How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy (17 page)

A reference to Anyanwu’s long life and her “various youths” implies that she, like Doro, is somehow immortal-but, unlike Doro, she fears death and tries to avoid it through vigilance. So they do not have the same powers and don’t live by the same rules. Doro can be killed by men or animals or disease and yet go on living; Anyanwu lives a long time but must avoid murderers in order to do it. Anyanwu fears no poison because of her superior understanding of them, not because she can’t die.

And yet all this information is conveyed within a tense scene in which Anyanwu is mentally tracking the intruder -Doro-and trying to determine whether she is going to have to kill him in order to defend herself.

At this point we are only three pages into Butler’s novel, yet she has conveyed an enormous amount of information to us, all through the thoughts and actions of her two viewpoint characters. We have never, not for a moment, been aware of the exposition, because she never stopped the action to tell us.

Furthermore, she has not yet explained the whole situation; we don’t yet know that the disorder in the world is Doro himself, a man who can’t die, who has to kill whether he wants to or not. True to the Event Story structure, Butler has begun the story exactly where her protagonist, the person who will restore order to the world, gets involved in the struggle to solve the problem-the point where she meets Doro. The actual meeting is on the fourth page of the book; she is aware of him by the middle of the second page; and Butler refers to that meeting in the very first sentence of
Wild Seed.

From the very beginning, Butler promises us the story she means to

and then delivers on every promise. From the start we know why we

should read on, and as we read we effortlessly receive every bit of information we need to have in order to understand the whole story. Many writers handle sf exposition very well; almost all handle it with at least minimal competence. No one does it better than Butler; I urge you to pick up any of her books or stories. Read them once for pleasure; then study them to learn how it’s done.

2. Language

Some stories demand different kinds of writing; what’s good for one story may not be good for another.

Diction.
In her essay “From Elfland to Poughkeepsie,” Ursula K. LeGuin makes such a point with great eloquence: When fantasists are writing about people of high station living in heroic times, a more formal, elevated level of diction is called for. On the other hand, when you’re creating low comedy, diction can range from the mock, heroic to the coarse.

However, there is great danger in trying for elevated diction-primarily because it’s so easy to overdo it or do it very badly. You have to read a lot of brilliantly written formal prose before you’re able to handle it well-and there isn’t much of it being written these days. LeGuin herself and Gene Wolfe are the two most reliable sources of that level of diction within the field of speculative fiction; outside it, you are best served by reading Jane Austen or, for a contemporary example, Judith Martin; when writing as “Miss Manners” she uses excellent formal diction, often with devastating irony.

Here is the same scene, three ways.

Sevora read the letter, showing no emotion as she did. Tyvell only realized something was wrong when the letter slipped from her fingers and she took a single hesitant step toward him. He caught her before she could fall to the floor.

He laid her gently on the thick fur before the hearth, then sent his dwarf to fetch the surgeon. Before help arrived, however, her eyes

opened.

“The surgeon is coming, ” Tyvell said, gently holding her hand.

“Read the letter, ” she whispered. “Lebbech has destroyed me. ”

* * *

Sevora perused the missive, displaying none
of
the turmoil
of
her feelings on her impassive, stonelike face. Tyvell only became aware of the tumult within her when she let fall the curled parchment and staggered toward him. With the utmost hurry he caught her in his arms before

her delicate frame could strike the floor.

Gently he laid her on the pliant bearskin before the merrily dancing flames of the hearth, then sent Crimond, his astonished and frantic

dwarf, to fetch the cirurgeon. Before the diminutive servant’s abbreviated stride could bring the desired aid, however, Sevora resumed consciousness and her eyes fluttered open.

“Fear not,” said Tyvell, stroking the smooth white skin of her hand. “1 have sent for the cirurgeon.”

“I need him not,” whispered Sevora. “How can 1 be holpen now by his herberies? Nay, even his knife shall not serve me in my present

need. Under the hideous spells of Lebbech I now he destroyed.”
* * *

Sevora read the letter as best she could, moving her lips and stumbling now and then when there were too many letters in a word. Tyvell

realized it was bad news when Sevora crumpled it up and stumbled toward him, her eyes rolling back in her head. Here he was minding his own business and now she had to fall on him in one of her damn faints.

He dragged her over by the fireplace and yelled for Crimond to go get the doctor because Sevora was out cold. The dwarf took
off
like a shot, but before he could get the old surgeon sobered up enough to come,

Sevora had gotten tired of Tyvell patting her hand. She opened her eyes and glared at him.

“Look, I already sent for the doctor, “he said. She always got so ticked
off
at him when he didn’t take her faints seriously.

But it was the letter she was thinking about-it really was pretty bad. “Screw the doctor,” she said. “Lebbech’s got me cursed six ways from Tuesday. If we can’t get these spells off me before the baby’s born,

I’m toast.”

The first example is plainly meant to be taken seriously as a tale of highborn people caught up in heroic events. The second example, however, is trying too hard. There is no grace in a surfeit of adjectives, and high language doesn’t consist of using twisted “poetic” syntax and needless archanisms

like “holpen” and “cirurgeon.” Indeed, elegance usually requires simplicity and clarity.

The third example is plainly meant to be comedy-but I have read many a story that was in dead earnest that was scarcely less funny in the choice of words. Modern slang is just as obnoxious in serious formal language as phony archaism; few solemn fantasists would use expressions like “I’m toast” or “six ways from Tuesday,” but even more normal diction like the use of the terms look or pretty bad or even bad news-these would all be out of place in the first example.

If your characters are elevated, their language should be also; if they are common, then common language is appropriate. Furthermore, the language of the narrative should be a good match for the language in the dialogue; it was quite annoying, for instance, in a fantasy I read recently, set in Elizabethan England, to have the lowborn characters speak like highborn heroic Shakespearean characters-while the narrative was in fairly common modern English. The constant shifting only called attention to the language and distracted from the story.

If you want to see the levels of language clearly differentiated within a single work, the best teacher (as is so often the case) is Shakespeare. Look carefully at plays like A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Taming of the Shrew. In both there are “high” characters and “low” characters. The high characters speak in blank verse, with clean, elegant, figured diction. The low characters speak in unrhymed lines, with coarse humor and often with mangled English. Yet there is hilarious comedy in both levels of diction-and both levels of diction are extremelywell written. Formal English isn’t “good” while colloquial English is “bad”-good diction is the diction that is most appropriate to the scene at hand.

Profanity and vulgarity.
There are no hard-and-fast rules of decorum anymore. You can pretty much use the language that you want, though the magazines do have some limits. That doesn’t mean that writers are “free” now, however. It only means that the burden of deciding what to do is thrown back on the writer.

What you must remember is that language has real effects on people. If you have a character who constantly uses foul language, that language will have an effect on the people around him. But if you actually put that language explicitly in your story, that bad language will have a similar effect on your audience. They will learn the fact that your character is a

foul-mouthed boor, which is what you intend; but a substantial number of them will also be put off by your story to exactly the degree they would have been offended by the character, which may not be at all what you have in mind.

I would never change anything essential in order to pander to a particular audience segment, but it would be just as absurd to include something nonessential when it would drive away an audience segment that might otherwise enjoy the story. It always comes down to what is or is not essential. Freedom of the press means that the decision is entirely up to you; it doesn’t mean that you always have to decide in favor of being offensive.

However, if you decide against using vulgar or profane language, I urge you simply to leave out expletives entirely rather than replacing them with euphemisms. One well-known writer tried using the acronym tanj (there ain’t no justice) exactly as the coarse Anglo-Saxon word for copulation is used. “Tanj off!” “Get your tanjin’ hands off me!” It may have been a noble experiment, but as far as I could tell it proved that euphemisms are often worse than the crudities they replace, because they make both the story and the character seem pretty silly. Either use indecorous language or don’t use it-don’t try to simulate it, because, unless you have more genius than I’ve ever heard of, it just won’t work.

On the other hand, when you’re creating an alien society, one of the best ways to suggest their values and culture is through your choice of which words are regarded as too indecorous to be used by decent people. In our culture, the words associated with coitus and elimination are too powerful to be spoken without care-and this tells you something about us. What about a culture in which the words for eating are regarded as indecent, while the words we are shocked by are easily used? A visitor from contemporary America might get into a lot of trouble moving through a culture where sex is as casual as blowing your nose, but where the idea of owning something, of keeping property that you withhold from general use, is as outrageous as pederasty. He’s going to get his face slapped and not have the faintest idea why.

5. The Life and Business of Writing

Your story is finished. Now it’s time to …
No, I’m getting ahead of myself; I know too many
writers who never feel their stories are finished.

Oh, the story has an
ending,
say these writers. But it’s not ready to send off yet. Or: I want to do one more draft, clean up a few rough edges. Or: My workshop gave me some great ideas for revision, but I can’t get to it for a while-I’ll wait to send it off till I have a chance to get those taken care of. Or: The story just isn’t good enough to publish yet.

I’ve heard all the excuses, but too often they’re pure rationalization. It might be true enough that the story isn’t ready for publication-but that isn’t why you aren’t sending it out. No, you’re hanging on to this manuscript for one reason only.

Raw, naked fear.

Fear that you’ll send it out and it will come back and then you will have
positive proof
that you’re no good and you shouldn’t be a writer and then your whole identity will come crashing down around your ears-so, as long as you can hold off sending out the story, you can continue to believe that this storymight be published instead of knowing for sure that it won’t.

Of course, as long as you delay you also have no chance of knowing for sure that it could be published.

When your story is finished, let it go do its work. Don’t wait for it to gather dust on your shelf. Sure, if you let it sit there for a year and pull it down and look at it again, you’ll find all kinds of dumb mistakes that you’d
never
make today because you’re so much better now. But then, if you had sent it out and it had been purchased by a magazine, it would be appearing in print right now, and while you would still find those flaws in it, at least you would have been paid for it and your story would be in print

and here’s the good part-your readers will like the story just fine the way it is.

Am I advocating that you send out second-rate work? Am I saying that readers are fools who can’t tell good work from bad?

Not at all. I’m saying that you should send out, today, the best work you are capable of doing today. Of course you’ll do better a year from now. But a year from now you should be writing the story that you care about and believe in at that timenot reworking this year’s story.

And your readers can tell good work from bad, quite easily. In fact, they can do a better job of it than you can. Because the more you fiddle with your story, rewriting this paragraph or that one, the more likely you are to make it worse. There are things you instinctively do when the story is in its first rush out of your head that are truer and better than anything you’ll come up with as you second-guess, revise, intellectualize.

Of course you’ll edit before you send it out-you want to have the cleanest, clearest, most professional manuscript you can. But at some pointsoon-you need to stop and say, “That’s today’s story. I’ll mail this day’s story to this day’s editors. Then I’ll begin to think about the next story–the one I’ll write tomorrow.”

You grow a whole lot more as a writer by getting old stories out of the house and letting new ones come in and live with you until they grow up and are ready to go. Don’t let the old ones stay there and grow fat and cranky and eat all the food out of the refrigerator. You have dozens of generations of stories inside you, but the only way to make room for the new ones is to write the old ones and mail them off.

1. Short Fiction

The market for short speculative fiction is limited-but within those limitations, it’s just about the healthiest short fiction market in America. No other paying market is so open to new writers; no other short story market offers so much notice, such an excellent entry into a real career.

The short story market consists of magazines and anthologies. The magazines and their editors were discussed in the first chapter. Remember that the shorter your story is, the better its chance of getting published; but also remember that no other fiction market is so receptive to the novelette length (7,500 to 15,000 words. However, editors are grateful whenever they get a short story (fewer than 7,500 words, because it’s easier to fit

into a magazine issue-and the shorter the stories, the more different titles that can fit into the same number of pages. But they’ll buy a longer work, and from a newcomer, too, if it’s strong. Novellas, however (more than 15,000 words), are usually not possible for a newcomer. If a magazine editor is going to tie up that many pages with one story, the author had better have a name that will sell copies when it’s printed on the cover.

The anthologies are books-usually paperbacks-that consist of short stories by many different authors. Quite a few are reprint anthologies, which include only stories that previously appeared somewhere else. Also, many anthologies are by invitation only; you can’t just send a story to the editor. And most original anthologies (books that include never-before-published stories) don’t continue month to month or year to year the way magazines do, so that by the time a new writer hears about one, the book is already full.

So your best bet, with several exceptions, is to try your short story with the magazines first. Here are the exceptions:

Writers of the Future.
At this writing, the Writers of the Future contest continues in good health. I’m very skeptical of most writing contests, but this one, run by Bridge Publications, is the real thing. Their prize money is high-$4,000 for the annual winner, $1,000 for the quarterly winners, and lesser prizes for second and third place. They also pay you separately for publication in the
Writers
of
the Future
anthology (edited by Algis Budrys) - and their payment rate is better than any of the magazines except Omni. The anthology sells very well, and you might even earn royalties from it besides the upfront payment.

Each year’s winners of the Writers of the Future contest have been offered a completely free writing workshop taught by professional writers (I have taught at a couple); Bridge Publications even pays for their transportation, housing, and meals. Bridge also does an extraordinarily good job of helping you get media attention. Best of all, because the contest winners are announced quarterly, your story is tied up no longer than it takes most of the magazines to respond to a regular submission.

The Writers of the Future contest has helped launch the careers of many fine writers. The competition is tough, but it’s worth sending your best work there first. (To find the address and rules for submission, check the most recent
Writers
of
the Future
anthology in your bookstore or library; complete contest information is always included.)

other anthologies. There are always at least a few other original anthologies looking for new writers. Andre Norton and Marion Zimmer Bradley both edit ongoing series that are particularly open to fantasies and women writers. Pulphouse Publishing, based in Oregon, publishes a “hardcover magazine”-an original anthology in a lovely hardcover edition. To find out the current addresses and rules for submission, look for their anthologies in the science fiction/fantasy section of your local bookstore, or check the genre magazines-like
Locus.

Locus. Other anthologies may crop up from time to time -I even have plans in the works to edit an original anthology series myself. Anthologies that are truly open to everyone almost invariably announce that fact in a magazine called
Locus. Locus
is to the speculative fiction field what the Wall Street Journal is to finance and Variety is to show business-not everybody loves it, but everybody reads it.

Locus
publishes listings of almost every speculative fiction book published in America and the United Kingdom; it also reviews many books, publishes a monthly genre bestseller list, and conducts an annual award poll. Published and edited by Charles N. Brown, it reports on sf and fantasy conventions and sf and fantasy publishing in other countries, interviews major figures in the field, and passes along a bit of gossip-though its standards of truth are high enough that if you enjoy really scurrilous slander you’ll have to look elsewhere.

In short,
Locus is
as close as our field comes to a professional journal, and you’re crazy if you don’t subscribe, at least at the beginning of your career. I don’t expect the address to change, so I’ll list it here:

Locus Publications

PO Box 13305

Oakland CA 94661

Write for the current subscription rate or for information about foreign subscription agents.

Fanzines.
Locus
began as a fanzine-a privately published amateur magazine. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of fanzines published all over the world, filled with lively commentary about science fiction and fantasy. Many-perhaps most-are now “mediazines,” oriented toward science

fiction and fantasy television shows and movies like
Star Trek, Star Wars,
and
Dr. Who.
There are also magazines of criticism, gossip, and more than a few that publish fiction.

In fact, the fanzine community is so complex and interesting that it’s impossible to do it justice here. It is important, however, that you know that there are fanzine publishers who are quite serious about publishing fiction. Some, like Stuart David Schiff with his horror magazine
Whispers,
cross over the line from amateur to professional publication, taking their regular writers with them.

If you are writing mainline science fiction, then you should not consider publishing in the fanzines-if the professional magazines and anthologies won’t publish you, chances are your stories aren’t good enough for publication yet. But if your stories are offbeat, experimental, or in genres with less magazine coverage, like horror or heroic fantasy, then fanzines may well represent the
best
market for your short fiction.

How do you know? It’s easy. Find the magazines-in the dealer room at a science fiction convention, in the ads in Locus, in a science fiction/ fantasy specialty bookstore, or by sheer dumb luck. Then read an issue or two, and if you like the stories a lot, the magazine is good enough. If, on the other hand, the stories seem amateurish and embarrassing to you, don’t submit there. It’s that simple. If you are in the audience for the fiction a magazine publishes, then that’s a good audience for you to write for.

Submit to the best market. However, do not submit to fanzines
first
if there’s a paying professional market for which your stories might be appropriate. Fanzines get almost
no
attention in the sf field (with the exception of horrorzines, and that’s only because Karl Edward Wagner reads them all and selects stories from them for his annual anthology of the year’s best horror/. The book editors generally don’t read the fanzines; fanzine stories are never nominated for major awards; and fanzine publication generally counts for nothing on your resume.

I’ve known more than a few writers who published their first five or six stories in fanzines. These were fine stories that could have advanced their careers, but they
never submitted them
to the professional markets. Why? “I didn’t think I was good enough yet.” They allowed their personal fears (or personal modesty) to keep them from reaching the markets that would have reached the widest audience and advanced their careers.

I tie writer’s self-image. Writers have to simultaneously believe the following two things:

1. The story I am now working on is the greatest work of genius ever written in English.

2. The story I am now working on is worthless drivel.

It’s best if you believe both these things simultaneously, so that you can call on Belief 1 when you’re deciding whether to mail the story out, Belief 2 when going over the story to revise it, Belief 1 when choosing which market to submit it to, Belief 2 when the story is rejected (of course, I
expected
to get this back), and Belief 1 again when you put it back in an envelope and mail it to the next-best market.

Of course, believing two contradictory facts at the same time is sometimes referred to as madness-but that, too, can be an asset to a writer.

The rule is: Submit to the best market first. But define the word “best” your own way. There’s one high-paying market that I never submit to because I think that working with that editor isn’t worth the aggravation. There’s another publisher that I will always give anything he asks because I trust him and he has been there for me far beyond the letter of the contract. This may be a business, but you’re still a human being, and if you ever forget
that
and start to make all your decisions on the basis of money alone, then it doesn’t much matter how well you handle the business end of things, because your fiction will soon reflect the decay of your soul.