Laurie Lamson - Now Write! Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror: Speculative Genre Exercises from Today’s Best Writers and Teachers

ALSO IN THE NOW WRITE! SERIES

Now Write!
Fiction Writing Exercises from Todays Best Writers and Teachers

Now Write! Nonfiction:
Memoir, Journalism, and Creative Nonfiction Exercises from Todays Best Writers and Teachers

Now Write! Screenwriting:
Screenwriting Exercises from Todays Best Writers and Teachers

Now Write! Mysteries:
Suspense, Crime, Thriller, and Other Mystery Fiction Exercises from Todays Best Writers and Teachers

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Copyright 2014 by Laurie Lamson

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lamson, Laurie.

Now write! science fiction, fantasy and horror : speculative genre exercises from todays best writers and teachers / Laurie Lamson.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-101-62529-3

1. Science fictionAuthorship. 2. Fantasy fictionAuthorship. 3. Horror talesAuthorship. 4. English languageRhetoricProblems, exercises, etc. I. Title.

PN3377.5.S3L35 2014 2013037258

808.3'8762dc23

While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Version_1

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF SOME OF THE MOST IMAGINATIVE, TERRIFYING, THRILLING, DELIGHTFUL, THOUGHT-PROVOKING, AND INSPIRING WRITERS:

E. B. White, H. G. Wells, Jules Verne, P. L. Travers, J. R. R. Tolkien, Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, Dr. Seuss, Edgar Allan Poe, George Orwell, C. S. Lewis, Ira Levin, Aldous Huxley, Frank Herbert, William Golding, Philip K. Dick, Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, Octavia Butler, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Anthony Burgess, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ray Bradbury, L. Frank Baum, Isaac Asimov

CONTENTS

EDITORS NOTE

When I asked if I would carry on my aunt Sherry Elliss legacy with another Now Write! title, I wasnt sure. Putting these books together is a labor of love and a rather daunting task, even as a team. I was hesitant and a little anxious about taking it on by myself.

I discussed it with our wonderful Tarcher editor, Gabrielle Moss. When she got excited about the topic I had in mind, I started warming up to the idea of flying solo. A year later, I discovered she writes in these genres, so she also became a contributor.

I have very eclectic tastes in movies, music, and books. Before I began working on this anthology, it hadnt occurred to me that many of my favorite works were fantasy, science fiction, and psychological horror; even many of my own projects are magic realism. I started recognizing the stories that most captured my imagination, made me think the deepest, and stayed with me the longest often fell into the speculative genre category. Ive dedicated this book to many of my favorite authors who are no longer with us on the earthly plane.

Being popular gives the speculative genres a sort of lowbrow, easy-to-dismiss cultural reputation. Ive come to see their importance, and value the fantastical approach to storytelling. At its best it can bypass our vigilant minds to explore deep, often unconscious fears and truths in a way that is manageable and supremely entertaining.

So Im beyond pleased to share this array of insight and inspiration with all writers who dare take on the brave and meaningful work of pushing the limits of their own imaginations, and the world as we know it, to create something unique with their words.

Thanks so much to all the novelists and short story writers, movie and TV writers, poets and teachers who contributed to this anthology. A pleasure working with you.

UNDERSTAND YOUR SPECULATIVE GENRE

The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.

ARTHUR C. CLARKE

Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living. Its a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope.

DR. SEUSS

STEVEN SAUS

Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Ideas? Making Speculative Fiction Speculative

STEVEN SAUS injects people with radioactivity as his day job, but only to serve the forces of good. His stories appear in anthologies such as Westward Weird, Blue Kingdoms: Mages & Magic, Timeshares, and Hungry for Your Love, and in several on- and off-line magazines, including On Spec, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, The Drabblecast, and Pseudopod. He publishes books including the Crimson Pact series of dark fantasy anthologies (Alliteration Ink).

All fantasy should have a solid base in reality.

MAX BEERBOHM

The hardest theme in science fiction is that of the alien. The simplest solution of all is in fact quite profoundthat the real difficulty lies not in understanding what is alien, but in understanding what is self.

GREG BEAR

O ver the last decade the hard bright lines of genre have disappeared. You can lay the blame on the reduction in physical bookstores, literary cross-genre courageousness, or the alignment of planetsbut the effect is real.

The labels sci-fi, horror, and fantasy have shifted and blurred so that it is difficult to tell where the lines are anymore. Margaret Atwood refuses to label The Handmaids Tale as science fiction, but instead calls it speculative fiction. Is PANS LABYRINTH fantasy, horror, magical realism, or something else entirely? Hard science fiction, once the domain of two-dimensional characters, is now littered with fully realized personalities. You can find high fantasy written in clear journalistic prose, and horror concerns itself not just with fighting the zombies, but with offering a plausible explanation for how the zombies came to be. The need for the term dark fantasy to describe works such as the Dark Tower series and Imajica is itself a testament to the way these genre lines have bled into each other.

The blurring of genre creates readers who want something theyve never seen before. Despite there only being two (or seven, or thirty-six) fundamental plots, we can still satisfy the readers needs by having a new combination of ideas and creating an emotional core for all your characters.