Inventing Reality Editing Service Blog

Often the setting of a story contains some item that later plays a role in the story’s plot. A strange looking statue on the mantle, for example, may hold some clue or jog a memory, allowing for the story’s mystery to be solved.

When describing the setting, however, be careful not to place a “rhinoceros in the room”. This term is some item or attribute that is obvious to everyone except the people closest to it. It was coined at the Cambridge Science Fiction Workshop.

A common example of a “rhinoceros in the room” would be some missing item that is sitting in clear view of all looking for it. Like a rhinoceros, you couldn’t miss it.

But the “rhinoceros in the room” isn’t just limited to items that form the story’s landscape. It can refer to cliché plot lines (such as splitting up in a dark mansion to look for clues), recurring tropes, tics and fetishes. Each of these plot devices and character attributes ultimately cheapen the story because they are contrived. Like that missing item that is sitting in clear site of all looking for it, the notion that someone can’t see it comes off as an artificial plot device.

Having some important item or characteristic sitting in clear view for all to see does make sense in a story – just don’t make the item or attribute so big that its importance should be obvious to all.

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

Tags: cambridge science fiction workshop, plot, rhinoceros in the room, setting

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Sometimes you do need to include the information provided in the info dump in your story. The best way to accomplish that is to incorporate it into your tale:

n Rewrite so that it’s part of the description or so it’s implied in the dialogue - This is the best way. You are now showing the information rather than telling it.

n Have the characters read or see a news report – If the information can’t be rewritten, use this ploy. Only give the information necessary to the plot, however, not the entire news article or report.

n Provide journal entries or captain’s logs - In 10 seconds, Captain Kirk gets you caught up on the plot. Usually some conflict needs to be noted or implied in the log, however, so that there’s dramatic tension.

Tags: dialogue, exposition, info dump, setting, show vs. tell

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An info dump is a chunk of exposition that is insufficiently integrated into the story being told. It’s also known as an “expository lump” and is a specific kind of exposition.

The info dump usually involves sharing your research notes with the reader, just to prove that you’ve done the research. While it’s sometimes necessary to give such information, make sure it sounds natural in your piece and not like a cut-and-paste from an encyclopedia.

Often an info dump is given by a Stapledon, a character serves no purpose other than to relate exposition, usually at great length and without interruption. As in real life, such characters are dull.

Another kind of info dumping is “maid-and-butler dialogue” in which characters tell each other things that they already should know so that the reader can overhear them. Unfortunately, those characters sound simple minded as the lines they deliver in real life would be inane.

Having said this, even the greatest science fiction writers are guilty of info dumping. Isaac Asimov is notorious for it in “The Foundation”, often regarded as one of the best novels in the genre. Frequently, however, these writers were allowed their transgression because the story the info dump itself was so fantastic (As a child, I had the same reaction to many encyclopedia articles that opened my eyes to the wider world). But with so many science fiction conventions that have appeared time and time again, your info dump probably isn’t all that fantastic. Given this, it’s best to avoid the info dump.

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

Tags: exposition, expository lump, info dump, maid-and-butler dialogue, setting, show vs. tell, stapledon

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Whatever you do, avoid embedding exposition by having one character say to another, “As you know …” This is commonly given in science fiction stories by a “Stapledon”, which is a character who gives us an info dump, usually one at great length and without interruption (The term is ignominiously pays homage to science fiction writer Olaf Stapledon, who regularly made use of this technique.). It’s an obvious info dump and immediately flags to the reader that the forward movement of plot is about to be slowed, that he is about to be lectured and the viewpoint may be violated. As award-winning science fiction editor Gardner Dozois said of the Stapledon, “That’s probably the most common beginner’s mistake …”

Tags: exposition, info dump, setting, show vs. tell, stapledon

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One dilemma that novice writers often run into when writing a new draft of their story is a fear of cutting too much exposition. It’s an unfounded fear.

You probably can’t cut enough exposition. No story should include writing that slows the forward movement of plot, amounts to lecturing the reader or forcing him to read an encyclopedia entry or violates viewpoint.

The real dilemma facing the writer is that he hasn’t fully fleshed out a scene. If the reader doesn’t have enough information to understand the story, then the author isn’t fully showing us the scene. Telling us what needs to be shown is just cutting corners.

Sometimes the issue is that the writer doesn’t have enough fait in his own writing or in his readers. The reader probably gets what you mean when exposition is replaced with indirectly showing what’s occurring. Of course, this is where a good editor or another reader of science fiction can step in; they can tell you that they don’t understand something, and that’s a good indication that you need to include some more material about your novum. Don’t do overdue it, however – a single phrase or sentence at most often is all that’s needed.

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

Tags: exposition, info dump, setting, show vs. tell

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Of course, sometimes exposition is necessary for expediency’s sake. But it should appear sparingly. A quick sentence noting some historical event or a common trait of an alien species is fine. After all, on that rare occasion, showing rather than telling would add far too much length to a story. If falling into this situation, remember to only include just the amount of exposition that is needed to move the story forward.

Tags: exposition, info dump, setting, show vs. tell

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Sometimes you simply must include exposition into your story, especially in science fiction when you’re dealing with entirely new worlds, alien races and technologies. Good writers handle this dilemma by embedding expository information into their stories.

Here are some ways to that:

n Viewpoint character recalls the information – The “captain’s log” convention is a way to accomplish this. Note that most log entries are only a couple of sentence long and focus on conflict.

n Viewpoints character seeks out such information and discovers it in notes, journals, articles, etc. which is then summarized – Mr. Spock and Data often do this in “Star Trek” by giving the relevant facts from the library computer on extraterrestrial species, exoworlds and historical events.

n Another character tells this information to viewpoint character - This other character must have a plausible motive for telling it, however. In addition, the character who the information is told to shouldn’t disappear once he hears the background, instead he needs to play an integral part in the plot beyond being the receiver of an info dump. An example of this successfully being done is in Steve Alten’s “Domain,” in which the reader needs to know the basic layout of a psychiatric treatment center; in the opening chapter, Alten has the center’s chief of psychiatry explain it to the main character, who is on her first day of an internship at the center. Alten wisely limits the description to a few brisk sentence.

n Viewpoint character experiences the world through his five senses – The character should capture details that infer background information the reader needs to know. If you need to describe the physical makeup of a world, give the tour of it through the viewpoint character’s five senses.

Ultimately, it’s best if readers learn about the setting or novum as a byproduct of engaging action. As science fiction writer and editor Stanley Schmidt recommends, “Know as much as you can about your background – and tell no more than you have to.”

Whatever you do, avoid embedding exposition by having one character say to another, “As you know …” This is commonly known in science fiction as a “Stapledon”.
 
Visit my Web site about writing science fiction, Inventing Reality.
(c) 2008 Rob Bignell

Tags: exposition, info dump, novum, setting, show vs. tell, stapledon, viewpoint character

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Why avoid exposition? Three good reasons:

n It slows the forward movement of plot – As exposition amounts to straightforward information, some novice writers believe it speeds up the story. In truth, it robs story of conflict and tension. Showing rather than telling what happens allows the reader to see incrementally how a character is pulled and dragged into feeling a certain way or making a specific decision.

n It amounts to lecturing the reader or forcing him to read an encyclopedia entry – A lot of times exposition is background information that the author deems is important to understanding some concept, such as the history of the Clone Wars, the physics behind hyperdrive and the ethical dilemmas of using metagenic weapons. It’s better to sprinkle these matters as bits into the characters’ normal conversation rather than give a long lecture.

n It can violate viewpoint – A first-person story suddenly interrupted with an objective, third-person telling of exposition can be jarring to the tale’s flow. At the very least, it is awkward-sounding.

Tags: exposition, info dump, plot, setting, show vs. tell

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Want to slow your story to a glacial grind and get readers to put down your story? Then load it with lots of exposition.

Exposition is directly conveying information to the reader. For example, you could write, “She found herself falling in love him.” You’ve directly told the reader what is occurring to the main character: she’s falling in love.

A better way to tell that she’s falling in love is to show it. Instead write: “Birray took her in his arms. She nestled her head against his chest as he caressed her back.” That she nestled her head against his chest, in the context of the rest of the story, will show she’s beginning to have stronger than usual feelings for him.

Tags: exposition, info dump, setting, show vs. tell

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Should you avoid reading science fiction stories that involve the novum you’re fascinated by, so as to ensure originality?

There is some benefit to this, especially if you want to avoid unwanted influences and used furniture. But ultimately you’ll probably end up reinventing the fixed pulley. You won’t advance discussion about the novum at all but instead unknowingly hash over what’s already been said.

Tags: novum, originality, setting, used furniture

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There’s a cardinal rule for all science fiction authors to follow: Limit your story to one novum. This better allows you to maximize reader interest in it while helping maintain a sense of believability about the new world you’ve created. The more you ask writers to suspend their disbelief by accepting new concepts/ideas that stretch their imagination, their greater the risk you run that you’ll lose them.

Of course, asking many long-time SF readers to accept more than one novum isn’t necessarily bad – some readers expect it or they believe you’re not fully describing the universe you’ve created. But often writers borrow and reuse novums from other stories. After all, how many times have we read science fiction stories involving faster than light travel, ray guns, multiple star systems of varying kinds (trinaries, binaries, etc.), transporter-like devices and holodecks? Many of these concepts aren’t truly novums at all but simply science fiction conventions that make your universe seem like a truly interstellar society.

Tags: believability, conventions, novum, setting, suspension of disbelief

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Creating a novum for your science fiction story isn’t as simple as making up a cool name and then giving the device some interesting function. As a writer, you should understand the device inside and out. This will allow you to more fully incorporate it into your plot and to more fully explore its implications for the world.

There are several questions you should ask and answer when creating a new invention, sometimes referred to as a technological novum (We’ll discuss the aliens and extrasolar landscapes in future entries):

n Why did this change occur? No technological advancement occurs without reason. Cars were faster than horses, the atomic bomb allowed a country to win a war, computers improved office productivity. Any technological novum should address some need that exists in the world you’ve created.

n What are some uses for the novum beyond its intended one? Often people find unintended uses for new devices. The computer, for example, originally was thought of as an enormous calculator for scientists and the military. Video games, Internet-based businesses and chat rooms are all unintended uses of the computer.

n What are some ways this technology can be abused? There’s always a scam artist or someone with designs on power out there. The inventors of the Internet didn’t envision phishing or spam.

n Who benefits from this change? Nanotechnology obviously will make some corporations rich. But will it allow firefighters to wear suits that mend themselves when burned or to remain cool when placed in flames, saving lives?

n Who suffers from/disapproves of this change? For every winner there are dozens of losers. If fusion technology became a reality in personal transportation, for example, the fossil fuel industry would collapse. That would plunge parts of Texas and Louisiana into economic ruin. Refineries and gas stations across the United States would close, leaving many out of work.

n What are some professions this novum will alter? How would the medical profession change if nanomeds became widespread? Would there be new specialists in the field or could a family doctor now replace the cardiologist and urologist? Would lab techs and nurses at hospitals need to learn new skills so they could monitor the progress of the nanobots?

n How does this change affect “official” public life? If we become a spacefaring civilization, will the regulating of spacecraft be left to each nation or will an international body oversee it? If the latter, how do people of once powerful nations feel about an outside government establishing rules that govern them? Or would the powerful nations establish standards that ultimately exclude poorer nations from participating in space industries?

n How does this change affect the average person’s daily life? Video games result in obese children and many of us now take telephone calls in the park, on the street or at restaurants, a world quite different from one that existed before the 1980s. Each new invention subtly affects our lives so that several new inventions leaves in a world greatly different than one lived in by our grandparents (or even parents).

n How does this change affect personal behavior? In the 1980s, you’d get strange looks if you walked down the street talking to no one there with an electronic device stuck in your ear. Today, it’s normal. Each new invention can alter our sense of etiquette and relationships with others.

Tags: invention, novum, plot, setting, technology

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Most science fiction readers don’t think like an academician when reading a story set in space or the near future. They don’t say “Aha! There’s the novum!” when you mention the “time sled”. They do have very real expectations, however, about how you use the “time sled” in your story. Every literary genre follows various conventions and rules, and in science fiction how the author handles the novum is among them, even if the reader can’t list what they may be.

As a writer, however, you need to be cognitive of what those rules are:

n The reader should be able to understand what a novum can and cannot do – Warp drive allows a spaceship to travel faster than the speed of light. Simply using it as a vague propulsion system without explaining its actual purpose (FTL travel) can leave the reader wondering if warp drive really is up to the task of taking characters between star systems and serve as a distraction to your story.

n The novum must be plausible – It must be based on the laws of science as we now know them. For example, with continued research and a few breakthroughs, widespread use of nanotechnology is a very real possibility for our civilization. Humanoid invaders from the planet Venus, given our understanding of that world as a dry and superhot, isn’t plausible.

n The novum must be fascinating – A room in which holographic images are so real that they can deceive a person into thinking he’s actually in the location projected is interesting as it opens a number of dramatic possibilities and possibilities for philosophical introspection. After all, what if the faux worlds created on the holodeck are far more intriguing to people than the real world? What would happen?

n Borrowed novums should be improved upon - It’s okay to borrow novums used in other science fiction works. But the novum should be treated in a new way or the story runs the risk of lacking originality. Indeed, one of the ways our genre grows and remains vibrant is that authors further explore and play off other authors’ ideas and novums. So if a phaser -like weapon is the centerpiece of your story, have it do more than incinerate objects or knock a person unconscious. Have it burn a person from the inside for hours so that the victim dies painfully, creating an ethical dilemma for one of your merciful main character.

Tags: conventions, ftl, novum, setting

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One common understanding of what makes a story “science fiction” is it involves the intrusion of some new invention, discovery or alien being into a world not unlike our own. How this intrusion modifies the “real world” forms the thrust of the story. After all, what is Martians existed? Of course, they’d leave their dying world and invade ours. Or what if we could travel faster than the speed of light? Of course, we’d travel to strange new worlds.

The invention, discovery or alien being that intrudes upon our world sometimes is referred to as a “novum”, which literally means “new thing”. SF author Brian Stableford coined the term.

The idea of a novum being key to science fiction existed long before Stableford established the term, however. In 1972, Darko Suvin after examining several decades of science fiction defined it as "a literary genre whose necessary and sufficient conditions are the presence and interaction of estrangement and cognition, and whose main formal device is an imaginative framework alternative to the author's empirical environment.” If the “author’s empirical environment” is literally the “real world”, then the introduction of something new is needed to create an alternative “imaginative framework.”

Tags: genre, novum, science fiction, setting

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One of the most common mistakes novice science fiction writers make is failing to be creative enough with their new universe. Many have developed a great plot and intriguing characters, but their setting is uninteresting – despite that they’ve taken great pains to describe the alien landscape and appeal to multiple senses.

The problem is that they really haven’t created a unique universe. Instead, they’ve set the story in an all ready established universe have merely changed the names to give it semblance of originality. For example, the story boats a spacecraft, armed with quantum torpedoes, representing a great interstellar alliance that is exploring the galaxy. The crew is largely human, except for the alien first officer, who hails from Alpha Centauri. If the universe sounds like the USS Enterprise of “Star Trek” fame, it is, albeit with a couple of not so subtle variations.

When writers set a story in another author’s universe and then changes the names to conceal it, they are guilty of using “used furniture.” It’s a term from screenwriting in which furniture and props from other productions are reused in a new episode or show.

Readers generally feel cheated when a writer borrows another universe. Think of it this way: Science fiction can take the reader to utterly new worlds and vistas – in fact, it’s one of the appeals to readers of the genre. Reading a story set a universe one has already experienced often is like getting the same meal for dinner that you had for lunch. Sometimes a sequel works, but more often than not it’s a lot like eating leftovers.

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

Tags: originality, screenwriting, setting, used furniture

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One of the most common mistakes novice science fiction writers make is failing to be creative enough with their new universe. Many have developed a great plot and intriguing characters, but their setting is uninteresting – despite that they’ve taken great pains to describe the alien landscape and appeal to multiple senses.

The problem is that haven’t really created a unique universe. Instead, they’ve set the story in an all ready established universe have merely changed the names to give it semblance of originality. For example, the story boasts a spacecraft, armed with quantum torpedoes, representing a great interstellar alliance that is exploring the galaxy. The crew is largely human, except the alien first officer, who hails from Alpha Centauri. If the universe sounds like the USS Enterprise of “Star Trek” fame, it is, albeit with a couple of not so subtle variations.

When writers set a story in another author’s universe and then changes the names to conceal it, they are guilty of using “used furniture.” It’s a term from screenwriting in which furniture and props from other productions are reused in a new episode or show.

Readers generally feel cheated when a writer borrows another universe. Think of it this way: Science fiction can take the reader to utterly new worlds and vistas; it’s one of the appeals to readers of the genre. Reading a story set a universe one has already experienced often is like getting the same meal for dinner that you had for lunch. Sometimes a sequel works, but more often than not it’s a lot like eating leftovers.

Tags: setting, space opera, space western, used furniture

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Many readers choose science fiction over other genres simply for the imaginative landscapes and the adventure of exploring these environments. These environments make up the story's setting, or where when and where the story occurs. Setting then is the story's time and the place in which the plot unfolds. Sometimes it's referred to as the “scene”.

For example, in "Star Trek: The Original Series", the setting typically is the 23rd century and various parts of the starship Enterprise, such as the bridge, sickbay, engineering and transporter room. The various locations that the landing party visits on the planet also is part of the setting.

Setting helps shape your story's color and mood. The conflicts the characters face hinge on the setting and the situations it creates for the characters. On occassion, the setting itself must be transformed as the main character resolves his central problem.

Setting is high art in science fiction. That's because the setting typically is a time and place that doesn't exist - the future, a lunar colony, a ship travleing between the stars. The challenge to science fiction writers is to create a background that is believable.

There are several ways that writers can make their science fiction setting believable:

n New devices and discoveries should not contradict what science knows today. Science fiction readers often play what is known as “The Game - they scrutinize every story, looking for scientific or technological errors. Consider Bill's critical response to my story, “Boundaries” (though I think he misread some of the story, some of his points are well taken).

n Every background detail should advance the story. If it’s not important to the story, get rid of it. Exotic detail for the sake of being exotic is unnecessary.

n Avoid explaining how the machinery works. Just show what it does. Limited explanation should be used only if it will advance the story.

n Be thoroughly familiar with setting of your story. This requires a working and researched knowledge of ecosystems and machinery before making extrapolations. Know more than the reader, but don't leave out important information necessary to the story.

n Remain self-consistent. As soon as one detail contradicts another, the story falls apart. For example, in a society lacking energy resources, the variety of food available would be limited as transportation of staples between regions wouldn't be possible. Miss that detail, however, and the setting won't seem believable.

More generally, when describing the setting, follow these basic rules:

n Give concrete details of the place. Appeal to as many senses as possible. All of us live in a world in which we constantly see, hear, smell, taste and touch. So also should your characters.

n Ask how your main character would perceive this place. Write a description of the setting from that viewpoint.

n Divide descriptions of the setting into three sections. For example, start with the foreground, then in the next couple of the sentences go the middle and at paragraph's end to the background. Or try left-center-right or sky-eye-level-ground.

Sometimes in science fiction, masters of their craft create a "meta-setting", which is when the author’s perspective colors the selection of words and phrasing used to describe a scene. A meta-setting adds texture to your writing and can help express a thematic point to your story.

You Do It

Write a 250-word description of what your house or apartment will be like in 25 years. What appliances and electronics will be there? What pictures will hang on the walls? What foods and beverages will you find in the refrigerator (or whatever it is that replaces it)? What will be the view from the windows? Try to appeal to...

Tags: five senses, scene, setting

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