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Subject: Re: ATTN Jms: The original B5 story ?
Date: 27 Jul 2002 02:58:33 GMT
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

There's really only one answer to this question, and it's the only one that can
parse to a non-writer.

Somebody, I think it may have been Grant, but I'm not 100% sure of that, said
"No plan of battle ever survives contact with the enemy."

I have never written a script, a story, or a novel that has hewed to my
original outline.  I don't think most writers do that.  The original structure
is there to give you a guideline so if you get lost you can grab hold of it to
lead you to the next level.  But along the way you have to have the freedom to
explore and play along the way on the one hand, and react to events outside
your control on the other.

Stories grow and evolve and their telling improves as you mature as a writer. 
It's not a die-stamped product, it's a process.

Even if every single cast member would have been there from day one to final
day, even if we'd known from day one that we would have five guaranteed
seasons, there would STILL (and were) changes and evolutions made as the story
progressed.  Because that's simply the way I (and most writers, I think) work.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2002 by synthetic worlds, ltd., 
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine 
and don't send me story ideas)