First Chapters: Not An English Word

[AndyC]

Discuss the first chapter of @Thande 's "Not An English Word" here

 

[Alex Richards]

So was it deliberate you decided on this one just after the seeming reversal of the Lib Dem's fortunes, or a happy accident?

 

[AndyC]

A genuine happy accident, believe it or not (@Thande and @Meadow can corroborate)

 

[Roberto El Rey]

For the past few months, an idea has been idly bouncing around my head about a US version of “Not An English Word”. After the 2010 midterms, high-ranking Senate Democrats try to recover from their loss by invoking the ancient Celtic ritual, but something goes wrong and they accidentally reincarnate several famous Democratic Senators and send them back in time a few years, rather than just one. Examples I thought of included Bobby Kennedy, Russell Long, Phil Hart, etc. As in “Not An English Word”, the Dems greatly increase their Senate majority in the 2010 midterms before the whole thing is revealed to the reader in a final scene, not with the Queen but with an aging Daniel Inouye as the revealed of the secret.

I’d never actually write this, but it’s one of those ideas that’s fun to ponder while stuck in traffic on a rainy Tuesday.

 

[Thande]

For the past few months, an idea has been idly bouncing around my head about a US version of “Not An English Word”. After the 2010 midterms, high-ranking Senate Democrats try to recover from their loss by invoking the ancient Celtic ritual, but something goes wrong and they accidentally reincarnate several famous Democratic Senators and send them back in time a few years, rather than just one. Examples I thought of included Bobby Kennedy, Russell Long, Phil Hart, etc. As in “Not An English Word”, the Dems greatly increase their Senate majority in the 2010 midterms before the whole thing is revealed to the reader in a final scene, not with the Queen but with an aging Daniel Inouye as the revealed of the secret.

I’d never actually write this, but it’s one of those ideas that’s fun to ponder while stuck in traffic on a rainy Tuesday.

I once suggested that @Makemakean and @Redolegna do it with LBJ given their fascination with his own backstory.

 

[Kato]

I once suggested that @Makemakean and @Redolegna do it with LBJ given their fascination with his own backstory.

That also maps quite well with the underlying motivations of the ritual in the English version, at the time when it was written - the Lib Dems have been electorally annihilated after a period in government where they were perceived to have not fought their corner with the appropriate level of robustness. Along comes Harry Church to put that right.

Looking to the US at the equivalent time (early 2016) - Democrats have an apparent lock on elections where Obama is on the ballot but have been absolutely destroyed in legislative elections and are blocked out of most effective forms of governing by persistent legislative obstructionism. Cue the need for a notorious legislative fixer in the form of LBJ.

 

[Roberto El Rey]

If set in America, wouldn't you be better advised to use a Native American ritual? The Skudakumooch of the Passamaquoddy would seem suitable.

Wow, that really would make way more sense than the Celtic stuff—although I must admit I’ve never heard of the Skudakumooch of the Passamaquoddy before, so some real in-depth research would have to be done on that particular front.

I once suggested that @Makemakean and @Redolegna do it with LBJ given their fascination with his own backstory.

That also maps quite well with the underlying motivations of the ritual in the English version, at the time when it was written - the Lib Dems have been electorally annihilated after a period in government where they were perceived to have not fought their corner with the appropriate level of robustness. Along comes Harry Church to put that right.

Looking to the US at the equivalent time (early 2016) - Democrats have an apparent lock on elections where Obama is on the ballot but have been absolutely destroyed in legislative elections and are blocked out of most effective forms of governing by persistent legislative obstructionism. Cue the need for a notorious legislative fixer in the form of LBJ.

No joke, if anyone actually does end up writing this TL, I’d be happy to offer up my services in two particular areas. I’d be no good at writing the intensely political scenes, but I do at the very least know what it’s like to be a teenager in America these days, so I could write a chapter paralleling the one with Lucy in the original story. And I have way too much personal experience with grassroots-level Democratic electoral campaigns, so if you want a scene like that I’d be glad to oblige!