Flying Blind: Post Mortem
09 February 2021
I haven't written a blog post in a while, and that's mostly because there hasn't been much movement on Beginning Hour since June. I'm still committed to finishing it, but it's been hard to focus on creative projects between job hunting and trying to forget that I've been stuck inside for months. That said, my brain has been buzzing with lots of little ideas for stories and games while I've been putting off finishing BH. Flying Blind was one of those ideas (if you haven't already, you can read it here).
When I came up with the basic idea of people needing to close their eyes while flying their spaceships, I wasn't really planning on going any further with it. I ended up telling a friend who I thought might find it cool, and they encouraged me to just write something down. I've not tried any creative writing since I was in school, but I felt like I had a good idea, so I thought I'd give it a go.
What I think makes a good sci-fi concept or premise, is something that leads to interesting consequences for storytelling. World building is also quite important to me; I like fictional worlds to feel consistent and lived in, even when there are unrealistic or fantastical elements. So that's where I started: I wrote down an explanation for the core concept, followed by a list of consequences that would naturally follow from it. This really worked to flesh out the idea as I could start with defining the basics, like the rules and limitations of the technology, and then consider how that technology would affect how a society would approach space travel. From this list of consequences, there was already a fictional world forming from this initial concept and the ways a society would need to work around the limits of the technology, before I even had any idea about where a story might go.
The next step was to think about these consequences from a more human or emotional point of view. The world already existed, I just needed to find one person's perspective of it. From here, the story felt like it was writing itself. Space is already a very big and scary place, but needing to close your eyes while in command of your spaceship brings a whole new level of danger and unfamiliarity. This emotion, coupled with the world building I had already done, was where the impostor syndrome storyline stemmed from. After I had developed the structure of the story and the world it took place in, writing the story itself felt relatively easy. From there, I could focus on more of the smaller details of Clara's experience.
While writing the story, I was careful not to let the world building get in the way of the narrative. It was important to me that there was as little exposition as possible, so I kept the explanation of the teleportation technology to a single paragraph. For me, the best world building supports the narrative, so most of the details about the spaceship and it's journey focus on getting a sense of scale. I have much more detailed notes about the Osprey, like who's on board, what mission the crew are on, and where they're going, but only the important parts make it into the story. After all, the reader will fill in any gaps I leave out as long as the information I do give them is consistent.
It felt good to be able to finish a project, especially as I was doing something I've not tried before. What I'm most proud of is being able to come up with an idea, and make something complete that I'm happy with in just 2 months. With BH still on the backburner, and lots of other projects and ideas in a stagnant planning phase, it's really great to be able to just finish something. When I was at school, writing was really something that didn't come naturally to me, and I think this really put me off creative writing. But having given it a go, it turns out it's a really fun and accessible way to get creative. I don't need anything to get started, and I can do it almost anywhere or any time. Since writing Flying Blind, I've already started writing a new short story, and I feel like I'm learning a lot.
As an aside, I feel like it's also important to mention that after writing Flying Blind, I noticed that Phobos is named after the Greek god of fear. I would love to be able to say I set the story around Phobos because of this, but alas this is just a happy coincidence.