Writing

Podcast Enterprise: S1E09: Miri

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

In this episode, we find the Enterprise responding to an earth like SOS coming in from deep space. And when they follow that signal, they find the planet that is an exact copy of the earth. At least it looks exactly like the earth. The topography is the same, same mass, same circumference.

Everything is the same. That puzzles them, and so Captain Kirk and a small crew decide to go down onto this planet and they find that it is virtually deserted. The architecture seems archaic. There are no people and they come across this strange tricycle there. And when they try to interact with it, they’re attacked by a peculiar and deformed creature that seems to be off its head. It’s mad. It’s crazy. It’s screaming and it goes into seizures and it dies. So further investigation also reveals a little girl and that girl’s name’s Miri. She leads him to a lab. She tells him about the planet. And apparently what happened here is that a pandemic has run rampant.

It has killed all the adults. And at the same time, it has kept the children alive for more than 300 years. This pandemic, because it affects the adults, it makes its way to Kirk and the crew. All of them find themselves with strange scabs and purple splotches on their skin. They have to develop a vaccine in a hurry.

And while they’re doing this, the rest of the children on this world, in this area at least decide to attack the crew, take away their communicators because these children have the memory of the adults going berserk. After that eventually, it comes down that they must have a confrontation with these children.

They must talk to them, tell them about this disease, how it spreads. They’re allowed to leave this planet with the team, looking after the children who I assume they are vaccinated so that they don’t catch the disease.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S1E12: Menagerie

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

The menagerie is actually a story split into two parts. So this particular story has two episodes, but the story is quite simple. Basically what you have here is when the episode opens the USS Enterprise arrives at Star Base 11, because they received a message that Kirk says is from Captain Pike.

In charge of the base is commander Commodore Jose Mendez tells Captain Kirk, that it’s not possible for Captain Pike to have sent such a message because Captain Pike, as the crew discovers is in very, very bad shape. He cannot move. He’s basically paralyzed and he’s encased in this strange contraption type wheelchair.

He cannot speak. He can barely see, and he cannot say anything without press his thought ways translate into either yes or no, that shows up as flashlights on the wheelchair type thing. And that’s about all he can do. So there is no way that he could have sent this message.

This is where these two episodes begin, and there’s a mystery here, but as we move along, we find that it was Spock sending this message and it was Spock manipulating the Enterprise’s orders. It is Spock who goes on to reprogram and reconfigure the ship’s computers, so that it goes into autopilot that nobody can come out of.

The reason for this is he served under Captain Pike 13 years ago. He wants something for Captain Pike that he will only get on Talus IV. This is the planet that was featured in the pilot. And he basically, what he does is mutiny.

There’s a court martial. They are given this video, which basically replays all the scenes from the pilot episode of Star Trek, the original series. And as the court martial progresses, you find the Talosians making a reappearance. They’re a bit, more benevolent this time than we saw on the pilot and they agreed to take in Captain Pike and there’s a lot of illusions, there are fake messages coming in and it’s a really long draw out story this way. Eventually everything comes together and Captain Pike is allowed to disembark on Talus IV, in spite of there being a death warrant for anyone who enters that star cluster. That’s what it is. I think because this is a two part episode, we can talk about it in detail and elaborate what the stories about.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S1E08: What are little girls made of

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

What are little girls made of, when the episode opens, you find that the USS Enterprise is nearing a planet called XO three, and they’re looking for a certain Dr. Roger Korby. He’s a prominent scientist who’s left large legacy of work, and he has been missing for the past five years.

He’s also the fiance of nurse Christine Chapel of the Enterprise. When the Enterprise establishes contact with this planet, they find that Roger Korby is alive and he learns that Nurse Chapel is on board the Enterprise and he wants her to go down to the planet along with Captain Kirk.

This planet is a very strange place because it’s cold, it’s icy, and there are the remnants of this ancient civilization underground. And so when Kirk and Nurse Chapel arrive there, they find themselves underground and very quickly things go wrong. They meet an old acquaintance of Korby, who is acting very strange.

They lose security guards to chasms and a strange Frankensteinian monster type creature. They also find a new character called Andrea, who’s extremely attractive. Nurse Chapel starts feeling a bit of jealousy towards her. Eventually it is revealed that these are the only inhabitants of this planet.

There are only three of them, still alive, apparently. As time goes on you find that Korby is obsessed. He’s maniacal, he’s a little bit crazy. He’s in a search for perfection and there are a lot of Androids involved.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S1E07: Mudd's Women

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

Today’s episode, we’re focusing on Mudd’s Women, I’m gonna give you a small gist of this episode. The USS enterprise is chasing an unidentified cargo vessel and the cargo vessel is meandering this way and that, and flies into an asteroid belt. The USS Enterprise is forced to cover this ship with the deflector shield to prevent the ship from disintegrating from the asteroid hits. Eventually as time goes by the captain of the ship is transported into the Enterprise and he turns out to be a very interesting conman who calls himself by some other name in the beginning. But eventually his name is revealed to be Harry Mudd. And this guy, he is smuggling women across the galaxy to various colonies. And these women who are with him, three of them are with him. They’re very, very alluring and seem to have a peculiar hypnotic magnetic effect on the men of the Enterprise. And even on the captain.

These women confuse the men and they’re not able to focus on what they’re supposed to do. Because the Enterprise shielded Harry Mudd’s now destroyed ship from the asteroid hit, the lithium crystals that the Enterprise runs on is destroyed. They have to go to a mining corner to get more lithium crystals.

Harry Mudd uses this particular trip to try and leverage something for himself. He tries to trade the women for the miners on the planet. Eventually everything goes wrong for him. And the women are released from his custody and yeah, it ends in a very amusing note. There’s also reference to a peculiar drug called the Venus drug.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S1E05: The Naked Time

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

Today our episode is a fun episode. I really had a good time watching it. What is our episode for the day?

Today we are following the Naked Time.

And in this episode, USS Enterprise, it goes around a planet called Psi 2000. This is a frozen world. That’s begun its process of disintegration. So in the beginning you see Spock and Joe Tormolen. They beam down to the planet’s surface and then they find that everybody on this planet is dead. All the scientists that went down there to investigate this planet, they’re all dead.

And they’ve been found dead in peculiar positions because the engineer is dead at his post. Somebody’s in the shower with their clothes on. So there are some weird happenings on that planet. And then for some weird reason, Tormolen, he rubs his nose after touching something on the planet’s surface and he puts his hand down, unprotected on a table surface, and then he’s infected with this peculiar infestation.

Nobody really knows what it is. And then, plot follows these characters as they go back to the Enterprise, the infection spreads. And then what this essentially does is it brings out hidden thoughts and emotions to the surface, which makes the characters behave very erratically and almost drunk.

One person, a certain individual he takes over the Enterprise. He tries to do some really, really strange things. And then the captain has to take control back. He switches off the engines and then Kirk has to switch the engines back on, but then they have to do it in a controlled implosion. Finally, the infection is contained and everything is back to normal.

However, there’s a twist at the end. So that’s my brief summary.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S1E06: The Enemy Within

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

In The Enemy Within, the USS Enterprise sends a couple of crew members down to study a planet called alpha 1 77. And while there geological technician Fisher, he falls down some rocks or something, and he has an injury and Kirk sends him back to the Enterprise.

But then when he gets back to the Enterprise, Scotty notices that there’s a strange magnetic substance, yellow substance, like a powder, sticking to his clothes and he advises him to go and get himself decontaminated. Shortly after that, Kirk beams up to the Enterprise.

And then the transportation room is empty. However, you do see that the transporter works again and a shadow Kirk materializes. Something like an evil twin apparently, because he seems to have all of Kirk’s violent personality traits, magnified hundred fold. This episode follows both Kirk and this negative Kirk, those two halves that, form the whole, as they navigate their way through the Enterprise. Negative Kirk creates all sorts of problems for the positive Kirk, including attempting to assault Yeoman Janice Rand. As we’ve seen certain other Star Trek episodes also, somebody tries to take over the Enterprise.

In this case, it is the negative Kirk. Somehow or the other, the two have to be brought together. And then this episode ends.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S1E04: Where No Man Has Gone Before

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

Today we are going to be discussing Where No Man Has Gone Before.

This is essentially the second pilot of Star Trek that was submitted to NBC. And in this episode, we find the Enterprise heading towards the edges of the galaxy, where they pick up a very strange distress signal from a ship that they thought had disappeared in this ship had disappeared 200 years ago.

As they begin to investigate the distress signals from the ship they managed to take into the Enterprise, the disaster recorder of that ship, which is called the SS Valiant . When they go through the recordings, they find that that ship was in turmoil. They were going through some very weird occurrences. They were at the edge of the galaxy. They had crossed the edge of the galaxy and they were looking into some events involving ESP extra sensory perception. While the Enterprise is looking through these recordings, the Enterprise itself goes through the edge of the galaxy.

They face a magnetic storm, they hit a peculiar barrier and then two crew members are affected by a strange energy field. And because of that, the two crew members, they start acting very peculiar. One of the crew members starts having God like powers, and then he becomes a threat to the entire human race.

This is the summary of the episode.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S1E03: Charlie X

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: The USS enterprise, it makes a rendezvous with a cargo ship that calls itself, the Antares.

And they’re going to take a board, a young man from that ship. So right from the very beginning, you see that the captain and the first officer of the Antares that is Captain Ramart and Tom Nellis, they are quite nervous, a little bit fidgety and not quite there when they bring this child aboard.

He’s 17 years old, his name is Charlie Evans. And then as this episode progress, as you realize that Charlie has had a very unusual childhood, he essentially raised himself on a planet, that had an alien civilization that’s supposedly gone extinct because there are only legends about the civilization.

And then Charlie essentially raised himself. As I said, he’s got these weird powers. He’s very needy. He’s very possessive. He’s socially extremely awkward. And he’s also extremely intelligent. And eventually it turns out that the aliens they’re not extinct, they found Charlie alone and they gave him certain powers.

Charlie misuses these powers because he doesn’t really know what to do with them. And as a story progresses, you realize that the aliens, even though they allowed Thetas, they’re called you realize that even though they gave these powers for Charlie to survive, they did not give him any. Affection, which is essentially what drives this character to certain violent and weird and possessive acts.

He cannot adjust to human society and he has to leave. So that’s a short summary of this episode.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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How to write a novel-Step-2-Write the main story arc

So, you want to write a novel?

In this series, I’ll detail out my process of writing a novel. How I converted a simple idea into 70,000 (Scrabble Queen) and 80,000 (Penniless) word manuscripts?

I will use my latest writing project Bhumiyin Kathai (Bhumi’s story) as an example, so that it can serve as an inspiration for you. (Totally selfish reasons, while trying to explain stuff to you, I am getting the motivation to complete outlining the story 😁)

I am writing this story (eventually as a screenplay) to serve as a backdrop and an interest creator for this course - https://onlinedegree.iitm.ac.in/course_pages/BSCMG3001.html

Right, back to novel writing.

What after the one line story?

Step 2

Write the main story arc.

For Bhumiyin Kathai:

• Bhumi is outright broke, but wants to go to college (Hook)
• Bhumi runs away from home and ends up in Hassan Arts College because of helping Okano (Plot Turn 1)
• Bhumi enrolls in a computer course on Okano’s insistence (Plot turn 1)
• Bhumi topped the first English exam ahead of Param, Param’s schoolmate and friend plants evidence of Bhumi cheating and the teacher voids her marks (Pinch 1)
• Bhumi wants to make amends, she pleads with the HOD and she grants her one chance - to present to her teacher
• Bhumi makes a presentation, but teacher ends up failing her
• Bhumi trains hard in computer science (app dev), presentation skills, webpage development (Mid-point)
• Bhumi decides that she has to help her sisters and brother out
• Okano finds out Bhumi had been lying about her mom (Pinch 2)
• Bhumi gets to know of a hackathon and enrolls as a team (Plot Turn 2)
• Her alpha version of the app bombs (FailTry1)
• Her beta version of the app also bombs (FailTry2)
• She ends up intercepting Okano’s email (FailTry3)
• Bhumi wins the hackathon and uses the prize money to give scholarship to girl students from Jaanathur (Resolution)

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Podcast Enterprise: S1E02: The Man Trap

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

In this episode, the USS enterprise arrives at a planet called M 1 1 3, and the captain and the doctor beams down there. The planet is in ruins.

It’s a shadow of an ancient civilization that is long vanished and the only two inhabitants there, are a doctor called Dr. Robert Crater, who’s an archeologist and his wife, Nancy Crater. Dr. McCoy has actually been in a relationship with Nancy Crater, so there’s a lot of confusing emotions there for him.

The episode deals with the alien race that was there among the ruins. This alien race had built a civilization and then they disappeared for some strange reason. And there’s nobody left. They think apparently there’s an imposter among them.

And this creature is able to shape, shift and take on various roles. It’s able to take on the role of Nancy. It’s able to take on the role of various crew men and it survives essentially on salt. The doctor, Dr. Robert Crater, he knows this and he is attempting to get people out of there by, being very bad tempered to them, I guess, but it doesn’t work.

That’s the rundown of the episode. And eventually it ends in a bit of a tragedy because this creature is the last of its kind and it has to be destroyed because it is quite uncontrollable.

It is driven by a very powerful hunger. And it doesn’t think beyond the hunger, which makes it very dangerous.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

Continue reading