Having negotiated a well-worn path that many women have trod before me and moved through many experiences I had never imagined for myself whilst a child growing up in Western Canada, I currently find myself in a rather privileged time and place where I can sit at my kitchen table that faces the window that opens to the back yard. A large maple tree is aglow in newly green splendour, and my laptop whirs off and on like a moodily contented cat. This privilege is by no means fixed; it is acquired through my participation in imperialist systems, namely the colonization of Indigenous lands—which continues to be challenged by Indigenous peoples today in their efforts toward self-determination. I co-own a house and much of my day is my own to read, write, think, dream. I can choose what I want to write. I open the Word program and format the first page.

Fantasy and Science Fiction are two genres (please note that I think of “literary fiction” as a genre as well, and not a separate category that exists outside of genre) that are particularly compelling areas for creative speculation because there is room to develop ideas that currently we do not experience in our lived world. Fantasy, and in similar ways, Horror as well, articulates and makes manifest that which is psychological, emotive, symbolic into material representation via language and narrative. Science fiction can be the ultimate of extrapolative thought experiments—the literal expansion of a hypothesis into a narrative form. The best of Fantasy and Science Fiction exemplifies, for me, the culmination of the richest possibilities of both creative and rigorous thinking. For the writer who works in these genres there is the heady experience of shaping that which did not, before, exist. Yes— I admit: there is a god-like thrill to this fleeting moment, the Bwah-ha-ha capering dance, a little hand-rubbing glee. (We are entitled to a moment, I think. Let’s just keep it inside the trousers.)

The wonderfully exciting world-building aspect of writing Fantasy and/or Science Fiction is of particular importance for imagining what our futures can be. I am most profoundly moved by those stories that, at their core, are about human transformation. For the act of writing and reading, no matter what the subject matter, is about human relationships: between the writer and the reader via the text, and between the reader and the fictional characters as imagined by the writer. That a human and social relationship has been engaged cannot be under-emphasized because the writer needs to recognize the enormous responsibility she carries in embarking on this engagement. This human relationship is not limited solely to that between the writer and the reader. The fictional stories that are read and discussed, written about and shared, taught and sold, re-enter the public social sphere that is also a part of an even larger social history and context. The story shaped on my laptop travels through publication and vectors out to the larger world beyond my kitchen, the yard, the neighbourhood, the nation.

Indeed—if we think about it too deeply, we may succumb to paralysis and drown. There is a tenuous place where a writer must seek a balance between understanding the enormous social responsibility and buffering this knowledge enough in order to be able to write at all!

It is not for the faint of heart.

For the fictional planet is not one’s own, even if we’re the ones who’ve written it into being. The writer is writing out of her umwelt—her understanding of her world has been shaped by her subject position and experiences—her place within her history, culture, nation, body. She is not separate from the multitudes of simultaneously streaming narratives. She is also an agent. And the writer writes herself back into the world when aspects of her umwelt are recreated in a work of fiction. We can never unsee our way of seeing. We can only deconstruct and expand upon it. It is an enormous relief to know that we can continue to grow. The best of Fantasy and Science Fiction reframes the familiar and allows for a shift in subjective positioning—making the strange, familiar, the familiar, strange.

Imagine the honeybee. What the honeybee perceives, experiences and understands of a “meadow” is vastly different from what the human perceives and understands of the same surface area, the decoding of this “environment” forever framed by the limits of one’s own mechanisms of decoding. Particularly for humans, these mechanisms are not only physical and experiential, but also cultural, political and historical. When Virginia Woolf, speaking from her umwelt, details the ways patriarchy and systemic sexism oppresses and limits the lives of women and women writers, she either does not deem it of consequence and/or has not noticed, that the very site she critiques and that she seeks to expand is also confined to her own social and cultural framework; it is not only women who have been systemically oppressed, but also people of non-white races.1 (For the purposes of this petit editorial I am not going to expand upon issues of class. But class, clearly, is a major part of the social fabric by which one’s world is perceived, understood and circumscribed.)

I feel most keenly the limitations of our ways of imagining a planet of one’s own when faced with the different ways race is or is not represented or the different ways in which investigations of race are avoided in Fantasy and Science Fiction (I am also looking to see how sexuality is being depicted or assumed—has blanket heteronormativity again been the automatic default assumption?). How will race be represented in these genres? Will race be a skin-tone application with no cultural dimensionality? Or, if the narrative is offset against, say, an alien species off-world, or amidst fantastical creatures in a fantastical realm, does the human race flatten into the universal one-race? And, if there is such a universal one-race, whose race shall represent this? If race, in the story, “is not an issue”—that is, the central character’s race and the dynamics of racism are not a part of the world system in the fictional narrative and has nothing to do with the plot—does it matter to us, the readers, if characters are of diverse races?

No doubt it is very clear that race matters a great deal to me in both fiction and in my lived life. Does it matter to you? If so, in what ways? And if not, why not?

Issues of race2, racism and power have always been part of our species’ history. If we trace the stories back in time, race has always been entwined with struggles between different groupings of human beings. If this is so when we look far behind us, how can we then think that race will not be an issue as we move toward the ever future? With such ideas in my mind I often find myself frustrated by novels and stories in Fantasy and Science Fiction in which the dimensionalities of race and cultures have been sidelined, erased, under-represented or glibly skin-tone-washed3. It’s frustrating to read characterizations of peoples in the future as off-white in terms of skin-tone, as if some benign universal blending has occurred, and not only are there no longer any issues of race, but there are no longer any cultural beliefs and practices. Race and cultures have collapsed into the universal (sic)—or, the remnant of race is only a gesture of what used to be but is of no relevance any longer. When I read stories like this, I wonder if the ideological future has been used as a way to avoid having to enter into any examination of race at all (i.e. Phhh-chew! At least in the future or in a magical realm we needn’t worry about race and representation! It also gives us the false sense that we are moving swiftly toward a post-racial humanity when so much more work remains to be done). Ultimately, even if these ways of thinking can be levered as rationalization, these constructed fictions, arising from any one writer’s umwelt, re-enter the reader’s larger sociological and historical moment that is always inter-connected. We can never write and read discretely. We are forever implicated. And if, eventually, humans have moved into greater latitudes of hybridity, I cannot imagine that as a species we will have learned to live without some kind of constructed racialized categorizations as a means to exert control/power.4 I have always thought that Octavia E. Butler’s Oankali’s assessment that humans are both intelligent and hierarchical—but that their hierarchical drive overwhelms their intelligence, to be succinct and accurate. What this understanding means to me is that we need to keep these conversations going, and not imagine we’ve ever arrived at a site to be considered politically and critically evolved. The learning and re-imagining is ongoing. And we need to continually engage in the practice of shifting from thought to action.

Working these considerations into the writing of Fantasy and Science Fiction does not mean that the fun is all over and that the rain-filled clouds of “political correctness”5 have ruined the spectacular picnic of speculative fiction. The inclusion of well-considered, nuanced and complex depictions of race(s) and culture(s) in genre fiction will bring greater depth and complexity to these narratives. Even in those narratives where the plot has “nothing to do with race”, the writer’s careful research and understanding of race and the workings of race and culture as they would realistically inform and influence the character creates a fictional umwelt from which the reader can expand her own. Race and culture in stories such as this move well beyond skin-tone application as a singular aspect of character appearance, and create a dimensionality to the fictional world that is rich, resonant and specific. I am not satisfied with the gesture of inclusion, the plunking into story of the “generic light-brown-skinned hero”. I want and I ask for more! Writers like Nalo Hopkinson, Ursula Le Guin, Larissa Lai, Geoff Ryman, and Nnedi Okorafor are doing just this, and it is heartening and inspiring. But I long for a time when a careful consideration of race and culture in Science Fiction and Fantasy becomes the norm rather than the exception.

As an adult reader and writer of Fantasy and Science Fiction, these spectacular genres are not my escape vehicles by which I fly to a planet of my own. The best of these genres has me re-examining my relationship to the world I live in, and the communities around me. They lead me to perceive the limits of my own thinking and ask me to explore the unfamiliar and to embrace the transformative. I am transformed.

My gratitude to Rita Wong for editorial feedback on this article. Errors of thinking and grammar are my own. HG

Footnotes

1 I point to Woolf’s limitations as an example of the limitations that we are all subject to—I am and remain a great admirer of her feminism, innovative writing and fierce thinking.

2 I understand that the idea of “race” exists and is utilized as a social construction rather than a biological or empirical classification.

3 Skin-tone-washed (I just made that up!) is the idea that instead of “white-washing”, the skin-tone is “melaninated” to signify a person of colour but aside from skin-tone, there is no specific contextualized cultural, racial or historical dimensionality to the character.

4 See Wayde Compton’s essay, “Pheneticizing Vs Passing” in his collection of essays, After Canaan for an interesting re-framing of ideas of seeing/decoding race(s).

5 “Political correctness” as the term is currently used is a powerful example of the ongoing existing tensions and resistance toward creating space for discourse around issues of social justice. Originally, “political correctness” was used in a proactive sense, as a way to speak to those moments when bias, racism, sexism, bigotry, etc. revealed itself. That this proactive term has been spun around 180 degrees to be used as a term of derision against the person who is seeking to raise awareness of bias, racism, sexism, etc. reveals that we are far from “having arrived” at a place where this discourse is no longer necessary.

by Robin Carson

Spring 2011

Recently, Ms. M. Jennie Frost and I had lunch together. Jennie, one of my dearest friends, has an amazing array of metaphorical hats that include her being a classicist and a published author.
She is also a professional storyteller of formidable ability.

At lunch, Jennie gave me a CD which had been produced by TALES, an acronym for The Alberta League Encouraging Storytelling. On the CD, called Undaunted Enchantments are nine tracks of “The
Old Faerie Tales the Way They Were Meant to Be Heard”. And they’re fabulous! They’re creative, engaging, wonderfully told—and meant for adults, not children. You can find their website, and order the CD at www.freenet.edmonton.ab.ca/~tales/.

If this is starting to sound like a plug for TALES in general and this CD in particular, it is, because as creators and performers of stories, storytellers are the elder cousins of the writers we feature in On Spec. In fact, it is just such stories as those on Undaunted Enchantments from which we draw the speculative fi ction that is the very essence of On Spec. In stories which must be heard, we find our roots.

Contrary to popular belief, storytelling is the Oldest Profession. Humans love to fool with language, and there’s no reason to think that when our ancestors had only recently come down from the trees, they were any different from us in that regard. When the only evening’s entertainment would have been singing (and singeing) by the campfire, it’s pretty certain that a good tale of the day’s successful hunt would be appreciated a whole lot while our ancestors filled their bellies.

We love stories. We love the rhythms of them, the characters, the weavings of plot. We love the “what ifs” that stories bring us. For a little while, a story takes us away from the realities of rats in the thatch and nine-day-old pease-porridge, and lets us stand with Gilgamesh and Enkidu as they overcome Humbaba. It is no wonder that Bards and Scops were afforded extraordinary protection: they brought with them an exotic new reality when the old one had become so very threadbare.

Written stories are newcomers—virtual newborns in the hoary world of storytelling. The tales upon which our common archetypes are built were told well before the invention of movable type, and the oldest of these pre-date writing itself. It is the voice, not the pen, that gave us our most-loved stories.

In this way, The Twilight Saga doesn’t begin, say, with Stoker, but rather has its roots in those whispered tales designed to warn, or to entertain. Those whispers are coming from something much, much older. They are the “old wives’ tales” in the very best sense of the expression.

All humans seem to share a common bond through storytelling. Many years ago, I taught classes in English as a Second Language. I had students from eleven different countries in one class, and at Hallowe’en, I asked them to prepare to tell the class some scary stories from their own countries. It didn’t matter what part of the world they were from, each student had a story from his or her own culture appropriate to the season. All had legends and tales to tell, haltingly brought into their new language, but spellbinding nonetheless. Each story was prefaced with “my mother told me”, or “my uncle used to say”, but never “I read”. These were folk-tales, and folk-tales are best heard, not read.
What an oral telling brings to us that written telling does not is, of course, performance. That performance is more than just some sort of vocal quality that the teller has. Rather, it is an entire auditory overlay to the story that writing cannot hope to convey.

When we write, we clumsily try to represent the pauses and inflections of speech with punctuation, but punctuation is a truly ineffectual tool. For example, as a copyeditor, I’ve had at least a dozen arguments with writers over the use of the semi-colon when I want to use it “properly”, but they want to use it as a sort of generic joiner. I sympathize with that feeling, since punctuation is woefully deficient in ways to join ideas that the voice manages so naturally.

Terminal punctuation is just as bad. For example, in the early 1970’s, there was a brief flurry of interest in the “interrobang”, a splice of the question-mark and the exclamation point, apparently meant to strengthen such circumstances as someone shouting, “What do you mean?!” Or then there’s the very common problem in dialogue of having someone’s speech trail off. How should it look on a page? Do you use an em dash? A terminal ellipsis with four points? Three and a question mark? What?

Pauses in speech are another problem for writers. Copyeditors are never pleased by actual spaces in the text, and we have no punctuation placeholder for spaces. With effort, we can represent the subtlety of “What’s that on the road ahead?” vs. “What’s that on the road: a head?” but the punctuation has to work overtime to try to express what the voice does naturally.

Imagine a scop raising his hand and demanding, “Hwaet!” to launch the 3100+ lines of Beowulf. Not only is the exclamation point deficient in expressing the raw emotion of that moment, but it also loses—entirely—the raising of the hand. And that body motion, kinesics, if you will, is the second quality that writing cannot present without a descriptive context, but body language provides essential meaning to
the storyteller’s art.

In a nutshell, we fall in love with stories when we’re very young; and we do so largely because of the performance of them. The printed page looks pretty bleak and austere next to the sound of a mother’s voice telling a soothing bedtime story to a reluctant sleeper. That’s not to say that print is cold and ugly; but a writer must work harder to bring life and emotion to a story, and use a skillset very different from that used by a storyteller.

I suggest that we all get hooked on stories because of performance. Mother Goose, the Brothers Grimm, Andersen, Aesop, and so many others all provided the raw material for mothers, teachers, grandparents—to tell us stories we love. We learn to imagine that way; and when it comes time to hit the springboard into thought that reading the printed word provides, we’re ready.

So, thank you Jennie Frost, and TALES, for reminding me that without the fuel that performance lends to a story, that story is very much less than what it might be. And thank you, too, Jennie for the reminder of how hard writers must work just to echo that performance in the making of memorable stories.

by Barb Galler-Smith

Winter 2010/2011

Labour Day, 1994
Newsflash! Klingons and Star Fleet personnel seen on the corner of Portage and Main.

Ann Marston and I stood open-mouthed as we watched a small crowd of aliens, space farers, and dragonriders walk the streets of Winnipeg and corridors of our hotel at our very first science fiction and fantasy convention. Worldcon, or more properly the World Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention, held its annual meeting in Manitoba that year.

We had no idea what to expect. Some members of our online writers group (the IMPs) had suggested we go, and we went only to see what it was all about, maybe make a few professional connections, and to meet face-to-face some of our online friends for the first time. Unforgettable.

Flash forward to October 2010 and a busy convention schedule for me: V-Con in Vancouver, Pure Speculation in Edmonton, and the World Fantasy Convention (WFC) in Columbus, Ohio.

My reasons for going to conventions have not changed much in all these years: to find out what's happening in the world of SF/F, make a few professional connections, and to meet once again the friends we've made at conventions over the years, and now, with Facebook and other online communities, meet our online friends face-to-face.

Why is that important? I hear you ask. Why should I spend all that money to hang out with like-minded people to game, costume, watch old SF films, attend panels on which sit a few highly knowledgeable professional writers, editors, publishers, fans, scientists, media guests, and all the other things associated with broad spectrum conventions—like art, music, and even volunteer blood-lettings for the Red Cross. The why is obvious for me. It's just about the only place on the planet where you can hang out with people who "get" SF/F, who like the same geeky things you like, who read the same books or introduce you to new books, and maybe best of all—meet the authors of your favourite books.

Okay, from the fan point of view, there are always gazillions of things to do. During the day, panels which appeal to the fan in all of us on any topic you can imagine—whether it be discussions of movies, books, or that huge "other" category. Then at night there are parties, parties and more parties. All day and all night there are things to do, including watching movies or hanging out in the con suite, which provides a place to snack, rest and chat.

From the writing professional point of view, I can't think of any better way to meet the people who matter in our business: writers, editors, publishers, agents, and readers. We find them at the same places we find fans: panels, the book dealers' room (and often so much more—art, collectibles, comics, clothing, jewellery), the con suite, parties, lounges, elevators, hallways, lobbies, and restaurants.

This is my favourite part. At my first WorldCon I met pro writers who are still my friends. At my first WFC I met my future collaborator face to face. Lists of attendees are a Who's Who of the business.

Things I did this year:

As a fan: I stammered and gooed over some of my favourite authors, watched the many costume competitions, laughed with IFWA's filk play Monster Mash, oogled fabulous costumes, and attended panels. Favourites: Dr. Gino DiLabio talking about nanotechnology at Pure Speculation, the Steampunk costumes and hearing Robert Picardo
talking at V-Con, the Aurora Awards banquet at KeyCon, and the Art Show at WFC. Then the readings: the list of authors who wowed me is endless.

As an editor: I talked, talked, and talked. On panels, in lounges, in hallways—everywhere! Yes, even in the "Ladies". It was great. I even exchanged anecdotes with editors I'd once been too shy to speak to. I talked to, and I hope encouraged, a multitude of writers of speculative fiction to keep writing, keep submitting their stories, join writers
groups, network by going to cons, and learn everything they can about writing and the business of writing. I also discovered that people all over the world know about On Spec, and love us.

As an author: Ideas flowing like wine, the book launches, and WFC's late night panel with IFWA member Adria Laycraft discussing with an informed and well-read audience all our favourite fantasy novels.

I'm rejuvenated. The feedback, support, and love of others writers, editors, publishers, agents, and readers is incomparable. I wrote in the airport. I jotted plot outlines on napkins. Most important, I'm ready and energized to do what I love the best every single day, write.

So October exhausted me in a good way. I intend to get to some really fine cons next year. One word of caution if you do the right thing and join the convention-going throng: pace yourself.

By Thomas Warton

 

Summer 2010 Issue

 

Not long ago I taught a workshop course on writing fantasy fiction. My students ranged from dedicated writers of Internet fan fiction (who seemed to have an encyclopedic knowledge about the world of contemporary fantasy) to writing students who had written a lot of fiction but had never written fantasy before, or at least didn’t think they had. In addition to workshopping student stories, we looked at published short fiction by well-known authors, from Lord Dunsany to Kelly Link. Everyone had a valuable and unique perspective to contribute, and we all had our blind spots and biases, too. The one point we were mostly in agreement about in our discussions was that a good fantasy story has to be, first and foremost, a good story.

 

So what is a good story? I wouldn’t dare define such a creature, which comes in so many different shapes and guises; but I have a few suggestions, derived from years of reading stories of all kinds, on what a good story does. First and foremost, a good story makes a reader want to read it.

 

The craft of fantasy is, at its core, the same as the craft of any fiction: a good story grabs a reader’s attention and sustains it. When you sit down to write, don’t forget you’re a storyteller. Robertson Davies said, “If you’re a writer, a real writer, you’re a descendant of those medieval storytellers who used to go into the square of a town and spread a little mat on the ground and sit on it and beat on a bowl and say, ‘If you give me a copper coin I will tell you a golden tale.’ ”

 

So how do storytellers get people to gather and listen? In Making Shapely Fiction, Jerome Stern coins the word “intrigant” for anything in a story that catches a reader’s interest and makes her want to keep reading (the two qualities are really indivisible: you can’t catch someone’s interest without instilling in them the desire to know more). An intrigant, then, can be a tense situation, a strange visitor, a hint of something unusual about to disrupt the ordinary and the everyday.

Stern’s own example is a story that begins with a dog loping down a street with a Bible in its mouth. Immediately we’re wondering: what’s going on here?

 

Even a well-chosen word can be an intrigant. Look at the difference between these two sentences:

 

“Ivan walked across the courtyard and opened the gate.”

 

“Ivan lurched across the courtyard, cursing, and heaved open the gate.”

 

The first sentence is like a stage direction: it’s mere information that doesn’t entice or paint a picture. In contrast, the second sentence creates immediate interest with a single verb: “lurched.” Why is Ivan lurching? Is he drunk? Wounded? Crippled? What happened before this moment? The reader immediately wants to know more, because there is clearly more to know.

 

When it comes to intrigants, there’s no sure-fire attention-getter that’s going to work for every story. But one general observation I can make is that in many successful stories, something is already happening to someone right at the beginning. And I italicize “something” and “someone” because they’re both crucial. But we’ll get to that in a moment. For now, let’s look at “happening.”

 

As a writing instructor and writer-in-residence, I’ve seen too many stories that begin something like this: “In the 22nd year of the reign of the tyrant Bahdahss, after the Frazmenorian Empire was split into four factions during the War of the 12th Succession, the guild of wizards was formed in the city of Old...”

 

Clearly, the writer knows his imaginary world to an impressive depth, but hasn’t considered that the reader doesn’t know it, and is either going to feel lost in all this history-text info, or just bored.

 

Whenever possible, start your story with some situation (problem, mystery, imbalance) already under way, with events already moving from the ordinary to the unusual. “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from uneasy dreams, he found he’d been transformed into a giant insect.” There’s a simple reason why that is one of the most memorable openings in all of literature. Something awful is already happening to poor Gregor. As opposed to this guy:

 

“Grimm Darksword woke up. It was morning. He yawned, climbed out of bed, gazed out the castle window at the forest, and wondered what he was going to do today...”

 

There’s someone here, sort of, but nothing is happening to him. Or rather, what’s happening is what happens to everyone: we all get up in the morning, make breakfast, eat toast, etc. Who gives a damn? Not even Grimm Darksword.

 

Most of us, at least, have a job or something we’d like to accomplish in a day. Grimm Darksword has nothing to do. There’s nothing bothering him, nothing driving him. Yes, wonderful fiction has been written about slackers and aimless social dropouts (try Samuel Beckett), but in these cases it’s usually the voice that intrigues the reader and drives the story. So unless you’ve got a first-person narrator with a vivid, compelling voice, I’d advise choosing someone a little more motivated than Grimm Darksword as your main character (and while you’re at it you might want to give him a more original name).

 

More about the “someone.” Avoid stock characters as main characters. A stock character is one that we all know already. The mad scientist. The absent-minded wizard. The fierce but secretly kind-hearted warrior maiden. Stock characters make terrible main characters because they’re shallow, formulaic, pre-programmed to do and say certain things. And that means boredom for readers.

 

Stock characters do have their uses: as supporting cast. (even as great a writer as Kafka makes use of them). Not everyone in your story needs to be developed and three-dimensional. You can use a familiar type to get a conflict established quickly. For example, Gregor’s manager comes to his apartment to find out why Gregor hasn’t showed up for work. The manager is an outwardly polite but unfeeling businessman for whom time is money. That is, he’s a stock character, which Kafka uses to increase the tension in Gregor’s situation. So don’t completely disdain stock characters, but keep them in their place.

 

How can you be sure your main character isn’t a cliché? One test you can apply is this: how easy was it to write this character and get her going on the page. If the character just seemed to write herself, if you know everything she’s going to do, and the story just falls into place around her, then she’s likely a stock character. Take careful notice when anything comes easy in writing. It usually means you’re working on automatic, filling up your stories with clichéd elements that have already been done to death by other writers.

 

So if you’ve got something happening to someone, so far so good. You might just have caught the reader’s attention. Now you’ve got to sustain and deepen that attention.

 

Ursula Le Guin: “fantasy is true, of course. It isn’t factual, but it’s true.” (The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction.)

 

I imagine Le Guin was talking mainly about fantasy’s role as allegory and social commentary. But being true, I suggest, also means staying grounded in the truths of the real world. What do I mean by the real world? For the purpose of this essay, let’s avoid philosophical debate and call it the world of the senses. The world of right here, right now.

 

In fantasy you’re probably going to be making up “unreal” stuff, like talking groundhogs and accountants with wings. Readers aren’t going to accept these wonders if they stay “unreal” (that is, if they remain only an idea). You have to make the unreal thing exist. How? Ground your flights of fancy in believable details of the physical world. The world where we stub our toes and get pimples and have to go to the bathroom. It’s a safe bet this is the world your readers live in. Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis into an insect feels true because Kafka immediately grounds it in the problems of the everyday. The first thing Gregor does is worry about how he’s going to get to work today. Lying on his back (his new carapace) he can’t even get up out of his bed. For an obedient company drone like Gregor, missing work is almost worse than turning into a giant insect!

 

Years ago in one of my classes a student submitted an ambitious story about a race of evolved, intelligent dinosaurs. The writer knew his world in great detail, but like a story set in the Frazemenorian empire above, the writer bogged down his tale with unengaging background detail. Then, late in the story, the main character (a humanoid dinosaur with a bony, bowl-shaped frill on the top of his head), was entering a building out of a rainstorm. As he came in, he paused to tilt his head so the water would run out of his frill. At that moment, I believed! With that seemingly insignificant gesture, the writer had made me feel what it would be like to be a humanoid dinosaur with a bowl-shaped frill on my head.

 

My point about real-world detail is that it is one of the primary ways to sustain a reader’s engagement with your story. Yes, of course you need a plot and maybe some twists and turns and suspense, but don’t rely only on these strategies. A story can fall flat if it’s too “plotty.”

Don’t forget to make your fictional world come to life for a reader in a concrete, physical way. Try this: from time to time while you’re working on a story, “step inside” it and imagine what you would be seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, feeling, if you were there. If you can touch and feel this world, chances are better your readers will, too.

 

One last thing: if you want to write powerful fiction, expand your horizons as a reader. A good story comes from other good stories. From great examples in the past. I happen to believe that fantasy is one of the oldest forms of literature, going far back beyond Tolkien and Lewis. Far older than so-called “realism.” Get to know the long history of the genre you’re writing in, not just the most recent story your buddy posted on a fan fiction site.

 

If you’re looking for examples, here’s a list of some of the best:

 

Antiquity:

• The Epic of Gilgamesh

• The Iliad and The Odyssey

• The Bible

• Beowulf

• The Poetic Edda

 

Asia and elsewhere:

• The Ramayana

• Journey to the West, Wu Cheng’en (Adventures of the Monkey King)

• Japanese folktales

• Popol Vuh

 

The Middle Ages and later:

• The Mabinogion

• The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri

• The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer

• Le Morte d’Arthur, Thomas Malory

• Shakespeare: Hamlet, Macbeth, A Midsummer Nights’ Dream, The Tempest

• Paradise Lost, John Milton

• Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift

• The poetry of William Blake

• The Kalevala

• Grimm’s Fairy Tales

 

19th/20th century literature:

• Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

• The stories of E.T.A. Hoffmann, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe,

Nikolai Gogol, H.G. Wells, Guy de Maupassant

• Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales

• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson

• Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

• The stories and novels of Franz Kafka

• Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino

 

Aboriginal North America and early settler tales:

• The Wishing Bone Cycle, Howard Norman

• Johnny Chinook, Robert Gard

• The Sun Came Down, Percy Bullchild

• Legends and Tales of the American West, Richard Erdoes

 

One other thing: there are plenty of bestsellers out there that disprove everything I’ve said about what makes a good story. Yes, you can be a successful writer by offering readers fast food instead of a golden tale. So feel free to make liberal use of stock characters, clichéd plots, and flat-line prose, if your goal is making money. I won’t think badly of you for it, I promise. But then again, I probably won’t read your stuff.