Bryan: category, formatting

2008-03-07T08:31:18Z

category, formatting

ShadowWolf: TSAT #20

2008-01-09T04:24:48Z

TSAT #20

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{{byline|author=Rabbit|user=Rabbit}}
[[Category:Phil Geusz]][[Category:Essays]][[Category:Writers School]]
Last Labor Day weekend, I found myself standing in a hotel parking
lot in Memphis, Tennessee with a group of close friends. It was
about midnight or so, and this particular hotel was located directly
under the approach path of the local airport. It had been raining
off and on for some time, and the clouds hung low and thick.

As it happens, Memphis is the home base of Federal Express, the
famous overnight parcel delivery service. Chatting quietly and
companionably, we stood together and watched in quiet awe as a
miracle took place right in front of our eyes. One after another,
a seemingly endless line of heavy cargo jets materialized out
of the gloom and glided over our heads, with engines throttled
back to near-idle and tiny wisps of fog forming at their wingtips
in the heavy humidity. Each jet, weighing many tons, passed directly
over our heads as if suspended from a dream and then vanished
behind the hotel building as it went on to land in a nightly ballet
that may very well have no direct parallel anywhere in the world
today. What we were watching was not just a series of planes landing,
but a multi-dimensional ballet involving hopes, dreams, thousands
of years of steady technological advance and even the expression
of social and financial systems evolved to a sufficiently high
level to allow such a remarkable thing to take place. It was,
in a word, incredible.
So, you may well ask, what does Federal Express have to with to
do with transformation stories? The key phrase in the above paragraph
is "a miracle took place right before our eyes". 
As a rule there are four basic transformational devices used in
TF literature. These are surgical, magical, technological and
biological. Magical TF's can be as unlimited as a writer's imagination,
of course, while surgical TF's are almost entirely confined to
TG stories. Biological TF's, as epitomized by the well-known "Martian
Flu" of the "Blind Pig" universe, generally operate under the
guise of contagious diseases. Technological TF's, however, are
far more complex and difficult to work with. Creating a technological
TF device demands not only that the writer at least deal in passing
with the incredibly complex issues of bio-engineering, but also
that he seamlessly place these issues within the context of the
society that produced such tech. When a writer attempts to write
a story with technological TF's, in other words, he has by definition
set out to write a work of science fiction rather than one of
fantasy; therefore, in order to produce a credible work he simply
must meet the very exacting strictures of a good SF tale. This
requires discipline, discipline, discipline! However, the results
can exceed in scope and impact any other form of artistic expression
on the planet, at least in my opinion.

Genuinely superb SF is in my opinion rarer than hen's teeth; the
vast majority of what I find on the shelves for sale today in
fact makes me want to gag. While there seemingly have been almost
as many articles written on the elements of good SF as there have
been truly excellent SF tales, and many of these articles make
excellent points, I have yet to read any of these "authoritative"
pieces that really hits the nail on the head regarding the factor
that produces real quality work of the sort that transcends the
boundary between simple storytelling and true art. And that boundary,
of course, is that the story must make a miracle, a real, genuine,
honest-to-God miracle, take place right in front of your eyes.
This is one hell of a challenge for any writer, of course. Ninety-nine
or more percent of all SF consists of the simple rehash of old
ideas or plots that have been done a million times before. Yet
the truly great ones have managed it -- from time to time the impossible has been accomplished and the reader led gently forth to touch the
living face of God. It has been done, and can be done again. Heinlein
did it in Orphans of the Sky, the very first and original tale about a generation ship lost in space so long that its inhabitants have forgotten they are space travelers. "The universe was three miles long!" declares the blurb on a paperback edition of this work that I own, and for once the blurb-writer has captured the inherent truth of the novel. The universe was only three miles long for the travelers, because the inhabitants had turned inward to superstition and violence instead of outwards towards science and reason. Their universe literally shrank to nothing as their minds closed, and when the viewpoint character finally rejects his religion and looks out upon the naked stars in all their majesty... <shiver> There simply is no more powerful use of metaphor in all of SF. None!

Arthur C. Clarke has taken his readers to see God as well, not
once but many times. Perhaps my personal favorite is the story
of Alvin of Lorraine in the classic Against the Fall of Night. Alvin lives in a world where humanity is in serious cultural
decline, where risk-taking and exploration and even the mere idea
of there being anything new or worthwhile to be found in the universe
is simply unheard of. He explores the glory of Man's past, and
rediscovers a heritage that reaches far beyond the mundane boundaries
of his people. (Clarke later rewrote and expanded this novel as
The City and The Stars, but I have always preferred the plainer and less embellished
original version.) 
Another more modern writer who has taken me to unexplored heights
is Greg Bear. His Anvil of Stars (sequel to the also-excellent Forge of God) is possibly the single most depressing work I have ever read
in my life, yet it is glorious and miraculous nonetheless. It
is the tale of a group of children sent forth in an alien-provided
starship to avenge themselves upon a people who have utterly destroyed
Earth and almost all of mankind. Their society's whole purpose
for existence is to seek out and kill these evil beings, and as
they get closer and closer to their goal their interpersonal relationships
warp more and more out of true until we find ourselves utterly
repulsed by the stark, mindless hatred and bloodlust of a tribe
of revenge-seeking primitive savages and, even worse, recognizing
our own reflections much too clearly in their world. In the end
it becomes clear that in order to put paid to the planet-killers
(who have killed many other worlds besides ours and will continue
to kill others unless stopped), several idyllic and totally innocent
races must be exterminated as well: there is simply no other way.
Among all the peoples and civilizations who have faced this dilemma,
guess who alone is bloodthirsty and heartless enough to do what
is needful to bring about victory? 

Most articles about writing in general, including those about
writing SF, tend to focus on the craftsmanship aspects of writing.
Don't repeat words too often, they tell you. Show, don't tell.
Use good grammar, and remember always that the all-powerful and
all-knowing Bill Gates put a spellchecker on your computer for
a reason. But what they will not tell you is that to truly transcend
the limits of reality in your reader's mind, you must find and
develop a core idea so powerful that it is analogous to plugging
a thirty-amp lead into God himself. Even more, your execution
of this idea must be in harmonious sympathy with the concept,
so that your symbols sing and your metaphors match the greater
flow of the tale. I would submit that the technological approach
to transformation gives you far and away the greatest opportunity
to make this happen, though I could not for the life of me tell
you exactly why I think this is so. Perhaps it is that the discipline
of thought required by the writing of true SF as opposed to fantasy
brings about a pleasing sense of synchronicity on a subconscious
level, or perhaps it is just that when writing about advanced
tech we simply have to plan our works better and more carefully.
But it is true nonetheless, at least in my experience. With almost
no exceptions, every TF story I have ever read that could properly
be described as being art rather than simple storytelling has
been solidly based upon the thoughtful use of a technological-type
TF. 
So, here is my challenge to you. Make me feel the same way that
I felt while watching those spectral planes wafting so effortlessly
overhead in Memphis, and I will gladly read your works of fiction
forevermore. Make a miracle happen in front of my very eyes, and
I will be your slobbering fanboy from now until the end of time.
For there was something far more magical than mere magic about
those planes lined up so endlessly, a sight that even a few short
decades ago was absolutely unimaginable and which would have been
regarded as the purest of science fiction. TF tech is inherently
no more impossible nor unbelievable, I would submit, than Federal
Express. Technology is perhaps the most quintessentially human
thing in all of the universe, the aspect of ourselves that most
clearly defines us as a species. Nothing based in mere material
reality is more clearly proof of who and what we are deep down
inside than is our tech. I challenge you to take this thing called
tech and run wild with it, to wrestle with this most difficult
and most rewarding of TF story types and write a true science-fiction-type
TF story with all the discipline and limitations that this style
of work implies. After all, you never know. In stylistic limitations
you may find true freedom, and in the attempting of something
truly difficult you may find inner resources that you never even
suspected you had. 
Who knows? You might just make a miracle happen.

Making Miracles - Revision history

Bryan: category, formatting

ShadowWolf: TSAT #20