h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

If this project is going to get going we have to start generating some ideas.

Nothing too specific for the moment, we'll get on to characters and details of plot later.

For now we need suggestions about Genre, Style, and broad thoughts on plot.

(SciFi hack mode on)

My initial thoughts were we make our own world, developing the landscape, history etc.

Broad outline is world is at peace, then a human ship arrives, throws the world into conflict and using that to maybe allegorise (not sure that's a word) the impact of humanity on our world.

I was thinking of something like the league of gentlemans last series where each episode ended with the same event, we could have different continents/habitations and how they deal with the fact they aren't alone, and the new ideas and technologies being made available.


well worth there I feel

i think we have got to make it comedy, they are fun and easier to write.

I don't know about making it an outright comedy. I think it should have comic elements and lightness, but with so many people writing and presumably we're all going to have different ideas about what's funny, I think a true comic novel could be one of the hardest things for us to pull off sucessfully. But if everyone wants to I'm not horribly opposed. I have a sense of humour honest.

I was thinking that it would be good to attempt a split narrative. That way people could concentrate exclusively on one half or the other, we'd get the benefit of diversity in the two halves, and avoid the whole thing turning into a mish mash of conflicting styles.

I'd like to see a split between two time periods, linked by location with no direct contact between the characters of the two narratives, conjoined by plot elements and thematic concerns.

It might also be fun to make it a mystery, with the characters in the 'contempory' strand trying to work out a mystery which is happening in the 'past' strand. (please note that by 'contemporary' I don't mean that it has to be set 'now' or 'here' it's just a conveniant label to distinguish the two time lines) The central character/s in the past strand could be very minorly involved in the 'mystery', with the present time characters completely unaware of their existance or involvement in the mystery they are trying to solve.

As a plot it would still leave room for it to be set withing a genre field, it could be historical, fantasy, sci-fi, even romance. It wouldn't have to ba a true mystery (agatha christie, thankfully, I'm not) or a mystery at all, that was just my first thought.

Going back to Kilted's idea of humans (or a species immediately recognisable as parralels to us) arriving at an alien world, that could work in conjunction with this, have them arrive in the past time thread and F**k it all up, but in the present time thread no-one knows exactly what happened. We could do a whole utopia/dystopia thing set on the same world and see short and long term consequences at the same time.

Anyway I have more thoughts if you don't like these! Or I could shut up and let everyone else talk

Sounds good to me. I think there should be some humour, otherwise there is a tendency for it to become a little boring unless we are great writers.

However did I manage to miss this thread?

Yes, I think we need comedy. Seeing as most people here are hitchhikers fans, I think that part is probably inevitable.

I like the split narrative idea. Perhaps if the technology left behind was something increadably simple? Such as a paperclip...



Must go get cake out oven , I'll try and make this post make more sense later

Well speaking just for myself, and since I have no modesty

I am a great writer!

But a certain ammount of humour is a good idea anyway. Especially since we seem to be leaning towards genre fiction, which can have a tendancy to take itself too seriously and be po-faced.

Does anyone have any more ideas? A completely new plot idea? Expansions of ideas already floating around?

Well, I like Kilty's idea, and that combined with the split narative I think could go very well.

Well, since this is the strongest (only) idea we have we should play with it a bit and see what we get.

We need to create an alien culture, well two cultures actually, before and aftrer if we're going with a split narrative. Also the 'invading' culture needs fleshing out.

So, any ideas on the governmental structure, morals and traditions of our 'alien' culture? Or anything else?

That leaves a lot of questions...


Are we going for a culture that's more or less advanced than our own?

Or one that's similar to ours now, seeing as humanitiy's technology would have had to move on a bit to get there..

I think it would be interesting to have a whole utopia/dystopia feel to it. So the civilization that gets wrecked would be advanced and peacefull. I'd like to see their downfall being an alien concept rather than a piece of technology.

Busy working now. I'll post more ideas later, from home.

Yes, I think that would be interesting if concept gets into the alien culture. Such as apathy? Or am I along the wrong lines.

Yup, thems the lines I mean.

I hate Saturdays.

Good, nice to know I'm not off on a tangent



I get weekends off

Lucky. Lucky. You.

Only because weekends aren't busy

Oh lucky lucky lucky you!

It's horribly busy here today. No gaps between calls at all. Whose bright idea was it to work in a call-centre anyway?

I work in a hospital 'restuarant', and hospitals aren't busy at weekends... I guess people are too busy phoning call centres instead..

Hmm. I can't imagine anything more difficult to write about than the details of an alien culture.

Split narrative is a good idea (possibly the only idea that will work), but I think simplicity may be the key. If each writer takes a different character, and each character is key to a single event that is unravelled at the end, you could have a good novel on your hands. The characters don't even have to meet each other, and it has the potential to be funny, dramatic, emotional etc.

By the way, I'm gonna pull out of the book project. Sorry.

The aliens could be a peaceful utopian socialist society. Whn the other race turns up they could somehow introduce the concept of greed.