How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy

Una vez vi en El Corte Inglés dos libros de oferta que prometían contar la misma historia desde dos puntos de vista distintos («El juego de Ender» y «La sombra de Ender»), me llamaron la atención, me los compré, los leí, los amé, me compré las continuaciones, las leí, amé algunas y odié otras, y un día empezaron a decir por Twitter que Orson Scott Card era un homófobo de tres pares de narices y fue como dejar de hablarme con un buen amigo. Hace un par de años me deshice todos los libros suyos que tenía. Llamadme woke, llamadme cancelador, pero si hay que hacer sitio en las baldas, los homófobos son de los primeros en irse.

Antes de tamaño drama, en mi año de erasmus, me matriculé en la asignatura «Creative Writing», en la que el profe (un reputado guionista cuyo nombre no diré por lo que viene a continuación) nos compartió una carpeta de su Google Drive llena de libros sobre escritura creativa, manuales de redacción, técnicas para crear ficción... Para mí fue como encontrar el tesoro de los Goonies (no he visto la película, pero creo que hay un tesoro, ¿no?).

El profe (uy, casi escribo su nombre real) solo nos hizo leer uno «The 10% Solution», un libro brevísimo y muy útil que he releído (y reseñado) hace poco. Pero había uno escrito por Orson Scott Card, quien en aquel entonces aún era mi amigo. Lo leí y me pareció que tenía algunas ideas muy muy buenas sobre cómo escribir una historia, cualquier tipo de historia.

Me acuerdo de que una alumna le preguntó al profe: «Oiga, señor Profe (uy, casi digo su nombre otra vez), ¿de verdad son útiles estos manuales de escritura?». Y él contestó que no hacen milagros, pero que pueden sacarte del atolladero si estás falto de inspiración.

Hace poco que me propuse escribir una historia de terror. Una en concreto. Y, por lo que sea, no consigo terminarla. Quise encontrar ese libro de Orson Scott Card a ver si me ayudaba y me confundí y di con este. Me di cuenta de que no era el libro que yo recordaba, pero me dio curiosidad y seguí leyéndolo hasta que se acabó.

No me ha gustado mucho como salvavidas para escritores. Los consejos no son sobre el arte, sino sobre la gestión del arte: ahorra, paga tus impuestos, ve a convenciones, búscate un agente, conoce las leyes de la propiedad intelectual en el estado de Arkansas... Me ha gustado más como autobiografía deshilachada o como plato degustación de las opiniones de Card sobre otros libros y escritores a los que admira.

No es una estrella, pero mientras siga diciendo las barrabasadas que dice, vamos a intentar que sea un poco menos millonario.

El resumen del libro es, ciérrelo y póngase a escribir. Me parece una especie de tomada de pelo para quien recién se acerca a escribir, en el género o no. Por el renombre del autor y por el título, yo pensé que se trataría de algo más profundo, cuando menos algo que ayude a destrabar ideas, a dar seguimientos e incluso tips, aunque suenen a una receta de cómo usar una licuadora. Como se citó varias veces en el libro. Sino, para qué escribir. Mejor no pretender que puede ser un libro que apoye, cuando no es así.

Lo más rescatable es el último capítulo, que habla de la parte económica o en la búsqueda de un sustento económico como escritor. Cosa que Orson Scott Card, sabe de sobre manera. Eso está bien, con esa parte y las entrevistas a otros autores podría hacer se un libro menos pretensioso y sin tanta luz de gas.

This book is thirty years old, but it still contains valuable advice from a master of SF&F.

The first section in which Card discusses the boundaries between Science Fiction and other genres of fiction is standard, but he does have his own point of view. His most useful insight is that there are *rules* for what constitutes Science Fiction and its sister genre Fantasy which have been established over time and which a writer should take into consideration. The SF&F reader will be expecting a work that adheres to those rules. If you intend to break any of those rules--and as creatives, we instinctively color outside the lines--you must clue the reader in to what you are doing, or they will be disappointed.

This is a recurring theme in this work--cultivating reader expectations, posing questions early on, and answering those questions, making implied promises and then delivering on those promises.

Card provides an extensive discussion of world creation. He discusses the necessity of making rules for your world and adhering to those rules. Because your work is SF or Fantasy, it will have different rules than the the mundane world, but rules it must have.

The third chapter, Story Construction, is inordinately valuable. He discusses the viewpoint character(s),where the story should begin and end, and the four elements that determine story structure. Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event (MICE). The element that dominates the story will determine its preferred structure. This typology so utterly transformed my understanding of story structure, I have summarized it, below, for future reference.

Milieu stories focus on the wonders of the world the author has created. An observer enters the strange place, observes strange things, is transformed by what they experience, and comes back a new person.

Idea stories are about the process of finding out new information. A question is raised, the character searches for the answer, and at the end answers the question. Card emphasizes that the author must pose the question early in the work so that the reader understands that the story is more about the idea than that character.

Character stories (in Card's typology) are about the transformation of the character's role in the community they most care about. The story begins with the character unhappy and out of place, and ends when the character either settles into a new role, or gives up. The insight I received from Card is the importance of the character's *role* in the social structure.

Event stories are about the reestablishment of order in the world of the story. They begin when disruption or disorder becomes important to the character and end when a new order has been established. Alternately they can end with the old order reestablished, or the world descends into disorder and chaos.

The fourth chapter, Writing Well, focuses upon facets of writing that are peculiar to SF&F. Card discusses techniques for providing information to the reader about the world of the story, a problem more critical in F&SF than main stream writing. Some suggestions from Card. Name the characters early on and use one tag to reference them. Abeyance--name a thing or a concept, and then dribble out information to the reader about it over time. This protocol is critical to reading SF$F, and most readers in the genre will look for it. Implication--make the reader extrapolate from information provided. Literalism--metaphors cannot work in SF&F the way they do in mainstream fiction. Promises--when you reveal information to the reader that piques their interest, you make a promise that that interest will be be satisfied.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in writing speculative fiction.

In the book, OSC split his advice into two broad sections. The central part of the book presents technical advice on the creation and presentation of SF stories. I found this the most interesting section, notably the breakdown of the MICE quotient. OSC provides plenty of examples to guide the novice writer.

Book-ending this craft advice were sections about the life of an SF writer. Once again, there is plenty of advice here and overall it has aged well since the original publication in 1990. The friendly style makes it feel like sitting down with OSC at a convention for a quick chat.

Yet, the advent of blogging and the general expansion of information found online makes the SF life section feel superfluous. It is hard to criticise OSC for including advice which now seems freely available. However, I would have preferred a different balance to the book with more detail on the writing advice. The ten pages dealing with the fascinating MICE concept would certainly benefit from expansion.

Publicado inicialmente en 1990 “Como escribir ciencia-ficción y fantasía” es uno de los manuales base para la formación de escritores de género, de hecho mucho de lo descrito se puede aprecian en el curso de escritura de sanderson. Card explica su teoría en 5 capítulos.

1-La frontera infinita: donde se enfoca en lo que es el género fantástico mostrando algunas directrices más prácticas que teóricas para que el escritor emergente sepa a donde apuntar sus obras.
2-Creación de mundos: el titulo explica bastante, pero puedo agregar que es bastante pedagógico inicia desde la formación de ideas hasta como se tejen para crear una historia, creo que los amantes de la CF disfrutaran este apartado ya que es muy especifico y se toma el tiempo de hablar de los distintos tipos de viajes espaciales y los distintos tipos de viajes en el tiempo.
3-Construcción de la historia: de aquí rescato la distinción de entre el personaje, el punto de vista y el narrador, que son conceptos que tienden a confundirse, el resto me parece algo forzado.
4-Escribir bien: nunca esta de mas un capitulo corto recordando el buen uso del lenguaje
5-La vida y el negocio del escritor: pensé que este seria un capitulo tedioso porque este tema en el curso de escritura sanderson lo es, sin embargo la practicidad de Card hace el capítulo bastante ameno y da un par de consejos interesantes entre ellos el “No deje su trabajo”.

Además, incluye seis entrevistas de distintos autores de fantástica hablando un poco de sus procesos creativos. En resumen, es un libro interesante que aporta bastante, recomendable incluso para la gente que quiere escribir algo fuera de la fantástica.

Orson Scott Card's How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy (HTWSF&F) is published by Writer's Digest Books, which means it's sparse, focused purely on the topic and has an average price tag. These are not necessarily good things.

The book is about a 138 pages minus the index, implying that in 138 pages the beginning writer is expected to walk away with enough information on how to write speculative fiction. Hogwash. In addition to this, of the 5 chapters, only 3 are HTWSF&F, and of these 3, only 2 are specifically ideas and tips about SF&F. So in reality, we're talking of 52 pages only.

Chapter 1 'The Infinite Boundary' is basically about what constitutes speculative fiction and, in speculative fiction, what's what - horror, fantasy, SF etc

Chapter 2 'World Creation' is the beginning of HTWSF&F and the most extensive chapter in the book, yet it is in no way comprehensive since any single topic briefly discussed here could, in principle, be written about as a whole chapter in its own right. It's basically about world building, mentioning lot's of things like time travel, rules for magic, inventing the history etc but it never really goes into depth on how to do these... wait a minute, what was the title of the book again?

Chapter 3 'Story Construction' is an all-too-short chapter, which frankly speaking, could be dropped into any writing book. The only thing different that Card does here, is to use examples from speculative fiction. The most relevant piece of information is what Card introduces as the MICE quotient, which all stories have a bit of - milieu, idea, character, event - but one will be prominent and the writer should know which one it is.

Chapter 4 'Writing Well' only talks about 'Exposition' for 12 pages and 'Language' for 4 pages. There is little here that is new and the material on exposition is broad based.

Chapter 5 'The Life and Business of Writing' has nothing to do with HWTSF&F with the exception of naming markets where speculative fiction is sold, and this material is completely outdated! In an age where the publishing market changes on a month by month basis, and the internet has brought about a revolution in self-publishing, one can skip this chapter entirely and just Google or reference a market guide to know where to send in stories.

So there you have it - a book titled HTWSF&F justified mainly by using examples from speculative fiction, because in reality only about 10% of the information here is really on SF&F when you exclude references to these genres. The book should have been more aptly titled The Do's and Don't's of Speculative Fiction.

The only reason this received 2 stars rather than 1 is because what Card expresses in writing, he does so clearly. Then again, this book could have been summed up in one large A5 mind-map and that would have probably been more effective.

Hazy Shade of a Review: I remember reading this after leaving school with a journalism degree, putting a couple years of newspaper writing behind me and realizing I wanted to try something - anything - else. I remember thinking Card's advice sounded like good stuff. Hells if I can remember anything specific though. Still and all, the feeling I came away with, and what I still retain, is that this was a quality book, which I'd read again if I had the time and could find the dang thing again. I know it's around here somewhere...

A lot of the information in this book on how and where to get published is now as relevant as a Windows 95 manual. It is certainly worth the price of admission for the section on the types of SF stories though. When you have written books as good as "Ender's Game" and "Speaker for the dead" I am going to pay attention to what you say. A lot of the "how to write" books have me questioning how good the author actually is, which isn't a problem with OSC. I will probably hav another skim over the body of this book in another month or two.