Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction
Page 551
Cyberpunk Don Riggs, Drexel University
Cyborgs Kyle William Bishop, Southern Utah University
Dark Futures and Dystopias Matthew Crom, Pacific Lutheran University
Dinosaurs in Science Fiction Tim DeForest, Ringling College of Art and Design
Disability in Science Fiction Breyen Strickler, Loras College
Donald A. Wollheim Betsy Wollheim
Fan Fiction Karen Hellekson
Gender Images in Science Twila Yates Papay, Rollins College
Fiction and Paul D. Reich, Rollins College
Germs in Science Fiction Laurel Bollinger, University of Alabama at Huntsville
Graphic Novels and Science Fiction Peter J. Ingrao, University of Texas at Dallas
Hard Science Fiction C. W. Johnson, San Diego State University
Hugo Gernsback and His Writers Richard Bleiler, University of Connecticut
Inventing the Future Mike Brotherton, University of Wyoming
James Gunn and the Center for the Study of Science Fiction Chris McKitterick, CSSF
Jim Baen Henry T. Davis with Toni Weiskopf
John W. Campbell and His Writers Zahra Jannessari Ladani, Tehran University
Lester and Judy-Lynn Del Rey Frederik Pohl
LGBT Themes in SF Wendy Gay Pearson, University of Western Ontario
Literary Agents Leigh Grossman, University of Connecticut
Literary Criticism and Science Fiction Donald M. Hassler, Kent State
The Lovecraft Circle Dennis H. Barbour, Purdue University-Calumet
Military Science Fiction James D. Macdonald
The New Wave Darren Harris-Fain, Shawnee State
News Magazines of the Science Fiction Field Ian Randal Strock
Nineteenth-Century Science Fiction Monique R. Morgan, McGill University
On the Baroque in Science Fiction Thomas F. Bertonneau, SUNY Oswego
The Origins of Science Fiction Jennifer A. Rea, University of Florida
Postcolonial Science Fiction Ericka Hoagland, Stephen F. Austin
Religion and Science Fiction James F. McGrath, Butler University
Robots Amerdeep Singh, Lehigh University
Russian and East European Science Fiction Sibelan Forrester, Swarthmore
Science Fiction and Anime Mark Gellis, Kettering University
Science Fiction and Environmentalism Lisa Swanstrom, Florida Atlantic University
Science Fiction and the Hidden Histories of Science Katherine Pandora, University of Oklahoma
Science Fiction Book Reviewing Tom Easton, Thomas College
Science Fiction Film: The Forbidden Genre Daniel M. Kimmel
Science Fiction and Lyric Seo-Young Jennie Chu, Poetry Queens College, CUNY
Science Fiction in Western Europe Sonja Fritzsche, Illinois Wesleyan
Science Fiction on Radio Tim DeForest, Ringling College of Art and Design
Science Fiction on Television Jim Davis, Troy University
Sixty Rules for Short SF Terry Bisson
Space Opera David Steiling, Ringling College of Art and Design
Space Travel in Science Fiction Steven Mollmann, University of Connecticut
Steampunk Burgsbee L. Hobbs, St. Leo University
Submitting a Manuscript Leigh Grossman, University of Connecticut
Survivalism Kyle William Bishop, Southern Utah University
Taboos and Dangerous Ideas in Modern Science Fiction Liberty Stanavage, SUNY Potsdam
Time Travel Ellen M. Rigsby, St. Mary’s College of California
To Tell the Tale: The Science Fiction of Death, Dying, and Grief Kathleen Fowler, Ramapo College
Utopian Science Fiction Samuel Gerald Collins, Towson
World Building Donald M. Hassler, Kent State
Writer’s Workshops Debra Doyle
Young Adult Science Fiction Carol Franko, Kansas State University
SIXTY RULES FOR SHORT SF (AND FANTASY), by Terry Bisson
A “mainstream” short story can be about anything: a mood, a character, a setting, even a flashy writing style. A genre (SF or fantasy) short story is about an idea. The fictional elements (character, plot, setting, etc) are only there to dramatize the idea.
Here are the rules for the SF (or Fantasy) short story:
1. Keep it short . It can and should be read in one sitting. That’s the first rule.
2. The novel’s timeline is folded into the reader’s real time. The short story is itself a real-time event. That gives the form a certain “Hey, you!” authority, like a fire or an arrest. Use that authority.
3. The SF reader is a gamer who brings a problem-solving intelligence to the story. This is the SF writer’s one great advantage. Use it.
4. The more extraordinary the idea, the more ordinary the language. Experimental writing is for quotidian events. James Joyce and Virginia Woolf understood this.
5. Keep your timeline simple. Flashbacks are out of place in a short story.
6. Never write in present tense. It makes events less, not more, immediate. Past tense IS present tense.
7. No dialect. Jargon is OK but only if doesn’t have to be explained.
8. One world only. Dreams are out of place in a short story.
9. Fantasies are out of place in Fantasy.
10. The stranger the idea, the realer the world must seem to be.
11. A few objects make a world, the fewer the better. William Gibson’s good at this. It’s called art direction.
12. No info dumps. The short story IS an info-dump.
13. The short story is the controlled release of information. Let the reader know from the first line who is in control.
14. Be stingy. Generosity is out of place in the short story.
15. Don’t be chatty. The novelist makes friends with the reader. The SF reader is both accomplice and adversary but never friend. Think of it as a contest in which he is pleased only if he loses.
16. Genre is a matrix of expectations. They are yours to grant, deny or delay, but you must know what they are. Don’t be writing SF if you haven’t read it.
17. One idea is enough for a story. Two is more than enough. Three is too many.
18. One POV is enough. Two is more than enough. Three is too many.
19. Watch your POV and keep it consistent. Be strict. If you relax, your reader will too.
20. The main character should be a little stupid. This flatters the reader.
21. One character should never tell another character the story. Conrad could do this but you can’t.
22. If you have more than one character, make them work at cross purposes. You can kill one if you like.
23. Too many little impediments make a story seem jiggly. One or two big ones are better.
24. A short story should cover a day or two at most. A week is stretching it.
25. One setting is best. Movement is not action.
26. Action is overrated anyway.
27. Every character has a history, but most don’t belong in the story. This is Hemingway’s rule.
28. Know who is telling the story, and why. This can be the hard part.
29. Even a story without a narrator has a narrator.
30. Polish. Short stories are like poems in that they may be read more than once. A really good short story will be read several times. Beware.
31. Polish. Your readers should fear you, a little.
32. Use your characters to release the information. This is what they’re for. Try not to have them read it in newspapers.
33. Make their dialogue do double or triple duty. Small talk in SF is like carbonation in wine. It detracts.
34. Humor is OK but only if it seems offhand. Never pause for a laugh.
35. No funny names, please.
36. No magic carpets or Once Upon a Times. A fable is not a short story. A joke is not a short story.
37. No wizards or dragons. They will make your short story seem like a part of a longer, less interesting piece.
&nb
sp; 38. Don’t meander or digress. You can pretend to meander for misdirection. See below.
39. Misdirection is interesting. SF readers like puzzles.
40. Fights are only interesting in real life. They are boring in stories.
41. Novels are made out of characters and events. Short stories are made out of words alone. They are all surface. Polish.
42. Plot is important only in time travel stories. They must have a paradox. This limits their range severely.
43. Symmetry is more important than plot. A short story must make a pleasing shape, and close with a click.
44. Sex is out of place in a short story, unless it has already happened or will happen after the story is over. See 40, fighting, above.
45. Surprises are good, but only if they appear to be planned.
46. Try to put something interesting on every page. This is Gene Wolfe’ s rule.
47. Telling can be better than showing. It all depends on who’s doing the telling.
48. Racial and sexual stereotypes are (still) default SF. Avoiding them takes more than reversals.
49. Space breaks regulate timeline. They make a story look modern but also conventional.
50. Go easy on character descriptions. Nobody cares what your characters look like. They only need to be able to tell them apart.
51. Repetition is good for symmetry but must be used carefully, like Tabasco.
52. Never write about a writer. It makes you seem needy.
53. Leave stuff out. It’s what’s left out that puts what’s left in to work.
54. Withhold as much information as possible for as long as possible. When the reader knows everything, the story is over.
55. After you finish your story, go back and cut your first paragraph. Now it is finished.
56. Imagine a reader both sympathetic and cruel. Pretend you are that reader when you edit.
57. Read your story aloud. It must run under a half an hour. This is about 4000 words. Anything longer than this and people start to fidget.
58. Don’t do voices. A dry, academic reading style is best unless you are John Crowley or Gahan Wilson.
59. Ignore these rules at your peril.
60. Peril is the SF short story writer’s accomplice, adversary, and friend.
WRITERS’ WORKSHOPS, by Debra Doyle
Writing, as the fellow said, is a lonely business.
One of the common ways that writers through the ages have worked to offset this loneliness is by banding together in workshops and critique groups. In taverns and in coffeehouses, at school and at home, writers have always gathered together to hone their craft and, not incidentally, reassure themselves that they are not alone. At the same time, young writers have always sought out the more established members of the field in the hopes of learning wisdom from them, or at least a few handy tricks of the trade.
Finding a good workshop or critique group, however, can be a difficult and confusing process, especially for a new writer who doesn’t yet know the variety of options available.
Most writers’ workshops in the science fiction and fantasy field are variations on one of two basic models: the peer-to-peer critique group (sometimes known as the “Milford model,” from the workshop by that name, which ran its sessions in that manner) and the more classroom-oriented instructor-and-students method.
In a peer-to-peer workshop, writers at an approximately equal level of skill take turns presenting their own work to the group for discussion and critique, and in return provide criticism and commentary on the works of the other members. Traditionally, the member whose work is under discussion during a workshop meeting remains silent while the other members take turns giving their comments. Only after all the critiquers have finished may the writer respond to the commentary. In an instructor-led workshop, by contrast, one or more presenters (usually writers and editors with experience in the field) give lectures and provide guidance and manuscript evaluation to the students.
The peer-to-peer workshop model can be seen as a natural outgrowth of the groups of fans and writers who since the early days of the genre have read and critiqued each others’ attempts at fiction. Over time, more formalized local groups developed, and some of those groups became quite well-known and influential.
One such notable local group is the Austin, Texas, Turkey City Workshop, started in 1973 and still ongoing. Founding members of the workshop included Lisa Tuttle and Howard Waldrop, and Bruce Sterling is a notable alumnus. The workshop is also famous for the Turkey City Lexicon, a glossary of commonly used terms for workshop critique in the science fiction and fantasy field. Like most local critique groups, Turkey City is not an open workshop; admission is by invitation and approval of the current workshoppers.
Peer-to-peer workshops meet regularly in many North American cities with an active science fiction and fantasy fan presence, but an interested writer may have to expend some effort to seek them out. Area science fiction conventions, the internet, and local fans are all possible sources of information. Since the mid-1990s, workshop groups using modified versions of the peer-to-peer critique method have also flourished on the internet; the Science Fiction Online Writing Workshop and Critters are two of the best known.
Local critique groups and internet-based workshops have the advantage of being relatively inexpensive or even free. An individual workshopper’s primary contribution is always his or her active participation in the giving and receiving of critique. However, the quality of a peer-to-peer workshop is heavily dependent upon the skill level of its participants. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that any particular workshop will be open to new members.
Science fiction and fantasy writers in search of a more formal, or a more intensely immersive, learning experience can turn to one of the field’s several annual residential workshops. These workshops can be expensive, with the price of attendance rising as high as $5000 when tuition, fees, and room and board are all factored in. However, scholarships or work-study positions are available at some workshops to offset part of the cost of attendance. Residential workshops also require that the student be able to invest as much as six weeks of time in the experience.
The idea of a retreat-like multi-day writers’ workshop became a part of general American literary culture at about the same time that science fiction became a recognizable literary genre. The same year—1926—that saw the inaugural issue of Hugo Gernsback’s pioneer science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, also saw the establishment of the prestigious mainstream Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference, still held annually in rural Middlebury, Vermont. It would be three more decades, however, before SF could have a residential workshop of its own.
The first of the US-based residential science fiction writers’ workshops was the Milford Conference, founded in 1956 by science fiction writer, editor, and critic Damon Knight and by Knight’s wife and fellow science fiction writer Kate Wilhelm. The conference took its name from its initial location in Knight and Wilhelm’s home town of Milford, Pennsylvania. The Milford conferences used the peer-to-peer workshop model, which subsequently became the prevalent workshop model in the SF and fantasy field.
The US-based Milford conference is no longer running, but in 1972, British science fiction author James Blish founded Milford UK, a residential workshop based on the US model. Attendees at the first UK Milford included Brian Aldiss John Brunner, Ken Bulmer, and Anne McCaffrey. Originally meeting in Milford on Sea in Hampshire, the workshop presently meets on an annual basis in North Wales. Milford UK draws members from Britain, Europe, America and Australia; the minimum qualification for attending is a fiction sale to a paying market.
In 1968, author Robin Scott Wilson founded the Clarion Writer’s Workshop, which was initially held on the campus of Clarion State College in Pennsylvania. The new workshop used a variation on the Milford model, with the peer-to-peer critiques being supplemented by instruction and criticism from a roster of visiting instructors. The instructors were drawn from the ranks of working wr
iters and editors, and each taught for a week at a time. This continues to be the basic format for Clarion, and for workshops closely based on the Clarion model.
Clarion is an intense six-week residential workshop with a small student body. The workshop has moved more than once over the decades since its founding, and is currently held in San Diego, California. Other workshops using the Clarion name and method are the Clarion West workshop, held in Seattle since 1971, and Clarion South, held biennially in Australia since 2002.
In 1996, science fiction and horror editor Jeanne Cavelos founded the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, held since its inception on the campus of St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. Odyssey is a six-week residential workshop on the Clarion model. It combines peer-to-peer critique with one-on-one instruction from Ms. Cavelos as the primary instructor. Other writers and editors in the genre make one-day guest lecturer appearances at the workshop.
The Odyssey workshop offers college credit upon request. It also provides an extensive and structured post-workshop experience, including critique groups, mailing lists, and a semi-annual newsletter.
In 1997, science fiction fan Rae Montor and the Martha’s Vineyard Science Fiction Association founded the Viable Paradise Writer’s Workshop, held annually in the autumn on the New England island of Martha’s Vineyard. VP runs on a heavily modified Clarion/Milford model: the length of the workshop is one week rather than six, and all eight instructors are in residence for the duration of the entire workshop. Peer-to-peer critique sessions are augmented with lectures and one-on-one meetings with instructors, as well as group discussions. Viable Paradise’s other distinguishing characteristic is a willingness to work with novels-in-progress as well as short fiction. (Clarion is explicitly a short story workshop; the guidelines for the Odyssey workshop allow for novels, but strongly suggest that short story submissions will provide for a better workshop experience.)
What kind of workshop is best? Only the individual writer can judge. Some writers may prefer the relatively low cost and regular meetings of a local peer-to-peer workshop; others may prefer the ability of an internet-based workshop to bring together critiquers who might otherwise be isolated.