Inventing Reality Editing Service Blog

If tempted to write a utopia, keep in mind that the society will face several problems among readers:

n It will stretch plausibility - No society can be so perfect that it all problems disappear, for often what matters most to us are personal problems, not larger economic/political/philosophical issues. Even if every one of us is fed, medically cared for and materially prosperous, there still will be the plagues of love gone wrong, of office politics and of death.

n It will read more like a description than a story - That’s bad news because usually the descriptions of a perfect society are downright dull. Consider Dante’s “The Divine Comedy.” The journey through Hell (the dystopia) is far more interesting than the journey through Heaven.

n It will run against the cynical bias of our times against utopias - Even if you address the personal psychological problems and human interaction and provide beautiful descriptions, the world will seem more like a suffocating dystopia to some readers. Indeed, some blog sites are even dedicated to showing why Star Trek’s “socialist” society would never work.

Tags: description, dystopia, plausibility, typesof science fiction, utopia

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When writing action scenes, avoiding rear-view mirror descriptions typically is a good idea. In such a description, an object is described only after they’ve been part of the action. For example, “He slid into the cave hole that his foot had just felt.” This type of writing allows the reader to see the setting only after the character has interacted with it – in short, it’s like looking at a landscape through a rear-view mirror.

Such writing diminishes the reader’s ability to feel the story’s dramatic tension and to feel the character’s urgency. It strains the story’s verisimilitude because the character appears to be extremely lucky as he is able to get out of any jam thanks to the author’s good blessings.

This type of description is a common error of novice writers, so not surprisingly this term often is most heard is writing workshops. In fact, it was coined at the Cambridge Science Fiction workshop.

Tags: description, rising action, setting

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Perhaps the most common mistake among novice writers is that tell rather show.

To “tell” what happens is to state it directly, as might occur in a newspaper article. For example:

Lambert was excited to see another boot print.

To “show” what happens, however, is to present the events without being told directly how one feels or reacts. The above example of “telling” could be rewritten to show Lambert’s excitement:

“There’s another one!” Lambert said, pointing at the boot print.

Tags: description, dramatic tension, passive voice, style

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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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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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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 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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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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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 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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