RavenCon: Airships and Zeppelins

Notes from a presentation by Iver Cooper--not exactly about Writing, more about the amount of research that may go into writing. "Zep" and "airship" are used interchangably her.

Airships had a length/width ration of 3:1 up to 11:1; the ratio 4:1 is about as efficient as anything.

Zep R38 broke in half due to turning too tightly.

Always land and takeoff upwind. This leads to having a floating hanger, on a lake, so you can turn the whole hanger to face upwind.

Zeps mostly used gasoline of coal gas. One exotic means of propulsion powered the Aereon, invented by Solomon Andrews. The Aereon cycles between positive and negative buioyancy, instead of remaining neutral; the rise and fall caused air to move over inclined plane airfoils, which allowed the pilot to glide (or "porpoise") without power.

An airship in 1852 might have a speed of 5-10 mph.

A non-rigid needs nose battens so you don't have your ship's nose collapse due to higher (external) pressure against the nose as you fly forward.  Rigids typically had multiple cells; non rigids usuall had just one.

The gas cells will expand with altitude increase; you put air ballonets inside the hull to take up spare volume and they can contract (or get squeezed) as the gas bags expand.

Hydrogen is flammable when it's 40-75% of the mix, with the rest air. So if you had 90% hydrogren, you'd be fine--as long as there were no leaks or diffusion.

Sources of gas bag ignition might be the engine, static electricity, or lightning.

RavenCon: Agile Writer

A story abstract can be pared down to one setence: "A [person] who wants [goal] and learns [development]". An abstract is dynamic; it can change as you go through the writing process.

The hero has a life, which is interrupted by the inciting incident.  And the hero must have a Missing Internal Quality. "Her greatest fear" is not the Missing Internal Quality; the Fear is something she should face near the climax.

The protagonist should have three goals:

• Objective: "destroy the Death Star" -- this is clear and tanglible.
• Personal: "win the approval of teh Princess"
• Internal: "put your faith in the Force"

The Agile method is similar to the Snowflake method--write something short and complete, then a longer version, and keep expending it. 

RavenCon: Writing a Believable Villain

Heroes generally have most of these characteristics: Smart, Resilient, Inspiring, Strong, Reliable, Charismastic, Selfless,and Caring. Good villains generally also have most of those, except "Selfless" and "Caring".

A hero will do whatever it takes to get what he wants at his own expense. A villain will do the same, except at others' expense.

A villain is a hero whose goals are not compatible with yours.

In the Hero Journey, the hero faces a choice and chooses to overcome his weakness. The villain doesn't make that choice. (Note: I don't necessarily agree with that one; the hero might instead decide "to stick to his morals"; the difference being that "morals" aren't generally seen as "weakness").

The best villains believe they are heroes, and that what they do is justified. He may have lines he won't cross--he might kill your whole family but not hurt a puppy.

A villain does a bad thing for good reasons; an anti-hero does a good thing for bad reasons. (Alternately: an antiero is a villain seen as protagonist).