What writers and business owners can learn from Babylon 5
March 5, 2008
I am a sci fi geek.
I prove it, frequently, over at IRLfemale - gamer, irreverance and other fun stuff, but there’s something I worked out whilst watching Babylon 5.
Babylon 5 was a sci fi TV show that was plotted over at least five seaons. It got to season three, and J Michael Straczynski needed to change the story arc, due to the possibility of cancellation.
But it highlights a couple of things about good writing, better work, and engaging your audience.
The first thing is never give up! JMS never gave up, even when it looked like things might be cancelled, all he did was change things. And change things again when season four and five were continued. But within that flexibility, he also had a couple of rules - there was an overriding arc, episodes were written six eps in advance and nothing could change once the production had started.
The second thing is follow your plan - if you’ve got a plan, its always ok to follow it. Your ’story arc’ is yours. Keep to it. Course change it if you have to, but its always good to keep the final goal in mind.
Thirdly - don’t always concentrate on the ‘bigger picture’. Babylon 5 had this amazing knack of pushing their ’story’ forward by pulling at a couple of the less ‘important’ threads.
Applying this to business is easy - you don’t always have to follow your primary goal to make yourself a success.
Finally, Babylon 5 is a classic. At first a lot of people weren’t sure of what they thought of it. It was ‘just a TV series’. But it became one of the best Sci Fi shows on TV, up alongside Star Trek and other franchises. Just because people don’t get you NOW don’t mean they always won’t. Its important to keep the faith 
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