Suppose your hero could mentally zip through the probabilities and pinpoint how to shift small things for the desired result.

That's sort of like Longshot.

Barb, what you described sounded more, to me, like Total Recall or a virtual reality video game, except with probabilities, so that a projectionist could create a scenario for someone to walk through and explore and see what might happen based on what he or she did.

I actually like the superpower as stated. You actually experience the scenario and there is some risk of dying. In the end all you bring back is info. So it could just be a human holodeck, just experiencing a very realistic illusion that include real information. (Also it could be probabilistic.`Your novel, the risk of getting wrong information can be zero or very low or as high as you want.) Explaination whatever you need for the story:

Fantasy: projectors have spirit guides and take superhero and guest on tour through dream world to get infor. bonus: misuse loses major karma points. Pychic pollution in form of bad luck for world is a side effect.

SciFi pseudo science: projector is actually creating branching alternate time line. Time line collapses on return which is why physical effects are not retained. But trauma is, and that can have major physcial affects. stimata an example of how real.

Sci-fi two: information from unknown source, presented in shared dream. Pyschic info, tapping some other mysterious source. Same reason for physical effects as above.

By no means the limit. Really easy to define power in way that gives you any pluses and minuses you want. Time to play with scenarios. Let the story or character define the power for you.

Kevin Smith wrote these thoughts about writing on his blog. iting is the closest any man or woman will ever come to playing God (or a god).

Some will say childbirth, but that’s giving life, not playing God. Some will argue the cruel play at angry gods, but any animal can inflict pain; cruelty is not playing God, it’s playing Man.

Some will point to art or music, but the canvases - while valid & beautiful - are limited to what is heard or what is seen.

Film? I’m living proof that even chimps can make cinema if there’s enough talent to back it up; and the talent is never in the individual anyway, it’s in the group effort of many filmmakers - cast and crew - aiding the one in telling his or her story. I love film; it has given me everything I have today. But even filmmaking is not playing God.

Only writing – amongst not only all the arts, but amongst all of humanity’s waking endeavors – allows we mere mortals a true taste of all-encompassing creation along the lines of that which God (or a god; or a god-like energy from which the universe sprang) knew or knows.

You sit down with a blank page (let’s be honest: a blank screen) and you create a universe. You fashion a world. You populate it with whimsies and desires. You make the world the way you feel it oughta be. And you don’t have to show a single image to convey your creation to others: just words. The more you share it, the more your fiction becomes a reality – a reality that can even manifest itself in that most unimaginative and over-valued currency: cold, hard cash.

But for any writer, money is never the motivator: it’s that crushing need to get that story/blog/script/poem off your chest onto someone else’s mind. A writer doesn’t need motivation because a writer can never shut it off.

When you write, you are as a god – or even the God. Who needs motivation for that? You wanna enjoy the perks of godhood without some jackass nailing you to a cross? Go write something. Right now. Stop reading me.

#SMonologueOff

Barb if you don't use the idea I may run with the Karma thing. The plot bunnies are totally gelling for me with that one. But your idea, so you get first priority. Also if I do try it, it will be next year at earliest, so you have plenty of time to decide.

TB, be my guest. The Karma angle had never occurred to me and even as intriguing as it sounds, it's still not quite in the wheelhouse of what I was thinking, since I tend to the more overall character-driven. So if the plot bunnies are attacking, by all means, run with it. I'm sure your finished product would be far different from mine.

And this is considering I'm also in the same boat in terms of when in hell am I gonna even write this, since I've got the ghost YA, the rewrite of the 60s story and Dorian who are all in the queue ahead of this one.

Barb, what you described sounded more, to me, like Total Recall or a virtual reality video game, except with probabilities, so that a projectionist could create a scenario for someone to walk through and explore and see what might happen based on what he or she did.

That's actually a pretty apt comparison, Deena.

That's a good queue to have.

That's a good queue to have.

::snort::

No kidding.

And to think, a month or so ago, I was lamenting that I had no new ideas and was freaking out that the well had run dry.

Oy.

Also, if any ideas wrt to this bunny occur to me, I think I'm going to do exactly what you suggested, because ultimately, my stuff ends up so character driven, rather than world or overall plot driven, I suspect that how characters react to scenarios is really the key to finding the plot for me.

Amy caught me falling in love with my technology a while back and reminded me of this plan. I approve of it.