posted 7 July 2001

The 10 Most Important Things I've Learned About Writing Science Fiction
by Nancy Kress
www.sff.net/people/nankress/

Nancy Kress is the author of 17 books, including 13 novels, two collections of short stories, and two books on writing fiction. She is perhaps best known for the "Sleepless" trilogy that began with Beggars in Spain. Her most recent book is Probability Sun (Tor), which is set in the same universe as the 1998 Nebula-winning "The Flowers of Aulit Prison." Kress's short fiction has appeared in Omni, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, and Analog. Besides winning a Nebula for "The Flowers of Aulit Prison," Kress won Nebulas in 1985 for "Out Of All Them Bright Stars " and in 1991 for the novella version of "Beggars In Spain," which also won a Hugo. Her work has been translated into 11 languages, including Japanese, and Russian. In addition to writing fiction and regularly teaching at various places, including Clarion, Kress is the monthly "Fiction" columnist for Writer's Digest magazine.

1. Know what type of science fiction story you are telling. There are stories in which future science and/or technology is merely used as a metaphor (such as "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream," Harlan Ellison, or "Morning Child," Gardner Dozois). In other stories, science is used to create a believable background for a human drama (The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell). Finally, there are stories in which the science is central (Darwin's Radio, Greg Bear). In the first type, the accuracy of the science is not important and scientific detail is probably not even desirable; it may detract from the total effect. In the second type the detail may be light but it should be accurate. In the third type, you need to research exhaustively and make your future science as plausible as possible, based on and not violating current scientific knowledge. Then you need to include a lot of it in the text. Each of these kinds of science fiction attracts a different set of readers. There is overlap, of course, but not as much as I once thought when I began writing SF. Know what you're trying to do with your story.

2. No matter what you do, some readers will complain.

If you include meticulous extrapolation and excitingly inventive scientific details, many readers will say you're slowing down the story. If you only sketch the science in very lightly, the hard core will want more detail. The only thing you can do is accept this; it goes with the territory.

3. Start with action for a commercial story, wonderful prose for a literary one.

Ideally, of course, your novel or short story will be beautifully written and excitingly paced, a model of human depth and new ideas. But this is not an ideal world. Commercial books usually need to begin with intriguing action that raises questions about what will happen next. This captures both readers' and editors' attention. The literary novel, on the other hand, holds interest because the quality of the prose is a pleasure in itself, and because literary readers are willing to postpone strong excitement in order to savor that pleasure. Contrast, for example, the opening chapters of two excellent novels: Lois McMaster Bujold's Falling Free and Molly Gloss's Wild Life.

4. Try to become your characters.

In my experience, at least, the more you write your characters from inside their heads, feeling their emotions and sharing their motivations, the more depth characters take on. This is especially true if the character is much different from the author. Yes, you can feel a personality alien to your own from the inside. You haven't killed anyone (I hope), but you've been mad enough to kill. Follow that dangerous emotion to the heart of your character's feelings. Interact with your characters: hate them, fall in love with them, admire them, pity them.

5. Write every day, or nearly every day, until a piece is finished.

This keeps the momentum going. Even a few paragraphs a day, sandwiched in wherever you can, is better than waiting two weeks until you have a free block of time. Let as much of the rest of your life slide as possible; you can catch up when the piece is done.

6. Read SF.

I'm always astonished when I find beginning writers who are not reading in the field. You can learn so much from your peers. Also, if you don't like the stuff enough to read it, why are you writing it?

7. Rewrite.

There are people who can turn out perfect first drafts, but I've never met them. By the time a story — let alone a novel — is finished, new ideas will have occurred to you. Some of these you will mortar in as you go along, even if the hole doesn't really fit them. Others will only come to you when you're three-quarters through but they're too good to leave out. Rewriting allows a smooth, thoughtful blending of all the interesting aspects of your story, so that it does end up a story and not a shapeless mass.

8. Know how good you are with exposition.

If you can write beautiful, fascinating exposition (Ursula LeGuin, Molly Gloss, Karen Joy Fowler), use a lot of it. If you can't (most of us), let most of your story be carried by action, dialogue, characters' thoughts, and description. And go easy on the last. Especially in the first chapter.

9. Use the endings of things.

The end of anything — the scene, the chapter, the story — is the power position. Put something interesting and intriguing in those places. This will not only draw the reader into reading more, it will help you avoid the fatal Flat As Kansas Syndrome, in which every event in the story is given equal weight. The important events rate more intensity than the less important ones, and one way to get it is to lead up to them and then present them at the end of something, like the king at the end of a royal procession.

10. Remember that all these guidelines are idiosyncratic.

They describe how I work. Every writer works differently, and everybody is right. It doesn't matter how you get the story written, only that you do, and that it is good. Amen.