| The Science of Science-Fiction Writing | ||||||||
| James Gunn | ||||||||
| Scarecrow Press, 240 pages | ||||||||
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A review by Trent Walters
The wide swath of Gunn's sound wisdom stems from his broad experiences, branching from his fiction as
an Analog Award winner and Nebula and Campbell award finalist, to his scholarship as a
Hugo and Locus Poll winner, to his Locus Poll nominee for editorial work on his non-pareil six-volume
series, The Road to Science Fiction. As a professor at the University of Kansas, as
well as online workshops
and in-person summer workshops,
he has taught Pat Cadigan, Bradley Denton, John Kessel, numerous winners of the Writers of the Future Contest,
among other well-known names of the genre.
The first section opens with "Why People Read Fiction," general theory derived in part by the aforementioned
experience and in part by Caroline Gordon, who also guided the artistry of Flannery O'Connor. One might be
tempted to skip this chapter as an introduction. But that way leads to folly since, if a writer wishes to write
for readers, he needs to know why they read. It introduces and offers morsels of advice that won't
be found elsewhere on how and when to convey senses, how word choice arouses reader expectation, what kinds
of important story questions readers raise and so forth.
A blessedly short and sweet "Anatomy of the Short Story" helps put the parts of the story within the grasp
of a whole instead of dissecting over long chapters, giving the impression of an hollowed-out cadaver that
other methods employ. "Why a Formula Is Not a Formula" justifies itself in opposition to the more experimental
who run counter to certain aspects of its theory though most literary writers would not likely
disagree. The advantage in this chapter, as in a few others, is that Gunn reasons out why beginning
writers should not make their mistakes and how to work around them where other books merely dictate
the laws. The brevity of "Author Strategy" is deceptive. The pencil will be an invaluable ally to
the reader in ascertaining the editor's strategy to reject his slush pile. Don't take exception
with "The Issue Is Character" until you understand how Gunn explains the methodology of great
writers like Charles Dickens, Emile Zola, Frank Norris, Sinclair Lewis, Upton Sinclair, Ralph Ellison,
Richard Wright and Tom Wolfe all subordinated character to idea while maintaining round characters.
"Scene -- The Smallest Dramatic Unit" develops the idea of drama beginning from the stance of viewpoint to the
scene, using van Vogt's method to illustrate how a story should constantly move forward. Here, debatably,
Gunn quotes Lubbock calling the third person limited "true drama" although most fictions do use this
viewpoint. Another possible sticking point is misinterpreting Hemingway's "narrative contains no
interpretation" as meaning Hemingway's narratives have no theme; rather, interpret this as Hemingway's
narrative viewpoints do not directly comment on theme.
A useful exercise for a writer might be to utilize the information learned about setting in "A Local
Habitation and a Name" then apply it to other examples such as the opening scene in "The Lens of Time"
which lends itself particularly well to setting analysis nearly as well as the example from
Flaubert. "Speaking Well in Print" describes how dialogue is made most efficient. "Suspense in Fiction"
shows the importance of viewpoint to creating suspense, providing examples how certain viewpoints cannot
create such suspense and going into how a surprise cannot come out of nowhere and how to best write
suspenseful drama. "Getting the Words Right" emphasizes revision while "How to Be a Good Critiquer
and Still Remain Friends" points to intent in evaluating a work -- which should be useful for critics as well.
The first three essays ("The Origins of Science Fiction," "Towards a Definition of Science Fiction"
and "The Worldview of Science Fiction") in the section on writing science fiction attempt a definition
of SF by comparing and contrasting against mainstream and fantasy and reaching back into its literary
and technological past for the origin in Newton, Darwin and Freud as well as
in Shelley, Verne and Wells. One quote that bears repeating to SF nay-sayers:
Wait a second, you say, there's no specific chapter on viewpoint. Gunn covers viewpoint as it relates to scene
and suspense, which is more valuable than the useless chapters other books provide. If you want viewpoint,
hunt down the two editions of Points of View: an Anthology of Short Stories edited by James Moffett
and Kenneth R. McElheny, but note that these omit examples of the second person and camera eye and that their
own descriptions, although brief, are as faulty as every other chapter on writing different viewpoints. What
appears to be the camera eye ("Anonymous Narration -- No Character Point of View") is actually a misnomer
for omniscience, dipping into whomever's mind it so chooses, i.e. an the exclamation point in Eudora Welty's
"Powerhouse" has to be from someone's mind if it is to convey enthusiasm. Incidentally, no offense to the
genius of the man's writing, Howard Waldrop tried to tell Clarion that the exclamation point couldn't be
used in fiction. Let Welty be a lesson to the rampant rule-mongering also found in John Gardner's
The Art of Fiction, i.e. the rhyming rule which is broken by innumerable well-respected authors.
Waldrop and Gordon van Gelder shared the view that SF was ineffective below the arbitrary limit of 2500 words,
yet the most effective short short, albeit with minor flaws that still raised it above another short short
by a well known literary author, was "Hullabaloo" by Diane Turnshek in the July/August 2000 issue
of Analog. However, books on writing can take the faulty empirical approach so a writer can
understand the supposed rules or else it risks being too vague and fluffy in theory that the writer walks away
with little more than when he started. The advantage of the two volumes of Points of View is that it
demonstrates the rules can be and almost certainly are beautifully broken by great artists. Likewise, the
advantage of Gunn's The Science of Science-Fiction Writing is that it tries to cover issues empirically to
learn from yet admits to methods that flaunt the rules.
As all books on writing, the rules need to be challenged. Gunn's points on the best viewpoint and on character
subjugated to idea in SF, however based on sound-reasoning and proof, also need to be challenged. Only through
understanding yet challenging rules can a writer learn the rules and rise above to the level of artistry achieved
in the Points of View anthologies.
If a writer merely flouts rules without first understanding where Gunn, Gardner, van Gelder and Waldrop come
from, the writer is likely to flail at the pretense of fiction (moreover, how can you challenge a position you
don't understand... yet people do). Unless you're making a living at writing -- and even some who are -- you
could benefit from the sagacity of Gunn's sixty-plus years of experience.
Trent Walters' work has appeared in The Pittsburgh Quarterly, Speculon, Spires, Vacancy, and The Zone among others. He has interviewed for SFsite.com, Speculon and the Nebraska Center for Writers. More of his reviews can be found here. When he's not studying medicine he can be seen coaching the Minnesota Vikings as an assistant coach, or writing masterpieces of journalistic advertising, or making guest appearances in a novel by E. Lynn Harris. All other rumored Web appearances are lies. |
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