10 Laws of Good Science Fiction
10. Earthmen are not all white or all men.
Subscribers to Science Fiction magazines in the 1950s were predominantly adult educated white men working as engineers or other technical jobs. White, educated men with technical backgrounds wrote SF stories. There is a strong tradition dating from the Golden Age of SF that SF protagonists are white educated males.
Today, SF readers are younger and much more diverse. SF characters need to reflect the diversity of its readership. It should be as diverse as the backgrounds of the readers, and even more so. Characters need to be all age groups from very young to very old. Ethnically they need to reflect the readership and then push the limits. Sexually, there should be reality-based characters that represent the readers’ real world.
Science Fiction should expand the worldview of its readers and expose them to much more than the normal, expected and ordinary. Nowhere is this more important than in the characters that populate SF stories.
9. No Supermen
A Science Fiction writer should never put beings into a story that are so far superior to men that we cannot understand their motives, we cannot overcome their will or we cannot meet them face to face in a fair fight. It is not interesting that there is a being out there who can simply step on us like an ant. This is one of the rules of the famous Science Fiction editor John W. Campbell, Jr.
It is quite possible that we will meet such beings, but it will not be such a good story because the aliens will destroy us, ignore us, or take us as pets.
In order for there to be interaction, or conflict, the protagonist has to have at least a chance of success. He has to out fight, out smart, out luck, or out something in order to make an interesting plot resolution. Avoiding the superman is not interesting. If you can avoid him, he may not be so super. All villains have to have a weaknesses and faults. Even the hero should have a few faults, and it helps if the pretty girl brought along by mistake has a few as well.
The hero’s cause can look hopeless, but we expect that. It is always interesting to see how someone gets out of a sticky situation, but it is no fun when the cause is without any hope.
8. No Trek or Star Wars.
Nothing can kill a story, conversation, or relationship deader than an inappropriate reference to Star Trek or Star Wars.
Star Trek and Star Wars are worlds unto themselves. They are beyond judgment and criticism. It doesn’t matter how bad any individual scene or episode is, on the whole the worst Star Trek episode is better than anything else that has ever been on television. But, don’t ever think that Star Trek and Star Wars are good Science Fiction. Rarely, they have had moments where they approach good SF, but only rarely.
Authors, please do not bring elements of ST and SW into your stories. Don’t use Phasers, teleporters, droids, Klingons, Wookies, the prime directive and especially never bring “The Force” into a story. This, of course, includes renaming things.
The technology, philosophies, plots and characters of ST, SW, Bab-5, BG, and other TV shows are so obvious and easily recognizable that these elements, no matter how well disguised, are instantly flagged as a bad imitation.
7. Science Fiction is Real.
Science Fiction is not like fantasy. Science Fiction has to plausible, realistic, possible and yes, it has to be real. Even if it hasn’t happened yet, or never happened in the past, Science Fiction has to be possible in some alternate world. Elements that make a story downright impossible make a story something other than Science Fiction.
There is a lot of leeway as to what reality includes, especially when dealing with a possible science or technology. It is important that the ideas appear to be real and do not raise obvious objections. There will always be a certain level of what Coleridge called the “willing suspension of disbelief”, but a Science Fiction story should never ask a reader to swallow something that is obviously ridiculous or patently impossible without a lot of convincing explanation.
Reality includes creating scientific principles and concepts for which there is no current basis. These scientific notions must be plausible in the sense that they act like the scientific principle which we currently are sure of, but they may not so outlandish as to negate anything we are pretty sure is true now.
Certain things so obviously lack reality that they cannot appear in a Science Fiction story. Vampires, zombies, ghosts, demons, unicorns, elves, and magic are mythical and have no scientific basis, and they are incompatible with Science Fiction. No amount of rationalization is going to make a vampire seem scientifically sound.
Religious ideas such as God, angels, devils, life after death and miracles have a kind of reality based on faith, but are not describable using the scientific method. They are perfectly acceptable as part of a society’s or character’s belief set, but under no circumstances should Jesus appear in a story as a fictional character.
One of the things that makes SF so compelling is that there is a feeling that what we read is real. It may be happening to fictional characters in a fictional situation, but the science and technology are a very real and important part of a reality that affects our lives.
6. Given Something an Alien Name Doesn’t Make it Alien.
Raktajino is coffee. By giving it a Klingon name it sort of appears alien, but everyone drinks it like coffee. It looks like coffee. It is coffee. Writers should not think that making cows into Dvigids and Horses into Pytkos that they are not writing a western. Pistols should not be a ray gun unless the difference between a pistol and a ray gun is important to the plot.
A possible future or an alien culture should not be full of aliases for things that belong in our time on earth – that’s just lazy.
A western can’t be turned into SF by changing Texas to Alderan 7. Humans can’t be transformed into aliens by changing their appearance. A murder mystery set on a space station is a murder mystery, not Science Fiction.
Damon Knight described this as “calling a rabbit a smeerp.”
5. Aliens Should be Alien
It is quite possible that in the next thousand years we will find intelligent aliens or that they will find us. It is not at all likely that they will be buxom babes with an urge to procreate with the men of Earth.
TV and Movie Scifi uses humans, usually with a strange shape of ear, a long tongue, or wearing a rubber alien suit, because it is hard to make stories about truly alien aliens. Very often aliens are not characters, but props or monsters, especially in movies, making the story not Science Fiction, but a horror movie.
It is quite possible that any alien will be humanoid with symmetric bodies, a head, arms, legs, hands, mouths and eyes that work similarly to their human equivalents. It will be unlikely that they work the same way, though. Sharks and Dolphins are similar looking, but very different creatures, so aliens may look like men in many ways.
Aliens may have two sexes, but are unlikely to be mammals and therefore will not have breasts or lips. They may communicate through sound, but even if they do, they will probably not be able to mimic human sound patterns. Lips are an adaptation for drinking milk from breasts. On earth there are many ways in which a creature feeds its young. Breast milk is one way, but this may not be common on other planets. It seems a good solution to us, but may not be the best way. Creatures without breasts do not have lips.
Aliens will not be like us.
Corollary laws:
A. You will never meet an alien who speaks English like a native.
B. Aliens just like us, but with little squiggles on their noses only appear in low budget TV shows.
C. We will never be able to have sex with aliens using the missionary position.
D. Aliens as far as they have personalities will be more likely to be aggressive and pushy. There are not likely to be kindly, friendly and caring aliens because they would not have the drive to explore space. (In this way, they will be much like us.)
E. Real aliens don’t act anything like you’d expect them to act. For instance, they will not be Nazis.
4. No Nazis!
Lazy writers have no idea how to create a villain. Villains are human beings with character flaws, psychological handicaps, or even bad luck that forces them to do bad things. They are hard to create, hard to develop and hard to write. The motivation of someone who performs evil acts is difficult for a writer to explain to a reader.
Writers use short cuts. There are classes of characters who are ready-made cookie cutter villains, and require no thought or effort to put in a story. These include Nazis, serial killers, Islamic terrorists, crooked cops, greedy businessmen, maniacs, corrupt politicians, drug fiends, and sadistic nuns.
A writer should use his experience and his imagination to develop characters. A reader should be able to recognize a character as being like someone they may know. A villain should also have a sympathetic element. This is one of the ways to make truly believable characters, and a believable character is the way to bring a reader or viewer into a story line. A writer must create villains that are recognized, understood and even pitied by the reader. Developing a villain is one of the three or four things that make writing hard, but a good villain is one of the three or four things that make fiction good.
A writer who includes World War II Nazis in his story has given up trying to make a real character and has opted for taking the cheap and easy path.
TV shows and Movies are particularly prone to using WWII Nazis, or proto-Nazi villains (cruel men with dark uniforms), simply because there is so little opportunity to develop a good villain in the short time available in a film.
3. Good Science Fiction is Good Science.
You cannot take the science out of Science Fiction. Science Fiction is not Mythical, Magical or Religious. It is Scientific. Myth, Magic and Religion may be subjects that appear in SF, but there is fundamental difference between Fantasy, Horror and Science fiction, and that is that SF requires real or believable science as part of the plot.
There is a quote somewhere which sort of goes “Advanced science will be indistinguishable from magic”, but when you can’t tell the difference between Science and Magic, it is no longer Science Fiction.
Science must be a part of science fiction. In a real SF story, the science must be so integral to the plot that it cannot be removed from the story.
The science can be mundane, technological, futuristic, advanced or even steampunk science, but it must be part of the story. Stories that take place on other planets or in space are probably science fiction stories. Stories of alien contact may be science fiction, but without fundamental science, are properly classified as horror.
Magical powers like telepathy, visions of the future or communication with the dead are not scientific and not Science Fiction, and they should be classified as Fantasy.
A science fiction story needs to be scientifically real. There must be an element that leads the reader to think, “Yes, this is possible”.
The famous Western Writer, Louis L’Amour describes in an introduction in one of his books the Western Landscape as an active character in a Western Novel. Westerns are not so much stories that take place in a certain place and time as stories about how human beings cope with the land. The deserts, mountains, weather and climate all play an important part in Louis L’Amour stories. It not enough that the stories take place in the West. His stories cannot succeed without some characteristic of the land playing an important role.
Just as the Western Landscape must be a kind of character in a Western, or the sea is a major force in C. S. Forester’s Hornblower novels, so must good science be a character in a Science Fiction Story.
2. Science Fiction has a Sense of Wonder
Science Fiction is a unique genre. It blends Technology with Fantasy to create a world in the imagination. The world Science fiction creates is much more than ordinary reality. It is a world of dreams and speculation. Science fiction has embedded in the plots, characters and ideas the goal of an amazing universe of possibility.
True Science fiction is imbued with Sense of Wonder. The reader should be astounded, amazed, and inspired. This sense of wonder is what separates Science Fiction from mainstream technical thrillers.
Science Fiction is the direct product of daydreams and wanderings of imagination. It draws the reader into a feeling of awe about the open-ended universe of what-if. This sense of wonder is what separates, more than anything else, Science Fiction from other genres. It is this sense of wonder that makes young boys so addicted to Science Fiction that we are still reading it when we are old men.
1. Science Fiction Changes the World for the Better.
We live in a Science Fiction world. As Ray Bradbury said, “Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction”.
TV, computers, cell phones, cures for diseases, the exploration of space – all of these things are the subjects of Science Fiction. Science Fiction is a “What If” literature dealing with Technology, Science and the future.
I am sure that almost every major advance in modern science and technology for the last 50 years appeared first in a Science Fiction novel or short story.
What is more, I think that most, if not all advances in modern science and technology were motivated by a Science Fiction idea. Science Fiction leads and the real world follows. Science is possible because of the Science Fiction notion that there is a new world coming.
The proper function of writing Science Fiction, other than to entertain is to chart the dreams of our futures. A Science Fiction writer warns us of obstacles and dangers to come and shows us the promises of our imagination. Science Fiction is literature where a man’s vision is temporarily cast into a plot with characters so that some day it may become reality.
Science Fiction works out our needs, hopes and problems in the form of a written page, but its goal is to create a future world where the human condition is vastly improved.
RULE ZERO!
Many readers of this list complain that I am being too harsh in my judgments and the many great SF stories break these rules. I only have one case where any Science Fiction story can break a rule without failing.
A Science Fiction Story Should Be Fun!
With the exception of rule #4, a good story can break any of the above rules as long as everyone has a good time. SF’s lowest common denominator is cheap thrills. It is often not literature, but escapist reading for enjoyment. A good story can overcome any breach of rules as long as the reader is transported to a land of imagination that makes all transgressions forgivable. (I still think any story with a Nazi sucks the big one, though).
The “telekinetic power” of “pyrokinesis,” supposedly explained by people “spontaneously combusting” is a well understood phenomenon. It is NOT a telekinetic power at ALL!!!! A VERY small percentage of humans are in fact prone to accumulate large amounts of static electrical charges in their bodies. Upon discovery of this condition, the affected person merely needs to touch metal objects that possess a path to an “earth ground.” This gets rid of the static charge and solves the problem. ( I know, too prosaic for those that wish for a higher reality… But that’s just life.)
There is much more evidence of the powers of “telepathy” than any “telekinetic” powers. However, under controlled circumstances, these tend to be much less convincing than the various flim flam artists are able to produce. These tests have been typically carried out using identical twins as subjects. Of special interest to myself was when they had twins separated by sight and sound and had one make a drawing of an object and the other twin made similar drawings in response. Yes, the reproduced images were rudimentary but DID contain many of the same features.
So, do “psychic powers” exist? I think that they probably do to some extent. However, when you’re dealing with identical twins and the results are so dicey in the details, I’m forced to believe that they are EXCEEDINGLY rare and of relatively little use as of this writing. Any strengthening of these powers would either require selective breeding (welcome to the yikes of eugenics) or would entail technological bolstering…
Sorry for putting a damper on the psychic wishers and a damper on the psychic deniers.. It’s a great big universe out there with all kinds of amazing things in it. Just don’t be too ready to jump on the “occult powers” or the “can’t happen” bandwagons. I certainly don’t believe that aliens are subjecting themselves to the time dilation of close to lightspeed travel to hang around Earth and subject the hapless humans to anal probes… But, I don’t know everything… and, my butt hurts for no apparent reason… rotflmmfao
I have been writing a book now for a few years, and was wondering which direction to take it. I saw your website and have to say thank you. Your rules have actually helped me focus the story and get alot done. I am hoping to have it completed next year and who knows where it will go from there. I have actually been thinking, planning, outlining, and researching for the past 12 years and only now been able to put it into writting. Thanks again for your insite.
Dear Brian: Are you just expressing appreciation or did you want more input? If the latter then provide more information. In either case best wishes and good luck, Lloyd
[...] http://www.cthreepo.com/writing/laws.shtml [...]
The rules here say don’t do the same old thing that other stories are doing. Follow these rules and the story will never be sleep inducing.
I was expressing appreciation, but if you are up for some input i would be more than happy to hear any and all you may offer.
Sorry, I get overly sensitive and I thought you were criticizing the list. On re-reading you comment, I see my answer was all wrong. I have this strong asshole streak in me that I have to struggle to keep under control.
Keith
This may be a repeat: My PC says it was sent but I see no record that it was delivered.
It is about authentic SF. I consider the best example to be Bow Shock by Gregory Benford. The main plot involves a scientific problem solved by scientific reasoning and research. The sub plots consider aspects of the career and personal concerns of a working scientist.
It is not my favourite SF from the point of view of entertaining readng but as a prime example for authenticity it is tops.
Lloyd,
I guess your “authentic SF” might be called a type of golden age SF. I am thinking of the scientific stories that John W. Campbell, Jr. published in Astounding. Critics now like to call these gadget stories, but I like to think of them as the kind of SF that I like to read.
Keith
Was good to read through your rules and discover my story is unfolding within your guidelines, almost.
My protagonist has become super powered but he is not unique. Therefore it is not giant vs ant, but good giant vs evil giant. Balance restored.
Like Brian, I have about a year to go until I am ready to publish my book. I’m considering self publishing with Creative Commons as it is my first and I am an unknown author. Your thoughts?
If you finish the book, you should first try to get it published the traditional way. Spend two or three years submitting it to the publishing houses. If it is a good book you may get lucky and sell it. If it is an awful book, you don’t lose anything but time, which is well spent writing the next book.
If you self publish, you are guaranteed that about 30 people will read it, depending on how many friends and relatives you have.. Self publishing is fine for a book that does not sell to the publishing houses, but don’t expect to make any money off of it.
My collection of short stories has total sales of about 100 copies, but then, I use some strange promotional methods.
Since humans are mammals, it would be anthropocentric to assume that mammals are a common evolutionary outcome, when it seems unlikely. Insects, fish, reptiles, birds, even mollusks like octopi, are probably much more likely than mammals to rise to intelligence.
Mammals rose because when the dinosaur killer asteroid hit, only a few species survived, and of those, the mammals were the most successful, and most other species that might have achieved intelligence died off. Without that event, you and I would have scales, without a doubt.
IT WAS NOT WRITTEN AS SF BUT THOSE WHO ARE INTERESTED IN THE GENUS OF ALIENS MIGHT BE AMUSED BY A 1920 WORK BY CLARENCE DAY, THIS SIMIAN WORLD
Lloyd Bannerman
ANOTHER COMMENT FROM LLOYD ABOUT ALIENS. OF COURSE A WIDE VARIETY OF FORMS IS CONCEIVABLE BUT ANY OF INTEREST TO US PROBABLY HAVE FOUR CHARACTERISTICS: INTELLIGENCE, MOBILITY, MANIPULATIVE CAPACITY, AND THE POWER TO COMMUNICATE.
STILL MORE FROM LLOYD: I HADN’T FINISHED COMMENNT 19. ABOUT OUR PROBABLY HAVING SCALES. A FEW MILLENNIA AGO IT WAS SAID ABOUT EMPEROR YU — HE’S THE ONE WHO DRAINED THE FLOODS BY ESTABLISHING AN IRRIGATION SYSTEM — THAT IF IT HAD NOT BEEN FOOR HIM WE WOULD ALL BE FISH.
Of course it’s only speculation, but (with a nod to Simon Conway Morris) one could say that many (intelligent) aliens are humanoid in appearance [and mammalian in constitution]. That doesn’t mean they’d pass for human, or have any psychology in common, but it’s a plausible theory that convergent evolution takes the right kind of underlying biology and circumstance to “mammalian humanoid” in the same way that convergent evolution takes sharks, dolphins and ichthyosaurs to the same body shape. Sharks, dolphins, ichthyosaurs are (or were) respectively fish, mammals, and reptiles; but to the casual eye they look closely related.
Likewise, symmetrical body shape and four limbs, bipedalism, and grasping forelimbs (hands) may well be common features. [They won't be ubiquitous, there'll be plenty of strange stuff out there as well.] The differences between humans and humanoid aliens will be strange and unexpected… the position of the ears (the stirrup and anvil being modified jaw bones) may be a quirk of our line’s history. But I imagine having the eyes upfront on the head, near the mouth, is near universal. (Even insects have a head complete with mouth and eyes; but they have up to four different kinds of auditory sensors.)
Hey, check out “rubber forehead aliens” at tv tropes.com. If you want to get somewhere with your writing you need to be able to rattle off all of the cliche/tropes. There’s nothing new under the sun. I was flabbergasted, yes flabbergasted, when I discovered that even my most unique ideas actually just fall into various categories.
Rubber forehead aliens are constructed so that we can have a human like character to interact with; an intelligent sponge, starfish or mold would get you points on the creativity side but when it comes to sacrificing human lives for smart fungi, well you know where that story is going. In the trash.
[WARNING, BE CAREFUL AT TVTROPES.COM. YOU MAY LOSE A WEEKEND OR TWO THERE.]
In Peter Watts’ Blindsight, one of the main character is a vampire. That book is as good SF as any :-) I guess this disproves rule 7 but proves rule 0
Acknowledged:this is partly repetitive but apparently it still needs to be said. Certainly there are some good vampire stories, but as a contemporary popular literary genre many of them are unsatisfactory. Especially deplorable are those involving zombies. Most of these are just silly, I get the impressionn the writers really mean ghouls.
It is not unreasonable to expect anyone writing authentically about vampires should have read Summers’ works: The Vampire in Europe and The Vampire his Kith and Kin.
I love Stoker’s Dracula, but things like the Anne Rice stuff and the twilight movies were dreadful shlock for people who don’t think. I don’t know why vampires are popular. I don’t get the whole sexual thing associated with neck biting.
Also Vampires, at least in the Stoker world, can change into bats or a mist, which is clearly not Science Fiction. Vampires are fantastical or horror, and attempts to justify them in a SF story are ludicrous.
I’ve started writing too. The races featuring are human-like, but I’ve written a law fictitious for my story, that similar atmospheric and gravitational conditions will harbour similar life, variations may occur.
Is it too anthropocentric?? Because my story works well only if the other races are also human-like.
Dear NewBoy: Clarify and justify. Earth provides ample evidence that the same atmosphere and gravitational field can produce a tremendous variety of extremely different types. Lloyd
This list is my OPINION and not really scientific fact. You do what you need to do to make your story work.
You can pick and choose which of these laws you obey for each story that you write.
I am just one old codger who learned to love Science Fiction in the pages of magazines that have been gone for many years.
Hi, my name is Daniel, im 15 and i started writing about three years ago, i have to say that although you have some good points, you’ve narrowed down the choice incredibly based solely on what YOU find powerful themes in stories, im not here to argue that you’re wrong but perhaps abit too opiniated.
For example, what is wrong with a ‘superman’ race, i mean sure if they come along and destroy the human race in a blink of an eye, no-one will read it, but at least allow the race to have a general advantage and perhaps one ‘achilles heal’.
I dont think science fiction has to be believable, it could be another dimension entirely with different laws, rules, codes and conventions or none whatsoever, it doesn’t have to be something that could happen- although you make a valid point that that is a strength in books-, using the example of warhammer 40000 tau- which my story is set on- aliens dont have to be that different, they can have an anatomy very similar or completely different from humans, furthermore, they don’t have to be technologically advanced to humans, they could still be living in the stone age when the humans arrive at their homeworld.
Though you are right when you say ‘NO NAZIS’, i agree with that entirely! The rest of your points though, i agree with entirely, again, i am writing this based on opinion, as are you :)
I added a few paragraphs to your comment to make it more readable.
Since you agree with “No Nazis” then I will definitely buy your books when they come out.
15 is the right age to be writing SF. You will write great stuff as well as a lot of trash, but you have to get the junk out of your system and learn to tell the difference.
The point about the super race with the Achilles heel is just the point I wanted to make. Without that, a super race is boring. With it, they are perhaps not so super.
One thing, though. Don’t write stories in someone else’ universe. You are quite capable of building an interesting world of your own. Warhammer is fun, but it is not your creation. You can write better stories when you are the owner of your world.
thanks, yeah creating you own universe is quite tough, soon i need to move on from using other peoples’ universes to making ones inspired by others at the very least
Great list. Not mean but definitely helpful. I’ve seen some mean “do and don’t” lists written by editors in the heat of their frustration with low quality submissions. I love the point about villains and the one about the setting, landscape, or science being a major player depending on your genre. The only exception I can think of, having Jesus as a fictional character: _Jesus on Mars_ by Philip J. Farmer. Great book, but he did comply with rule zero.
Good list overall but I cannot possibly disagree with #9 more than I do. Why does having something greater than man have to be boring? We are not Gods. I’ve seen so much good sci-fi and fantasy get absolutely ruined in the 11th hour by this absurd idea of anthropocentrism, that human beings are special and entitled simply for being human. We are not special just for being human and sci-fi of all things ought to be the leader in sending that message.
While I think you have some quite true and great ideas here, almost anything is possible in science fiction if it’s backed up with even bogus science that may not exist now. Like the mind-reading thing? I have characters in my sci-fi novel who are capable of doing such, but their ability is backed by a highly plausible explanation (though it is more unlikely that that would EVER happen in real life.) In addition, having a Nazi character does not make a person uncreative. Having a faceless, mysterious character does not necessarily make them uncreative either, IF the characters have some role, however minor,in the novel. As long as they ADD to the story, there’s no sense in NOT having them. Sometimes simplicity and using things that have already been used and twisting them up a bit is better than making something as complex as a planet ninety-three trillion light-years away from the sun with an incredibly intricate math/lit/etc system humans will never understand. Simplicity in world development, like George Orwell’s 1984, for example, can make for a book just as amazing as Star Trek or something. And, when writing SF/F, while uber creativity is awesome, that doesn’t mean you can’t make something already used and back it up with science. If you can THINK it, you can write it and be imaginative enough to come up with a reason as to WHY it is science fiction. If you can’t, you’re not REALLY a good writer. But that’s my opinion. And I think you have some good and valid points in there, 70% of which I highly agree with.
As a side note, if you are planning on writing a post about how to write, you might want to get someone to do a spell and grammar check for you :)
Thanks,
The list is just my opinion, and is not intended as absolute. I think that it is easy to write BAD SF if you ignore these rules, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t write great SF and ignore them. It is just hard to do.
As far as the spelling and grammar. I was an Electrical Engineering and Math major in college and it’s a wonder any of it is readable. I write a lot of fiction and the spelling and grammar is a big problem. Luckily, many editors forgive me and give the stories (over 60 sold) a little polish before publication, as they should.
Keith
Ok, I have been faithfully writing my story now for almost a year and have to admit it is hard to do! I have at present 10 chapters (most complete but some partial) but find myself after writing some in a chapter will have a thought line for another chapter! Frustrating to say the least but what is really cool is the story is starting to make sense now. Have had several chapters read by different friends and so far the reviews are excellent (and they dont even like sci fi). Will keep you updated on the progress. One note the story as it unfolds in my mind is becoming larger than what i had originally thought. This could be in part because the story itself has 2 stories to tell that interlace with each other. Wish me luck and everyone out there dont stop telling your own stories.
This is so stupid. you are listing your own picky opinion! None of these rules actually exist. this is all you trashing half of the science fiction world.
My website. My opinion. My right to say what I want.
Only children, newbies, or those who don’t read SF disagree with me.
Keith
For all those aspiring writers out there, I have just finished reading Stephen King’s “On Writing”. Well worth getting and very encouraging.
keith, i think its the other way around: people who agree with you are all kids, newbies, or people who dont read SF often.
My last comment was uncalled for. I should not have said the thing about kids, etc. I am sorry. Strong opinions should not be disparaged, even when I disagree.
Good blog. I’m revising my sf novel I wrote 10 years ago, and updating it where I need to.
Fortunately, I avoided most of the pitfalls you mention, but the one thing that sticks in my craw are the similarities to Star Trek.
I made two main characters avid fans of futuristic novels and films, so they’ll make comments the way we fans do whenever they encounter a BEM or a spatial anomaly. Kinda offsets the comparison, I hope.
But the problem is, if you have a starship with a bridge crew, it will inevitably feel like Trek, even though Battlestar Galactica didn’t.
Historically, the captain does not sit in a chair with the crew around him, at least not in Earth history. The captain emerges from his cabin to give orders and inspect the ship. He is not friends with any of the crew. Trek has the captain interacting constantly, where in reality captains try to keep aloof. Avoid having the captain being everyone’s best friend and you can avoid the similarities with Trek.
Keith
The best rule is to have no rules. The less you know about writing a novel, the more original the novel will be. I should not be reading this.
The “no-rules”option only works for writers who don’t need to be published. Writing is as much science as art. I won’t say that my laws are important for anyone else but me, but there are real rules about structure, characters, style, settings, dialog, etc. Rules about content, like these, are less important, but I still think that if you include a Nazi in your story and you are not Phillip K. Dick, then your story will likely suck.
“A writer who includes World War II Nazis in his story has given up trying to make a real character and has opted for taking the cheap and easy path.”
While I know what you’re trying to say, the Nazis were in fact real, so the phrasing of “given up trying to make a real character” is rather odd. If real people from reality aren’t real characters, who is?
I German living during WWII who is a member of the Nazi party and had complex reasons for joining with a rich personality and back story is a character. A puppet in a Nazi uniform is a caricature. The former is a person, the later is a cartoon. This is the difference between good and bad writing.
No Nazis means that you don’t pick a type or a cardboard cutout for your character, relying on some hand waving to make them evil or good. You create a real three dimensional character with feelings and motives, history and depth. If the character also happens to be a Nazis, then OK.
Keith
Basically, is a ‘Nazi’…
1) a person who has a political ideology that leads him to join the National Socialist party is pre-WW2 Germany, or…
2) an evil villain with German accent.
Most hacks even drop the German accent. They keep the SS style uniform, but often use some other symbol instead of a swastika or the SS lightning bolts. They are a symbol of evil, rather than a character. They are a way for the lazy writer to create a villain, without having to think.
This is true for serial killers, maniacs and other non-characters, including zombies.
I find myself disagreeing with part of Rule #3.
“Stories of alien contact may be science fiction, but without fundamental science, are properly classified as horror.”
Alien contact without science isn’t horror unless there is horror in the story. It can be humourous, or romantic, or adventurous or any one of a myriad storylines. Why do you assume it _has_ to be horrible?
Thank you, you are right. It should read: “Stories of alien contact may be science fiction, but without fundamental science, are properly classified as horror, romance, comedy or something other that SF.”
Keith
Your rules for _Science Fiction_ are interesting and worthwhile.
I submit that _Science_ Fiction is a subset of _Speculative_ Fiction.
Within _Speculative Fiction_, telepathy, very human-like aliens, and many of your otherwise prohibited items are acceptable as we a speculating on what would happen, if . . . and that can make for a very good story.
I do love good Science Fiction. But there have been a lot of excellent Speculative Fiction stories written, too.
In Van Vogt’s golden age novel Slan, mutants had antennae that could receive electromagnetic signals from brains and interpret them as hearing thoughts. This is valid Science Fiction. Even if unlikely, we can suspend disbelief and accept the thin science.
In Star Wars, the Jedi could magically hear each thoughts through an unexplained “force” this is magic without any scientific basis and therefore fantasy.
If there is a reasonable and fairly believable scientific explanation for Telepathy then it is SF, otherwise just forget it.
Spec Fic includes lots of genres, but science fiction cannot have telepathy unless there is some attempt to explain it using science. Human brains cannot receive thoughts. It has been shown thousands of times. Just including things like FTL, telepathy, etc, without any attempt to justify them is not Science Fiction.
Keith
While that might be a nice definition, it is a fact of the genre as published that much science fiction, especially the “scientific stories” edited and published by John W. Campbell, have telepathy. Not to mention FTL. Thus the development of the idea of hard science fiction, to emphasize consistency with physical limits — though even there, another definition is of SF that makes its deviations explicit and well-explored.
Campbell was the greatest SF editor of all time, but he was a nut, too. He believed in “PSI” powers and liked stories that featured them. He had a machine that was supposed to enhance psi powers and he thought that it was a real thing. This was before the Rhine studies were shown to be a hoax, so he can be forgiven.
Campbell had a blind spot about some things and was a bigot, but that does not mean that he didn’t understand what made for good SF. He is the reason that I like SF today. I own almost all of the Campbell edited Astounding and Analog, and they are the best reading I know of.
Keith