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

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

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

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

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

Tags: central problem, premise, theme

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tags: hero, theme, villain

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Tags: allegory, character, theme

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Even the most action-packed, blood-and-gore story has some message or point that the tale makes. The proposition that is argued or some aspect of human experience that is examined in your story is its theme.

For example, the theme of the movie “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn” is revenge and obsession. Those dual passions and their costs are examined as the villain Kahn seeks revenge upon hero James T. Kirk.

Theme can include a message or a moral, such as “good is stronger than evil” or “love is the answer”, but it is not exclusively that.

All stories convey underlying values. But unless you’re writing an action-adventure story, simply hoping that some theme emerges from your character’s journey isn’t adequate. You must pay attention to theme and carefully integrate it with the story’s events. Some underlying element – a proposition to be proved, the solution to a moral dilemma, or a perspective about the best attributes of human character - should guide your plot.

Often science fiction story lines are symbolic of larger, real-life conflicts. Science fiction readers often want to emerge from the story wiser than when they went in; they often want the story to force them to think.

Because of this, along with setting, theme is paramount in this genre. Indeed, science fiction often is called a “literature of ideas.” Sometimes the “idea”, rather than a character, is the “hero”. Sometimes the writer presents a dichotomy of morals as represented by varying characters.

No matter how distant the setting or how alien the characters, thematically every story is about the here and now. As Kurd Lasswitz, the father of German science fiction, wrote, “… we do dream of a higher civilization, but we would also like to come to know it as something more than the hope for a distant future. We tell ourselves that what the future can sometime bring about on Earth must even now, in view of the infiniteness of time and space, have already become a reality somewhere.”

Theme typically is reflective of the author’s attitudes. Yet, by repeating a theme done by another author, are you being unoriginal? After all, it has been said, “There’s nothing new under the sun.” So, as a writer, can you step into the same river twice? The answer is “yes.” The plot, characters and setting can be unique to you, so you may arrive at the same thematic conclusion as another author by taking the reader on an entirely different journey. Consider that the “The Wrath of Kahn” has the same theme as “Moby Dick”, but they’re obviously quite different tales.

There are a couple of guidelines to follow when incorporating a theme into your story: 
n Don’t be preachy - Fiction often is better when it poses questions and shows how people would respond to them. Stories are allegories for moral action rather than essays about what is the best decision to make.
n Don’t state the obvious - We already know that murder is bad and such people should be punished. But is there a time when murder might be acceptable?

You Do It
Think of five ideas that anger you and then five ideas that you feel passionate about. These are potential themes that your stories could explore. Write down these 10 themes in a journal or notebook that you keep just for writing.

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

Tags: allegory, literature of ideas, theme

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