writermag.com • The Writer | 23ADRIANNE FINLAY:
“Speculative stories,
at their best, offer
up a critique, and
ultimately a subver-
sion, of our domi-
nant assumptions
and expectations
about the world in
which we live.”LINDA NAGATA:
“Good speculative
fiction is not about
the technology or
the magic. It’s about
how people relate to
that speculative ele-
ment, how it shapes
their lives, how it
empowers or chal-
lenges their human-
ity, and how they are
changed by it.”KIJ JOHNSON:
“Speculative fiction
has to keep all the
balls in the air: plot,
characterization,
voice, and the rest –
and it has to invent
new worlds.”JANICE HARDY:
“At the core, good
speculative fiction is
still a good story.
The speculative
aspects inspire and
enhance the story-
telling – they’re not
a replacement for it.”LOIS MCMASTER
BUJOLD:
“Finally, write your
own story. As my
friend Pat Wrede
once cogently
remarked, ‘If you try
to chase the market
and fail, you will
have wasted your
time utterly; if you
chase the market
and sell, they’ll just
want more of what
you didn’t want to
write in the first
place.’”TIPS FROM
WRITERS
Drawing on his early experience in writing the form, he
states, “When I was writing YA SF fifty years ago, writers
avoided dark emotional complexities, particularly of the
sexual kind. But apparently that taboo is no longer opera-
tive. And much YA SF now seems to be dystopian, whereas
writers in my era were encouraged to take an upbeat view of
the future.”Tips from speculative fiction writers
Perhaps you’re normally a writer of realistic fiction and you’re
just now branching out, trying your hand at some form of
speculative fiction. Or let’s say you’ve been writing speculative
fiction for a while, but you’d like tips for improvement.
According to the pros, what are some key do’s and don’ts?
For Nagata, if you want to write good speculative fiction,
“First and most important, read a lot of good speculative
fiction and read widely. Be open to subgenres new to you
and read outside the field too.”
But don’t be derivative, cautions Hardy: “It’s important to
push boundaries and create fresh worlds and ideas readers
haven’t seen dozens of times before.”
“Speculative fiction is a heavy trope genre, so it’s easy to
rely on tropes and not move beyond them when developing
a story,” she says. As examples of tropes, she includes The
Chosen One (e.g., Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Luke Sky-
walker), The Noble Savage (e.g., Av at a r), and time travel.
“Keep an eye on the story’s internal logic,” says Nagata.
“Your speculative element needs to be consistent within
the rules you set for it, and it needs to be a critical part of
the plot.”
Strong worldbuilding is essential, states Johnson. “A fan-
tasy or science fiction writer has to convince the reader that
the story she is telling is set in a world as real as our own. She
may not know every detail of her world’s physical and human
geography, its assumptions and history, or its scientific and
moral rules; but she conveys the sense that she is describing a
place that is plausible and complicated, just like our own.”
“I am especially frustrated by science fiction and (non-fab-
ulist) fantasy that isn’t rigorous,” she continues. Writers must
get the essentials of that world down in adequate detail: “A
nation (or a spaceship, or a galactic empire, or a magic sys-
tem, or 1810 London) requires resources and resource man-
agement. It exists in a world with physics, even if they’re not
ours. It is part – perhaps a small part – of a much larger sys-
tem.” If you’re writing realistic fiction, as she points out, you
know “the rules” of that world, or you can research them; by
the same token, don’t slight the “realities” of the world you’re
creating in your speculative fiction, she cautions.
But in focusing on the speculative element, don’t ignore
characterization, warns Nagata. “No matter how amazing
your fantastical element might be, your story is about the
characters. Show us who they are. Make us care about them.
It’s the human element that makes a good story, even if
you’re writing about aliens.”Photos by: Jamie Orr Photography (Finlay), Karen Nickel (Hardy), Dallas Nagata White (Nagata), Carol Collins (Bujold), Salon di Marco (Johnson)