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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!tektronix!tekecs!orca!andrew
From: andrew@orca.UUCP (Andrew Klossner)
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Characters with a life of their own
Message-ID: <48@orca.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Aug-83 19:41:47 EDT
Article-I.D.: orca.48
Posted: Wed Aug 10 19:41:47 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Aug-83 13:28:34 EDT
References: sri-arpa.3888
Lines: 21

Will Martin's notion that writers are actually recording the events of
a parallel universe doesn't mesh well with the writing styles of many
authors, which can involve extensive rewriting and sometimes
rearranging of entire chapters.  [Unless perhaps the author is slipping
time tracks?]

Heinlein's "Number of the Beast" did *not* use this model of the
creative process; rather, it was reveated that the act of writing a
story generates a universe in which that story occurs.  This leads to
the beautifully self-referential situation in which two authors are
each writing about the other writing about the first writing about ...
Heinlein made up some mumbo-jumbo about "fictons", the quantum unit of
fiction.  Of course, all this was tongue-in-cheek; as Heinlein put it,
"Number of the Beast" was "a party for old friends", i.e., long-time
Heinlein readers.

As to a method for numbering universes: why, it's simple.  This one is
number zero.  The first one we discover is number 1.  And so on.

  -- Andrew Klossner   (decvax!tektronix!tekecs!andrew)  [UUCP]
                       (andrew.tektronix@rand-relay)     [ARPA]