sacrilege. Minister asks stalker to create sacrilegious content and spread it across the web, so govt can step in.

Chapter 5 - Law is proposed, and social media erupts. Minister is worried. Stalker says that the govt can induce social media experts to support the law, provided they too get a piece of the cake.

The problem is I know how the book should be, but I can't write it
What you think
C thought that it lacked something. His exact words were
Well,
I like it. But not 100%. Something that I can't put a finger on keeps me from buying the crisis completely.
And what is the motivation for this cyber stalker: if the story is about him, what are his motives, his conflict and the final resolution?

If you can answer that question, I think the book will work.

People don't need motives in daily life. The big motive is survival/sex. But for a story - a dramatic arc - you need a motive right?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Ada yenna baas, the hacker/stalker was in love with the daughter, and she too was in love with him. Somewhere along the line, she discovers her "other" tendencies, and bids him goodbye (haven't you seen the sitcom friends ? ;-))

Chenthil said...

Shyam, the idea for me was to highlight how internet is being / can be manipulated, not the love angle :-). The only Friends I have seen is the Tamil movie by that name.

ashok said...

not bad..not bad atall...