I asked myself, "Why is this book going on for pages about the different types of FTL travel?" Oh, right, this was written before Wikipedia. The information here is interesting, but the audience this book was written for was 30 years ago.

If you're looking for SFF writing advice, check out Brandon Sanderson's Youtube channel.

Published in 1990, prior (or nearly so) to The Wheel of Time, A Song of Ice and Fire, and The Stormlight Archive, the book is a little outdated with regard to the latest trends in the sci-fi and fantasy Industry, to say the least. However, the writing principles Orson Scott Card covers in this book are as applicable as ever, and the book serves as an excellent source of inspiration in one’s story-writing and -telling endeavors.

He frequently mentions authors and books worth reading (which obviously won’t have changed in thirty years, though more may be added to the list since then). Also in this book, Scott Card outlines his MICE quotient in a clearer way than I’d heard previously (in more limited format that couldn’t spell it out as thoroughly—I.e., podcast).

I shared some tips from this book here: http://blog.liviablackburne.com/2009/...

Con un título así se podría esperar un completo manual de escritura, y no es el caso. Nos encontramos ante una recopilación de consejos y reflexiones, que nos pueden ayudar a plantearnos las cosas dos veces antes de emprender la aventura de escribir una novela.

Algunas partes son prescindibles, sobre todo la última en la que habla del mundo editorial estadounidense de los años noventa, por razones obvias me queda muy lejos y no me resulta de utilidad. Sin embargo, me ha gustado que haya entrevistas a otros autores, sobre todo destacaría la de Sapkowski.

Si la comparo con otras obras similares de Stephen King o Ray Bradbury, sale perdiendo tanto en la forma como en el contenido. No obstante, puede resultar de interés a quienes tengan en mente iniciarse en la literatura fantástica.

I picked up this book because Brandon Sanderson suggested it on his blog, and since he writes amazing books and Orson Scott Card writes amazing books, I thought maybe I could glean something useful. And I did. Just not as much as I hoped.

For one, the first printing of this book was in 1990...so it's outdated. Skip any information about speculative magazines and publishing. Much more current information is online.

I did love the walk-through of some of his brainstorming sessions and how speculative fiction gets classified though, ie if you start a series as a fantasy and later give it a scientific explanation, it will still be classified under fantasy. Overall, the book had a light, humorous voice, and Mr. Card used another favorite, Octavia Butler, as many examples.

But there were a couple of times it came off kind of pompous. I hate to say this, because Mr. Card has reason to be pompous about his work, but maybe when you're writing to an audience of struggling writers, don't insult them?

Let's take for granted at this point your skills and innate genius make your stories publishable.

Because the truth is they're utter garbage and I'm a moron??

Overall, there was this sort of attitude that the only way to do things is the Orson Scott Card way. He's obviously a plotter, but many successful authors are pantsters. One way's not better than the other, but according to this book, the other way is wrong. If you read it, please be warned to take it with a grain of salt.

The last section on publishing is a bit out of date, but the rest is excellent information and super interesting!

If you want to write a sci-fi/fantasy novel but don't know where to start, this book has a lot of great advice. The best parts are the chapters on constructing fictional worlds in elaborate detail, as well as those that deal with the how to's of satisfying sci-fi fans and handling publishers. Card's advice pertains to both the creative and practical sides of being a novelist, thereby giving you the broad picture of what a professional writer's life entails. Like all good books on writing, it is encouraging while at the same time grounded in hard reality. The first couple of chapters are a little slow, as Card pontificates on such airy topics as the exact differences between science fiction and fantasy, modes for fictional space travel, possible methods of traveling through time, etc. Interesting concepts, but I wish he would have spent a little less time on them. The last three chapters were the best, so try to hang in there even if the book doesn't grab your interest right away.

Firstly, I would like to point out the reason as to why I picked up this book: I would like to one day become a published FANTASY AUTHOR. Therefore, my review will be from the perspective of a wannabe Fantasy Author.

Well Orson Scott Card is certainly a good writer. No one can really say otherwise. He was the first person ever to win both the Hugo and Nebula for the same book and is one of the best selling writers in the world today. In more recent times he has become a bit of a hated figure for certain views he holds and perhaps upon learning about them, your views of his work's content will change - however, if you can separate man and work - he is a damned good author whose quality of writing you should aspire to.

Just because the man is a great author though, doesn't make him a great teacher though... does it? Well... not always, but I believe you will find Mr Card fairly credible. He has been a lecturer and also held numerous panels over the years and it really shows. He puts across his points very well, doesn't give too many tedious examples and gladly he doesn't comment too much on his own work. I think when you pick up a writing book and people simply use their own examples it can feel very, very like they are trying to market themselves and get you to a point where you feel like rolling your eyes. The examples he uses are very good and kept to the minimum - awesome!

I will now go into a summary of the content:

Chapter One, The Infinite Boundary
Basically this chapter explains to you what 'Science Fiction' is and what 'Fantasy' is. I think perhaps the book shows it's age here, because where as people may not have known the difference in 1984 when it was first published, now most people know the difference. Already we begin to see a huge emphasis on Sci-Fi and Fantasy kind of gets shunned to the side. There is also a big discussion on magazines and anthologies that pretty much don't exist in the same way anymore. Really, a chapter worth skimming over and although it was enjoyable as a reader, as a fantasy author it was I am sad to say useless to me.

Chapter 2, World Creation.
The general point of the chapter was that: 'you need to really think about how x happens'. For example; If you say this species climbs walls very well - why? What caused them to evolve this way?. Basically every action has a reaction and if you are writing about reactions (which in Sci-Fi and Fantasy you are) you need to explain the original action. Everything has to have rules and you should take time thinking about them. However, there is again a massive, massive emphasis on Sci-Fi. We get a lengthy discussion on building alien worlds, traveling across space or time and just about a page on magic systems. I felt the discussion on how spaceships can cross space was very good and very scientific - but again, useless to me.

Chapter 3, Story Construction
Orson Scott Card tells us about the 4 different types of story. Basically whether your story is based on characters, events, worlds or ideas. It is a pretty good theory and one that will perhaps even make you sad in that any novel you can think of will fit one of the four - however, is it really helpful? I guess to an extent it is useful to know which one your story fits into, but there isn't much discussion as to how the writer needs to adapt their style depending on which they are writing.

Chapter 4, Writing Well
This was one of the better chapters. We are treated to some good examples on how to subtly explain a world to our readers (as writers) and also some basic rules that you should follow as a writer. I found this chapter to be one of the better ones because although it was again Sci-Fi orientated, the rules all seemed to work for Fantasy too.

Chapter 5, The Life and Business of Writing
This chapter could probably have been left out of the book post 2000. The chapter talks about extinct markets and sums of money that are no longer relevant. I guess some people might enjoy the pep talk, but for me I don't feel I need to know how to live as a writer in 1984 - things have changed so, so much in 25 years that it just sounded redundant.

-----

So, although I have kind of slated the book here - it is worth a read. It is certainly aimed at Sci-Fi authors and I do wonder why the word 'Fantasy' is even mentioned upon the cover. However, if fantasy writers are willing to read it and modify Orson Scott Card's rules and thoughts on Sci-Fi and bend them slightly to Fantasy the book could help you out. I think coming away from this book, the most important thing I took away from it was that 'everything I write about has happened for a reason'. I therefore need to work out what that reason is, so that what I am writing about is credible. More importantly though, I need to know how much of that reason I should explain to the reader (i.e. how much is relevant and necessary in order to enjoy the story).

The Brotherhood of the WoneLen StageThe Pros of Writing Science Fiction

Science fiction is one of the most creative genres in literature. Under this genre, you can write about almost anything – from adventures in faraway galaxies to the underwater worlds and everything in between. In science fiction, the otherworldly and sometimes unimaginable things are tackled. This is exactly what author Len Stage loves about science fiction. His recently published book entitled The Brotherhood of the Wone is a fascinating read containing many elements of science fiction.

Like Len Stage, there are plenty of other science fiction authors in literature. Arguably, science fiction seems to be increasingly dominating the book industry. More and more readers are now inclined to read science fiction; and similarly, more and more authors are now convinced to write it. To be clear, science fiction has been around for quite a long time already. The first known science fiction novel had been written in as early as the 18th century. It is the ever popular Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

If you are looking for some more reasons to be a science fiction author like Len Stage and Mary Shelley, then you are on the right page! Below are some of the pros of writing science fiction.
Your imagination is limitless

As previously stated, you can write about almost anything under science fiction – from adventures in faraway planets where aliens rule the galaxy, to the underwater worlds where mermaids and mermen exist! Everything that the mind can imagine can be written in science fiction. Indeed, your imagination has no limits here. There is nothing your mind can conceive that cannot be expressed in a science fiction narrative.

However, you sometimes need to be careful not become overly reliant on your imagination as to break the boundaries between science fiction and fantasy. To be clear, although the elements of the two genres often overlap each other, there is actually a significant difference between them. While fantasy has no grounding in reality and involves elements that are impossible in real life, science fiction is grounded in science and technology and involves possible elements. To make it easier, just look at science fiction as a combination of imagination and reality.

There have been dozens of how-to books on the topic of science fiction writing, and it seems to me to be self-evident that the ones from the most successful science fiction writers would be the most valuable. Card is certainly among the most successful, and I enjoyed reading his tips and suggestions, particularly where he used examples from his own writing experience. Much of the material is now quite outdated on the topics of the market and the state of the field, of course, but the mechanics of story construction have surely stayed the same from the birth of storytelling. It's a short book, but seems comprehensive, and I found it interesting to compare it to other sf writing references I've read such as L. Sprague de Camp's SF Handbook.

I waited too long after finishing this to remember the details for the review, which was great because it gave me the excuse to go back and re-read it, which I enjoyed just as much the second time.

In this book, Card focuses on writing science fiction and, to a lesser extent, fantasy. He doesn't try to cover everything about writing, but the few issues he does discuss, he gets in deep in a way I really appreciated. There are five sections to the book, and all the writing advice is in the middle three; still, he packs in a good deal of insight.

The first section of the book is about various ways to differentiate science fiction from fantasy, and why people still care about that, rather than call it all "speculative fiction" and be done with it. He makes some interesting points, and I found it worth reading, but I wouldn't say it actually helps me write any better. The last section of the book is about the "life and business of writing," such as how to get published, writing conferences, groups, etc. This might have been more useful when the book was written (1990) but a fair amount of it seems out of date today. Still, the general tips remain relevant.

The middle three sections pack a lot of advice about writing into 72 pages. The chapters are: world creation, story construction, and writing well. In all of them, he doesn't just give advice, or give examples to illustrate his advice, but also explains the examples and builds on them. His chapter on world creation deals with all the main issues I would expect – language, evolution, history. He spent a good deal of time talking about why it's important to understand how interstellar travel works in your sci-fi world -- that even if you don't include actual travel in your story, what is and isn't possible shapes the society and the everyday lives of the characters in ways you need to think through. My one beef is that I'd say the same is true for how magic works in a fantasy world, yet he gave that issue relatively short shrift. The section on story construction was good, although also the most general and least connected to the speculative fiction aspect. This is where he criticizes Star Trek, which apparently people criticize him for. But come on, I'm a rabid Trekkie and even I can see that he makes a decent point: pick main characters who actually have the freedom to act, rather than those hobbled by their position, such as kings and generals and, yes, starship captains, who have no business abandoning their ships to go off on adventures every time they find a new planet. He covers his MICE quotient theory here (how stories focus on milieu, an idea, characters, or events), although I preferred the way he described it in Characters and Viewpoints. The chapter on writing well does a fabulous job of discussing the challenges of exposition in speculative fiction, and uses wonderful examples (mostly Octavia Butler) for how to do it well and avoid the common traps.

It's not really a reference book, but I've been keeping it by my bedside and opening it to random spots – always finding an interesting paragraph or two to revisit before I close my eyes, so I can ruminate on how that issue is relevant to my WIP while I drift off.

I would definitely recommend this book if you write any kind of speculative fiction.

No me descubrió nada nuevo que no haya leído ya en los libros de Sinjania o similares, pero es un buen repaso a lo esencial. Un repaso a los pasos básicos para la narrativa enfocada especialmente a la Ciencia Ficción y la Fantasía. Lo genial añadido es también las entrevistas a otros autores, la bibliografia que cita Card y su propia experiencia en el medio impreso.

Indispensable leerlo o repasarlo de vez en cuando.