Jots & Tittles: Writing A Good Novel Ain't Easy

Alien Intelligence

For several years now I've been contemplating the nearly inconceivable vastness of the universe and the possibility of recognizably intelligent life other than our own, thinking beings similar to humans that inhabit far-off worlds at immense distances away from the Earth. This was once a working hypothesis of mine but one that has now evolved into a strong, nearly unshakable belief. In my mind this idea of non-human extra-terrestrial life has become an absolute certainty.

But along with that belief, I am also convinced of the existence of a multitude of other alien lifeforms (probably 'non-forms' of 'non-life') also existing within the universe, entities (for lack of a better word) that co-exist with humanoid life but are unobserved and unobservable to the limited senses of man, and wholly inconceivable to the severely-limited imaginations of we, the known race of biologically 'human' beings.

And I have always intended to incorporate these entities into my on-again-off-again attempts to write a staggering new and utterly original novel.

But, try to absorb if you will, the difficulty of describing with words a creature (actually a non-physical, non-observable, and non-imaginable non-creature) that cannot be formally conceptualized by a reader who is an average biological human being.

The human characters in the novel are easily created: the hero, the heroine, and the cranky anti-hero, but their powerful antagonist (the indescribable alien) is not. How does the author engage those readily identifiable characters in a compelling life-or-death battle with...
(??? what? ???)

Here is a aid-to-understanding metaphor:

There exists a mega-corporation that owns a huge fleet of super-size cargo ships. On the deck of one of those ships a lowly seaman is scraping from a steel railing an accumulation of new rust spots.

The mega-corporation can be likened to the mysterious aforementioned non-imaginable aliens. The seaman is the similar-to-humans alien civilization. The Earth, on which resides the human race, is a single grain of rust being scraped from the ship's railing.

Hope that helps.

Here is an encapsulated Story-Synopsis:

A selected group of human beings (being treated for delusions) are apparently receiving telepathic messages from an alien race inhabiting a planet in a distant star system. When the formerly supposed aberrations are accepted by the powers-that-be as valid extra-sensory perceptions, these 'espers' are brought together and formed into a group that will be the heroes of the story who struggle not only against the supposed extraterrestrials, but also against a cadre of unknown internal political forces (secret government villains) that threaten them.

That is the apparent plot.

However, the esper messages received contain 'side-tones' (psionic harmonics?) that plant suspicions in these heroic Terran-telepathic minds that hint of the existence of myriads of non-physical forces that are a much more powerful and threatening (horrific) antagonist than those within the realm of the 'known' alien forms of life.

That is the actual plot.

More revelations regarding the above at another time (maybe)

. . .

My favorite color is Forest Green