A Plot not Taken
William A. Liggett — Sep 8, 2024
While writing my most recent novel, Panic Peak, I considered several alternative scenarios as the story unfolded. Sometimes I drafted a few pages to “try the idea on for size.” Sometimes I sensed that the direction I was headed wasn’t right and I changed course. All plot lines that worked are now part of the novel. But for the ones I rejected, I thought that you as readers might like to know what some of these ideas were and why I went in a different direction.
One of my early ideas for the plot was to have Kate’s small group of graduate students conducting research on the glacier unravel the clandestine geoengineering scheme. Before the students arrive, however, I have Kate going a few days early to check things out and get prepared for the students to arrive.
I considered having Grant accompany Kate to the research station while she checks it out, to develop their relationship more fully. As I considered the story up to that point, it seemed to me that Kate needed to return on her own. Her two nearly fatal experiences on that trip were necessary to stoke the plot line that Grant has reasons to worry about Kate’s well-being.
After the station is buried under snow (without revealing how this happens) it became clear that the students would have to restore the structure before they could do their research. This seemed unlikely given the extent of work that would be entailed and also Kate’s university employer’s reluctance to expose her students to danger. So, I had Kate unravel the mystery working alone with some support at a distance by Grant. This degree of remoteness and isolation provided a sense of foreboding and makes the risks that Kate was exposed to seem all the more threatening.
I considered having Grant return to his teaching position at the University of California in Santa Cruz as a “transition year” for his career to shift to focusing on climate change. This was partly for practical reasons to provide a source of income until he found something else. I even imagined him returning to his hobby of surfing as an outlet. When I tried to write this scene, it was hard to think of his returning to teaching after having experienced the summer on Blue Glacier and falling in love with Kate. I considered, instead, him taking a leave of absence from his position and finding a paying position at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). That represented moving forward toward his goal rather than backward.
I tried writing a scenario illustrating how climate change caused drought in California that contributed to a wildfire that threatened Kate and Grant as they biked through the Santa Cruz Mountains. Again, the Santa Cruz setting seemed to be a return to a life that Grant had already left behind.
This theme of returning to his former life in Santa Cruz even included his moving back to his home that he had rented out for the summer while he was away on Blue Glacier. I considered writing a poignant scene in which Grant opens a locked closet in his Santa Cruz house that contained some clothes belonging to his former fiancé who had drowned in a tragic boating accident and the hint of her scent brought up nostalgia and emotions that Grant had thought he was past.
Authors often describe how their characters tell them what happens next. In my case Grant was determined not to go back to Santa Cruz even though I kept thinking of reasons that he should. He won in the end and the story is better for it.
Bill Liggett writes fiction that blends behavioral and earth sciences in the new literary genre “cli-fi,” or climate fiction. In Watermelon Snow, his first novel, a long-frozen virus melts from a glacier, threatening a pandemic. His second novel, Panic Peak, entails a plot to geoengineer the earth’s climate. The planned third novel in the trilogy paints a hopeful future, based on solutions to global warming.
Previous Post: Can Cooperation Save our World?
Next Post: The Controversy Over Solar Radiation Management Research
James,
I’m happy to hear you liked Watermelon Snow. I think you will enjoy following Kate and Grant as their relationship deepens in Panic Peak. The topic of geoengineering has been in the press recently because of the record heat we have had. There have been a number of suggestions for how to cool the planet, but many are controversial. You’ll understand the controversy as I describe it in Panic Peak (which is an actual mountain adjacent to Mount Olympus).
Bill,.
I’m really looking forward to
Reading your new book. Enjoyed IN WATERMELON SNOW very Much and the entire trilogy sounds like a Winner.
By the way, have you considered the idea of towing an ice comet or Ice meteor into the Sahara desert to increase volume of water in the atmosphere? Seems like it could help solve some of out problems.
All the best,
Jimmer Gillespie