How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card Page B
Authors: Orson Scott Card
Tags: Science-Fiction, Reference, Authorship, Language Arts & Disciplines, Writing Skills, Composition & Creative Writing, Creative Writing, Fantasy Literature
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tested; something goes wrong and it looks like everybody’s going to die; then, after mighty effort,, either everybody dies (tragedy) or everybody lives (happy ending).
Under the editorship of Stanley Schmidt, this approach seems to be inexhaustible, and it is impossible to argue with Analog’s circulation figures compared to the other sf-only magazines. However, while the hard-sf audience remains loyal, the rest of the field has passed on by. The only stories to rise out of Analog and attract attention in the field at large are the ones that either don’t follow these formulas or transcend them.
What separates the best hard-sf writers from the run-of-the-mill ones is the fact that while the ordinary guys usually invent the scenery of their created world and maybe work up a good evolutionary track for the life forms there, they then resort to cliches for everything else. Characters, societies, events-all are taken straight out of everything else they’ve ever read. That’s why formulas are resorted to so often.
That’s why one of the most annoying things about Analog fiction-annoying to me, at least-is the way that most stories there show little knowledge of fundamental human systems. Writers who wouldn’t dream of embarrassing themselves with a faulty calculation of atmospheric density don’t even notice when their characterswhether scientists, government leaders, or gas station attendants; men or women; young or old - all talk and act and relate with other people like smart-mouth schoolboys.
The irony is that the prevalence of bad fiction in the hard-sf subgenre has led many to think that hard science fiction, by its nature, must be bad. Indeed, some of the great writers in the field, who first became famous during the heyday of Campbellian hard science fiction in the 1940s and 1950s, have suffered a bit of tainting by association with their supposed successors in hard sf in recent years.
What we should learn from the bad writing so common in hard-sf circles today is not that hard sf can’t be written well-we have Asimov and Clarke, Niven and Clement, Sheffield and Forward to prove otherwise-but rather that there is a tremendous opportunity in the area of hard science fiction for talented, skilled storytellers who have also mastered
enough of the hard sciences to speak to this audience. The audience does not insist on bad writing, merely on good science; if they are offered good science and good writing, they almost invariably provide such an author with a very long, secure, and well-paid career.
On the other hand, many of us who write “soft” (anthropological or sociological), literary, or adventure science fiction have made the mistake of shunning the precise sciences in our storytelling. Most of us slip the whole issue by setting all our stories on planets “very much like Earth” or on worlds that have already been fully invented by other writers. Just like the weakest of the hard-sf writers, we concentrate only on the things that interest us-social structures, elegant prose, or grand romantic adventures - and completely ignore what doesn’t. To the extent that we who are now the mainstream of science fiction ignore the hard sciences in our world creation, we are as guilty of shallowness as the hard-sf writers who pay no heed to social systems, characters, and plots.
There are some writers who have done it all at once. Larry Niven, for instance, is known as one of the great hard-sf writers-but I, for one, am of the opinion that he is a leading writer in our field because he is one of the best and clearest storytellers we’ve ever had. He works in the hard sciences to create his worlds and generate his ideas-but what makes him one of our great writers is the quality of the tales that he tells within those worlds.
Perhaps the most notable recent example of fiction that does it all is Brian Aldiss’s brilliant and ambitious Helliconia trilogy: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, and Helliconia
Under the editorship of Stanley Schmidt, this approach seems to be inexhaustible, and it is impossible to argue with Analog’s circulation figures compared to the other sf-only magazines. However, while the hard-sf audience remains loyal, the rest of the field has passed on by. The only stories to rise out of Analog and attract attention in the field at large are the ones that either don’t follow these formulas or transcend them.
What separates the best hard-sf writers from the run-of-the-mill ones is the fact that while the ordinary guys usually invent the scenery of their created world and maybe work up a good evolutionary track for the life forms there, they then resort to cliches for everything else. Characters, societies, events-all are taken straight out of everything else they’ve ever read. That’s why formulas are resorted to so often.
That’s why one of the most annoying things about Analog fiction-annoying to me, at least-is the way that most stories there show little knowledge of fundamental human systems. Writers who wouldn’t dream of embarrassing themselves with a faulty calculation of atmospheric density don’t even notice when their characterswhether scientists, government leaders, or gas station attendants; men or women; young or old - all talk and act and relate with other people like smart-mouth schoolboys.
The irony is that the prevalence of bad fiction in the hard-sf subgenre has led many to think that hard science fiction, by its nature, must be bad. Indeed, some of the great writers in the field, who first became famous during the heyday of Campbellian hard science fiction in the 1940s and 1950s, have suffered a bit of tainting by association with their supposed successors in hard sf in recent years.
What we should learn from the bad writing so common in hard-sf circles today is not that hard sf can’t be written well-we have Asimov and Clarke, Niven and Clement, Sheffield and Forward to prove otherwise-but rather that there is a tremendous opportunity in the area of hard science fiction for talented, skilled storytellers who have also mastered
enough of the hard sciences to speak to this audience. The audience does not insist on bad writing, merely on good science; if they are offered good science and good writing, they almost invariably provide such an author with a very long, secure, and well-paid career.
On the other hand, many of us who write “soft” (anthropological or sociological), literary, or adventure science fiction have made the mistake of shunning the precise sciences in our storytelling. Most of us slip the whole issue by setting all our stories on planets “very much like Earth” or on worlds that have already been fully invented by other writers. Just like the weakest of the hard-sf writers, we concentrate only on the things that interest us-social structures, elegant prose, or grand romantic adventures - and completely ignore what doesn’t. To the extent that we who are now the mainstream of science fiction ignore the hard sciences in our world creation, we are as guilty of shallowness as the hard-sf writers who pay no heed to social systems, characters, and plots.
There are some writers who have done it all at once. Larry Niven, for instance, is known as one of the great hard-sf writers-but I, for one, am of the opinion that he is a leading writer in our field because he is one of the best and clearest storytellers we’ve ever had. He works in the hard sciences to create his worlds and generate his ideas-but what makes him one of our great writers is the quality of the tales that he tells within those worlds.
Perhaps the most notable recent example of fiction that does it all is Brian Aldiss’s brilliant and ambitious Helliconia trilogy: Helliconia Spring, Helliconia Summer, and Helliconia
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