A Sci-Fi Writer’s Manifesto: Detail #1
A while ago, I wrote my sci-fi writer’s manifesto: five simple statements intended to guide my writing. In case you missed them, here they are.
- Write only about what is real, or about what can reasonably be foreseen based on what is real.
- Be honest about what is real and what is not real.
- Do not write if you have nothing important to say.
- Write in a clear, simple style, so as to be understood.
- Look forward and outward from where we are to where we might one day be.
At the time, I promised to elaborate on them and it’s about time I made good my promise. Since my elaborations turned out to be rather lengthy, I shall present them one at a time over the next few days. Remember, I’m not saying these statements should apply to everyone, only to myself.
1. Write only about what is real, or about what can reasonably be foreseen based on what is real.
This first injunction is as applicable to literary fiction, crime fiction, romance, or any other genre, as it is to science fiction. I mean it, above all, to refer to what is real about people, about our psychology. I also mean it to refer to what is real about the Universe, about the physical reality of which we are part.
It seems to me that the most important aspect of any work of fiction is that it explores the way people of particular types, with particular backgrounds, might react in circumstances the author invents. The whole point of this exercise is invalidated if the world in which the characters find themselves is not physically possible, or if the characters and the society they inhabit are not psychologically possible.
The first case (the world is impossible) is not quite so bad. The use of impossible worlds entitles the reader to ask, “So what?” If we cannot be shrunk to the size of microbes – and we can’t – what is the point in exploring our reaction to it? It will never happen, so it doesn’t matter.
The usual argument is that it is just fun to imagine such situations, and the reader gets to play a little ‘what if?’ game with the author. I don’t really mind this, and, of course, it can be fun if done well. Lord of the Rings was fun. But such writing, because it doesn’t deal with reality, will always be at the trivial end of the spectrum of speculative fiction. This, for me, includes all worlds that include magic, or supernatural beings of any kind. It does not necessarily include alternative worlds. An alternative world where the laws of physics are the same as our own (or plausibly different) but where people in the past have made different choices, seems as reasonable a speculation as any future world does.
The psychological reality of the characters in a story is a far more serious matter. Every writer worth their salt will strive to make their characters as ‘believable’ as possible. Without psychologically valid characters, psychologically valid societies, without real people reacting believably in relationships that make sense, a story is a waste of time. Worse, it is a travesty and a distortion that should never have been written. Sadly, a lot of speculative fiction (like so much at the ‘pulp’ end of all genres) is of this sort.
A special problem here for science fiction is when it deals with aliens. I am happy to suppose that intelligent aliens exist elsewhere in the Universe. On current estimates by astronomers, there may be between 10 billion and 80 billion Earth-like planets in our own little galaxy. Given this, I would be surprised if sentient aliens did not exist. And, allowing for faster-than-light travel (see injunction number 2, coming soon) I’m happy to accept the physical plausibility of stories in which people and aliens meet. It is the psychological plausibility of aliens which is such a problem because we simply cannot know the mind of a creature we have not yet encountered.
Or can we? I think the answer is yes, to some extent. We know, for example, that any replicant is subject to the laws of evolution, that any living creature must obey the laws of thermodynamics, gravity, and so on. These physical laws place enormous constraints on what kinds of aliens are possible, how they will be adapted to their environments, how their senses will work, how their locomotion can be achieved, and so on. While the constraints are massive, there is still plenty of room for speculation, but, when dealing with alien minds, it is incumbent on the sci-fi writer to ensure he or she does not invent something that would violate those constraints.
To see the difference between unconstrained, unreal speculation and constrained, reality-based speculation, consider the freedom the fantasy writer has. Creatures of magic (vampires, werewolves, gods, fairies, demons, and so on) aren’t necessarily subject to physical laws, evolution need not touch them, sensory and psychological limitations need not apply. (In fact, it is remarkable that, given this freedom, creatures in fantasy works exhibit such human psychologies!)
Finally, the bit in the statement about “what can reasonably be foreseen” is to do with predicting the future. A sci-fi writer should be as constrained by what is real here as he or she is elsewhere. The future is not a magic realm. Future technologies might indeed seem like magic were we to encounter them, but they are not. They are technologies which have been developed from the ones we know, and have emerged from sciences which themselves have developed from the ones we know. They will be constrained by the same laws of the Universe that we now experience. It is too easy to conjure up technologies that bear no relationship to the science we now know. (I remember reading a sci-fi story in the sixties, where a character with a hand-held laser weapon sliced right through the Earth with it! It’s true that lasers were new and exciting then, but the laws of thermodynamics weren’t.)
I believe it is a useful constraint for the sci-fi writer to place on his or her self to ensure that future technologies are either predictable from what we now know, or are at least consistent with reality as we currently understand it. Our science may have moved beyond Newtonian mechanics, but objects still move in a straight line at at constant speed unless acted on by a force. We simply have a better definition now of what a straight line means! To give oneself more freedom than that is to risk crossing the line into unrealistic and magical invention, invalidating the primary purpose of the work.
Hi Graham,
I really have to take exception to this post. While I agree 100% with your line: “It seems to me that the most important aspect of any work of fiction is that it explores the way people of particular types, with particular backgrounds, might react in circumstances the author invents” I think it's absolutely wrong to then say ” The whole point of this exercise is invalidated if the world in which the characters find themselves is not physically possible, or if the characters and the society they inhabit are not psychologically possible.”
While writing inside the sci-fi genre does require a certain amount of logic and believability, to say that the emotional and psychological depth of a book vanishes as soon as the situation becomes impossible is patently wrong. Rather, I would say that 90% of readers would be unable to discern whether a particular situation or piece of technology is plausible, and are far more concerned with whether the actions of the characters are plausible.
Some truly fantastic works of fiction in all genres have been patently implausible. C.S Lewis's “Screwtape Letters”, for one. Or Orwell's “Animal Farm”. Does the story lose any impact for the fact that the main characters are talking farm animals? Speaking of scifi, Clifford Simak's “City” was completely ridiculous in concept, but was still a brilliant novel.
Vonnegut's “The Siren's of Titan” has several twists and turns that even the author admits are complete nonsense, and the story doesn't suffer for them. And most of Philip K Dick's novels and novellas have zero grounding in reality, or believable future technology. They're still beautiful and inspirational.
If you want to stay within the boundaries of Hard Scifi, sure, adhere to your first rule. But otherwise I'd argue that cutting away fantastic, imaginative concepts for the sake of technical believability only kills the inherent wonder in sci-fi and speculative fiction.
After all, an honest, rounded character can make us believe in anything, but a flat character will make even the most technically believable scenario seem fake.
An excellent point, Ruzkin, well put, and one I have agonised over for some considerable time. What's more, in citing The Sirens of Titan and Animal Farm, you have hit on two of the books I especially like and found especially hard to deal with in formulating this view.
The fact is, though, that while I enjoyed both these books, I think they both suffer from exactly the problems you point out. I know this will seem like sacrilege but a book with the same message as Animal Farm but featuring realistic people instead of stylised animals would probably have been more powerful. When I look back on the book, it is the point it makes, not the method it uses, which gave it it's value. It is quite likely that Orwell could have made the same point more effectively without the farmyard setting. Certainly he didn't lack the skill!
The Sirens of Titan is a very different kettle of fish. Like all Vonnegut's books, the story, the fanciful twists, the soulful characters, seem to me to serve as an interesting dressing to the meat of what he was saying. That sad, angry, intelligent, humanist message was the point of everything he wrote. In the The Sirens of Titan he said, “A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is
around to be loved.” Who would have listened to that without the song and dance routine? If I could do what Vonnegut did, I'd be doing it.
Most other “patently implausible” works of fiction I don't have so much trouble with. Their implausibility spoils them for me. While it may be true that “90% of readers would be unable to discern whether a particular situation or piece of technology is plausible”, I thank that just gives me a stronger obligation to strive for plausibility. All the time we are bombarded with fantasies of what the world is like. It has got to the point (it may always have been at the point) where many people can no longer tell reality from invention. I would rather my own fiction did not add to this problem.
Oh, you provocateur, you! Hee hee! I'm very glad you pointed out that this is a manifesto for YOUR sf writing, coz mine would look very different. If I had one!
I'm completely with you on the need for psychological plausibility and the difficulties for the writer in imagining a truly alien sentience. I think Peter F Hamilton has a seriously good crack at alien psychology in 'Pandora's Star', but even in our everyday talking animal or inanimate characters (think Babe or Thomas the Tank Engine), we humans prefer to read about our own familiar emotions. Characters whose behaviour doesn't ring true will only engage us for a short time.
Does a talking animal have any less power for a reader or an audience? Not a chance – in fact, I would posit that in the right circumstances they have more. CS Lewis's lion Aslan in the Narnia series (the book, folks, NOT the movie…) carries a powerful aura of nobility that, in a human, would feel faintly absurd or even embarrassing. I certainly don't agree that Animal Farm would have been more powerful without the animals – it would have bored me silly and I wouldn't have finished it.
And as for the science – I get way more excited and enchanted by work that tweaks, or even just plain pushes through, the borders of our science. I don't believe for a moment that our science knows everything; but more importantly, I don't know everything our science currently knows anyway. I'd be the first to admit that the leading edge of physics is WAY beyond my humble skills. I managed to make it through Hawking's popular work in the 80s, but really, that's my limit. I have to accept on blind faith that when sufficient physicists talk confidently about multiverses, they are probably possible. (The multiverses, that is – not the physicists…)
I don't write hard sci-fi, but my current WIP's 'what if…' is grounded in ideas I've seen put forward by scientists, blending genetics, tissue manipulation and robotics. But I'm not about to spend a year researching those three fields so that the work becomes an academically accurate treatise. Rather, that science is an incidental way for me to give my main family of protagonists something plausible that makes them special, and enables them to undertake 'impossible' actions.
I'm not going to let hard science stand in the way of a fun idea. After all, Shakespeare wrote all sorts of histories – and never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.
To illustrate – let's go back to Peter F Hamilton's book for a moment. Science tells us that wormholes are impossible for transport as they would be miniscule in size, and last only a few seconds. But I LOVE Hamilton's solution to long-distance space travel. A new area has to be explored the old-fashioned way, with a spaceship. But once you've gone there and established the 'other end' of a wormhole, you can simply take a train through it. The elegance and – yes, I'll say it – romance of that solution made me laugh with delight when I read it. And I wished I'd thought of it. Is it physically possible? Highly unlikely. Does it detract from the story, the characters or the shivery chill I get from reading this book? No, because how people and freight travel through space is far less important to me than what happens when they get there. It's plausible *enough*, and for me that's the key.
Hm. I can feel my own manifesto coming on. I never thought of doing one before because it feels too much like rules and limitation. Something to contemplate, thanks!!
I have to vehemently disagree with the 'what is real' comment.
It is the SF author's task not to use only things that are or could be real, but to use the chosen subject matter in such way that it becomes believable, while not violating any existing laws of science, within the parameters of the world.
The 'what is real or could be real' matra is exactly what I've been agitating against in Science Fiction writing, because it narrows the field to exclude works that are, or should be, SF, that are not fantasy, that are speculative, but that contain material that is clearly impossible. Why do SF writers have to be so divisive? SF can include anything from hard SF to 'futuristic fantasy'.
I offer the Miles Vorkosigan books as a point of discussion.
Patty, I'm not saying you have to write within my constraints, nor that only works within them count as SF. Like the meaning of all words, 'SF' is what people think it is. Most people think it's pulp space opera with a dollop of paranormal (like Star Wars, etc..)
All I'm saying is that I aspire to write SF that fits my constraints because that is the kind of work I would be really proud to produce.
Janette, I started this because I'd read Jody-Ann Brock's 'Artistic Life Purpose Statement'. I thought it was a bold idea and I was in need of some direction at the time. It also resonates well with what Emma Newman has been saying lately about how if you write down your intentions and make them public, it helps you achieve them.
So, if you do write your own manifesto, don't forget to publish it
Ruzkin, Again excellent points. Again I have to disagree
I read what you're saying as, “If we take a message and express it as a fairytale, more people can grasp the essence of it without being distracted by human characters and motivations.” Well, this may be true, but I think it also allows the author to hide problems, gloss over discrepancies, and reduce the messy complexities of reality to simple statements of belief or dogma.
As someone who cried his way through The Gulag Archipelago, I have to say, I found even that dry and academic telling, far more moving than Animal Farm.
In the end, it depends on the audience and the quality of the writer. I'm pretty sure Orwell reached readers with Animal Farm would would never have heard the message if it had been told in any other way. I'm pretty sure it remains in the public mind because Orwell was such a brilliant writer.
I see a great danger in playing around with reality. I think the world would generally be better off if people would see it as it really is, not sugar-coated, not simplified, not glamourised with magical beings, and not bent to the writer's agenda. I'm not saying (too loudly) that Orwell wrote propaganda, but that kind of fairytale presentation has to make you ask why the author chose such a format.
I'm liking this debate, Graham. Mind if I put up my own Manifesto on my blog, and include some excerpts from both sides of this discussion?
I'd be delighted. I' can't wait to see your own manifesto. (Rather more liberal than mine, I expect!) Mind if I jump on your blog and comment?
That'd be excellent, I'll probably have it up on Monday. Looking forward to your opinions.
I'm so enjoying this debate, and it's great to see what people think is important in their writing.
Thanks, Janette, I'll have a listen.
Me too! Aren't sci-fi writers the best when it comes to arguing about our genre?