Neil wrote:
*Anything* can be dull to read, if it's written badly enough. Conversely, almost anything can be interesting to read, if it's written in the right way. Even a story about watching paint dry could be made to work if it was about Avon's thoughts as he watched it drying out. (I'm not saying it would be easy to write, or that it would turn out a deathless classic, just that a perfectly readable story could be made out of the classic epitome of boredom.)
'The Mezzanine' by Nicholson Baker is worth reading for insight into what a good writer can do with unpromising material. A reasonably interesting novel about one man's lunch hour.
As to the SF, a lot depends on how you define it. I would say any fiction set in a hypothetical future is more or less SF of a kind by default. But that leads on to the thorny problem of 'What *is* SF?' for which there are no easy answers.
There's generally some thought that one ought to be exploring the changes in science and technology, either directly or their effects on society or individuals. I would say that I don't write science fiction (even if I write in the B7 universe), though I enjoy reading it.
If you don't know about it, don't write about it. That's why there's never any sex in my stories:)
And I only ever write bad sex...
A degree of imagination appears to be called for? Or even perhaps research? None of us live in the B7 universe (thankfully), none of us actually are Blake, Avon and crew, so there's got to be some imagination somewhere in all B7 fic.
Tavia
From: Tavia Chalcraft tavia@btinternet.com
If you don't know about it, don't write about it. That's why there's never any sex in my stories:)
And I only ever write bad sex...
Still one up on writing sex badly.
A degree of imagination appears to be called for? Or even perhaps
research?
Huh. Chance'd be a fine thing...
Oh, you mean in a wider context? Yes, imagination definitely necessary, and I think a good dose of research doesn't come amiss either. Harking back to what I was saying earlier about the characters living dangerous lives, it's obviously not a good idea to research your story by camping out on the West Bank or making a solo tour of Sierra Leone. You might get killed and hence deprive fandom of a wonderfully researched bit of fiction. But a trip to the library can easily turn up a few books by people who have lived on the front line and survived. Autobiographies by soldiers, cops and journalists can be pretty useful in that regard, and they can also be an interesting read in their own right. My own particular favourite would be 'The Good Guys Wear Black' (echoes of the Federation in the title alone!), but unfortunately I forget who wrote it. It offers a useful insight into the minds of people who opt to work dangerously (lots of macho nonsense, predictably, but also the camaraderie, the emotional support, stress management strategies etc), as well as the depth of planning and training needed to conduct the kind of operations that Blake et al seem to implement spontaneously. It's worth noting, I think, that the stress toll of working for the elite of the Metropolitan Police cost the author his marriage and ultimately his job (in that order, I believe), so it's a good distance away from James Bond fantasy land.
Since it's often the action scenes in fanfic that lack either plausibility or a sense of authorial certainty, a bit of background reading might well pay off. It can be quite eye-opening in other ways too. Who would have thought that Leonid Breshnev enjoyed playing infantile practical jokes at international summit meetings? Or that the task force commander for CIA operations in Angola had to sit on the floor and block a doorway doing his paperwork to persuade his superiors to give him his own desk? Or that a suspect being tortured by BOSS (South Africa's Bureau of State Security) was left bleeding in his cell while his interrogators left for their tea break? Or how about the newspaper clipping supplied by Reuters' office in Bangkok: "Police battled a gang of bandits in southern Thailand on Saturday. One bandit was killed. A police spokesman said the battle began when the bandit gang, disguised as policemen, challenged a group of policemen disguised as bandits."
Rich pickings indeed for almost any fanfic writer.
(The very best story of all was the one about the Iranian secret police and the booby-trapped police chief's car, but it's far too long to recount here. Suffice to say that if you put that in a story, nobody would believe it could ever happen in real life. But it did.)
Neil
None of us live in the B7 universe (thankfully), none of us actually are Blake, Avon and crew, so there's got to be some imagination somewhere in all B7 fic.
Tavia
From: Dana Shilling dshilling@worldnet.att.net
I think for me, a story works to the degree that the author really believes in...space battles, or Travis' bleak internal landscape, or how to set up a rebel
base,
or her favorite smarm pairing or...well, whatever.
However, I'd say that research is less important than imaginative consistency. As Neil says, there are plenty of things that you'd never believe even though they really did happen--I think that a story works better if it's about things you believe even though they couldn't really happen.
A necessary precondition for writing any kind of space opera, I'd say. But I think research is important, because it can lend substance and credibility to the overall tone of a story. I wouldn't particularly advocate nicking real-life incidents wholesale and sticking them in a story, though. It's more a case of getting a feel for particular elements that you might not be familiar with from real life. For space battles, for example, reading either some naval military history or autobiographies of fighter pilots (depending on how you envisage said battles taking place) might make it easier for you to write a space battle scene, whereas if you rely entirely on imagination then you can end up floundering. And if a writer is floundering, it almost always shows in the writing.
What you should emphatically not do is place a whole load of factual stuff in a story just because you know it. I think Judith P made this point in reference to all the stuff she learned about sheep diseases while researching 'Morgan'. Only a tiny proportion of your research will make it into the final story, but that tiny proportion might make or break a crucial scene.
Of course, anyone who claims to be a writer should be researching all the time, just by keeping his/er eyes and ears open. Anything might end up in a story if you can find the right place for it.
Neil
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Dana Shilling -
Neil Faulkner -
Tavia Chalcraft