Bump in the Night - Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Last week, Paul L. posted a comment asking how I do research for technological aspects of science fiction writing. I follow pretty much the same procedure as I would if I were preparing to write a paper: find reputable sources (websites or books), try to make sure that I understand the basics of the topic, and use that knowledge to explore the potential consequences of evolving technology. Most of my science fiction stories focus on biological and medical sciences, where scientific journals like Nature (accessible online at nature.com) and topic-specific non-profit organizations (such as the Society for Neuroscience) can provide a wealth of information. I imagine that similar resources exist for other topics, like robotics. If you are really serious about the technological details of a story, many professors at major universities have websites with e-mail addresses that you can use to ask them questions. I have never done this myself, but if you are courteous and express an interest in their field, most scientists would probably be eager to help.

If all of this seems overwhelming, don’t despair. Not every science fiction story requires such in-depth preliminary research. If you are writing a story about a boy and the space duck he keeps in his garage, all you will have to do is make sure that the duck’s home planet would (theoretically) be capable of sustaining life. And once you step into fantasy territory, internal cohesion matters more than scientific plausibility.

But if you are writing a story that depends on a complex technological topic, please do at least a little investigation. Otherwise, readers’ suspension of disbelief will break rather quickly, and they will focus on your poor understanding of the science instead of enjoying the narrative. Or, worse, they might believe your faulty science, which could potentially hurt scientists and the people whose lives they work to improve. Imagine what would happen if you wrote a bestseller where, for example, common vaccines turned people into flesh eating zombies, and this led to a drop in vaccination for preventable childhood diseases. While this scenario may be a bit farfetched, it illustrates the danger of “writing blind” in a genre where the “science” is often at least as important as the “fiction.”

Multiple sentient species are as common in science fiction and fantasy as magic and monsters. Managing the dynamic between species and races can be difficult, especially when your characters come from ruling or maligned groups, but creating consistency and subtlety in their interactions is rewarding for both you, the writer, and your future readers. As with almost anything else in sci-fi/fantasy, valuable lessons can be drawn from observations of how different human cultures and animal species interact in the real world. In biology, relationships between organisms are organized into three categories – mutualistic, parasitic, and commensal – which can also be applied to the dynamics of interspecies relations a fictional universe.

Mutualistic: As the name suggests, a mutualistic relationship is one that benefits both parties, races, or species in some way. This kind of relationship usually arises when two groups have similar goals and work cooperatively to reach them (like the humans, elves, and dwarves in Lord of the Rings), or when one group provides a service to another in exchange for resources, security, or companionship (as is usually the case with animal familiars of witches and wizards). One of the most interesting story ideas anyone has ever shared with me involved different species with magical powers that were only effective at certain times of the day or year – members of these species would have to join together in teams to learn how to capitalize on each other’s strengths and minimize individual weaknesses. Sometimes interesting conflicts and plot lines can evolve from situations where races or species that normally act parasitically towards one another (or ignore each other completely) are forced to work together in the face of a common threat or obstacle. Most of my main protagonists, for example, come from different cultures that have traditionally feared or envied one another. This mirrors the real-life interactions between people of different cultures and races who have had to work together throughout history to achieve their objectives (like the abolitionists and women’s rights advocates of the 19th century).

Parasitic: A parasitic relationship exists when one group actively harms another group for its own benefit. Though parasitic relationships are often somewhat cliché in sci-fi/fantasy (think “the evil overlord and his minions”), they don’t have to be. One situation that I have always found intriguing is when a species or group regrets the necessity of a parasitic relationship with another group – like the magician who has to draw the lifeforce out of his friends to save the world or vampires who are tormented about drinking human blood but cannot survive without it. Antiheros and reformed antagonists often have a parasitic element to their nature – it can manifest itself in their use of black magic, for example – that they must actively fight.

Commensal: In this kind of relationship, one species derives a benefit from others without actively harming them. Neutral relationships can also be placed in this category. When writing your story, keep in mind that many species from different planets or a pre-industrial world may not interact much (or might never meet at all!). Culture shock and rapid technological development following a “close encounter” between species or nations and associated benefits and challenges can serve as a good catalyst for the central conflict in a story. Imagine what would have happened if the Huns had had 20th century weapons or the puritans had encountered a Neanderthal!

Any work of fiction can incorporate these three types of relationships (and variations thereof), but the added complexities of light/dark magic, multiple species with different innate characteristics, and a varied array of environments and technology allow sci-fi/fantasy writers to take them to new levels of complexity. Conversely, we can learn a lot about how to improve race and culture relations in the real world by studying successful examples in speculative literature.

One more thing – if you have specific suggestions or requests for topics that you would like to see featured on this blog, please speak up in the comments section! I will do my best to write about the topics that interest you most (but it may take a couple of weeks, since I generally plan out my ideas for posts before I write them).

Art and science fiction (or even fantasy) writing are not often mentioned in the same sentence, which is a shame. Even medieval monks knew that when stories and pictures are combined, they can become something magical, intriguing, and alive. Today I am going to explore some of the most famous combinations of art and science fiction or fantasy, and suggest ways that you artist-writers out there (I know I’m not the only one!) can combine your passions.

To me, one of the most successful fusions of sci-fi/fantasy and art is the young adult novel Abarat by Clive Barker. While Barker’s story of an ordinary Minnesota girl transported to a world of 25 islands (Hours) stuck in time is quite stimulating, it is his colorful, surrealist oil paintings that make it remarkable. According to his website (thebooksofabarat.com), Barker spent four years on over 300 paintings before ever putting pencil to paper, more than 100 of which can be found in Abarat (which is the first book of a series). He was inspired by imagery in non-traditional formats, including the French Canadian Cirque de Soleil circus. That means that if you want to follow in his footsteps, you have to keep an eye open for intriguing images wherever you go, and be prepared to draw or paint without knowing all the details of a world beforehand.

Another illustrator of sci-fi/fantasy that I have always admired is Mary GrandPré, the artist behind the pictures in the Harry Potter books. According to an article by Scholastic, (http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=5825), she has been drawing when she was five, and though she began by copying the works of others, she quickly learned that the most effective method was to draw the familiar, everyday things around her (in fact, she used herself as a starting point for the novels’ illustrations of Harry!) “’That’s what I tell kids to do,’ GrandPré said. ‘I tell them to draw what’s around them, and keep little notebooks and sketches. Draw whatever you see. It doesn’t have to be anything big or beautiful.’” She also advises young illustrators to be free in what they draw and enjoy the process – it is not as much fun if you’re following someone else’s vision, especially when you are drawing sci-fi/fantasy, which is supposed to center around your own imagination.

This week, create a drawing or a short piece of writing (whichever appeals to you most as a starting point). Then translate it across materials – describe your illustration in a story or paint or draw a scene from your writing.

Two weeks ago, I posted a list of what I thought were the ten most important rules governing magic in fantasy. When I wrote them, I was well aware that they (as any “top ten” list) might spark some debate – and I’m glad I was right. Here are some of the problems you identified and how I would address them:

You can’t take the magic out of most fantasy stories and expect to be left with the same story. I agree completely, and I wasn’t meaning to imply that magic should be inserted into a plot as an “after thought” to make it more interesting. Rule #1 was more than anything a reaction to the stories I have read where the plot was completely devoid of reality – characters were inconsistent, events jumped around and did not follow logically from one another, massive hurdles were overcome in a matter of minutes – and the author relied on deux ex machina conventions of magic to hold things together. If you removed the magic from, say, Sabriel, you wouldn’t have the same story, but you would still have a logical plot arch: girl is disrupted from peaceful life by disaster, girl must develop dormant talents to challenge seemingly impossible odds, girl discovers new, exciting places and makes new friends, girl finds a way to defeat evil, etc. Now, I would be very interested in reading a story where magic is integral to this kind of very basic story structure – the harder a rule is to break (and I agree that many of my original rules allow plenty of room for exceptions), the more interesting the story when it is broken successfully.

Protagonists or antagonists can go without magic as long as they have something equally powerful at their disposal. Agreed, but going back to my previous point, some authors make magic so powerful that there is nothing else in their fantasy world that can logically counter it. I personally believe that magic in every fantasy story should involve a price or weakness that characters can exploit, but be careful of writing yourself into a corner where a character just “happens” to discover this weakness without it being hinted at previously.

Magic does not always have to be morally neutral. This rule sprang from a personal philosophical preference more than anything else. Nothing in the real world is absolutely good or evil. Even things like (to take an extreme example) illicit drugs can be used in some cases to treat medical illnesses, and sweetness can be cloying if you get too much of it at once. So what is a moral absolute, really? By making magic purely good or evil, you are destroying this nuance. There are some interesting moral implications in a story where magic only corrupts and people still choose to use it, but in my opinion it is far more interesting when magic causes both ill and good effects (for example, a character must kill an innocent to save their companion through magic).

Any rule can be broken for the better with enough creativity. This week, write a story that violates one or more of my original rules.

Magic is ubiquitous in fantasy – much like advanced technology in science fiction – and for good reason. Spells and potions can add intrigue and complexity to an otherwise everyday narrative. When they are used improperly, however, they can destroy reader credibility, erase drama and suspense, and punch holes in your plot. Want to wield magic like a pro? Masterful sorcery begins with these ten simple rules (most apply to technology too, sci-fi writers):

10. When the good guys have magic, the antagonists must have it, too. Conflicts are not exciting if they are one-sided or if the outcome already seems determined. Whatever skills you give to your protagonists must therefore be countered by equal (if different) abilities in your villains.

9. Magic, like any other force of nature, must follow consistent rules. Decide how magic operates in your world, including its limitations, before you start writing. Every violation will be just as startling to your readers as a sudden inversion of the laws of gravity in realistic fiction.

8. Magic takes practice. Could you ride a bike or do calculus perfectly the first time you tried? Probably not. The same is true of magic – to do it well takes practice, and the first few attempts will most likely end in disaster for your characters.

7. Magical skills should not appear all of the sudden, just when a character needs them. The technical term for this is “deus ex machina,” or “God from a machine,” and it is among the worst violations of rules eight and nine. If you find yourself breaking this rule, you must go back and at least hint at where such abilities might have come from.

6. Magic must come from somewhere, even if its origins are unknown to the characters. In Harry Potter magic was inherited, in some stories it comes from Gods or aliens or another dimension or natural materials (similar to radioactivity), but it should never just exist without any explanation (even if you don’t include that explanation in the actual narrative).

5. Magic is not inherently good or evil. This is perhaps the most contended of these ten rules (the idea of “black” or “white” magic is fairly common, after all), and the one for which there is the greatest possibility of acceptable exception. BUT in most cases, it should be the nature of your characters that determines whether their magic is “good” or “evil,” not some property of the magic itself (or magic should run a spectrum from good to evil that all characters can access).

4. Every spell comes with a price. If your characters fought hand to hand, you would not expect them to escape without (at least) a few bruises. The same must be true for magic, whether those “bruises” manifest themselves as physical exhaustion, emotional corruption, or unintended consequences.

3. Magic should never make a character invincible. The easiest way to draw all of the suspense out of your story in a second is to violate this rule. Now, you can make a character close to invincible (e.g. Dr. Manhattan), as long as you factor in all the mental and physical implications that brings.

2. If a scene or story line would read better without magic – if it would be clearer, cleaner, or more interesting – take the magic out. And:

1. The story must still work if you remove every trace of magic from the plot. These two points really go together. Magic should never be more than the “spice” of a story on the “meat” of things like plot, setting, action, character, and moral dilemmas. When so many fantasy stories have magic, it takes more than a pinch of fairy dust to make yours stand out.

Happy writing!

In sci-fi/fantasy as in real life, the highest passions of humanity (or any other race) are concentrated in love, politics, and warfare. Few things can excite a reader more than a tactically skillful, hard fought battle between the forces of good and evil. While I am no expert on military strategy, I can give you a few insights on how to write an effective large scale battle from my experiences as a writer and a reader. If there is anything that irks you about mainstream sci-fi/fantasy battles or that you’ve found helpful in your own fighting exploits, please leave a comment!

Tactics
The range of military tactics that have been used throughout history is nearly endless, so I will stick to the basics. In most large-scale battles, the goal is not (as it is usually portrayed in fantasy) to obliterate your enemy; rather, it is to starve, frustrate, evade, or spook him into submission. There is no need to have your protagonist’s army march in a frontal assault against the Dark Guard when an ambush or siege would do just as well with a much lower casualty rate. Now, granted, a month-long wait at the antagonist’s citadel is not nearly as dramatic as the forces of light and dark clashing across a sun-kissed field, but if you are determined to portray a traditional battle in your writing, be prepared to deal with some traditional unpleasantness. Depending on how technologically advanced your characters are, hundreds, thousands, or possibly even more will die. At least half of the dead will be allied with your protagonist, including major or sympathetic characters (spare them and risk breaking your reader’s suspension of disbelief). Your heroes will witness things that sicken them and permanently change them in ways that are not always entirely desirable….

Weapons
Most of the confusion involving weapons in sci-fi/fantasy can be resolved through common sense. Arrows fired into the heart of a raging battle cannot distinguish between friend and foe; this is why the archers of opposing armies traditionally fired at one another before a battle began in earnest. Cannons and catapults, while useful, cannot be reloaded very quickly and are prone to breaking. Guns, if modeled on those in use before the 19th century, are notoriously inaccurate. It is extremely difficult to (squeamish readers skip this part!) cut someone’s head, limb, or mount’s head or limb off in a single blow. In medieval executions, it sometimes took three or four attempts to achieve this end - and that was without all of the confusion of a battlefield.

Contrasts
No matter how ugly or dirty the fighting becomes, it should always be clear which army represents Good (your protagonist’s!). This is trickier in practice than it sounds in principle. Your protagonist’s army must fight valiantly to win the respect of your reader, but it must also fight fairly and mercifully to gain his or her sympathy. If possible, your protagonist should never kill innocents or civilians in battle (even if that stretches believability). He or she should feel some remorse after killing enemy soldiers, especially during his or her first battle.

This week, write a short battle scene that incorporates fantastic elements while maintaining a basis in military reality. Have fun!

As much as we might enjoy reading about “happy little elves,” conflict and battle are fundamental to science fiction and fantasy, and have been since their inception in mythology (if anyone here has read Beowulf, you’ll know what I mean). But writing battle scenes does not always come naturally to those of us who have spent our lives wielding a pen instead of a sword. Like the rehearsal of a well choreographed dance, timing, physical movement, and mental reactions are all crucial to an exciting and believable battle scene. Today’s post will discuss how these elements come into play in small or one-on-one skirmishes. Next week, we will explore specific considerations for major battles between larger groups.

Timing
Successful battle scenes are those that keep the reader in suspense. Readers should feel as breathless as the characters themselves as they wait for an enemy to strike or desperately parry an attack. If the tension drops for a prolonged period of time, the feeling of danger will dissipate and your reader will lose interest. This is where pacing comes in. Everything in a fight should move quickly, hovering on the edge of moving too fast for the reader to follow. Sentences should be short and to the point. Elaborate description should be omitted whenever possible in favor of quick sketches of characters’ (often jumbled) impressions and sensations. Moments of stillness can be very effective in a fight scene, but only if the emotional tension is maintained - through anxiety at waiting for a hidden enemy to strike again, pain at discovering a fresh wound, fear for the safety of companions, etc. Always include an element of the unexpected to keep your characters (and your reader) a little off balance; rarely should a protagonist feel completely in control during a fight.

Movement
Experience, size, and physical and mental conditions (both temporary and permanent) all affect how a character moves in battle. As anyone who has ever studied a Martial Art knows, it is much more difficult to coordinate your hands, feet, and intentions than it looks. Inexperienced fighters (as many sci-fi/fantasy protagonists are) move slowly and clumsily, and are almost as likely to trip over themselves as they are to hit their aggressor. Swords and other weapons, while not nearly as heavy in reality as those depicted in some fantasy novels, are cumbersome and awkward to wield unless you have trained for many months or years to master them. Physical size also plays a role in movement and balance. Thanks to the law of inertia, larger people cannot move from rest or change direction as fast as those who are smaller. The same is true for weapons - there’s no such thing as a quick swipe with a broadsword without magical intervention. And if your character has any extra appendages, like wings or a tail, you will need to think about how they will help or hinder his or her balance and agility. Finally, keep in mind that some conditions and circumstances - like having traveled miles on horseback or not eaten for three days or even fighting in the darkness - will change how well your character can react and retaliate.

Thought
In battle (and elsewhere), characters’ thoughts should mirror the pace of the scene. That means they should probably be fast, panicked, and not entirely coherent. It’s okay (and often even expected) for your character’s thoughts and actions to be irrational during a battle, as long as he or she remains relatively focused on the immediate danger and strategies for surviving it. Any conversations between characters should likewise be basic and concise - no blocks of dialogue! Long, contemplative moral discussions can come later.

In an age when global warming and terrorist threats are so common as to become mundane, it is not surprising that we are increasingly obsessed with disasters. They permeate our science-fiction writing and films: from 2004’s “The Day After Tomorrow” (global warming triggers a massive ice age - how’s that for irony?) to this year’s “The Happening” and beyond. If you want to construct your own “perfect storm,” here are a few basics you should know.

Creating the Perfect Storm

Whether you’re dealing with fire or water, neurotoxins or bacteria, a balance between realism and the fantastic is the key to creating a captivating disaster. A perfect storm can be large or small, localized or world-wide, but it should be (or at least feel) possible - a disaster caused by, say, mass hypnosis by pets given superpowers through catnip would be dismissed by an audience as nonsense or even comedy. At the same time, your disaster should not be predictable. A hurricane by itself is not interesting enough to capture reader or viewer attention because they will already know what to expect. Suspense is crucial.

Information about the exact nature of the disaster should be dispensed conservatively, giving the audience enough to keep them interested and allow them to follow the story without taking away their uncertainty about what will happen next. It’s fine for things to become increasingly dire for the characters in the middle of the disaster (as that category 1 hurricane becomes the size of the continental United States), but they should never be so bad that escape seems impossible. Audiences want your characters to survive because they can picture themselves and their friends in the same situation. They will be unlikely to fully engage with characters they see as “doomed” (this is one of the reasons why having your main character die at the beginning of a novel or film and then doing a flashback of the circumstances that killed them is generally unwise). And speaking of characters…

Disasters: the Human Side

People react very predictably in disasters, yet these reactions are often portrayed inaccurately in movies and books. Most experts agree that men and women in the middle of disasters go through three distinct phases in what is referred to as the “survival arc”: denial, deliberation, and the decisive moment.

In the denial phase, people’s reactions slow. They try to continue with their routines and may show an unusual dedication to procedure as they attempt to cling to normalcy. People in a crashed airplane, for example, may try to find and carry off their stowed luggage. Most of the time, victims remain calm. The riot scenes that are a common fixture of disaster movies and books are unlikely to occur. When fear kicks in, people proceed to the deliberation phase. This is when many of them will begin to panic. Surges of adrenaline can make simple tasks like buckling a life jacket more difficult. Tunnel vision leads to increased focus on details over the “whole picture,” and people may lose their ability to reason. Finally, they reach the decisive moment. Victims of a disaster often become immobilized during this phase - conscious, but paralyzed and unable to move or react. Those who are more self-confident or independent are more likely to be able to make decisions that will increase their odds of survival.

To learn more about the human side of disasters, visit this link. Then rent “Airplane!,” my favorite (spoof of a) disaster movie.

No matter how high its mountain ranges or how vast its deserts, any world bereft of unique, living creatures will be of little interest to a reader. As a writer, the task of imagining legions of distinctive beasts can seem intimidating - but it doesn’t have to be. If you think about the process of creation like a puzzle instead of a divine act, it can become one of the most engaging and enjoyable parts of crafting a story. Below are three simple techniques that I have turned to many times when the wilds of my mind (ha!) refused to reveal the creatures lurking within.

Fusion
Creatures born from the fusion technique are so common that we have a special name for them: chimeras. The theory behind creating a chimera is straightforward - take two (or more) animals that already exist, and combine them to create something new altogether. This is one situation where you may want to play with extremes: fusing an ant and an anteater, for example, or a fish and a bird. The most interesting chimera that I have ever heard about is a plant with a flesh-eating sheep (yes, you read that correctly) where it would normally have a flower. Just to give you two more examples, the first chimera was a composite of a lion, goat, and serpent in Greek mythology, and the most famous is the sphinx, a half-woman, half-lion monster with a penchant for riddles.

Division
The opposite of fusion is, of course, the minimalist approach of division. Take an element of a living creature - a wing or an eye, perhaps - and find a way to make it stand on its own. Though less prolific than chimeras, beasts that originate from the division method can be more terrifying (floating skulls), humorous (a giant nose), or bizarre (a walking tongue??) than their composite cousins.

Evolution
This technique is the most complicated of the three, but it is also the one that can lead to the most intuitive creatures for the world they inhabit. Think of any animal - right now, my puppy is biting my feet, so let’s go with that - and place it in an unfamiliar environment. How would a puppy need to change in order to survive 5,000 feet under the sea? Would it turn dark blue to blend in with its surroundings, sprout gills or fins from its tail, or even become luminescent? What adaptations would that same puppy need to survive in the desert?

Have fun imagining the most outlandish creature you can (using one of these techniques or your own methods) and post it as a comment!

The treatment of most villains in fantasy and science-fiction - both by the author and the protagonists - is almost enough to make you feel sorry for this maligned, neglected group of lads and lasses. Here are the three of the worst grievances reported by those who have found themselves on the dark side of the Force.

Villains are People, Too
Cardboard is not frightening or provocative - and neither are two-dimensional antagonists. Just as you would take the time to meticulously plot a back-story for your hero in shining armor, so too should you consider your villain’s roots and influences and how they effect his or her actions. Every realistic villain has at least one soft spot, from the goofy (teddy bears and chocolate) to the poignant (affection for a living or dead relative). When they are not plotting nefarious schemes, your villains probably like to watch movies, play with their pets, and read books (that are not about the 101 most effective methods of medieval torture) as much as the next person.

Dark Motivations
One of the gravest mistakes an author can make is to omit a believable motivation for their primary villain. Despite B-movie indications to the contrary, no one is simply and unequivocally evil (or unequivocally good). Everyone thinks in shades of gray. Most people who commit immoral deeds believe that they are doing the right thing, at least initially. The difference between right and wrong often depends on your perspective. And no one risks time, money, and lives to do something just “because.” A trigger for your villain’s actions must exist in their past or present fears and desires.

The Evil Intelligence Paradox
All too often, I have read novels where the villain is intelligent enough to put together an army and a master plan that thwarts everyone but the protagonists, only to make ridiculous mistakes at the last minute. The final-showdown-monologue is one potent example - if you have your enemy in your grasp, don’t gloat for twenty pages, just kill them already!

Here is an exercise to help you develop empathy for your villains and make your story more effective in the process: rewrite a scene from the point of view of your antagonist, and do everything you can (while still maintaining the basic storyline) to make the reader sympathize with him or her. And if you have the opportunity, I highly recommend reading Wicked, by Gregory Maguire.