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When the main character narrates your story, you’ve selected the first-person point of view. But when the narrator but gives only the cold, hard facts as telling us what people said and did, you have a specific kind of first-person, known as first-person objective.

An excellent example of first-person objective is Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”. The story’s main character/protagonist, Dr. Pierre Aronnax, tells what occurs to him as he goes on an expedition to the ocean and his subsequent capture by Captain Nemo. Here’s an excerpt:

What had he seen? Then, I know not why, the thought of the monster came into my head for the first time! But that voice? The time is past for Jonahs to take refuge in whales' bellies! However, Conseil was towing me again. He raised his head sometimes, looked before us, and uttered a cry of recognition, which was responded to by a voice that came nearer and nearer. I scarcely heard it. My strength was exhausted; my fingers stiffened; my hand afforded me support no longer; my mouth, convulsively opening, filled with salt water. Cold crept over me. I raised my head for the last time, then I sank.

Notice how Arronax sticks to a blow-by-blow, almost detached account of what occurs, even when he is a frightening, perilous situation. “Cold crept over me” suffices where other narrators would be more prosaic in their description. Because of this, first-person objective sometimes is called “detached autobiography”.

Because of this, first-person objective offers a major disadvantage: the detached, objective narration can undercut the intimacy readers feel with the main character. Because of this, characters like Arronax are hardly as memorable as H.G. Wells’ The Time Traveler, who tells his tale in the more congenial first-person limited.

Still, first-person limited offers a number of advantages. First, it creates a sense that the narrator is more reliable. A risk of first-person limited is that the narrator may come off as unreliable (and a few “sequels” to Wells’ story often present The Time Traveler as an obsessed, borderline madman). Secondly, first-person objective allows for a unique narrative voice that some readers find appealing. The tough guy character, for example, often is memorable, especially to male readers, because he represents American culture’s ideal of maleness. Because of this, first-person objective is a great voice to use if parodying the tough guy.

You Do It
Look back at one of the piece you wrote for the “Inciting Incident” entry. Rewrite the piece so that it is in first-person objective. How does this change the feel and flow of the story? Is it a more appropriate perspective than the one you originally chose? Why or why not?

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

 

Tags: first-person limited, main character, narrator, point of view, protagonist

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In most stories, someone causes the problem that vexes the main character. This character is called the antagonist.

Examples of well-known antagonists include Q in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episodes, Darth Vader in “Star Wars IV: A New Hope” and the Lunar Authority soldiers in Robert Heinlein’s “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress”.

Usually a story is not told from the antagonist’s perspective. In fact, often the antagonist is a flat, cardboard character whose sole reason for existence is to cause trouble. This was one of the complaints “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry had of the Klingons in “The Original Series”.

Obviously the main character needs to be the focus of your story, and so the antagonist in contrast will not be as developed. Still, you want to think a lot about the antagonist and give him more a deeper motives than green, lust or evil. He’s arguably the second most important character of your story, after all, the reason why there’s even a story to tell. By developing a backstory for the antagonist’s motivations, you can create thematic tension. The antagonist’s motivations can be paralleled with and contrasted to the protagonist’s motivations and decisions.

Sometimes, the antagonist is not a “real” person but an element of nature or some competing idea in the main character’s internal conflict. Often these antagonists take on a life of their own, however, and become characters in their own right.

You Do It
Look back at the piece you wrote for the "Inciting incident" blog entry. Create an antagonist for the main character. Now write a 250-word biography of that piece's antagonist. How does this differ for the protagonist entry you wrote for the “Protagonist” blog entry? 

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

 

Tags: characters, protagonist, villain

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Stories always occur somewhere – a starship traveling between the stars, another planet, a science lab on Earth a few years from now, an android factory or any of a million other places. This aspect of the story – the “place” when the story occurs, is an element of setting (the other is time).

Determining the “place” of a story is important because it will help ensure the story is believable. After all, you’re making an extrapolation from known science. Where that extrapolation occurs should fit seem reasonable to readers who’ve never seen man go farther than the moon.

The place of the story must appear real to readers or it will serve as a distraction. Because of this, science fiction authors need to research their settings so they are scientifically accurate. If you don’t note weightlessness’s effect on your astronauts as they walk across Moon or Mars, many an adroit reader will notice this error and lose faith in the world you’ve created. In addition, the more magical the gizmos your characters use to make their setting Earth-like (such as gravity plating on starships), the more attention you need to pay to their consistency in your world. Gravity-plating, presuming it’s possible, is an extremely advanced technology. That such a civilization would only use something as “primitive” as atomic bombs in warfare is extremely inconsistent with gravity plating technology. Whatever technology that allows for gravity plates also likely allows for exotic weapons.

The 1970s television series “Space: 1999” is a good example of a setting that lacks scientific accuracy. In the series, the moon breaks from the Earth’s orbit. Virtually no discussion is made of how the no longer being in the Earth’s gravity affects the moon’s rotation on his axis and how the ensuing change in sunlight and darkness affects the Luna outpost and its inhabitants. Worse, the moon careens through interstellar space with virtually no mention of how this near light speed travel affects the outpost (wouldn’t collisions with dust wreak havoc?).

You Do It
Search online for some articles about the moon Triton. Take notes. Now write a 200-word piece describing a space outpost on Triton. What problems must its inhabitants cope with? What innovations are developed to overcome or at least deal with these problems? 

 

Tags: scientific accuracy, setting, time

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Among the most important words in your story are the ones that begin it. Those words should get the reader to ask, “What’s going on here?” so he keeps reading. In a short story, the author usually only has a couple of sentences to make this happen; in a novel, a couple of paragraphs typically is the limit.

Your opening lines - also known as the grabber or narrative hook - need to deliver some vital information to readers as well. In most stories, the opening lines provide some striking situation that presents the reader with something unusual, and they usually introduce the main character, his conflict to be resolved and the setting.

There are a couple of ploys you can use to create gripping opening lines. First, show two seemingly disparate elements, such as “At 0150 Greenwhich Mean Time on December 1, 1975, every telephone in the world started to ring”, which Arthur C. Clarke uses in “Dial ‘F’ for Frankenstein.” Another ploy is to start with a “distancing move” that shows we’re in a different world, such as “The great eye floated in space”, in Ray Bradbury’s “The Lost City of Mars”. A third technique is to show your main character in a crisis or puzzling situation, such as “Why must they do it one December 28th? John Stapleton considered the question” as Theodore I. Thomas wrote in “December 28th”.

When writing your story’s opening lines, remember that they should:

n Be interesting and intriguing enough to draw reader in

n Be integral to the story, perhaps even holding key clues to how the main character will resolve the central problem by foreshadow the ending

n Establish, without much detail, the main character/protagonist and a problem or conflict that that the main character must resolve; in doing so, those lines shows the main character threatened and indicate what’s at stake for him

n Establish the setting, or at least the story’s place by establishing the scene of where the main character is

n Reveal the antagonist, if only vaguely

n Set the story's tone

n Give the reader a sense that the main character’s life began before the story did; as Ben Bova wrote in “Notes to a Science Fiction Writer”, “this helps convince the reader that … (the main character) is really alive”

You Do It
Create a list of potential opening lines for stories. Develop three for each of the ploys mentioned above (show two seemingly disparate elements, show we’re in a different world and show your main character in a crisis or puzzling situation.

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: catalyst, grabber, inciting incident, narrative hook, setup, situation

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What is a story? An idea or a setting or a character alone do not make a story. A fictional story is all of those and more.

For the convenience of analysis and discussion, stories often are broken into parts. These parts typically are referred to as the five elements of fiction. They include:

n Plot - How the problem in the story is overcome, typically thought of as physical action

n Setting -Where and when this action occurs

n Character - Whoever attempts to solve the story’s problem as well as those who create the problem and those that appear incidentally

n Point of view -Perspective from which the story is narrated

n Theme - Purpose for which a story is told

It’s easy to think of the five elements of fiction as a matter of the 5 W’s and 1 H, or what, where, when who, why and how. Plot is what happens in the story. Setting is where and when the story happens. Character is who the story happens to. Point of view is how the story happens to be told. Theme is why the story happened to be told, or its message.

Each of these elements appears naturally in the story, whether you consciously intend them to or not. Consider the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “The Best of Both Worlds”. The plot is about stopping a Borg invasion of the Federation. The setting is the 24th century (various stardates are given) in various star systems and aboard the starship enterprise and the invading Borg cube. The characters are the Enterprise’s crew, particularly Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Commander Will Riker and Lt. Cmdr. Shelby. The point of view largely is from an outside perspective, as if we were aboard the Enterprise. The theme is that individuality and self-determination triumphs over collectivism.

Virtually all of the problems with poorly written stories are that they in some way muddle one or more of these elements. In addition, you may perfectly nail each of these five elements but still tell the story poorly because it lacks flair; such problems are a matter of style, which is a part of understanding the craft of writing though not an element of fiction itself.

You Do It
Read a SF story. Jot down its plot, setting, characters, point of view and theme. You may find yourself writing more than a page of notes. If so, you can see how intricate even a short story can be. It also shows you’re thinking deeply and thoroughly about the elements of fiction, which will be a good carryover into your own writing.

(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

 

Tags: character, plot, point of view, setting, style, theme

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You’ve finished your novel or short story but are beginning to think that maybe someone else should look it over before you send it off. You do an Internet search and find Web sites for manuscript editors – also known as book doctors - who will proofread and critique your manuscript for a fee.

So is a manuscript editor necessary?

First, some full disclosure: I offer my own manuscript editing service.

Having said that, for many writers having someone else look at your novel or short story is a necessary step to getting it in shape before sending it to a literary agent or editor. For beginning writers, an outside editor is a useful step in helping develop your craftsmanship. After all, no apprentice becomes a master without a mentor. Unfortunately, many editors and publishers just don’t have the time to serve in that role. A manuscript editor can help fill that need.

So, which kind of writer are you? You need to make an honest self-assessment of your skills and talent.

Often the reason a writer seeks out a manuscript editor is because a literary agent or publisher recommends it. The agent can’t sell the book in its current condition or a publisher wants to print a book can’t in its current form (many publishing houses don’t retain editors, or if they do, the editors are overloaded with work). If agents and publishers do make such a recommendation, by all means follow up on it – it means you’re very close to getting in print.

What keeps most writers from using a manuscript editor is the cost. Most charge by word or page. For a 75,000-word novel, be prepared to pay a few hundred dollars for the close edit and critique. That’s beyond the reach of most single moms, college students and many others who hope to turn writing from a hobby to a profession. So you have a decision to make: Do you tighten your belt now with hope of book sales later, or do you wait it out and see if someone else will pick up the book (or your next one)?

When selecting a manuscript editor, keep this in mind:

n Be careful of those book doctors who also are literary agents or publishers (or both) - That represents a significant conflict of interest. It’s also a great money-making racket for a some.

n Don’t pay fees to a literary agent or a publisher for a referral – or vice-versa, when the manuscript editor receives money for referring you to an agent or publisher - That’s called a kickback, and it’s not giving you an honest appraisal of where to send your manuscript so it can be published.

n No manuscript editor ever should guarantee publication. - That’s a decision only a publisher can make.

Here’s a link that lists literary agents and publishers with questionable practices, especially regarding manuscript editing.

You Do It
Look back at an unpublished short story or chapter of a novel you’ve written. Now read a published short story or novel chapter. What qualities does the published work possess you’re your piece lacks? Now rewrite your short story or novel chapter to correct for those missing... [More]

Tags: book doctors, literary agents, revising

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A sign of true craftsmanship for a writer is when he selects the right words and arranges them in an evocative way. After all, the most interesting character facing a significant moral decision in a fast-paced plot and exotic setting will sound flat if the words used are wrong. The vocabulary choices and ways they are arranged to create a sense of style is known as diction.

Consider this excellent use of diction from Frederic Brown’s short story “Puppet Show”:

Horror came to Cherrybell mounted on a burro led by an ancient, dirty and gray-bearded desert rat of a prospector who later gave the name of Dade Grant. Horror’s name was Garvane. He was approximately nine feet tall but so thin, almost a stickman, that he could not have weighed over a hundred pounds. Old Dade’s burro carried him easily, despite the fact that his feet dragged in the sand on either side. Being dragged through the sand for, as it later turned out, well over five miles hadn’t caused the slightest wear on the shoes – more like buskins, they were – which constituted all that he wore except for a pair of what could have been swimming trunks, in robin’s-egg blue. But it wasn’t his dimensions that made him horrible to look upon, it was his skin. It looked red, raw. It looked as though he had been skinned alive and the skin replaced raw side out. His skull, his face were equally narrow or elongated; otherwise, in every visible way, he appeared human – or at least humanoid. Unless you count such little things as the fact that his hair was robin’s-egg blue to match his trunks, as were his eyes and his boots. Blood red and light blue.

Notice how certain words describing Garvane evoke a sense of revulsion and alienness about him: “It looked as though he had been skinned alive and the skin replaced raw side out”, his hair and trunks are a contrasting “robin’s–egg blue”, he’s a “stickman”. In fewer than 100 words, we have a good idea of what Garvane looks like, but even more than that we are moved at an a gut level and find him repulsive.

Mastering diction really is a matter of reading a lot of good authors and spending a lot of time writing. But if a beginner, there are a couple of things you should keep in mind to improve your diction right away:
n Don’t use big words for the sake of showing off -Bigger isn’t necessarily better. Often such words distract the reader and make him think the author is a show-off.
n Don’t always go for the simplest, shortest word (as so many writing books wrongly recommend) - Instead, opt for the right word – the word that best fits, in definition, tone, characterization, etc. The English language is vocabulary rich, and the word you’re looking for probably is out there.

You Do It
Write a 100-word piece that describes an extraterrestrial. Select words that evoke a specific sensation in a reader. If you \yourself using big words, grab a thesaurus and see if there are shorter words that work better.

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: description, style, word choice

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Many science fiction authors write stories to make a statement about an ethical or political issue. The movie “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”, for example, is largely about the need for humanity to be better stewards of the Earth, specifically in the way we treat whales. Unlike “The Voyage Home”, however, authors sometimes are tempted to get on their soapbox rather than allow the message to unfold with the story.

When a diatribe or rant is inserted in the story, the author is guilty of a self-indulgent digression.

There are a lot of good reasons to excise this digression from your story. First, it breaks the story’s dramatic tension. You only have so many words to tell a story, and if you don’t use every one of them to move the tale forward, the risk of the reader putting the novel down or turning to another story in the magazine increases. Furthermore, the point of a fiction story is to express a message through the character’s actions, to show a position by taking us through the people’s lives as they face a moral crisis. Diatribes and rants aren’t why readers picked up your story. Finally, such digressions indicate a lack of craftsmanship on your part. Good writers don’t convince their readers to take a moral or political stance by arguing points as if they’re in a debate but instead rely on the power of storytelling.

Simply put, get rid of the rant in your story. Send a letter to the editor, go stand on a soapbox in a park or write a blog if your must write a diatribe. After all, readers picked up the publication that your story is in to read fiction not essays.

You Do It
Write a scene in which your characters deal with a moral or political issue that shows how readers should address a current matter. For example, how would your Star Service officers deal with raiders? Parallel their decision with how the United State should deal with prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.

Tags: central problem, premise, theme

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A story can be told from several different viewpoints. When the main character narrates his own experiences and observations, the author is using “first person limited” point of view.

This viewpoint is autobiographical in nature. It’s “limited” because the narrator only can tell what he perceives, not what other characters see, hear or think.

Consider this example from Ann Aguirre’s novel “Grimpsace”:

My AI asks, “Lights on, Sirantha Jax?”

Such a polite Unit spy. The fragging thing reports everything I do, every time I roll over, probably every time I take a piss.”

We only know the world from the narrator’s perspective. We have no idea what the AI is “thinking” about the narrator, the humans its serves or of its duties.

There are several advantages to using first person limited:
n Immediacy - Since the story is told as the main character makes observations, the reader in turn observes the story’s world as the same moment that the character does. This helps keep a strong flow of dramatic tension.
n Identification- This point of view typically makes identifying with the character easier for readers. They have a greater feeling of intimacy with him.
n Distinctive voice - Often a unique narrative voice is possible, which can make story more interesting to reader. In “Grimspace,” for example, the reader gains a strong sense of Jax’s anger at being incarcerated when she directly tells the tale. If told from a more objective viewpoint, however, some of the anger would be lost, and Jax would be a far less distinct - and hence interesting – character: “Lights on, Sirantha Jax?” her AI asked. Jax cursed at the AI in her mind, thought about how reported everything she did, every time she rolled over, probably every time she took a piss.”
n Control - The author arguably can better control flow of narrative when it is first person limited. Because only one character’s perspective is told, the pace of what happens to that character primarily affects the story’s flow.
n Conversational - This viewpoint often sounds more conversational in tone. This allows for use of slang, jargon offbeat expressions, as in the novel and movie “A Clockwork Orange”.
n Awareness - This perspective sometimes is used because it allows for characters who are naïve, evil or mistaken to reveal their flaws even though they haven’t grown or changed during the story. Because the author can control the narrative flow, he can point out, via the narrator’s errors in observation, that a character fault exists. Readers picking up on this error find themselves contemplating if they themselves possess this fault.

Depending on the story you’re telling, first-person limited can be ill-suited. A few disadvantages of using this point of view include:

n The unreliability of the narrator can be problematic - Since the narrator could be lying or distorting events, the reader may not identify with or understand that character.

n Any action not directly involving the narrator can’t be told - This can be limiting for an author. Who may need to show how other characters react to an event with more depth or objectivity than the narrator’s perception of those characters can offer.

n Threats to the main character can seem less dramatic - The reader knows in advance that the narrator will survive, and a dead narrator can’t tell a story, after all.

n The main character typically can’t describe himself - When the narrator does, he runs the risk of sounding obnoxious, or the passage can sound forced.

Tags: main character, narrator, pointof view

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Virtually every story has a central character that spends the tale overcoming a major challenge. This character is called the protagonist.

Examples of well-known protagonists include Captain Kirk in “Star Trek: The Original Series” episodes, Luke Skywalker in “Star Wars IV-VI” and Paul Atreides in Frank Herbert’s “Dune”.

Usually the protagonist also is the viewpoint character, but not always. Stories told by a friend or assistant of the protagonist would be an example of this.

When writing a story, you want to think a lot about the protagonist. He’s the most important character of your story, after all, an ambassador of the author who is reaching out to the reader. Create a dull or a contradictory or an unlikeable protagonist, and your story will suffer. Because of this, many authors know far more about their protagonist than ever makes it in their story.

Tags: inciting incident, main character, viewpoint character

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Stories don’t just happen somewhere, they happen at some time – the far future, the 23rd century, a decade or two from now, the distant past, the present. This aspect of the story – the “time” when the story occurs, is an element of setting (the other is place).

Deciding the “time” of a story is important because it will help ensure if the story is believable. After all, you’re making an extrapolation from known science. When that extrapolation occurs should fit into some timeline that seems reasonable to readers in the present.

Too many “Outer Limits” and “Twilight Zone” episodes, for example, feature deep space exploration or the construction of AI androids only a few years into the future. Despite being interesting stories, they are too near to our own time to be believable. In the “Star Trek” universe, many see the transporter as an unlikely device, even in a society where faster than light travel is possible. One critic several years ago said it was like finding an X-ray machine aboard a boat on the Nile in ancient Egypt.

Whether or not your scientific extrapolations become fact once the story’s time actually comes to past in the real world really doesn’t matter. For example, in Greg Bear’s 1985 book “Eon”, optical telescopes are being built on the Moon’s farside and six orbital transfer flights are planned for a two-month period – in a novel set that starts on Christmas Eve 2000. In 1985, the days before the Challenger explosion, such a future was very possible. Space shuttles were being launched weeks apart, hundreds of millions were being spent annually on space defense programs and President Reagan had called for a space station to be built. To a reader in 1985, this future just 15 years away seemed quite possible.

You Do It
Look back at one of the pieces you’ve written for these exercises. Now change the “time” of the story – if the piece is set 100 years into the future, rewrite it so it occurs just 10 years from now. How does this affect the piece’s believability?

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: place, setting

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A vital part of your story is the opening lines, also known as the inciting incident. In this section of your story, we learn who the main character is, the central problem facing him and a little about the setting.

For example, in the “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “The Doomsday Machine” (written by Norman Spinrad), the opening section reveals that Captain Kirk (the main character) is trying to determine what destroyed another starship, which in turn likely poses a threat to his own ship (the central problem), while in deep space, specifically near solar system L-374 (setting).

If the inciting incident fails to be interesting, the audience almost certainly will stop reading or watching. Some writers pay so much attention to this section of the story that it’s far more interesting than the rest of the story – yet despite diminishing returns, readers or television viewers keep on with the tale just because the opening was so gripping.

When writing the opening of your story, follow these guidelines:
n Start the story in media res, or “in the middle” - “The Doomsday Machine” doesn’t start with the starship Kirk is looking for engaged in the battle that results in its destruction. That would delay us from being the main character and result in less dramatic tension. Dispensing with the story’s background and starting “in the middle” has been a time-honored way of telling stories since Homer’s “The Iliad”.
n Introduce a crisis that affects the main character - This jolt sets the story in motion. For readers, finding out how this problem will be resolved is the reason to keep turning the page. In “The Doomsday Machine,” Kirk’s capable friend is in charge of the destroyed starship; if something can destroy his friend’s ship, then he knows he’s also in trouble.
n Present a “challenge of the unknown” - That your main character facing something thought impossible is fundamental in science fiction plots. The exoticness of an alien locale or an extrapolation of known science is part of what brings many people to this genre. In “The Doomsday Machine”, this exotic unknown is some force that can wreak havoc upon starships, the very device our future Earth depends upon to protect it.

You Do It
Page through the previous pieces you’ve written for these exercises. From them, draw an idea for a story. Now write the opening 100-150 words of the piece. Make sure you’ve introduced the main character, the central problem he faces and the setting in those first 100 words.

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: central problem, opening, parts of plot

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The kernel of any good science fiction story is a scientific fact that we know of today. A good writer grows his story by extrapolating from this fact. In the process, he probably should create an intriguing world that awes the reader in some way.

Consider H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds.” In the 1890s when he wrote the piece, many scientists believed Mars was capable of supporting life. They also believed (incorrectly we now know) that the father a planet was from the Sun, then the older it was. From this, Wells made an extrapolation: What if there really were Martians living on a dying world? What if they had to take drastic measures to ensure their survival? What if, because of Mars’ lower gravity and older age, the Martians had evolved differently than humans?

He answers all of those “what if” questions with his novel that pits invading Martians against Victorian England and the inhabitants of Earth. In doing so, he creates a sense of wonder by using real science – at least real science for his time.

That scientific extrapolation can create a sense of wonder or awe is a philosophical attitude in the science fiction genre. We’re not talking about wide-eyed naivety in storytelling, however; indeed, a danger is that you can get preachy about science and rationalism, especially at the story’s end. But science fiction readers like a sense of adventure, are intrigued by the exotic and love science with a dash of romanticism. Most of them expect that your story will do something “cool” with science.

Tags: dramatic tension, science, style, tone. diction

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You’ve written a science fiction story and decide it’s time to let the world see it and your genius. You’re now on your way to the mailbox to send off that piece.

Whoa, mister!

Before sending any piece, make sure you’ve done more than just write the piece. Revising almost always is a key step on the way to publication.

When writers are so eager to submit their story for publication that the work isn’t revised, they suffer from “get-it-in-the-mail syndrome”. This term was coined by CSFW’s Sari Boren. It’s a term that sometimes pops up during critiques of science fiction works.

Tags: publication, revising, submissions

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Ever read story before bed and find it so gripping that you stay up far later than you should just to find out what is going to happen? If so, you’ve been a “victim” of narrative drive.

Narrative drive is the force that makes a reader feel that something is about to happen. The more powerful your narrative drive, the less likely the reader is to put down the story.

All of the great works of science fiction have powerful narrative drives.

But creating a powerful narrative drive involves a lot more than creating interesting worlds as does Frank Herbert in “Dune”, intriguing characters as does Orson Scott Card in “Ender’s Game” or a fascinating premise as does Isaac Asimov in “Foundation”. It is all of these things more: good plotting, mesmerizing settings, captivating characters, proper point of view selection, an absorbing theme and an artists’ handling of stylistic issues. So, while we can discuss elements of a story in isolation, as occurs on this Web site, always remember that a good story is the sum of these elements.

To obtain narrative drive, then requires a full sense of a story’s various elements. Still, there are a couple of things to keep in mind to improve your story’s narrative drive:
n Link description with action - Whenever you opt to describe a landscape or character, ensure that it serves the dual purpose of moving forward the story’s plot.
n Avoid stiff writing by using repetitious and superfluous wording - Poor writing follows a “He did this then this happened” pattern while quality writing takes an “As he did this, this happened” approach.

You Do It
One way to master any craft is to model the greats who came before you. Select the first page of a story or novel that had you transfixed. Now create a new story that uses the same sentence patterns as that tale. However, make up new characters, settings and theme. What techniques does the master writer utilize that you haven’t in your previous writings?

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: action, description, style

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When developing a storyline about a main character overcoming a problem, some writers fall into the trap of creating an adversary who personifies evil. In doing so, the theme and plot of the story is reduced to the level of good guys vs. bad guys.

This oversimplification is known as “evils of duality”, which is when the theme is presented as a simple dichotomy of ideas.

We’ve all seen and read such stories; they dominate science fiction television shows and motion pictures. The theme has a number of variations, including empire vs. resistance (“Star Wars IV: A New Hope”), spacers vs. earthers (rip-offs off Isaac Asimov’s “The Caves of Steel”) and us vs. them (the television show “The Invaders”).

Of course, characters can think in such dualistic terms, and they do in “Balance of Terror”. The Romulan commander has his subordinate, and Captain Kirk has a bigoted navigator. This usually is a sign of those minor characters’ narrow thinking, however, and is used for dramatic tension as he main characters deal with the story’s deeper issues.

In any case, your story’s universe should be broader than your character’s thinking. Real life is a series of clear black and white issues. There’s lots of fuzzy gray. As a writer, it’s your job to explore that unclear gray. Your readers will appreciate it.

You Do It
Go back to the piece you wrote for the “Narrator” entry about your hero defending Earth from alien invasion. Now expand on the story by developing a member of the alien invasion force who has a personal conflict with what he is doing. Write at least a 100-word scene in which this alien character must decide if he will participate in the invasion or not.

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: hero, theme, villain

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Arguably the most important “character” in your story isn’t its hero but the narrator – the person who tells the tale.

The narrator can be the story’s hero, as in Hannu Rajaniemi’s "Deux ex Homine":

As gods go, I wasn’t one of the holier-than-thou, dying for your sins variety. I was a full-blown transhumanist deity with a liquid metal body, an external brain, clouds of self-replicating utility fog to do my bidding and a recursively self-improving AI slaved to my volition. I could do anything I wanted. I wasn’t Jesus , I was Superman: an evil Bizarro Superman.

On occasion, the narrator is another character in the story, who observes what occurs to the hero, as in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, in which Watson tells how Holmes solves the mystery:

[Holmes] was a man of habits... and I had become one of them... a comrade... upon whose nerve he could place some reliance... a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him... If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.

Often the narrator isn’t even a character in the story but the author’s persona, as in Stephen Baxter’s “Lakes of Light”:

The door of Bicansa’s car opened. A creature climbed our cautiously. In a bright orange pressure suit, its body was low-slung, supported by four limbs as thick as tree trunks. Even through the suit Pala could make out immense bones at hips and shoulders, and massive joints along the spine. It lifted its head and looked into the car. Through a thick visor Pala could make out a face – thick-jawed, flattened, but a human face nonetheless. The creature nodded once. Then it turned and, moving heavily, carefully, made its way toward the colony and its lake of light.

Who you select as the story’s narrator is vital. The narrator holds a unique position among readers, possessing an air of authority. Because of this, the narrator shapes the reader’s attitudes. Choose the wrong narrator, and you risk the reader interpreting events in a way you don’t intend.

Another note of caution: be careful of not imposing yourself too much if the narrator is your persona. If you directly insert too many of your views rather than let the characters’ action demonstrate your view, the story will be weakened.

You Do It
Write a 100-word scene in which the hero must rescue the Earth from alien invasion. Narrate the story from the hero’s point of view. Now rewrite the piece so it’s told either from the point of view of another character in the story who observes the hero or from the author’s perspective. Which of the two pieces is better? Why? How does selection of the narrator influence the piece’s effectiveness?

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: hero, main character, pointof view

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Not all characters in your story are created equal. Some of the utmost importance while some are fairly insignificant.

The most important characters are the ones who face and overcome a number of serious problems and obstacles in a story. They are called major characters. In “Star Trek”, they would be Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. In “Star Wars IV-VI”, they would be Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo.

In contrast, minor characters face few obstacles and often none at all. Because of this, minor characters have few lines of dialogue and usually appear only incidentally. They are part of the background, necessary for advancing the plot and giving the story a semblance of reality, but they are not who the story is about. In “Star Trek,” they (typically) would be Sulu, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, the transporter chief, the red shirt who dies on the planet. In “Star Wars IV-VI”, they would be the stormtroopers, the Jawas and the cantina musicians.

It’s not necessary to develop all of your characters. In fact, the fewer you develop the better, especially if writing a short story or novella. This allows the reader to focus on a single character (or small band of characters) who must overcome the story’s central problem.

At the same time, don’t skimp on minor characters if they’re needed in your story. The tale about the scientist professor making a startling but dangerous discovery probably needs to include a research assistant, department secretary and bored students. There’s nothing wrong with including these side players. Just make sure they seem real (that is, they shouldn’t be stereotypes) and that they don’t attract the reader’s attention too much.

Tags: main character, major character, minor character

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Establishing the setting at the beginning of a story is no easy task. Imagining a science fiction world involves thinking about every aspect of how it differs from ours in sights, sounds, scents and even tastes and feel.

Rather than fully imagine such a world, some writers instead create a quick, unformed facsimile of their own. For example, they start the story with the line, “She awoke in a white room”. The white room is the white piece of paper facing the author. This is known as “white room syndrome”, a term coined a few year ago at the Turkey City Workshop in Austin (a group that has included authors William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Lewis Shiner, Rudy Rucker and Walter Jon Williams).

They officially define white room syndrome as “an authorial imagination inadequate to the situation at end, most common at the beginning of a story”. In short, because the science fiction world wasn’t fully imagined, it can’t support the story that unfolds from it.

Sometimes this occurs because a writers’ inspiration for the story is from a setting in which he found himself. If the writer takes some extra time to think about and develop this world, however, such inspiration can be put to good effect. This is the case in the non science fiction story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

White room syndrome also can occur because some writers believe that they should simply start writing and let the world evolve from there, a la the Beat writers’ approach. Sometimes this technique does work, but all too often the writers misses the full potential of this kernel of a setting that is planted in the opening line. Even worse, the writer creates an inconsistent setting because he haphazardly creates a new world.

The lesson here: Think a lot about and fully develop your setting before committing to it.

You Do It

Re-imagine a setting you now frequent. For example, if sitting at a coffee shop, imagine what it will be like a century from now. How will the sights differ? What new sounds will there be? Will the smells be the same? What of taste – will coffee taste different and will other foods exist? What about touch?
 

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.

(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: opening, scene, setting

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Most stories unfold in the same way: the main character encounters a problem, he attempts in various ways to overcome the problem, and ultimately he succeeds.

For example, in the “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “Devil in the Dark”, Captain Kirk faces the problem of stopping what appears to be a monster that is killing miners on the planet Janus VI. He attempts to solve the problem by hunting down the creature. He ultimately succeeds in stopping the murders by making contact with the creature and coming to an understanding of and agreement with it.

Of course, the plot of a story is more complicated than this. But the way action unfolds in most stories can be divided into distinct parts. Being aware of these parts can help you better develop a story.

There are five general parts of a plot:

n Opening - During the first paragraphs of a story, the main character, the problem he faces and the setting is introduced. This part sometimes is referred to as the “introduction”. In “Devil in the Dark,” we also learn that some of the miners doubt Kirk’s ability to solve the problem, which will complicate his efforts later in the episode.

n Rising action - The bulk of the story consists of the rising action, in which the main character attempts to solve his problem. He repeatedly fails, however, causing the situation becomes even more dire for him. This part also is known as the “complication”. During the hunt, Kirk loses a man, finds the station’s nuclear reactor pump has been stolen, almost dies during a cave-in and then is cornered by the creature.

n Climax - Ultimately, the main character solves the problem through some great, dramatic effort. Discovering the creature is intelligent, Kirk orders Spock to mind meld with the creature and Dr. McCoy to heal its wound; this allows Kirk and the creature (which calls itself a Horta) to come to an agreement: the miners will stop killing its young and it will stop killing the miners.

n Falling action - This extremely short section of the plot occurs immediately after the climax. It deals with the effects of the climax on the main character. Kirk now champions the Horta’s cause and stops the miners from attacking it.

n Denouement - The “conclusion” occurs in the last few sentences of the story. The loose ends of the story are tied up at this point. Back aboard their starship, Kirk, Spock and McCoy discuss (er, joke) about the philosophical implications of the Horta’s intelligence; we also learn that the miners and Horta are getting along fine.

Look back at the piece you wrote for the "Main character" entry. Based on that problem that your main character faced, create an outline of a story that uses eachof the five parts of plot.

Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.

(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: central problem, climax, plot, rising action

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Go to the science fiction section of your local bookstore or tune into SciFi on cable and you’re likely to find novels and movies that aren’t exactly science fiction. Or at least it’s not what you think of as science fiction, though it’s quite similar.

That’s because some of the selections fit into the fantasy or horror genres. Because many science fiction readers enjoy these similar and related genres, they’re often grouped together for convenience and marketing purposes.

But you want to be a hard core science fiction writer. So how do you know when you’ve crossed the gray line into the fantasy or horror genres?

Science fiction novelist Orson Card Scott offers a good explanation: He suggests that if the story is set in a universe with the same rules as ours, it’s science fiction; if it doesn’t follow our rules, it’s not. “Fantasy is about what couldn’t be,” he writes.

Certainly the genre’s milieus are different. A milieu is the story’s “environment,” the totality in which the story’s action unfolds. Science fiction’s milieu is based on science. Fantasy is based on magic while horror is based on the supernatural and paranormal.

Because of this, science fiction stories obey the natural laws of our universe (even if something is beyond our current technology). Fantasy, however, establishes a new set of natural laws - that is, the author creates a set of certain rules that the magic obeys. Horror, meanwhile, inserts a set of supernatural laws into our universe.

Given this, science fiction stories contain biologically possible creatures. Fantasy stories are populated with mythical creatures and horror tales feature monsters that terrorize us.

In addition, science fiction tends to be more technical than its sister genres. Fantasy in turn is more mythical and fairy tale while horror is more lurid, relying on gothic elements.

Of course, there’s a lot of crossover, one of the causes of confusion among the three genres. “Aliens” essentially is a horror story in a science fiction setting (a spaceship in Earth’s future). The “X-Files” TV show regularly switched between monster of the week (horror) and alien invasion episodes (science fiction). “Frankenstein” the novel is more science fiction than horror (though the genre hadn’t even been invented at the time) while the “Frankenstein” Hollywood movies are more horror than science fiction.

To some extent, the gothic novel is one of the parents of science fiction, a combination of horror and adventure stories - with the gothic element replaced by something more scientific in origin, such as a robot or extraterrestrial. Science fiction author Brian Aldiss argued in “Billion Year Spree” that his favored genre generally derived its conventions from the gothic novel.

Tags: fantasy, genre, horror, science fiction

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Tags: editing, proofreading, spell check

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Ever notice how you can identify some authors by the way they write? That’s because they have a distinct voice.

Each writer sounds unique because he has his own world view. Someone who is cynical likely is to write in a cynical tone. He accomplishes this by creating rhythm and diction and by shaping sentences. These stylistic techniques combine to create a certain pattern or texture to one’s writing. 

Tags: syntax, tone, voice

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Tags: allegory, character, theme

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Every story is told from someone’s perspective. This someone is known as the viewpoint character.

For example, in “The Matrix” movie series, the story is seen through the perspective of Neo, the tales’ hero. In the short story Thomas F. Monteleone’s “Present Perfect”, it’s the magazine editor William Rutherford. Usually the story’s hero is the viewpoint character. Sometimes this character is referred to as the “POV character”. 

The viewpoint character does not have to be the story’s main character - or even a character in the story, however.

How do you decide who will be the viewpoint character? Ask yourself which character:
n Faces key decisions that must be shown in the story? - You must show how these choices are arrived at to move along your plot, so this character is a good choice to be the viewpoint character.
n Makes the best observer? - Sometimes the main character facing significant choices doesn’t have the ability to make the right decision; in such a story, your viewpoint character is showing how the main character made the wrong call.
n Serves as a surrogate for the author? - This character usually is the author living a fantasy. Making him the viewpoint character can result in a melodramatic story.
n Serves as a surrogate for reader? - Serves as a surrogate for reader? This character probably is the best viewpoint character as it is the one who readers can identify with.

Tags: character, narrator, point of view

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Tags: hero, main character, protagonist

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When creating your story’s setting or explaining what your characters are doing, you’ll need to use description. Description is necessary to move along the plot, to create tone. You even can create resonance in your writing by layering description with symbolic meaning – but more on that later.

n Sight - What we can see with our eyes, as in “Counter was dim but grayly grand – lightly banded in pale pewter and salmon red, save where the shrunken Moon cast its huge gloomy shadow.”

n Sound - What we can hear, as in “The lander went ping and pop with thermal stress.”

n Smell - The scent of something, as in “As Keegan pressed a fin against the body tube, the scent of yellow glue strong in his nostrils, his uncle stopped talking midsentence, then a thump against the workshop floor sounded behind him.” (Note: This example doesn’t come from Benford; his story, as good as it was, skimped on this sense).

n Touch - What we can feel when things come into contact with our skin, as in “Their drive ran red-hot.”

n Taste - The flavor of something when it comes into contact with our tongue, as in “She took a hit of the thick, jolting Colombian coffee in her mug.”

Using as many of the senses as possible makes a scene more real. In everyday life, we experience all of these five senses at all times. Sitting in coffee shop writing this entry, I see the barista racing to and fro to fill an order, hear the hushed voices of the couple sitting behind me as they try to keep their disagreement for bursting into a public scene, taste the bitter coffee, catch a whiff of the pear-scented perfume of a woman passing my table on her way to the counter, shiver at the cold breeze from the air conditioner that is working on overdrive. In fiction, the key is to make these different senses work with one another to create tone.

When writing description, follow these guidelines:

n Make sure it serves a purpose - Any description should move along the plot, help develop characters and dramatic tension. If it’s solely being used to establish the location of the story or to indicate a background character’s actions, keep the description quick and simple.

n Avoid flowery prose simply for the sake of waxing poetic - Purple prose only makes the story campy.

n Remain cautious about offering lengthy descriptions - Descriptions in novels obviously can be longer than those in short stories. Still, the longer the description, the greater the chance that it will cause the reader to forget what’s going on in the story.

n Capture the “essence” of a place/moment/character through description - If an alien landscape is supposed to be foreboding, then describe it as such by noting the lack of water, the difficult terrain, the strange outcroppings of rock. A foreboding environment would be lush and comfortably warm.
n Use sensory details rather than internalized ones - Sensory details (green, tart, quiet, rough) are specific rather than general. Internalized details (happy, melancholy, guilty, barbaric) amount to editorializing and give no real impression of what is being described.

You Do It
Imagine a scene in which the character in your story lands on an exoworld and visits an alien city. Write 200... [More]

Tags: description, five senses, setting

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When telling a story, you’ve got to have conflict in it. If there’s no conflict, you have a wooden story that starts nowhere, leads nowhere and ends nowhere. As E.M. Forster noted, “’The king died, then the queen died’ is a plot. ‘The king died, then the queen died of grief’ is a story.”

Forster’s quotation is apt because a good plot is about at least one character under adversity. Conflict typically arises from the characters’ perceptions, needs and wants. As each character has an urgent personal agenda, your plot really is a synthesis of its individual characters’ efforts to achieve their agendas.

Tags: conflict, man vs. man, plot

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“By ‘scientification’ I mean the Jules Verne, H.G. Wells and Edgar Allen Poe type of story – a charming romance intermingled with scientific fact and prophetic vision.”

– Hugo Gernsback, “Amazing stories”, April 1926

Now that you've decided to write science fiction, you face a big question: How exactly do you know if you're writing science fiction? It's a diverse genre, so giving a definition that is all-encompassing is no easy task.

At its core, science fiction is a literature of “What if?” The writer imagines a setting - a possible future, an alternate history, an altered past - that is based on an extrapolation of science as we know it today. In doing so, science fiction evokes a sense of wonder among its readers or changes our views by showing us the universe in an unexpected way. It's where "science meets literature."

Consider "Star Trek: The Original Series". It poses questions such as, "What if space travel between the stars were possible?", "What if a man could be split into his 'good' and 'evil' halves?"; "What if an alternative universe existed in which the Roman Empire never fell?" In this sense, science fiction is thought model in which author and reader explores our world via "other worlds".

Sometimes the genre is referred to as “speculative fiction”, but this is more inclusive term that includes fantasy, science fiction’s older sister. In addition, among some of the genre’s devotees, “sci-fi”, “SF” and “science fiction” all have varying definitions, often disparaging of a certain type of story.

(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: science fiction, writing

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When submitting a story to a magazine or a book publisher, your story should appear in a specific format.

While the manuscript basics presented here are fairly standard across the industry, always read the magazine’s or publisher’s writer’s guidelines to see if they have some unique requirement that breaks these guidelines. This is particularly true for e-magazines, which also are concerned about the ease of posting your accepted story onto a Web site.

You Do It

Format one of the short stories you've written. Rename this file on your computer so you have atemplate for future stories.

Tags: manuscripts, publishing, submissions

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