Inventing Reality Editing Service Blog

You’re at a coffee shop or a party or a writer’s workshop, and someone asks you what you are writing - a short story or a novel? You pause for a moment, wondering if what you’re really writing is a novella. So what is it?

There’s no hard or fast rule about what is a short story, what is a novella and what is a novel. It’s largely a subjective matter for which editors and publishers assign arbitrary numbers based on their needs and available space. To avoid confusion, this site follows the word counts used in the Hugo and Nebula contests:

n Short story - 7,500 words or less

n Novelette - 7,501-17,500 words (many editors simply lump this category into either the short story or the novella groupings)

n Novella - 17,501-40,000 words

n Novel - 40,001 or more words

Some stories are better told in one category rather than another. So when deciding how long your story will be, think about the advantages and disadvantages of each category and which one best serves your tale.

Short stories and novelettes

Advantages:

n Easier for author to maintain consistency of purpose as there are fewer characters and settings, so better dramatic and thematic unity

n Practical for authors; you can complete it more quickly, often in days or weeks

n Good place for new writers to start to build their reputation and garner a novel deal

Disadvantages:

n Limited platform as short stories may offer too narrow of a framework for the author to tell his sweeping story

n Don’t make much money

Novels and novellas 

As you probably can guess, the advantages and disadvantages of the novel are virtually opposite of those for the short story.

Advantages:

n Larger scale for developing ideas and characters

n Can introduce characters and settings at a more leisurely rate than a short story

n Plots can be far more intricate than short stories

n Make more money and build broader reputation

n Can be too large of a platform for new writers to handle

n Too broad of a framework for the author to tell a more narrow in scope story

Tags: getting started, novelettes, novellas, novels, short stories, word count

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Unfortunately, writing is hard work. Most who write find themselves filled with anxiety and self-reproachment as they pen their paragraphs and compare it to those authors who inspired them to write. And then there’s always the frustration that comes when the right word (or even no words) won’t come.

As Karl Iagnemma, an MIT roboticist who also happens to also be an acclaimed fiction writer, once said: "A lot of people, when they think about writers, probably imagine people wasting time in cafés, drinking a lot and smoking too many cigarettes, and working when the inspiration - whatever that is - seizes them. But writing is rigorous. Writing, for me at least, takes a lot of concentrated work and effort. It takes dedication and the willingness to do the work even when that feeling of inspiration isn't there at all."

Few of us like to do hard work. But in writing, the rewards are worth the effort. Fortunately, there are a number of ways you get motivated to write:

n Keep a project “bible” - Create a notebook of reference materials in a 3-ring binder of loose-leaf paper. Often “inspiration” will strike on one of those ideas. At least it gives you a collection of ideas you can back to when you don’t know what to write about.

n Keep a daily log - Track how many words you wrote and challenge yourself to top it the next day.

n Keep a journal - Often the kernels of stories later can be found in your journal.

n Keep in touch with fellow writers - They can offer encouragement and provide advice when you’re stuck.

n Start with free-writing - Sometimes when driving aimlessly you see a billboard that gives you an idea for a destination. The same can occur when writing - sometimes when writing aimlessly you develop an idea that gives you idea for a story.

n Begin your writing by editing and revising work already completed and continue onward - At the very least, you’ve polished your past day’s work and maybe have identified trouble spots that you need to mull over to solve.

n Stop at a good point - If you’ve had a productive writing session, put down the pen at a point where you know already what you want to do next. You will not be stymied when starting the next day.

n Ask outrageous questions - Science fiction writer Stephen Baxter once wrote, “If you want to generate new and original ideas, you have to ask yourself outrageous questions. Such as: Could humans survive on the equator of a fast-spinning neutron star?” Well, how would they? Why would they want to? How would such a residence change their outlook on life? Would it change how others viewed them?

n Keep plugging along - No matter the quality of your work or the number of rejections you receive, don’t stop writing, The biggest mistake those who want to be writers can make is to not write.

Tags: getting started, journals, writers block

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Description in your stories shouldn’t be limited to landscapes and introductions of characters. While most description in a story will be devoted to those purposes, there are other times when a single phrase or line of description can be inserted amid action and dialogue with great effectiveness.

One such insertion is known as a “reaction shot.” A term commonly used in science fiction workshops and critiques, reaction shots is a cut away from the narrative to show a character’s emotional response. Consider this example from Benjamin Rosenbaum and David Ackert’s short story “Stray”:

“You smoke?”

Ivan blinked up at him. What was this? “I have,” he said.

Tags: description, dialogue, dramatic tension, reaction shot, setting

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Not all science fiction stories are about space or time travel as many believe. In fact, many “types” or “subgenres” of science fiction exist. Often writers specialize in one or two of the differing types.

Just as there are many subgenres, so there also are a number of different ways to categorize the basic types of science fiction stories. Some editors and critics divide the field by “speculations that may be”, labeling stories as “cautionary”, “inspirational” or “satirical”. Some talk about “otherness”, as does Christopher Evans in “Writing Science Fiction” when he divides science fiction into the four categories of “other times” (past, future), “other worlds” (alien world, alternate histories), “other beings” (altered humans such as mutants, cyborgs, supermen and immortals; artificial humans such as robots, androids, computers; aliens such as humanoids, nonhumanoids and monsters) and “other states of mind” (telepathy, precognition, telekinesis and teleportation; reaching/creating other realities through the mind; and drugs/agents that create new states of mind). Both systems, and those similar to them, are fairly academic in approach.

The problem with these approaches is that individual stories tend to fall into each of these categories. For example, the movie “Star Trek: First Contact” is about other times (it’s set in the 2060s and in the 24th century), it involves other worlds (the Romulan Neutral Zone and an alternate future Earth in which the Borg have conquered humanity), other beings (the Borg, the android Data and the Vulcans). What use is a system of categorization if a work falls into three of the four groupings?

I prefer a more traditional (albeit a bit messier) way of thinking about the “types” – as subgenres, or groups of stories that share similar conventions and approaches that represent a narrow, but recognizable and popular or trendy, piece of the entire genre. Among the most recognized of those categories with an example are:

n Space opera/space western – Melodramatic adventures, often involving space battles (Buck Rogers)

n Utopia – Description of a perfect society, at least in the author’s mind (Ian M. Banks’ “Culture”)

n Dystopia – Description of a society gone wrong (George Orwell’s “1984”)

n Hard SF – Scientific rigor marks the story’s focus (Hal Clement’s “Mission of Gravity”)

n Soft SF – Characterization and ideas about society mark the story’s focus (“Star Trek”)

n Feminist SF – Deals with women’s role in society (Ursula K. Le Guin’s “The Left Hand of Darkness”)

n Cyberpunk – High tech in a society that has broken down (William Gibson’s “Neuromancer”)

n Alternate histories – History has diverged from the one we know (Harry Turtledove’s “The Guns of the South”)

n Alternate futures - A possible future never comes to pass, often because a character travels back in time and alters the past (“Back to the Future II”)

n Slipstream - Fantastic or non-realistic fiction that crosses conventional genre boundaries between science fiction and contemporary literature (Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity's Rainbow”)

n Science fantasy – Elements of fantasy and of science fiction are melded (Anne McCaffrey's Pern novels)

n Dark SF – Elements of horror and science fiction are mixed (the movie “Alien”)

n Erotic SF – Sex and sexuality are explored in a science fiction setting (Lois McMaster Bujold’s “Ethan of Athos”

n New wave – A movement of 1960s, it boasted a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content (Harlan Ellison’s “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream”)

n New space opera – A movement of 1990s, the stories tend to be more military-themed and literary than original space opera/space western (David Weber’s “On Basilisk Station”)

n New...

Tags: getting started, subgenres

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You’ve probably read several stories in which upon reading their climax in which the hero uses some object to help him achieve victory, thought to yourself, “Hey, that object was mentioned earlier in the story.” The object in question probably was mentioned in passing so that it did not distract you from the tale. But if the object hadn’t been noted, upon reaching the conclusion you’d probably find yourself saying, “How convenient that it was there!”

Mentioning early in a story some object – or even a character, prize or challenge – that later helps the main character resolve his central problem is a ploy known as “Chekhov’s gun”. It comes from playwright Anton Chekhov’s advice that if you put a gun on the in Act I, you must use it by Act III. Otherwise, the gun is just a distraction that is out of place.

Of course, if your science fiction story is a murder mystery set in space, such distractions are necessary to the plot and enjoyment of the story. Like a labyrinth, a mystery’s plot must contain wrong turns and dead ends for the main character.

Tags: chekhovs gun, climax, description, main character, plot, setting

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If you’ve done any reading about story writing, you’ve probably noticed that there are quite a number of terms for types of characters. As stories can be constructed in many, many different ways, several terms are needed to describe a specific kind of character unique to a way of telling a tale. Sometimes when analyzing a story, a special term is needed to so a character can be understood within a certain context.

One such term you might run across is “focus character”. This is the character for who the readers most care, even when he’s not in the scene. It’s a term used in critiques and writers workshops, most notably the Cambridge Science Fiction Workshop.

Focus characters usually are the story’s main character, protagonist or hero. Luke Skywalker is the focus character in “Star Wars IV: A New Hope”. Hiro Protagonist is the focus character of Neal Stephenson’s novel “Snow Crash”. However, a focus character doesn’t always have to be the main character. In ensemble casts, such as “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, the viewer cares for Data, Riker, Worf and others just as much as they do Captain Picard, who usually is the story’s traditional hero. In many episodes, Picard is the not the main character at all.

Like most main characters and protagonists, focus characters possess three traits:

n They have distinct personalities - Luke Skywalker, for example, longs for adventure and meaningfulness in his life during “Star Wars IV”. In contrast, Princess Leia would like nothing more than peace and stability in her life while Obi Wan Kenobi already has a purpose and Han Solo has not desire for it.

n They further the story’s themes - “Star Wars IV” theme of gaining maturity (and hence success) through purpose and self-discipline is played out by Luke’s adventure.

n They interact with other focus characters in the story -Viewers also care about the fate of Princess Leia, Obi Wan, Han Solo, Chewbacca, R2D2 and CP30 in “Star Wars IV”. Luke’s quest involves his cooperation with each of these characters.

Tags: character, hero, main character, protagonist

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Perhaps the most profound conflict a character can face is when he is at odds with himself. Conflicts in which the protagonist faces off against other individuals or society often result in characters that represent ideals and concepts. But the character that first must deal with his own foibles in order to overcome a villain or oppressive values has learned something. He has grown as a character and become a better human being. Ideally, your readers will grow with this character, making his triumph over others more lasting in the readers’ minds.

An example of man vs. himself conflict is Anakin Skywalker’s internal struggle in “Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith” in which the young jedi must decide if he will serve the powers of good or turn to the Dark Side. In this case, Skywalker makes the wrong choices and becomes the villain Darth Vader.

If handled correctly, a man vs. himself conflict can raise a story to high art. The “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “The City on the Edge of Forever” in which Captain Kirk must decide between his love for a woman and his responsibility to the future of humanity is modern tragedy. In Stanslaw Lem’s “Solaris”, a psychologist is reunited with what appears to be his wife but in reality is an amalgam of his memories of her. The result is an intense psychological struggle worthy of the best contemporary literature.

Arguably, your story gains sophistication when your main character must do overcome a challenge other than defeating the forces of nature or a straight villain. To survive being marooned on a desert world or succeed in taking down an alien menace, your main character ought to first have to overcome some internal conflict that in turn allows him to be victorious over nature or invader. For example, in Anne McCaffrey’s short story “The Smallest Dragonboy,” the main character Keevan must learn self-discipline and gain self-confidence to achieve his goal of becoming a dragonrider. In doing so, he overcomes the story’s wider challenge of being ridiculed by the other older and stronger boys.

Your story almost always is better when a man vs. himself conflict rests at its core.

Tags: conflict, main character, plot

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One type of conflict your characters could engage in is against God or the gods. In this conflict, the main character opposes a supernatural being that claims to be (or even is) the creator of everything.

Such conflicts were common in ancient literature when gods were believed to play a greater role in the day-to-day life. Often the gods tested the main character or the story’s protagonist challenged them to benefit humanity. One of the most popular of such stories is the myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods and against their express wishes gave it to mankind.

Science fiction stories often pit characters against false gods. “Star Trek: The Original Series” is fond of this theme, with Captain Kirk traveling to alien planets and overthrowing an oppressive false god, which usually turns out to be a computer or machine. This most notably occurs in the episodes “The Return of the Archons” and “The Apple”. 

Today’s treatment of man vs. God in stories typically is a type of man vs. himself conflict. The main character doesn’t face off against God per se but undergoes an internal struggle in which his faith in God or belief in holy works is questioned. Sometimes this occurs because of contact with alien beings. This occurs in James Blish’s “A Case of Conscience” when a Jesuit priest investigates an alien race with no concept of God or original sin.

You Do It
Write a 200-word piece in which your main character undergoes an internal man vs. God conflict. What causes your main character to question his faith in God? What keeps him from entirely turning his back on his religious beliefs?

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

Tags: conflict, main character, man vs. himself, plot

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Getting published requires a lot of hard work and self-discipline. A long road runs between having an idea for a story and actually seeing it on a bookstore shelf or within a magazine’s covers.

Science fiction great Robert Heinlein said writers only needed to follow five simple steps to ensure they were published authors. These steps since have been coined “Heinlein’s Rules”. Heinlein often joked that he had no qualms about sharing these “secret” steps as most people lacked the self-discipline to actually work through each one.

The rules are:

n Rule One - You Must Write

n Rule Two - Finish What Your Start

n Rule Three - You Must Refrain From Rewriting, Except to Editorial Order

n Rule Four - You Must Put Your Story on the Market

n Rule Five - You Must Keep it on the Market until it has Sold

Hugo winner Robert J. Sawyer once wrote that if you started with a hundred people who wanted to be published, fully half of them would give up writing at each step. By the time you got through Rule Five, that would leave just three of the original hundred still writing!

The moral is if you want to become published, you must stick it through the entire process. Don’t give up – that, after all, is the quickest way to remain unpublished.

Tags: getting published, revising, submitting your story

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Rather than take on another individual, the main character could find himself in conflict with an entire society. When the main character or small group of characters take on the greater culture – who usually are represented by a group of authority figures or “upstanding” citizens – the author is using a man vs. society conflict.

An example of this occurs in the “Star Trek: The Original Series” episode “The Apple”. When Captain Kirk and his landing party beam down to a planet with an ideal climate, they soon discover a machine mind controls the planet and that the natives worship this machine. Kirk sets out to destroy this machine, named Baal, after it attacks the Enterprise. The native aliens try to stop Kirk, however, and are disappointed when our mighty captain succeeds. Through the episode, Kirk and crew find themselves in conflict with the native’s society’s customs and beliefs.

Indeed, such a conflict is good way to show the illogic of a society’s values. The moral of “The Apple” is that intelligent beings need to be free, even if it means suffering (indeed, the planet’s inhabitants now will have to live in a harsh climate, break their backs farming by hand to feed themselves and suffer the psychological loss of faith in a god that provided for and cared for them). Of course, Baal is a false god, so a system in which intelligent beings worship and serve a false god is illogical.

Two problems can arise with man vs. society conflicts, however. First, when readers can focus on a specific individual as the antagonist, relating to and identifying with the main character can be easier. The challenge for the writer is to make the society a living being itself. Otherwise, the main character simply is defending himself against minor characters and obstacles throughout the story. Another problem is that often society is too monolithic for a single character to overcome. The story problem shouldn’t end with the collapse of society but instead the main character escaping it or achieving some success that creates a new hope for the culture’s eventual fall.
 
You Do It
Create notes about a society that for a character to oppose. What are the society’s prevailing beliefs, laws and mores? Why would this motivate the character to oppose it? In what ways would the society come into conflict with the character? What might the character do to sidestep or challenge these conflicts with society?

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

Tags: conflict, main character, plot

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Narrating the story through the perspective of the main character is not the only way to tell a story. Sometimes it’s told from the author’s viewpoint. When this occurs, the author is writing in third-person point of view.

A specific kind of third-person point of view is “omniscient”, in which the author is an all-knowing, God-like narrator. Consider this example of third-person omniscient from R. Garcia y Robertson‘s short story “Oxygen Rising”:

“Hey, human, time to earn your pay!” Curled in a feline crouch, a silver comlink clipped to its furry ear, the SuperCat flashed Derek a toothy grin. Tawny fur showed through gaps in the bioconstruct’s body armor, and his oxygen bottle had a special nosepiece to accommodate the saber-tooth upper canines, huge curved fangs whose roots ran back to the eye sockets. This deep in the highlands of Harmonia, even homo smilodon needed bottled air. Cradling a recoilless assault cannon, the SuperCat had small use for ceremony, letting everyone call him Leo.

Derek grunted, getting paid being the least of his worries.

Tags: first-person, narrator, omniscient, point of view, third-person

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Sita from the Bay Area recently wrote asking for tips about how the finish her novel. She’s about three-quarters the way through it.

Her problem is not uncommon among writers. Many writers have unfinished novels and short stories sitting on their hard drives or as printouts in a desk drawer. Often coming up with a story idea isn’t a problem, but finding the time or knowing how to finish the work is.

There are several approaches any writer can use to finish their story:

n Set a deadline - Sometimes nothing works better than the challenge of a deadline. This forces you to avoid waiting for inspiration and to get down to the hard work of writing. Simply set a realistic goal for how many words or pages you will write a day. Figure out how many words/pages you still need to write to finish a work. Then divide those number of words/pages by how many words/pages you can write in a day. That gives you the number of days needed to complete your novel, and that many days out is your deadline. For example, suppose you can write 1,000 words a day. A short novel is about 70,000 words; suppose you’ve written 40,000 so far. That means you’ve got 30,000 words to go. At 1,000 words a day, that means you could finish the novel in 30 days (30,000/1,000). If today is Jan. 1, that means your deadline is midnight Jan. 30.

n Outline the rest of the book - Often writers get stalled because they’re not certain where their book is going. Plot out the rest of the story, describing beat-by-beat how you want the story to develop and how you want the main character to resolve the tale’s central problem. The more detailed you can be, the easier writing those last chapters will be.

n Find a writing partner - Someone else who also is trying to finish their story can be a great inspiration. He can offer encouragement and critiques of your work. If you meet regularly, ensuring you have text for one another to read can serve as a “deadline”.

Of course, sometimes the story is so poorly done in its opening sections that there really is no good reason to finish it. Despite that the story may be unpublishable, I’d recommend finishing it anyway. Completing one story makes completing the second one all that more easy, in the same way that completing your first 5k run makes finishing the second 5k run all that more easy. Finishing the story gives you the full experience of writing one, after all, and that may help you avoid pitfalls on the next go.

You Do It
Do one of the steps mentioned above to help guide you toward finishing your story. If you’re having no trouble finishing the tale, then get back to work writing it!

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

Tags: critiques, outlining, writers block

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Every story’s protagonist faces conflicts, and often they are with a special type of antagonist called a villain. A villain is an individual character or group of people who oppose the story’s main character. Often the villain creates the situation that forces the main character to address the tale’s central problem.

Villains are well known - sometimes as much so as the main character: Darth Vader in “Star Wars: A New Hope”, the Klingons in “Star Trek: The Original Series” and Kahn in “Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn”.

Sometimes science fiction villains are referred to as “dark lord”.

Tags: antagonist, characters, flat characters, protagonist

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Of the five senses, taste is the rarest in stories. The reason is that we’re not eating, drinking, smoking or falling face-first into the dirt as frequently as we are seeing, hearing and smelling the world around us.

Like the senses of sound and smell, taste ought to be reserved for moments when it can offer meaningful descriptions of an object, to raise dramatic tension or to offer insights into a character. For example, describing how an extrasolar colonist who has learned bad news suddenly finds bitter the taste of his otherwise sweet julah drink shows how the information has affected him emotionally. Unfortunately, writers too often simply describe the food a character is eating either for the gross-out factor (such as the Klingon’s gagh in “Star Trek”) or simply to find a way to get the sense of taste into their story.

Where taste and smell are concerned, sometimes you can get your descriptions to appeal to both senses. They are, after all, closely related: Humans who have temporarily lost their sense of smell due to a cold often can’t taste either. J. Chris Rock accomplishes this in his short story “Lucy” (which appears in the Aug. 2008 Asimov’s Science Fiction): “’Seriously though,’ Elgin says, his mouth full of Fritos. I can smell them, that gross wet corn mush smell.”

Tags: description, five senses, setting

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As with the scents, we’re constantly barraged with the sensation of touch, but often it goes ignored. American and Western culture prefers personal space that prevents a lot of touching, and our buildings tend to be climate-controlled, leaving us neither hot nor cold. Our furniture is designed to be soft enough that our bodies do not get sore when sitting or reclining. I’m certainly not complaining about such comfortableness, but it does challenge the writer to work for images that appeal to a sense of touch that readers can relate to.

Since touch is almost a background sensation in readers’ lives, its use ought to be reserved for moments when it can offer meaningful descriptions of an object, to raise dramatic tension or to offer insights into a character. As the sensation of touch is powerful in real life, sloppy use of it in your fictional world can wreck the story’s believability. Deftly handled appeals to the sense of touch, however, can make for a striking description that keeps the reader turning the page.

Recognizing the power of touch, author Jack Skillingstead appeals to the sense of touch in the opening line of his recent short story “What You are About to See” (which appears in the Aug. 2008 Asimov’s Science Fiction): “I sat in a cold room.” Readers used to climate-controlled buildings instantly finds the situation peculiar. The exoticness of appealing to the sense of touch further serves to pull the reader in. The line also does a good job of establishing the story’s tone, one in which our main character and the other government officials around him are never quite comfortable, as they’ve made contact with an alien whose craft crashed in the Nevada desert.

Tags: description, five senses, setting, touch

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We are surrounded by scents, but they often go ignored as people have a poor sense of smell (at least compared to other animals, such as dogs and cats). Further, in American culture most scents are suppressed; we prefer an antiseptic home, workplace and body.

For those reasons, writers rarely describe scents in a story. As with sound, when the sensation does appear in a story, it’s often to draw attention to some characteristic of an object or to raise dramatic tension.

Writers ought to find a way to incorporate at least one appeal to the sense of smell in their story, if only to make the story more real. The key is to get it purposefully into the story and not just to make the writing more vivid for vividness’ own sake.

Novelist Kevin J. Anderson appeals to the sense of smell in just such a way in his novel “The Ashes of Worlds”. The book’s opening chapter, set aboard a spaceship bridge, makes no appeal at all to the sense of smell , which makes sense as one wouldn’t expect to smell anything (other than ozone perhaps) in a setting with an artificial atmosphere. In the next chapter, the sense of smell only is implied when smoke and burnings coals are noted in the description of a tree city under attack. A scent finally is directly described to good dramatic effect after the chapter’s climax as the city’s inhabitants flee what once their homes: “Green grass smoldered around them, making the smoke burn like acid in their lungs.”

Tags: description, dramatic tension, five senses, setting

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When writing descriptions, one of the five senses that you can appeal to is sound.

We’re surrounded all day by sounds, though most of it is tuned out. When we do hear something out of the ordinary – an alarm, the crunch of metal when cars collide, the annoying repetition of a water drip – it stands out.

Likewise, most authors use sound in the same way in their stories: the sensation is often implied but only used at a moment when it can most contribute to raising dramatic tension or add to a description of an important object in the story.

Tags: description, five senses, onomatopoeia, setting

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When developing your story, you’ll want your characters to face a number of challenges or conflicts. One of the most basic of them is man vs. man. In this conflict, the main characters find his goals jeopardized by another individual: a stormtrooper shooting at them, a Klingon arguing with them in a space station cantina, a lowly human turning our astronauts in to the sadistic ape overlords.

At its basest, man vs. man conflict is just two people taking on one another, with our hero usually winning. At its best, this conflict can symbolically test competing ideas and ethical solutions. A character represents one approach to a problem while the other represents an alternative path. All too often, these representations are reduced to simplistic views of good and evil. But by showing each characters’ motivations and needs, the story’s theme gains depth while the dramatic tension soars. 

A good example of man vs. man conflict is “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” The story clearly revolves around two people: Khan and Admiral Kirk. The motivations of each are given: Khan wants revenge upon Kirk for marooning him on a planet that then underwent an ecological disaster and that killed his wife. Kirk feels a responsibility to protect the civilized world from Kahn, a disposed dictator and product of genetic engineering who he had defeated several years before. They play an extensive game of cat and mouse with one another in an effort to win. In the end, Kirk wins because his motivations are not based on revenge but doing what his right by others.

You Do It
Write a 250-word piece in which your main character, to achieve his goal, must overcome another character. Make clear that each has worthy motivations in wanting to defeat the other.

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

Tags: character, conflict, man vs. man, plot, villain

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You’ve heard it all before: You’re at a party or sitting with colleagues at others during lunch, and someone smirks when they discover you like to read and write science fiction.

Someone then dismisses science fiction as “unreal”. Another nods and adds “science fiction writers just make up a bunch of weird stuff”, that they “deal with stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with real life”. Someone else chimes in it’s because science fiction writers “can’t think of any stories to tell about real people”. Suddenly we feel like we’re the embarrassing uncle everyone avoids at family gatherings.

And if you’re not too thin skinned, you begin to wonder if science fiction should be taken seriously.

Yes, it should be taken seriously. If anything, we ought to pity those who just put down the genre.

They’re missing out on some great thought-provoking literature that often provides a good action-filled ride. 

Granted, science fiction isn’t for everyone – and that’s okay. I’m no fan of the mystery genre, but I respect its authors for mastering the genre’s conventions and good storytelling techniques in general. And I certainly don’t look upon the lover of mysteries as a freak or put down the genre.

Science fiction probably will be met with a raised eyebrow for a long time to come. It’s a genre out at the edge of what is known, often exploring worlds that don’t yet exist, so on the surface it appears weird. In many cases, people just aren’t familiar with the genre and what it offers.

Tags: getting started, science fiction, writing

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You’ve written story after story, but none of them ever seem to measure up to your favorite authors’ pieces. Meanwhile, editors keep rejecting the few of your stories that you thought were actually decent. You’re starting to wonder if you have the natural-born talent to be a writer.

Before you start getting hard on yourself, we should explore your underlying assumption: that some people are born with a natural ability to write.

No one really knows if such a talent is “genetic”. There’s no doubt, however, that some people spend their formative years garnering the experiences and mastering the skills that later will make them good storytellers. So, with a qualitative “yes”, there are people with talent.

But they can squander it. Many become journalists, speech writers or college professors who never pen the Great American Novel despite their love of writing and literature. Others find their family’s needs and the daily grind of their jobs leave them too little time to write.

In any case, there are those with “less” talent who work at making themselves writers - and their writing shines brighter than many who are talented. Remember, George Orwell once was viewed as an average kid with no talent; today he is considered one of the greatest writers of the 20th century.

So how you do “work” at becoming a “good” writer? Three ways:
n Read - Read a lot. Read the great works and authors of this genre, like Asimov, Bradbury and Heinlein. Read the great works and authors of all time, like Homer, Shakespeare and Hemingway. You can’t be a good writer unless you see how the masters did it.
n Write - Olympic weightlifters trained and practiced every day for years to achieve their success. Likewise, writers have to train and practice to achieve their success. Write every day, even if what you pen isn’t any good. It will get better over time.
n Get feedback - Placing your manuscript in a drawer for no one else to see rarely leads to improvement. Join a writers’ critique group (there are many online), attend writing workshops, hire a manuscript editor (full disclosure here: I offer such a service). See how others react to your work and use their advice to improve.

You Do It
Set a schedule in which you commit yourself to reading, writing and getting feedback on a daily basis. If you have only an hour a day, write for 30 minutes, read a short story or novel for 20 minutes and seek feedback via a writer’s group for the other 10 minutes.

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

Tags: getting started, reading, writers workshop

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So you’ve got a story written and are about to send it to a magazine or a publisher. Congratulations! One of the largest barriers preventing beginning writers from becoming established is that they never finish their work.

But now that you’re ready to send out a short story or novel, there are some professional guidelines to follow. These “rules” largely are intended to make life simple for editors, who literally wade through hundreds of manuscripts a month. Failure to follow is a sign of disrespect for the editor or an indication that you’re unaware of the profession’s basic rules.

In any case, not meeting these standards makes reading your piece more difficult, and anything that distracts editors from your actual story works against you. Many good manuscripts are rejected simply because there aren’t enough slots in a magazine or publisher’s schedule for them. There’s no reason to give a competing piece of equal value the edge simply because you didn’t follow some basic professional guidelines.

Don’ts

When submitting a manuscript for publication, don’t:

n Send it in non-manuscript form so it stands out (colored paper, colored ink, specialty typeface)

n Bind your manuscript with staples, ring binders, clamp binders, comb binders, brads or strings; paper clips and rubber bands are OK but unnecessary

nPlace each page of your manuscript in a sheet protector

n Place a creation date on the manuscript

n Place a rights offered statement on the manuscript or in the cover letter

n Place a copyright symbol on the manuscript

n Write a cutesy cover lover

n Beg the editor to buy your manuscript so you can pay for some emotionally moving cause

n Warn the editor not to steal your ideas (don’t worry, he won’t)

n Place extra spaces/an extra line between paragraphs

n Place -30- at the end of the story

n Turn a page upside down, dog-ear a page or paste two of them together to see if the editor has read the piece

n Send it in safe-deposit boxes, couriered envelopes, wrapped in fancy paper

n Make your envelope cute: tie-dying it, covering it in stickers or writing political statements all over it

n Send it to the wrong address; this includes sending it directly to the editor even though the guidelines say to send it to another email address- or to send it only by mail

n Send more than one story at a time, unless the writers’ guidelines say you can

n Send your story to two or more magazines at the same time, unless the writers’ guidelines say you can; a story sent two or more editors is called a “simultaneous submission”

n Send a gift to the editor

n Miss deadlines

Do’s

When submitting a manuscript for publication, do:

n Send a SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope)

n Send you stories to an editor whose choices you already like; he’s more likely to like yours

n Be willing to work with an editor who suggests changes

n Call an editor or agent to talk about questions and problems concerning business if your manuscript has been accepted (but don’t overdo the calls)

Tags: getting published, manuscripts basics, sase

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As developing your story, maintaining a sense of tension is vital. Without dramatic tension – a feeling of uncertainty in the reader about how the main character will solve (or even if he will resolve) the central problem – the story will be flat and vanilla.

Creating tension involves controlling the story’s pace. Pace is the timing by which the major events in the plot unfold and in which the big scenes are shown.

The “better” the story, then the better that the author handled the pace. “Star Wars IV: A New Hope”, the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” episode “Yesterday's Enterprise”, Douglas Adams’ comedic novel “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and Ray Bradbury’s short story “A Sound of Thunder” all are examples of masterful pacing.

Every story has a different pace. Those that are more introspective tend to move at a slower pace while those that are action-packed tend to be fast. Because of this, all stories run on a “story clock”. This is a measurement in which action is internally described. As with the wider universe, however, there is no objective clock. A true sign of craftsmanship is when an author sets the story clock winding at the right pace for an individual tale. 

Regardless of the story, however, good pacing always involves compression and expansion of time - In “real time,” events don’t unfold at the same rate as they do in a story. For example, a suborbital flight from New York to Tokyo in real time might take a hour, but in the story it’s handled in a phrase that takes a couple of seconds to read. Usually the authors speeds up or slows down the action to match the emotions he wants the reader to have. 

Tags: dramatic tension, main character, plot, setting, style

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Science fiction often has been called “the literature of ideas” because it examines deep, philosophical concepts by placing characters in extraordinary situations where viewpoints and the logic behind decisions are tested. One powerful way to explore profound ideas is through the use of metaphor.

A metaphor is when a word or phrase that usually designates one thing is used to mean another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in Fredric Brown’s “Arena”: “Slowly his mind cleared as, slowly, the mind of a man wakening from a nightmare clears away the fear-fabric of which the dream was woven”. The metaphor is the comparing of a nightmare to a cloth that has been weaved together with the fabric of fear.

Metaphors can occur within stories, as a form of imagery (such as Brown’s example), or the story itself can be a metaphor. For example, the Martian invasion in H.G. Well’s “The War of the Worlds” often is seen as a metaphor for Victorian colonialism – the superior air the Martians hold toward the natives, the invaders’ technological superiority, their indiscriminate destruction, even their replacing of local fauna with that brought from their home.

When writing metaphors, be sure to follow a few guidelines:

n Don’t mix metaphors - A mixed metaphor occurs when two incongruous, contradictory objects are compared, as in “Brilliant sunshine rained down on Tau Ceti V”. Sunshine and rain are incongruous.

n Avoid metaphoric clash - Sometimes an otherwise perfect metaphor results in the wrong impression, as in “Zell searched through the ruins for his beloved fiancé with the intensity of a Puritan priest on a witch hunt.” Hopefully Zell doesn’t intend to burn his fiancé at the stake once to show his undying love!

n Choose an appropriate metaphor for the scene/environment - Sometimes the metaphor’s comparison collapses under analysis, as in “Ramtal spoke diplomatically to the Pavonians, a drill instructor conversing with his recruits.” Drill sergeants don’t speak “diplomatically” but with gruffness. An inappropriate metaphor should be reserved for comedy.

Tags: figurative language, symbolism, theme

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Stories don’t have to be told only from the main character’s perspective. Indeed, the story’s author often narrates a story about a character rather be that persona. When this occurs, authors are writing in third-person point of view.

One type of third-person point of view is third-person limited. This is when the narrator tells the story only from the perspective of what the main character can observe and think, but unlike first-person limited, we also observe the main character through the author’s eyes.

Consider this excerpt from Brian Aldiss’ science fiction short story “Not For an Age”:

A bedspring groaned and pinged, mists cleared, Rodney Furnell awoke. From the bathroom next door came the crisp sound of shaving; his son was up. The bed next to his was empty; Valerie, his second wife, was up. Guiltily, Rodney also rose, and performed several timid exercises to flex his backbone. Youth! When it was going it had to be husbanded. He touched his toes.

Notice how we see events unfolding through the eyes of Rodney Furnell, the main character: waking up, the sounds around him, exercising. We do not see the world through the perspective of his son or his second wife. Further, the word "I" never would appear in the piece unless spoken by someone; that's because Rodney isn't telling the story - the author is. The author even offers a small comment, describing Rodney’s exercises as “timid” (certainly Rodney would not describe them as “timid”!).

Third-person limited offers several advantages, including:
n Giving the writer more flexibility than first-person point of view – If the story above were told only from Rodney’s point of view, the author could not offer his perspective on him. The audience no longer would be looking upon the stage that the main character acted but would be standing upon it in the main character’s body.
n Providing a less biased perspective - Stories told in first-person also carry the weight of the main character’s subjective views and perspectives. Sometimes this can make the protagonist less acceptable likeable to a reader who is more enlightened than that character. Third-person limited moves the reader to the usually more enlightened perspective of the author.
n Offering a clear sense of who the reader should identify with and invest in - Stories told only from the main character’s perspective sometimes don’t make that persona the hero but someone whose weaknesses cost him. The author’s insertions in third-person limited show readers how they should view the main character. Because of that, readers often like this point of view.

One danger of third-person limited, however, is that the reader loses a sense of intimacy with the main character. Rather than fully experience the universe with the main character, the reader can feel superior to him. If your goal is to have the reader relate to the main character, this may not be the best choice for your story’s point of view.

You Do It
Write a 250-word piece in third-person limited. How does selecting this point of view shape your approach to the main character? Would a first-person limited point of view work better for the story you wish to tell about this character?

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

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

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“Once again, we've saved civilization as we know it."

- James T. Kirk, “The Undiscovered Country”

Most main characters in science fiction stories also are traditional heroes, or larger than characters who serve as the tale’s protagonist. Obvious examples are Luke Skywalker, Captain Kirk and Indiana Jones. Such characters become “mythic”, especially after several stories describing their adventures.

The advantage of using such characters as that they are good fun. Not surprisingly, the memorable heroes mentioned above all appear in motion pictures, which typically serves as escapism rather than high art.

But you do your readers a disservice when your main character is the stereotypical hero. Such characters, after all, aren’t real. After awhile, you have to ask, “How many times can James T. Kirk save the galaxy?” In addition, heroes often are just clones of heroes who came long before them. Skywalker, Kirk and Jones all are strong, respected, admired, clever, brave, intelligent, natural leaders and usually can have any woman. So were Theseus, Horatio Hornblower and Robin Hood. Ultimately, heroes limit your plot. One notable way is that heroes typically collect “plot coupons” in each scene. In such a plot, the hero gains some knowledge or gizmo that ensures he can solve the problem by the story’s climax. The story really is just a clever game of how he’ll gather all of these coupons, for the story’s outcome never is in doubt.

Because some of the tales involving Skywalker and Kirk do show them overcoming their flaws (Skywalker learning to control his fear and anger; Kirk sacrificing the love of his life for the future), they probably are more memorable heroes than Indiana Jones, whose only real Achilles’ heel is a fear of snakes. In short, if you do stick with a hero character, don’t make him “too cool”. He needs to be vulnerable or he’ll be too superhuman and hence not very interesting. For example, a hero shouldn’t be fearless but instead someone who performs his duties - such as protecting or rescuing others - despite his fears (which is why Indiana Jones’ fear of snakes makes him so endearing).
 

You Do It

Create a hero character that is rigorous. Begin by writing a list of all of his heroic qualities. Now write a list of his vulnerabilities that counter each of his heroic qualities. For example, perhaps he’s physically strong (a heroic quality) but is fearful of using his strength because he once physically hurt someone close to him (a vulnerability).
 

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

Tags: character, main character, plot coupon, protagonist

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When writing description, authors typically should appeal to as many senses as possible in their piece. Doing so can create a textual richness that makes the story more real for readers.

The easiest of the five senses to write is that of sight. It’s easy because humans are by nature visual animals. Whereas some creatures rely more on scent or hearing when interacting with the world, humans depend on their visual acuity. Our brains in part evolved to manipulate abstract imagery so well because of our ability to see in three dimensions and in color.

Not surprisingly then, appeals to the sense of sight dominate most story’s descriptions. Consider Arthur C. Clarke’s short story “Dial ‘F’ for Frankenstein”, which contains a couple of excellent appeals each to our sense of sound and even touch. But the story contains dozens of appeals to the sense of sight: “Dr, John Williams, head of the mathematics division, stirred uneasily”; “Williams blushed, but not very hard”; “’Very well,’ he said, doodling on the tablecloth”; “He squinted balefully at the fluorescent tubes above the table; they were needed on this foggy winter day”; “Overhead, the lights continued their annoying flicker, which seemed to be getting worse” and so on.

When using sight in your stories, be sure that the descriptions are apt. Clarke, for example, uses the flickering of the lights, the fog and other visual images to show how humanity is slowly losing its control of the mechanical world to what is the equivalent of a computer that has just gained consciousness. In addition, don’t limit yourself only to sight. Humans do experience the world with the four other senses at the very same time they use their eyes. Describing what your characters hear, smell, feel and taste will prevent your appeals to the sense of sight from becoming monotonous.

You Do It
Write a 100-word piece describing a science fiction landscape: a craft landing at a spaceport, a city of the 24th century, a desert world with three moons in the sky, or another setting of your own making. When done, count how many of your images appeal to sight, then sound, then smell, then touch and finally taste. Which of the five senses dominate your piece?

 

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

(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: description, five senses, setting

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When developing your story, you’ll want your characters to face a number of challenges or conflicts. One of the most basic of them is man vs. nature. In this conflict, the characters find their goals jeopardized by the natural forces of the universe: the cold of an ice age, dangerous plants and animals in an alien jungle, or the vacuum of space.

This conflict can truly test the characters’ stamina, and in a Darwinistic way, show who is the fittest. There’s virtually nothing that a character can do to change the weather or his environment, but he can through physical strength, willpower and intelligence survive it. Exactly how the character does survive – whether by forcing himself to stay awake for three days until he can march his out of the desert or by using his wits to kill a beast and sleeping in its belly to stay warm – says a lot about what characteristics the author values.

The man vs. nature conflict can takes on a thematic role in ecological disaster stories. A good example of this is Larry Niven’s novel "Legacy of Heorot". Set on a colony world, the story centers on how nature is “fighting back” against the ecological changes that the colonists have engendered. It examines the issues of what happens when humans interfere with the natural order of a world and if the notion of “protecting nature” is rational.

Write a 250-word piece in which your main character must overcome a force of nature to survive. Some possible forces could include a desert on an alien world, a spaceship caught in the grip of a black hole or total darkness caused by an eclipse on an exoplanet.

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

(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: conflict, main character, plot, setting

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If you’re thinking of writing science fiction, you first need to answer an important question: Is science fiction dead? After all, if the genre is moribund, why bother to keep writing the same clichéd story over and over?

A number of recognized science fiction writers, long-time fans and critics say the genre has long since passed its prime. Brian Aldiss has argued that science fiction is redundant because of technological development and scientific advancement. “The truth is that we are at least living in an SF scenario,” he wrote. Others claim that technology is advancing so rapidly that science fiction can’t keep up. Unlike the 1930s or even the 1970s, envisioning what comes next is nearly impossible. In addition, many in the publishing industry say science fiction is now about writing novelizations based on television shows and motion pictures (particularly “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” at the expense of original ideas. Ultimately, critics often state that science fiction’s themes and conventions , such as space flight and ecological disaster, have been repeated so often that they are stale.

I beg to differ.

Each of the above points certainly has some validity when discussing what’s wrong with science fiction today. But to conclude that science fiction is dead because of it is like assuming the crew is doomed when our rocketship crashes on an alien world in the opening paragraphs of our novel.  

There’s some truth to the notion that scientific advancement is more specialized than ever before, and so we often don’t see the larger picture of how a small advancement greatly affects a society until after the fact. But this argument is merely shows an ignorance of science. Quantum computers and nanotechnology may be almost here, and that may negate any prediction power SF stories would have about those fields. But what will come after quantum computing and nanotechnology? What happens when humanity decides quantum computing isn’t fast or vast enough and adapts some other form computing? What happens when humans move beyond nanotechnology and begin to manipulate matter at the subatomic level by moving about quarks and leptons to create atoms?

That the number of “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” volumes take a large chunk of any bookstore’s science fiction section is undeniable. But hopefully those series will introduce people to science fiction (a love of “Star Trek” certainly did for me when as a third-grader, forced to chose from a reading list, I selected the closest thing to my beloved TV series – a comic book version of H.G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds”; within two years I’d read several of Well’s novels, scoured every science fiction short story collection for children and got hooked on Asimov and Frederick Brown). In addition, there are plenty of outlets, via the Web, for science fiction storytelling if print publishers have failed the genre.

That some of science fiction’s themes and conventions have been repeated to death certainly is true, especially for older generations of readers.... [More]

Tags: conventions, getting started writing, science, theme

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When you’re deciding where to send your story for publication, pay close attention to the directions about word counts. Editors have only so much space for a story, and if your story goes over the word count, it won’t fit the space and so likely will be rejected. It’s a rare story in a rare situation that exceeds word counts and is accepted for publication.

Determining word count is not quite as easy as hitting a button on your word processor. While that word count method is satisfactory for submitting your story, remember that editors and publishers traditionally count words in a different way. A word processing program counts a word as a set of letters with spaces around them. Because of that, your word processing program would say that the first sentence of this entry contains 19 words. In the past, however, a “word” was every five characters, regardless of where the spaces were. This gave a count that better matched the amount of physical space available on a page. By that method, this entry’s first sentence contains 20 words.

One word isn’t much of a difference. But over a 10 typed pages, the difference can cost you a paragraph. So be prepared to be edited for length.

Another quick note: when determining word counts, do not include what appears in your manuscript’s headers, only the actual text from the first to the last word of the story.

You Do It
Write a 100-word piece describing an alien landscape. Use your word processor to determine when you’ve hit 100 words. Do not go over this word count and do not go under it by more than five words. Now do a character count (not counting spaces) of your piece. Divide the number of characters by five for a new word count. If your word count is more than 100, edit your piece to get it below 100 words.

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

Tags: know your markets, manuscript basics, submitting your story

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Any story you tell by definition has a plot, characters, setting point of view and theme. But to really make a story pop, an author has to interweave and play these elements against one another so that the story has tension.

Tension is the force behind the need to find resolution. It stems from the hook that caught the reader in the opening lines: there’s an interesting central problem to solve. The rest of the story needs to focus on solving that problem.

But the author shouldn’t make the outcome – the resolution of the problem – obvious to the reader. The author should always leave open the possibility that the problem won’t be resolved. Of course, most readers know (or at least expect) that the problem will be resolved. By creating doubt, the writer causes the reader to wonder how the problem will be resolved. The greater this tension, the more likely the reader will stick with you through the story.

Generally, the best way to create doubt is to make the problem increasingly more difficult to resolve as the story continues.

 

The story constantly leaves the viewer wondering how the Enterprise/Federation will overcome the Borg invasion as the situation for our heroes grows increasingly dire. By episode’s end (which was a season cliffhanger), apparently the only way to resolve the problem is for the crew to kill the series’ main character and hero, the man they are most loyal to.

 

Certainly the story’s settings – aboard the Borg ship, on a world where a colony has been decimated – are intriguing. Certainly the characters – Riker’s self-doubt, Picard’s transformation into Locutus – are fascinating. Certainly the plot – repelling an alien invasion – is interesting. But combining and playing these elements off against one another to create tension – now that’s spellbinding.

 

You Do It

Write an outline of a story in which your main character attempts to solve a problem, such as stopping an alien invasion or trying to stay alive after being marooned on an alien planet. In the outline, make sure the situation grows increasingly more dire and difficult to solve, so that as the story nears its end, the alien invasion appears likely to succeed to the interstellar castaway appears unlikely to survive.
 

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

(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: central problem, narrative hook, opening lines, plot, style

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One of the fun aspects of science fiction is that the story can mean much more than the action-adventure tale it appears to be at first glance. Indeed, science fiction often is a literature of social criticism because its characters, planets and gizmos represent something in our world. For example, the crew of the Enterprise and the Federation in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” represent the United States and Western world while the Klingons represent Russia in the days following the Soviet Union’s collapse. The movie is about how we in the present will deal with the end of the Cold War.

To achieve a broader thematic meaning in a story, authors use a variety of symbols, which are the attributing of representative meanings or significance to objects, events or relationships. There are many types of symbols, but in literature three are primary (all examples are from Ray Bradbury’s “The Lost City of Mars”):
n Metaphors - When a word or phrase that ordinarily designates one thing is used to designate another, thus making an implicit comparison, as in “… he let loose such a deluge of laughter that those below him almost raised their hands to ward off the avalanche …” (his laughter is compared to a flood)
n Similes - When two unlike things are compared in a phrase beginning with “like” or “as”, as in “… a boat as fresh as the morning itself, with new-minted silver crews and brass pipings …” (the new boat is compared the beginning of day)
n Personification - When inanimate objects or abstractions are given human qualities, as in “The great eye floated in space. And behind the great eye somewhere, hidden away within the metal and machinery, was a small eye that belonged to a man who could not stop looking at all the multitude of stars and the diminishing and growings of light a billion billion miles away.” (The “great eye” is a telescope lens)

Using symbols add a layer of textual depth to your story. Given this, they should not be used haphazardly. An inappropriate or confusing symbol can distract the reader or give him reason to believe you mean one thing when you really mean another.

Tags: metaphor, personification, simile, theme

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