How can I make a "meeting in VR" less dumb?
I've written myself into a sci-fi cliche which I have never seen done well: two characters meet in virtual reality.
The gist of my scene is one character has been in a pseudocoma, more aware of her surroundings than anyone knew. Another character needs to make a decision about her welfare, and uses technology to connect to her mind. She discovers the patient is not a vegetable. She is mentally impaired but with her personality and desires intact. Although she has been talked about by others, this is her only scene where she has her own voice.
I can think of probably a dozen examples in popular media where two people meet in some kind of virtual reality/ethereal plane and have a long philosophical infodump that kills all story momentum – the film Contact does everything wrong: arbitrary CGI location, the other character is a 1-dimensional mysterious stranger, the dialog is all tell no show, and the momentum which has been building suspense about the MC's physical safety abruptly changes to bland generalizations about the meaning of life. Rather than a narrative climax, the scene is almost a Bingo card of what not to do when writing.
Similar but different, in the TV series Dark Matter, a character dies and her consciousness is transferred to a VR gazebo where other characters occasionally visit, but even with multiple scenes she never feels like a substantial character who can influence the narrative. She only exists to explain some history or as a prop for another character's emotional development. She is never more than just a woman in a box.
I've attempted to state my question better, but it honestly boils down to: how can I make a meeting in VR less dumb? I'll try to avoid obvious cliches, but I feel there is probably a narrative problem with any scene that takes the MC to an "other space" just to talk to a character we know we'll never see again. I also need to make this character have enough charisma and impact in her one scene to change the other character's opinion as a firm plot turning point. I need to show she is still enough of herself that her desires can't be dismissed, despite all prior indications to the contrary.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/33409. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Make your virtual reality less virtual and more reality.
In Contact the 'mysterious stranger' is Jodie Foster's father, and the setting is a beach she knows from her childhood, and the VR is transparently VR, she touches the 'screen' and disturbs the image at some point.
in Dark Matter the setting changes with the will and emotions of the virtual character.
What they have in common is too much reliance on BEING virtual [i.e. artificial] reality, just as almost nobody does a good job of portraying "artificial intelligence".
If your characters can distinguish the difference between the artificial and real, then the artificial isn't doing a good enough job. If Data in Star Trek was a good AI, we would not have known it from his behavior or speech until it was revealed explicitly by another character (or mishap that exposed his innards).
They make another common mistake too, with both AI and supposed 'geniuses'. Namely, if they are so smart and able to absorb lessons, it seems odd they can't figure out at least analytically the most basic human speech, manners, and interactions so they don't stand out like socially incompetent clowns constantly ridiculed for their social awkwardness as if they were incapable of learning anything.
Anyway, you can mention your VR meeting place is virtual but inviolate; you cannot change it with a thought, you can stub your toe or cut your finger and it will hurt like hell: The VR is invasive and smart and has access to your sensory neurons, that is the only way it works, and VR feels like the real thing, including for sex or fighting or anything else.
The action of your motor neurons are suppressed (so you remain motionless), but the feedback sensory neurons work; when you run in VR it feels like running, if you get shot in VR it feels like being shot. The only difference is you were not really shot, or running, or cut by the paring knife. You may lose consciousness in VR due to such virtual injuries, but that is the safety valve: Before you enter shock the smart VR does an orderly shutdown of the experience and wakes you up, so you don't have a heart attack or something.
The advantage of this approach is that, other than the safety valve prohibiting shock or death, this is no different than a meeting in reality. If no serious injury or pain occurs, it is indistinguishable, and for the purpose of this meeting the setting can be forced to be a real place, the patient's home or someplace they know well.
So if you are capable of writing your scene in a real place, skip all the dumb tropes of what VR is, and make it a perfect deception.
This creates one problem, easily solved.
You should make this particular level of VR a new and experimental thing. If it were common, it would already be used to contact locked in patients. Or, make the ability to adapt it to a damaged brain something new and experimental; perhaps even devised by the MC for this purpose: In other words, it already exists and works for healthy brains, but has failed for those with severe brain trauma, so the MC figures out how to adapt it to make it work (or finds some shady character that can).
In the latter case, the patient may realize they are in this kind of VR the moment it turns on, and be grateful for it. Because even a VR like this could let them live a life again; have contact with the outside world, etc. It is up to you (the author) if the VR is allowed to be permanent or not, it would add some drama if the patient knew it was only a temporary reprieve from her prison.
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