The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction

by Philip Athans

  As you’re writing, you’ll find yourself constantly circling back to that why question. Never shrug that off. If it drags your writing to a complete stop, good. Stop. Think. Support your characters and get started again, even if it means a radical left turn in what you thought your story was going to be. There is no story compelling enough to support unmotivated characters.

  He’s the second son of a noble family from the fringes of the empire who’s forced into the priesthood of a faith he doesn’t believe in, because his creepy uncle is a high priest. He plans to escape the church, and may have to bring down both his uncle and his father to do it, because he really wanted to stay home and marry a pretty farm girl he’s been in love with his whole life. Sounds like a plan that could be tragically interrupted, but one we can sympathize with.

  Suppose our alien woman swore to her father on his deathbed that she would save their species, a grand culture spanning hundreds of star systems with a million years of cultural and technological achievements the galaxy would suffer greatly to lose. Well, we’d all like to think of ourselves as heroic enough to fight against all odds for the survival of our species, and that’s certainly a worthy goal for any science fiction character. But providing some kind of personal hook will make your character come alive not just as the last of a once-great culture but as a person. That deathbed promise to her father, or a heartfelt profession of undying love from our reluctant priest, tells us why she or he is personally involved in the story, even while serving a greater good.

  5–6. How will he do it? and What’s at stake? are two questions that drive the entire plot of your story. But what he thinks is going to happen, or what he wants to happen, will change as he starts to bump into other characters and situations. There’s an old saying in the military that “no plan survives contact with the enemy.” That’s the root of storytelling. But if you don’t start with a “plan,” it’ll be hard for your readers to know when it’s gone off the rails. And if you haven’t clearly defined what’s at stake, your readers will never know why the fact that it’s gone off the rails is so bad.

  He’s the second son of a noble family from the fringes of the empire who’s forced into the priesthood of a faith he doesn’t believe in, because his creepy uncle is a high priest. He plans to escape the church because he really wanted to stay home and marry a pretty farm girl he’s been in love with his whole life. But the only way he can think of to escape the church is to aid the invading forces of a rival faith, who will grant him his freedom when the fortress-like temple is sacked. But the rivals insist on burning his uncle at the stake, and his father is only in the position he’s in because of the support of the temple, so when the temple falls, his father will lose his clanhold. Can he use the rival faith to help him escape the temple without wiping it off the map and destroying his generally well-meaning father? Can he “have his cake and eat it too?”

  Here we have the hero’s plan—escape from the temple and marry his sweetheart—bumping into the villain’s plan: wipe out the temple. Now we have a hero who wants to achieve his own goals but isn’t willing to do that at all cost. He’s in a tough spot, and tough spots make compelling stories.

  She’s an alien disguised as a human woman, a stranger from a distant planet, wandering lost in a human moon settlement, who fears she may be the last of her species to survive the Black Hole Wars. But the computer implanted in her brain provides the genetic coding to repopulate her homeworld. She’s come to the moon to find a rare element that will guarantee the success of the mass cloning, an element the moon colony was built to protect. In order to save her species and make good on a promise she made to her dying father, she worms her way into the colony’s security forces, and eventually sneaks down into the lunar vaults to retrieve the rare element. She then realizes that the process of mass cloning requires the organic molecules in the human colonists’ own bodies. It’ll work, but it will kill everyone in the colony in the process. Is she really ready to do that? Especially since she started to feel something for the colony administrator—could it be love?

  Here too the goals of the heroine will inflict unnecessary pain on innocents should she succeed, but I’ve added a second, unplanned complication: she meant to use the colony administrator but has found herself falling in love with him. And in this example we haven’t even met a villain yet.

  MORE QUESTIONS

  In reality, creating characters is a long and involved process in which you will gather information by starting with these simple questions and asking many more. Likely you’ll end up with pages and pages of notes on each of your main characters. Here are some additional questions I have about the alien disguised as a woman:

  Is she really prepared to sacrifice ten thousand human lives to save her dead race?

  Was it even a bad thing that they went extinct in the first place?

  Were they leaders of goodly nature, or monsters who ravaged the galaxy?

  How long has it been since she’s spoken with another of her kind?

  Did the Black Hole Wars take place a year ago, or a thousand years ago?

  Should she simply ask the colonists for help?

  Would they help her, or be horrified by the revelation that she’s actually an alien and immediately betray her to the xenophobic security forces?

  Every question you ask about a character begets at least one more. Ask those questions, answer them in as many ways as you can think of, toss out the answers you don’t like, and start asking follow-up questions to the answers you do like. Keep doing that, over and over and over again, until you’ve found your cast of characters.

  And when do you know you have that cast in place? You may always have more questions to ask, but when you can’t think of any more, start writing.

  But which character do you start asking questions about first?

  CHAPTER 10

  START WITH THE VILLAIN

  “There’s a moment in James Enge’s wonderful Blood of Ambrose,” editor Lou Anders recalls, “where the villain, Lord Urdhven, the Protector, who has murdered his sister and brother-in-law for power, is actually quite heroic, and the novel takes time to reflect that in actuality, probably a great many perfectly good rulers came into power in less than honorable ways.”

  In Chapter 6, I offered a diagram that showed the villain’s A-B line, and we discussed how a story begins to take on some life once that line intersects with the hero’s A-B line. It’s not at all uncommon, especially in traditional fantasy, for the villain to drive the plot forward. Heroes, time and again, begin as simple folk, or young people wanting little from life but love, stability, and the pursuit of happiness. That certainly describes Tolkien’s Bilbo Baggins, Frank Herbert’s Paul Atreides … any number of reluctant heroes. But the villain almost never has that luxury.

  Mysteries usually begin with a murder, and the detective (hero) comes in only after the heinous act has been committed—by the villain. Fantasy and science fiction are hardly different, though the circumstances of what Hollywood formula-mongers would call the “inciting incident” are a touch more imaginative. Having a compelling, intimidating (or unpredictable, or scary, or … ?), three-dimensional villain is vital to the success of your story.

  Though he’s more than a little reluctant to enter into the distinction between hero and villain, novelist J. M McDermott describes villains as people “who abuse others for their own self-interest. It’s a symbol of their fundamental disconnection from the love that drives human society.”

  IT’S ALL ABOUT MOTIVATION

  If the villain plans to murder the Chosen of Jubilé because there is no clear successor and the Church of the Revealed Truth will descend into anarchy, allowing his own Cult of the Blue Oyster to move in and fill the role of First Religion of the Empire, we need to know why, so ask questions. Is he an evil genius, bent on world domination? (Please, tell me you’re not going to try to rest on that old chestnut.) Is he still bitter about having been cast out of the Church of the Revealed Truth wh
en he discovered that the eighth of the Fourteen Revelations was stolen from the Twentyfold Writings of Frogam, a heretical religion the Church of the Revered Truth once led a crusade against? Now you’re talking. His methods (murder) may make him a villain, but his history (the revelation of religious hypocrisy) makes him a murderer we can understand.

  “Giving a villain at least one redeeming quality can add a lot of depth to the story,” advises author Jess Lebow. “If the reader can relate to him, even on a small level, then you have more tools with which to create an emotional experience.”

  On that same note, Paul S. Kemp endeavors “to set up a situation where the villain has a desire, a reasonable one, that puts him/her in conflict with the hero.”

  So think about where the villain came from and why he’s doing what he’s doing, but think carefully. A villain can be weakened beyond repair if you spend too much of your creative energy trying to make his motivations sympathetic. Continuing our example, if it turns out that the Church of the Revealed Truth is really a corrupt cabal of politicians-in-clerical-garb, their religion based on a lie, then the villain’s efforts to tear them down actually makes him a hero—assuming his Cult of the Blue Oyster isn’t even worse.

  Again, look to historical figures, myth and legend, current events, or your own life for inspiration. Adolph Hitler was without doubt a villain, and one whose actions (coming to power through intimidation and assassination in the first place, invading Poland, establishing the death camps) intersected with the A-B line of the rest of the world and resulted in World War II. But at some point he was just baby Adolph—an infant, a clean slate. This is where we start asking questions: What happened that made him murderously anti-Semitic? What gave him the arrogance to think that his every whim could suffice as the law of the land? It’s possible to make Adolph Hitler into a plausible villain when you take into account his experiences as a soldier on the losing side of World War I, his life as a failed artist during the crippling depression that followed, and the endemic anti-Semitism of 1920s Germany, but none of that excuses the period of grotesque genocide, stifling fascism, and brutal imperialism that he eventually engineered. At some point, Adolph Hitler chose to do the wrong thing. He made himself a villain.

  Let’s get back to the example of the Church of the Revealed Truth. Maybe no one now in the service of the church had anything to do with this plagiarism, which was perpetrated centuries ago, and the church is in fact the greatest stabilizing influence our otherwise chaotic fantasy world has ever experienced. The Chosen of Jubilé is an utterly altruistic heroine, a tireless champion of the common people, and if one little story in the ages-old scripture of her faith turns out to agree with a fraction of the heretical writings of a mad prophet, it won’t erase the positive influence the rest has had on the world. At the same time, the villain’s cult represents the darkest component of the human psyche, and fueled by the villain’s overwhelming bitterness, it has resurrected human sacrifice and demon worship. Now we get why he’s doing it, but we’d rather he didn’t.

  And that’s the definition of a well-crafted villain: someone whose motivations we understand but whose methods we find abhorrent.

  CHAPTER 11

  NURTURE YOUR HEROES

  If a villain is someone whose motivations we understand but whose methods we find abhorrent, a hero is someone whose motivations we understand and whose methods we find inspirational. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes, from Dorothy, the timid, reluctant protagonist from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to the hyper-capable, resolute, and incorruptible Superman. It might be a tough row to hoe, creating Superman in the twenty-first century. Audiences are more sophisticated now—or are they?

  What’s so sophisticated about Harry Potter? He’s a nice kid trying to find his way in a strange new environment, but he’s far from edgy. One of the fantasy genre’s most popular characters is R. A. Salvatore’s dark elf Drizzt Do’Urden. Drizzt has a dark side and a tragic back-story that Harry Potter might lack, but still he’s a good man—well, elf—trying to do the right thing in a chaotic world that doesn’t always accept him for who he is.

  You might find yourself pressured—by yourself if not from some other source—to reject the “hero” in full. All sorts of people, from bloggers to fellow fantasy fans, will tell you that the era of “simplistic” or “unsophisticated” heroic fantasy is over, and that the antihero, the dark, brooding, shadowy “Dark Knight” archetype is not only the big new trend but the only acceptable approach for fantasy or science fiction in the twenty-first century.

  Okay, but then the 2008 Drizzt novel, The Pirate King, debuted at number three on the New York Times hardcover fiction bestsellers list, and Harry Potter made J. K. Rowling the most successful novelist of all time—rocketing past Stephen King like nothing the publishing industry has ever seen.

  The hero is dead, long live the hero.

  A COMPELLING PROTAGONIST

  I fully support the hero, but I’m not advising that you create two-dimensional anythings, much less heroes. What we have to ask ourselves is: What makes a compelling hero?

  Author Mike Resnick, who was named by Locus magazine as the all-time leading award winner, living or dead, for short fiction, doesn’t think there’s any one thing that defines a character as a hero. However, Resnick notes, “There is one thing that makes him a boring hero: no flaws. You start by making him as real (as opposed to heroic) within the context of the plot and setting, as you can. And you try to remember that if your Protagonist, a word I much prefer to Hero, doesn’t have doubts and fears and misgivings to overcome, it’s a lot less heroic to face an enemy of any type or proportion.”

  Indeed, but the advice from the previous section to avoid weakening villains applies here, too. Heroes must have flaws, but they must not be overwhelmed by them. They have to overcome those flaws as the story progresses. It’s a popular adage that courage is the ability to work through your fears, not to be fearless, and a hero should be courageous in that manner. If Bilbo Baggins wasn’t afraid of the dragon Smaug, how boring would The Hobbit have been? Another enduring hero, Spider-Man, is riddled with insecurities, deals with the tragic death of his uncle, and mourns the parents who died before we ever met him. He has financial woes, girlfriend troubles, and a nasty boss, but he still manages to do the right thing.

  “Everyone comes from somewhere,” editor Lou Anders cautions. “Everyone is defined by their relationships, their background, their history, their idiosyncrasies, their compromises, their wounds, their victories. Everyone married knows that you don’t just marry your spouse, you marry their family as well, and in the same way, the lone hero who comes from nowhere, has no past, has no associations, has no quirks beyond being ‘heroic’ is as flat as a pancake.”

  Spider-Man comes from a working-class neighborhood in Queens and carries that background with him on his adventures. Similarly, Drizzt Do’Urden has a troubled past that colors his relationship with everyone he meets. His mother tried to sacrifice him to the Spider Queen, and his sisters were, well, let’s say, “less than nurturing.” Where do these back-stories come from? They come from the authors’ decision to ask and answer the same series of questions you asked and answered to create your villain.

  J. M. McDermott gave this definition of a hero: “Heroic figures, in heroic fiction, tend to put the good of others before their own good, as a symbol of the fundamental connection to the love that drives human society.”

  Let your hero be the person you wish you could be, and chances are, he’ll be the person your readers wish they could be, too.

  CHAPTER 12

  GATHER YOUR SUPPORTING CHARACTERS

  The classic science fiction short story “Life Hutch” by Harlan Ellison (his second published story) tells the tale of an astronaut named Terrence who takes cover in an automated shelter where he encounters a malfunctioning robot that will kill him if he moves a muscle. This is the only story I can think of that has no supporting characters, though even then some hostile
aliens, the Kyben, are mentioned as the reason Terrence has found himself in this sticky predicament in the first place.

  An author as talented as Harlan Ellison can pull this off, in a short story at least, but the rest of us are going to need more than two characters, especially in a novel. A story’s “supporting cast” is essential. You’ll be pleasantly surprised by how fond of minor characters you can become, and how they can grow out of those roles to take on novels or even whole series of their own.

  Drizzt Do’Urden, one of the genre’s most popular characters, was first added to The Crystal Shard as a minor character at the suggestion of R. A. Salvatore’s first editor, Mary Kirchoff. The actual hero of The Crystal Shard was a barbarian named Wulfgar. But more than twenty years later the whole series has been recast as The Legend of Drizzt, and a whole generation of fantasy fans couldn’t imagine the genre without him. This doesn’t mean you should approach supporting characters as potential heroes, looking to “better deal” your poor beleaguered hero. That happened organically with Drizzt, and it may happen again with one of your characters, but if you plan on it, all you’re really doing is rethinking your hero. If your hero doesn’t hold your interest, it’s a reasonable certainty that he won’t hold your readers’ interest either. So do that thinking before you start writing.

  In my capacity as an editor at Wizards of the Coast, I was working with bestselling author Troy Denning on his brilliant Forgotten Realms novel Faces of Deception. Midway through the first draft an ogre appeared out of nowhere and seemed to know the hero quite well. Troy attached a note to the manuscript assuring me that he would go back and add the ogre to the first half of the book in the revision. About halfway through he had realized he needed a new character. He was right, and the book is better for the addition. Like Troy, if you’re writing along and feel that someone is missing, don’t feel enslaved to an outline. Instead, explore that additional character, and don’t be put off by the work of going back and putting him into the rest of the story.