Origins of The Sixth Precept - Part 3

Back in the day I had written and submitted a script for an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which was kept by the studio for a year before being rejected (either the powers-that-be were actually considering it or had forgotten about it! I’ve since written a non-ST short story based on the script). In researching DS9, I found that the writers for the Star Trek series utilized what they called “rubber science,” which, in effect, was made-up stuff. So, in expanding “A Concerned Citizen,” I decided to employ rubber science since I’m not a great science guy and it was faster and easier than researching. Besides, reality didn’t fit in with the idea I had!

So, Kim Yoshima became a full-blown character – although she didn’t possess her telepathic powers as yet. That development was to come later. She also shared the story’s POV with the oh-so cleverly renamed Wayne Brewster. Popeye was still in the opening scene of the piece at that point even though members of my writing/critique group warned me that there might be copyright issues by keeping him. I stubbornly refused to write Popeye out of that scene! The 10,000 word story just wouldn’t work without him! Well, sigh, of course it would--I was just being a diva. 

Kim’s and Brewster’s paths cross as they both investigate the appearances and insane rampages of the “Literary Terrorists.” Now, here’s where the rubber science comes in--Kim is a budding writer (a trait of hers I’ve never brought up again in subsequent stories because it was never as relevant as it was in this story) and she’s written a short story for her 10 year-old nephew, Bobby, called “The Monster at the End of Time.” This story of hers tips a cosmic balance of literature somewhere “out there” and causes the veils between alternate realities to rip. Actual living and breathing cartoon figures, comic book heroes and novel characters start to break into our world, slowly go crazy and wreak havoc. Hey, it could happen.

Kim and Brewster (who’s been fighting his own mental deterioration) battle the actual title monster of Kim’s story in her apartment. Drawn to its creator, the creature breaks in and begins to trash everything in sight as good monsters are apt to do. Just before she and Brewster are similarly trashed, Kim deduces what can put the multiverse to rights and burns her story. This resets the cosmic balance and the Literary Terrorists dematerialize back to their own realities. Including Brewster who, as he looks longingly into Kim’s eyes and she returns said gaze, vanishes in a blazing point of light.

I felt good enough about the story that I entered it in L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest and actually won an honorable mention! I was told, though, that they couldn’t “take the story any further” because of… you guessed it… Popeye! That old intellectual property thing. My writing group gave me a lot of deserved grief over that one. As a result, I changed Popeye to a character called Marco the Pirate but, as yet, the story has never sold. However, I did lift the Popeye/Marco scene and incorporated it into The Sixth Precept (with a human character instead) so some of “A Concerned Citizen” did make it into print!

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