Writing Science Fiction Scripts

The website screenplayscripts.com has published an interesting article on Writing SF Scripts by Nic Ransome.

Among many interesting points that it raises:

1. Film Genre vs Story Genre. Film theorists refer to the SF genre as portraying future or parallel worlds with a particular set of themes and tropes. Story theorists refer to genre as a setting, and not a genre per se. I think what Ransome is getting at is the difference between speculative SF, in which the SF is necessary for the story, and that part of SF in which a story told in a SF setting despite the fact that it could have been told in any other setting.
   
   As examples of the former, he cites Gattaca and Solaris, while of the latter he cites Star Wars (Hero's Journey in space) and Lost in Space (The Swiss Family Robinson in space). He describes Galaxy Quest as a "a fish-out-of-water ensemble comedy with a classic redemption arc for the lead protagonist ... set it in space" and also "one of the cleverest, funniest and most elegantly-structured Sci-Fi scripts of the past twenty years."
   
2. Utopia, Dystopia and Fantasy. According to Ransome, SF and Westerns are the only genre's to resist post modernism, which he attributes to the fact that:
   

   Sci-Fi so completely resists the post-modern relativity of time and meaning is because that is what it was always about in the first place. There are no realities or meanings more relative than those revealed by Science Fiction.
   
   In its purest form, the Sci-Fi narrative presents a polarity of moral choices and asks the most difficult of existential questions. This polarity is encapsulated by the utopian (ordered, no conflict, boring) and the dystopian (messy, intriguing, human).

   Here he gives the examples of Logan's Run, in which an apparently utopian world is revealed as dystopic, as well as Brazil and The Matrix as apparently normal worlds that turn out to be versions of hell.
   
   Fantasy arises when mythic stories are played out in a SF setting, such as Dune and Star Wars. He cites Chris Vogler as saying that Willow "is a perfect example of what happens when you try systematically to hit every beat of the Hero’s Journey without spin, skew or innovation."
3. Science Fact and Science Fiction. SF is naturally shaped by scientific advances. As examples, he cites:
   
1. state control through technology (1984, The Matrix)
2. cryogenics (Sleeper, Demolition Man)
3. cloning (Multiplicity, The 6th Day)
4. state control of fertility (The Handmaid's Tale, Supernova)
5. memory recording and exchange (Total Recall, Strange Days, Unforgettable)
6. cybernetics (Terminator, Bicentennial Man, A.I.).

He concludes with the following:

Sci-Fi is the arena in which we confront possible futures (and, indeed, alternate pasts) and explore how we could live in them.

Sci-Fi films continue to reflect advancements in science and our thinking about the consequences of ‘progress’, from films about computers developing consciousness and will (2001), to films about artificial intelligences developing souls (A.I.) and from a film in which a replicant thinks he is human (Blade Runner) to a film in which a human discovers he is a clone (The 6th Day).  

All in all, a fascinating perspective that I encourage you to go read in full. And some excellent suggestions for movies to check out. I need to go rewatch Galaxy Quest and The 6th Day. I don't recall ever having seen Sleeper.

The Writing Process: Lee Child

I am quite a big fan of Lee Child's Jack Reacher series of novels. They have got nothing to do with SFF (they are more action adventure crossed with police procedural). But as they are genre fiction of a different sort, and as Child is a wildly successful author, a recent article in the New York Times entitled The Professor on Lee Child’s Shoulder that describes Child's writing process should be of interest to fans of any genre.

The genesis for the article is that Andy Martin, a fan and academic critic of Child, approached Child about following him as he wrote his 20th novel in the series, Make Me. Martin then wrote about the experience in Reacher Said Nothing: Lee Child and the Making of Make Me. The Times article reports on a conversation between Martin and Child.

According to the interview, Child approached this as a form of real time literary criticism. As Child says:

Here is the fundamental reality about the writing business. It’s lonely. You spend all your time writing and then wondering whether what you just wrote is any good. You gave me instant feedback. If I write a nicely balanced four-word sentence with good rhythm and cadence, most critics will skip right over it. You not only notice it, you go and write a couple of chapters about it. I liked the chance to discuss stuff that most people never think about. It’s weird and picayune, but obviously of burning interest to me.

Martin says he was struck by how much of Child's surroundings made it into the book:

I tried to be a kind of white-coated detached observer. But every observer impinges on the thing he is observing. Which would be you in this case. And I noticed that everything around you gets into your texts. You are an opportunistic writer. For example, one day the maid was bumping around in the kitchen and in the next line you used the word “bucket.” Another time there was some construction work going on nearby and the next verb you used was “nail.” We go to a bookstore and suddenly there is Reacher, in a bookstore.

Child appears to be a "seat of the pants" writer. As Martin says:

That was the thing that drew me in: You never knew in advance what you were going to be writing about. It was a real tabula rasa. You really were making it up as you went along. I can certify that. I remember what you said when we started off down this road. “I have no plot and no title.” No plan, no notes, no synopsis.

while Child describes the change in his process, necessitated by having an observer, as being his primary interest:

Normally I operate in a fog of instinct. I wondered if being required to explain as I went along might actually be more illuminating for me than you.

Indeed, Child seems to have gotten used to bouncing ideas off Martin. The reported conversation begins with Child telling Martin the first sentence of his next novel, apparently titled Night School:

“In the morning they gave Reacher a medal, in the afternoon they sent him back to school.” The first sentence of “Night School.”

In response:

MARTIN Eleven syllables, each side of the caesura. Diminished alexandrine. Nicely symmetrical. And that rhythm. Like a limerick. Did you know you were doing that? 

CHILD See, I’ll miss all that.

Overall, a fascinating insight into the mind and process of a very successful writer.

More on Tolkien Criticism

Following up on Norbert Schürer’s “Tolkien Criticism Today” article that we previously discussed, Robin Ann Reid, herself a Tolkien scholar, has posted a rebuttal.

Schürer’s argument was essentially that Tolkien criticism had to navigate a difficult path between the difficulty of the material, and the popularity of the material; at once being scholarly and critical, yet still appealing to the fans which requires being not too critical. In his view, most criticism fails to navigate this path correctly.

Reid disagrees. Strongly.  In her view, all literary criticism is at risk of descending into cheerleading for the fans (and frequently does so), while the field of Tolkien studies is filled with excellent scholarly works that do not pander to fans.

Her first point is that to evaluate a work of Tolkien criticism one must be aware of the author's intended audience. Whereas some works are written with other academics in mind, others are surveys aimed at students, and still others are aimed at a wider general audience. Schürer, she argues, often evaluates works intended for a general audience according to standards that should be applied to academic criticism.

Second, Reid argues that, if anything, Tolkien scholars have typically mocked fans rather than pandered to them:

One major Tolkienist, who is one of the experts on Tolkien scholarship ... Michael D. C. Drout and his co-author Hilary Wynne call out Tolkien critics for *mocking* fans.

In their bibliographic essay, they argue that academics need to stop making fun of fans in their Tolkien scholarship: Endnote 36: "Among the many critics who go in for fan-mocking, the most distinguished are Rosebury (1–3) and Humphrey Carpenter in his January 20, 1997 interview in The Independent (cited by Pearce, 3)") (in: "Tom Shippey's J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and a Look Back at Tolkien Criticism since 1982," (2000), Michael D. C. Drout and Hilary Wynne). 

Third, Reid gives examples of the many self described (non academic) fans who are themselves are quite critical of Tolkien.

I am not well enough read in the area of Tolkien scholarship to weigh in on this debate.  But if I ever choose to become better read in this area, I could do worse than start with Reid's long bibliography of works of Tolkien criticism.

 

Designing Species in SFF

The Positron Chicago blog has an interesting report on a panel at Windycon entitled Designing Species in SF & F, and featuring writers Rachel Neumeier, Richard Garfinkle, and Katherine Wynter, as well as biologist Susan Weiner and astrogeologist/paleobiologist Jonathan Sneed.

Among the many interesting points raised:

1. Many imaginary non-humans appear to be psychologically human. What is needed are species that are psychologically non-human.
2. The psychology of a species need not be strictly tied to "naturalism"; they can have minds not bound to evolutionary psychology.
3. Many institutions of the society that may come to define a species can be thought of as solutions to coordination problems (these are my words, interpreting the posts emphasis on solving the prisoners dilemma).
4. As far as terrestrial species that might serve as a basis for intelligent alien life, the panelists cited:
1. Parrots & corvids like crows and ravens.
2. Cetaceans like whales and dolphins
3. Elephants
4. Cephalopods, like an octopus or squid (with the caveat that they are not social or linguistic and don't live long enough).
5. Non fiction recommended reading: Bostrom's "Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies" (2014).
6. The post gives many examples of alien/fantasy species that have been done well in SFF. A selection of them is:
1. Kate Elliott's "Spirit Walker" trilogy.
2. Peter S. Beagle's "The Last Unicorn"
3. Martha Wells' Raksura books ("The Cloud Roads" etc.).
4. CJ Cherryh. The "Chanur" & "Foreigner" books in particular. Also "Cuckoo's Egg".
5. Brin's "Uplift" series.
6. James L. Cambias's "A Darkling Sea".
7. Ted Chiang's "Story of Your Life".

I recommend you go read the original post.

Authors Behaving Badly: Scott Bergstrom

Scott Bergstrom is the author of the novel The Cruelty. Originally self published, it has since been sold into 16 markets, and had its rights purchases by Paramount with Jerry Bruckheimer attached. In USA, the book is set to be published by Macmillan's Feiwel and Friends. The description "YA Girl with the Dragon Tattoo meets The Bourne Identity, with a dash of Homeland" certainly sounds like a potential blockbuster.

Based on this, I think it is fair to say that Bergstrom is a big success. The problem that many people have with Bergstrom is that he shows little respect for existing YA fiction, those who write it, and especially those who write YA fiction that is SFF.

In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Bergstrom began with:

“The morality of the book is more complicated than a lot of YA so I wanted to try doing it on my own,” Bergstrom said. “In a lot of YA, the conflict takes place inside a walled garden, set up by outside adult forces. If you think of those stories as a metaphor for high school, they start to make a lot more sense, but that was one thing I wanted to depart from.”

This obviously distressed those already writing morally ambiguous YA fiction, which includes pretty much every famous YA offering from Twilight to The Hunger Games to Divergent.

Later, in an interview published on The Pen & Muse, Bergstrom went on to say the following:

I’m inspired by the world around me. What troubles me about so much of today’s fiction aimed at young adults is that its set in an imaginary time and place.

This is, at least, a slight against the SFF genre.

YA author Victoria Aveyard responded to each of the above statements in the following way:

I’m not going to waste breath listing the literal hundreds of morally complicated YA novels out there. And there’s not much excuse for to think there isn’t any. The big hitters (Twilight, The Hunger Games, Divergent) are all exceedingly complex in their morals. As another person on Twitter mentioned, pretty much everything is a metaphor for high school. I’m actually going to venture a guess and figure “dumpy girl becomes a slick warrior” is a metaphor for growing up and coming into your own, a major high school trope. But that’s just my opinion.

and, on the second quote:

This reads as a knock against genre fiction, which I write, which I think is worthy of as much merit and praise as any literary or contemporary fiction. This is a trend in most media though. Genre is usually written off come award season in fiction, film, and television. Of course, Bergstrom is entitled to his personal tastes, and I’m not saying he has to change tastes and start liking genre fiction. But you know, he doesn’t have to kick it in the dirt, not to mention ignore the great strengths of genre fiction. I don’t see anything “troubling” about the upswing in fantasy and honestly, it sucks to think another writer looks down on you so much.

Again, one need only look at the heavy hitter (The Hunger Games) to realize how important genre fiction is, particularly in raising tough questions that other genres can’t get away with asking so easily.

She summed it up with:

Overall, it’s disheartening, largely because this is not an isolated incident, and will not be the last time a guy wades in and claims to be doing what no one else is, while hundreds of women have already walked the path before him. Mr. Bergstrom could’ve taken a week, read 5 YA genre books written by women (I’d suggest Collins, Roth, Bardugo, Lu, and Tahir to start), and known that both violent and morally gray books already exist, and have existed, for a long ass time.

I know it feels like a pile on with the combined weight of the YA community up in arms over this, but we’re angry, offended, and quite frankly, sad. This is a very welcoming community, as I’ve learned firsthand during the last year, and Mr. Bergstrom basically walked in the door and sneered at us. He might not know he did, and I truly believe he did not intend to say things so harmful. Hopefully in the future he reads a few more YA books and quits knocking things to get ahead.  

I think this is the real issue---insiders are angry that an outsider, especially a man, feels free to criticize the huge YA literature, much written by women, without first becoming well informed about the area.

Laura Tims makes similar comments:

The thing that annoys me is how he makes this character out to be some groundbreaking feminist revolution. The “action girl” is not new. There’s a TVTropes page to prove it. YA is spilling over with Katniss Everdeens, Triss Priors, Meadow Woodsons, and a bazillion other kill-em-dead lady warriors who abhor pink, avoid dresses at all costs, and shoot first, ask questions later.

The thing that confuses me is that these male authors always seem convinced that theirs is the first.

Once, in a writing group populated mainly by older males, I listened to a thriller author explain that his protagonist was not like other girls. “She’s tough,” he explained. “She’s not into girly things.”

What I don’t think these male authors realize is that when they reassure us constantly that their female characters would never deign to touch anything pink-Barbie-cheerleading-related, is that it’s pretty clear that this disdain for femininity doesn’t just belong to their characters. It belongs to them. And they’re telling us that the only way a female character can be strong is if she acts, in every way possible, like a man.

See, these male authors are going to save us from traditional feminity by daring to write a female character who rejects it with the scorn it deserves. They often cite their daughters as inspiration for their rescue mission. They’re going to provide a positive example for the poor young girls drowning in pink.

Comments like these are all over twitter associated with the hashtag #MorallyComplicatedYA.

Even Chuck Wendig has weighed in, from the perspective of all of us living on "Hetero White Dude Mountain." Essentially, he argues that this is just another manifestation of white male privilege:

It also would seem to give us license to saunter boldly into a space that’s new to us and pretend like it’s new to everybody. We take a shit in it and pretend we’re planting a flag instead of, y’know, taking a giant shit where other people are already hanging out. “I claim this space in the name of me!” you scream, hauling up your drawers and leaving behind a steaming present while ignoring everyone else standing around gaping at the horror-struck literal shit-show you just performed.

You must unlearn what you have learned, Jedi.

This isn’t your manifest destiny. You’re entering into spaces that have already been built and shaped by people who aren’t you. You’re not colonizing it — except maybe only in the grossest ongoing historical sense, where you invade territory and overpower those who dwell there already. And you damn sure shouldn’t come into a space with the desire to “fix” it, either. I wrote a YA novel about a teen girl and crime-flavored moral complications. I was not the first to do it and I will not be the one to put the capstone on it. Neither will you, rando. I didn’t fix it. I didn’t make it better. I don’t own it. I’m sharing it. And I’m sharing it by the grace of those who came before me. (And I don’t shit on genre work, or teenagers, or Twilight or Hunger Games or any of it, because I don’t get to exist as I do without them.)

You do not honor or create your own success by ignoring or crapping on the successes of those who came before. That is gross and weird. Don’t do that. Be humble. Look back and point others to look that way. Look all around you at the present and look ahead, too. See that you are not alone — you are not the peak of this mountain and you are not the owner of this house nor its sole occupant.

It’s like borrowing a ladder from your neighbor and then pretending that you built it. Or worse, pretending that you invented the concept of the ladder, or that the mere act of you ascending its rungs has improved it in some incalculable, cosmic way. (Then you kick the ladder away to make sure nobody else ever climbs to the same height. Jerk.)

Don’t be crappy.

Give respect to others.

Admire and acknowledge their success.

Do not overtake their achievements and claim them for yourself.

Whoever you are, see yourself as part of a whole and not the sum of it.

You owe them. They don’t owe you.

I've had my disagreements with Wendig in the past, but I agree with him here. I'd go even further and say that any new entrant to a field (of science or literature), whether hetero white male or not, should pay respect to those who went before them. But they should not show not too much deference; it often takes an outsider to come in and challenge the implicit assumptions of a field in order for that field to progress.

The remarkable thing to me is that this seems to conflict with the recent brouhaha in SFF about whether modern readers are reading (and if not, whether they should read) the classics of the genre. Note that I am not criticizing Wendig for this---as far as I know, he did not weigh in on that debate on either side. But I suspect that many of the people who seem to think its is OK not to pay respect to the giants of the SFF genre would agree with Wendig when he says we need to pay respect to existing writers of YA fiction. It is this hypocrisy that I find repellant.

Recommended Reading: Another Year End Best SFF List

Elizabeth Bernstein at NerdMuch? has released her list of the top 23 best fantasy books of 2015. Why 23? I have no idea; perhaps she likes prime numbers? Since I like centered square numbers, I would have chosen 25.

Someone should really put together a meta list of the best SFF of 2015, tallying up the opinions of multiple reviewers and commentators. In the unlikely event that I find the time, I will try to do so. For now, however, I will content myself with simply reproducing Bernstein's list. More information can be found at the above link.

1. The Philosopher Kings by Jo Walton
2. Firefight by Brandon Sanderson
3. Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb
4. The Providence of Fire by Brian Staveley
5. Uprooted by Naomi Novik. See my review.
6. Half The World by Joe Abercrombie
7. The Autumn Republic by Brian McClellan
8. The Skull Throne by Peter V. Brett
9. The Liar’s Key by Mark Lawrence
10. The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher
11. Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson
12. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
13. The Mechanical by Ian Tregillis
14. The Price of Valor by Django Wexler
15. The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson
16. An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
17. Twelve Kings in Sharakhai by Bradley Beaulieu. Bernstein writes

    There are so many epic fantasy novels on the market that often, they can begin to feel a bit formulaic; sometimes you come across one that really stands out, though, like Bradley Beaulieu’s Twelve Kings in Sharakhai. His worldbuilding skill shines in this diverse setting with multiple distinct cultures, and he employs multiple character point-of-views and flashbacks to build a captivating mystery as the protagonist, Çeda, searches for clues regarding her own heritage. While it seems Beaulieu got off to a shaky start with his Lays of Anuskaya series (although some readers greatly enjoyed it), it seems he has vastly improved with the onset of this new trilogy, the second installment of which is planned for next year.

18. The Invasion of the Tearling by Erika Johansen.
19. Knight’s Shadow by Sebastien de Castell
20. Trigger Warning by Neil Gaiman
21. Vision in Silver by Anne Bishop
22. The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemesin
23. Magic Shifts by Ilona Andrews

Not a bad list, although it contains a lot of books that continue a series and so they might not make the best holiday presents. I have read two, and posted a review of one of them (the other will follow soon).

I was especially interested to see Brad Beaulieu make the list. I saw a reading of his a few months back and was impressed by what I heard. I plan to start with the Lays of Anuskaya, despite the underwhelming support offered in the above quote.

Inspiring SFF Books

The latest Mind Meld column at SF Signal collects answers to the question What SF/F/H book (or books) inspired you the most? which was posed to a group of authors.

Their answers:

1. Dan Koboldt:
1. Robert Jordan The Wheel of Time
2. Michael Crichton Jurassic Park
3. Frank Herbert Dune
4. Robin Hobb Farseer Trilogy
5. Patrick Rothfuss The Name of the Wind
2. Nicole Cushing
1. Thomas Ligotti Teatro Grottesco
2. Anonymous The Nightwatches of Bonaventura
3. Sadegh Hedayat The Blind Owl
4. Roland Topor The Tenant
5. The work of Bruno Schulz, Witkacy, and Mário de Sá-Carneiro
6. Hermann Ungar The Maimed
3. Jeremy Szal
1. George R. R. Martin Game of Thrones
2. Stephen King
3. Karen Traviss Halo: Glasslands
4. M. Darusha Wehm
1. Nathan Lowell Golden Age of the Solar Clipper series. Writes Wehm:

Beginning with Quarter Share, the series follows Ishmael Wang as he navigates the world of interstellar cargo hauling first as a green, unskilled recruit through to running his own ship in the “final” book, Owner’s Share.

5. Anatoly Belilovsky
1. Vladimir Nabokov Pale Fire
6. Dawn Bonanno
1.  Mercedes Lackey Valdemar series.
7. Amy Sisson
1. Eleanor Cameron The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet.
2. Laurent de Brunhoff Babar Visits Another Planet.
3. Poul Anderson Tau Zero
8. Kate Heartfield
1. Pat O'Shea The Hounds of the Morrigan

I thought this was a very interesting list. I look forward to checking out Lowell's Solar Clipper series, which sounds right up my alley. The Hounds of Morrigan also sounds pretty cool from the brief synopsis you can find at the original link.