As a (now unofficial) guide correspondent it is important to remember that, while you are feverishly typing your new soon to be rejected submission, that there are, despite all the evidence to the contrary, rules. Most journalists, i.e. those not affiliated to the guide, tend to froth at the brain over big disasters, hideous crime and cats stuck up trees but, while they are reporting erroneous facts about nuclear meltdowns, joint government police actions (wars) and anything else they can cover from the safety of a distant hotel room Guide writers must stick to the formula first laid down by the first roving reporter Calman Rhexo in the heady days before the Guide became the phenomenal success it is today.

They are:

1. Having picked your subject, choose a suitable reference to show how barking mad, inaccurate and downright dangerous non-Guide sources of information can be.
2. Get to the nub of the matter by illustrating your point of view from personal experience, or at least from a reliable source, or at the very least what the being next to you at the bar muttered on the subject before he/she/it slid into an alcoholic coma.
3. If there are famous people involved, especially famous people looking very foolish, include every detail.
4. If there is a human interest angle, only include it if you can't find a stupid celebrity.
5. Get the science right. Guide readers are savvy and well educated and will notice if you get your facts about radioactive caesium and iodine wrong, for example. Remember, talking about half-life is a serious business, as it's all some people have got.
6. If you can't get the science right make it up, make it complicated and make it amusing.
7. Anything that belittles lawyers, economists or advertising executives is permitted, but be very careful what you say about lawyers.
8. Psychiatrists are usually right about their patients, but be sure to cast doubt on their motives. Remember, their lifestyles depend on the extortionate fees they charge and it is never in their interests to actually cure anyone.
9. At this point the article will have usually wandered off the subject and into the realms of wild speculation and anecdote. This is fine as long as you have a point. If you don't have a point go and find a nice darkened bar, drink copiously and talk to the other inebriated beings until you have one.
10. Sex. Everyone wants to read about it because so few people are actually having it.
11. Hitchhikers rely on us to stay alive so if something is toxic, lethal or otherwise existentially inconvenient, say so.
12. Similarly, if you discover that on certain worlds you shouldn't touch / eat / drink / have sex with something because it is frowned upon / illegal / hallucinogenic etc. say so.
13. Life as a hitchhiker can be very dull, so try to give the illusion that the universe is full of wild, exotic beings having a fantastic time. Lengthy descriptions of spaceports and bus timetables are not what we are about. That's what the Encyclopedia Galactica is for.

Entry Ends.

The Lost Transmissions Archive

Tim Stevenson

09.04.12 Front Page

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