Eddie Whitlock's Blog: Reader and Writer - Posts Tagged "creating"

I tried to write a story about a better America that was part of a better world. The whole "better" part hinged on Franklin Roosevelt. For those of you who know my admiration and love for FDR, that should be no surprise.

The challenge wasn't in thinking that -given a few key changes- FDR could have done even more had he survived. The challenge was writing an interesting story set in a utopian world. Where does the conflict come from?

I think every alternate history story I have ever read spun its tale by juxtaposing an inferior fictional world with our superior real world. That's hard for me to swallow as the cynic that I am. Yet...

Suppose that the 9/11 plot had been uncovered rather than being carried out. Would it change history? Of course it would! Would we be grateful? Of course we wouldn't! How could we be grateful for the avoided disaster?

I think this is why the books I've read that tried to offer an improved world soon undercut it with human mischief and misbehavior. It's not just interesting: it's what happens.

I think sometimes that if there had been no 9/11, something else would have happened. But that is ridiculous. That is the kind of defeatist thinking that has brought us to where we are in the world today.

But I am not a formulator of reality. I am a conceiver of the unreal. So. Why am I unable to dream up a world better than this one and make it believable? Is this really the best of all possible worlds?