Technically, Zwei Dreizehn is science-fiction. Technically. I don’t really like genres all that much – and the branding I like least of all must be science fiction. I love Cloverfield or LOST, which are technically marked as science fiction, but I still don’t consider myself a fan of the genre. Even if I’m currently writing it myself.

The problem I have with science fiction is that it tends to overexplain certain things. The genre wants to please the geeks watching it, so everything needs to have an answer. The best example for this is Star Wars and its midichloreans (sp?). I personally don’t want an explanation – just like I don’t need to know how Gandalf can emit light from his staff or what exactly makes a wizard a wizard. I’ll just tag along in the illusion: if the DeLorean first needs Plutonium and later trash to travel through time, I won’t shout that it’s impossible. That’s the genre: impossible things happen. As long as it’s coherent with the story’s logic, I’m happy.

Zwei Dreizehn is my second science fiction drama script, after Lost Time. In both scripts, the characters and their development greatly outweigh the adventurous science-fiction aspect of the film. The science fiction universe is just a setting – another character if you want: the world in Lost Time and the concept of Time and its consequences in Zwei Dreizehn.

In writing, I try to keep that in mind. I try not to overexplain, but just hint at solutions. For those who’ve read Lost Time, the “what’s the time” scene is an example of that. Sure, it’s not quite perfect but if I had blatantly given the answers I would’ve ruined the movie’s magic. For Zwei Dreizehn, things are a bit tougher: the script basically revolves around the creation of faux science – so the science fiction is a bit more predominant.

At the moment, I’m trying to find a balance between revealing too much and revealing too little. The concept of Zwei Dreizehn is ridiculous (kind of like Back to the Future), but the story that’s being told is a serious one (a characters life drama). It’s hard to mix these two – it’s going to take a lot of fine-tuning after I’m done with the script to get those scenes right.