The Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles open thread

Firstly, if you haven’t seen it yet:

Counting everything, it is about 44,000 words, 108 illustrations, and seven videos long. Tim Tebow decides to sign with the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts, and makes his debut in their November 7th game against the Ottawa REDBLACKS. On his opening drive, he runs into the end zone, the first time any CFL player has done so in nearly 30 years. The stadium walls open up behind the end zone, and he is told that he and the Argonauts must keep driving upfield, whatever “upfield” -- big cities, small towns, rivers, prairies, mountains, and seas -- may be.

Earlier today I asked y’all to send in any questions about the story you had. Thank you for doing so! I am happy to answer them!

1.

It’s 44,000 words of sports fiction about Tim Tebow, a person everyone is sick of hearing about. I have done the most obnoxious thing I could possibly think of.

2.

This actually stemmed from an idea I had a couple years ago. It was half-baked, but basically, I wondered whether the NFL would be possible/functional if they suddenly did away with referees entirely. In real life, no. But in this fictionalized Canada, there are virtually never any real disputes, because the country and its citizens have more or less settled all differences and figured everything out. That extends to these CFL players, who always play the game honorably and work together to call their own game.

3.

I wanted it to starkly contrast with where he’d been -- Canada and Greenland -- so I chose the rather obvious option of Florida. I chose Lakeland specifically just kind of by looking at a map. I wanted a very normal, not-notable place of suburban sprawl, really. I asked my pal Ryan Nanni, a Florida native, if that worked, and he was like, “yeah, Lakeland is perfect.”

4.

Where did the names for Maryse St. Hilaire and Nereida Volquez come from, and did you have any particular reasoning for having a co-ed CFL? Because I loved that, and I loved those characters (particularly Ne’s argument with Freddie Mitchell about vomit), and I wanted to hear more about how they came to be.

- Gavin, via email

I figured the world has enough stories where the only protagonists who do anything are dudes, and enough football teams that are made entirely of dudes. I wanted a female character, but I didn’t want her to just be “token female,” so I wrote two (and I imply that there are more women on the REDBLACKS).

I wanted to try to do this very matter-of-factly without bothering to explain how or why there are female players in the CFL. It is the planet Earth. Sometimes, there are women.

5.

The CFL’s javelin-ball was actually directly inspired by that exact ball, the Nerf Vortex. Originally, I was gonna reference the whistling feature by making the ball play an audio clip that said, “THANKS FOR THROWIN’ ME!” every time it was thrown. I scratched that part because I didn’t want to handcuff myself to something that stupid the entire story. But it makes me laugh. Damn, maybe I should have left it in.

6.

Is the illustration of the BFS Shelter full of bibles based on the home alone house?

- Jim, via email

It is! I based that illustration directly off a photo of Kevin McCallister’s house. I wasn’t sure anyone would notice.

7.

Unfortunately not. Jon’s Sandwich Shop has been temporarily closed down while we go back to the drawing board.

However, I did sneak a brief Jon’s Sandwich Shop reference into the Tim Tebow CFL Chronicles. The first person to find it will receive a meal voucher for a meatball sub at Jon’s Sandwich Shop! Unfortunately we will not be able to honor it, as Jon’s Sandwich Shop has been temporarily closed down while we go back to the drawing board.

8.

I leaned heavily on five pieces of software: Photoshop Elements, iMovie, Google Earth, SketchUp (a program that allows for designing 3D models in Google Earth), and GIFFun (a simple GIF creation tool). I aspire to celebrate Web Tools Wednesday every day and in every way.

9.

This bit on Wikipedia may help. Basically, if you tell a Montrealer in Montreal to walk north, they will not walk magnetic north, but magnetic northeast. “North” and “south” are used to refer to the directions of the street grid, which is set an an angle on the island.

10.

Lots of stuff, but two things in particular.

The first was making sure the game made sense with itself, and that the players were following the game’s rules at all times. It was like solving this big puzzle and trying to keep the whole thing together -- if I got something wrong, major plot developments could be rendered completely pointless.

Like the throw off the rooftop in Toronto. I knew I wanted Tebow to throw that ball, but a) how do I make sure he’s behind the line of scrimmage? b) What’s his logical incentive to even want to do that? c) How do I explain how this is possible? I had to invent a lot of stuff around it so that the moment itself made sense. There were a lot of instances like that.

The second was figuring out how to write Tim Tebow, man of faith. I was dead certain I wasn’t going to mock his faith, but apart from that, I spent a good amount of time unsure of how to tackle it. For a little bit, I even considered just writing a secular Tebow and never mentioning his faith, but if I’m doing that, why am I using Tim Tebow as the principal character at all? It seemed wrong, and almost borderline offensive, to deprive the fictional Tebow of perhaps the most crucial component of his identity.

Eventually, I decided to try to handle it with a relatively light touch, but leave no confusion as to what he believed. Hopefully I struck the right balance.

11.

The ghost town! Like a lot of things, I found this by pulling up a map of Quebec on Google Earth and just scrolling through it, looking for anything interesting. With a place that big and sparse and remote, I figured there were bound to be a countless number of interesting things. I just stumbled upon Old Killaloe, Googled it, and found out that it’s a ghost town. It was also right along the path the Argonauts took to get to Pembroke. So I couldn’t not do something with it.

12.

So what if the Tebow saga gets optioned into a film. Who do you want directing? Who plays Tebow?

Version that would probably make the most sense: Chris Pine as Tebow, Wes Anderson directs.

My dream version: Chris Pine as Tebow, Alfonso Cuaron directs.

My actual dream version: Sanaa Lathan as Tebow, David Lynch directs.

* * *

Thanks once again for your questions, y’all! I’m seriously very honored that you’ve taken all the time to read through this colossal, and colossally obnoxious, thing. Thanks also for sharing it so far and wide already. I can’t overstate how exciting and fun it is to finally, after months of banging away at this thing, be able to show it to people.

Any other questions? By all means, fire away in the comments. And if you’re so inclined, here is an interview I did with my pal Dan Rubenstein, in which we discussed this big dumb Tebow thing: