Technology in Fiction

Most of my fiction involves characters struggling with new technology. These days, learning how to contend with technology is a relevant and fascinating problem for all of us, and I enjoy exploring it.

I wondered if I was roaming the full realm of that topic, so I decided to map it. There are several ways to do this, but I chose to create one axis showing technology development stages, and another describing the spectrum of character responses to technology. Then I figured I’d plot my published stories on that map, and color-code the roles my characters played.

If I’d done my job well, I thought, the map would show a good dispersal of scattered points. That is, I’d have written stories covering all the areas, leaving no bare spots.

Without further preamble, here’s the map:

To make it, I chose the stages of technological development posited by the technology forecaster Joseph P. Martino. These are:

1.   Scientific findings: The innovator has a basic scientific understanding of some phenomenon.

2.   Laboratory feasibility: The innovator identified a technical solution to a specific problem and created a laboratory model.

3.   Operating prototype: The innovator built a device intended for a particular operational environment.

4.   Operational use or commercial introduction: The innovation is technologically successful and economically feasible.

5.   Widespread adoption: The innovation proves superior to predecessor technologies and begins to replace them.

6.   Diffusion to other areas: Users adopt the innovation for purposes other than those originally intended.

7.   Social and economic impact: The innovation changed the behavior of society or has somehow involved a substantial portion of the economy.

I then came up with typical responses to technology along a positive-to-negative spectrum: Over-Enthusiastic, Confident, Content, Cautious, Complacent, Dismissive, Fearful, and Malicious.

I grouped my characters into four roles: Discoverer, Innovator, User, and Critic. Some of my stories involve people discovering lost technologies or tech developed by departed aliens, so I had to include that role. The other roles should be obvious.

The resulting map shows many of my published stories, indicated by two-letter abbreviations of their titles. Where a single story occupied two areas, I connected them with a line.

Details of the map aren’t important, but you can tell a couple of things at a glance. First, I’m nowhere close to covering the whole map. I’ve concentrated on the Operating Prototype and Widespread Adoption stages more than the others.

Second, innovators view technologies positively and critics negatively (duh), while users tend to view technology negatively in the early stages and more positively in the later ones.

As far as map coverage goes, I wonder if the Operating Prototype and Widespread Adoption stages provide more opportunity for dramatic stories than the other stages.

Has anybody studied technology in fiction using a similar method? I can imagine a map with hundreds of colored points on it, representing an analysis of hundreds of science fiction stories. It would be fun to see how my stories stack up against those of other authors.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to write. As more of my stories get published, perhaps you’ll see future versions of this map, updated by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 7, 2019Permalink

Your Writing Voice: A Different Take

Some time ago I wrote about finding your writing voice. Recently I read a post by Jessica Wildfire and it forced me to think deeper.  

In my original post, I said a writer’s voice included two aspects: the stuff she writes about, and the way she writes it. In other words, (1) the topics and (2) the style. My suggestions on choosing topics are still sound. But Ms. Wildfire introduced some new thoughts about style.

Her 11-item list of style principles is so good I won’t repeat it here and will merely urge you to read her post. (Here’s that link again.) I’m just going to emphasize the part I found most disruptive.

She suggests reading Steven Pinker’s The Sense of Style, and I intend to do that. But she goes on to advise writers to toss The Elements of Style in the garbage.

Really, Jessica? Throw away my copies of Strunk and White? I couldn’t bear it.  

I understand why she says that. The Elements of Style dates from a century ago, and contains numerous rules presented in a way that sounds rigid, overly prescriptive, and archaic. I’m guessing those are the parts she ‘hate-reads’ to her students as counter-examples.  

But the overall message of Strunk and White, the vital essence of the work, is timeless and I hope Ms. Wildfire would agree. Elements is a plea for the writer to keep the reader always in his thoughts. Yes, your job as a fiction writer is to entertain, but to do that, you must first be understood.

As you look over Ms. Wildfire’s 11 principles of style, you’ll see she doesn’t care much for the old rules—the ones about grammar and showing rather than telling. But what comes through in her principles is a message Strunk and White would agree with. Write for the reader. Never confuse or bore the reader.

She advises writers to tell their stories in a voice readers can connect with. To do that, listen to the way real people talk. Notice the flow of words, the rhythms of their speech. If faced with a choice between clarity and correct grammar, opt for clarity. Delete the boring parts and cut to the chase. 

Okay, Ms. Wildfire, I’ll follow most of your advice. But I’ll never throw away the Strunk & White I got back in 1976. I consult it occasionally and re-read it just a couple of months ago. Elements will remain on the bookshelves of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 30, 2019Permalink

Your Tool for Writing Best-Selling Novels

Want to write a best-seller? Together, you and I will figure out the secret.

As I’ve posted before, data scientists have developed software that can predict whether a novel will be a best-seller. These text-analyzing tools are about 84% accurate, but only work when they have text to analyze. That is, you have to write the book first, and then run it through the computer. Not super helpful.

Not available. Anywhere.

We can do better than that, at least as a mental exercise. W. Somerset Maugham is reputed to have said, “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.” Let’s figure out the rules Maugham said no one knows, but not just for novels—for best-selling novels.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a data scientist and don’t know a thing about creating text-analysis software. I don’t have the time or spare cash to buy all the best-sellers for the last few years and input all that text into a computer.

Still, we won’t let minor details stop us. In fact, since we’re creating imaginary software, we’re free from bothersome facts that constrain real data scientists. Our best-seller writing rules needn’t involve things that computers are good at counting. We can come up with any rules we want.

Let’s start with a name for our imaginary software tool. Perhaps Best$ell 1.0. Not very good, but we’ll use if for now and get our Marketing Department to work on a better name.

Let’s imagine a list of attributes that Best$ell 1.0 will use. We’ll use this list for starters:

  1. Luck
  2. Amount of promotion of novel
  3. Appeal of book cover
  4. Existing fame of author
  5. Appeal of main characters
  6. Difference from other novels
  7. Addresses a current or emerging topic
  8. Addresses a controversial or taboo topic
  9. Amount of sex or violence
  10. Quality of prose

You could come up with different attributes, but that list should be okay for Version 1.0. Let’s say Best$ell 1.0 can easily measure all of those attributes. Let’s also say a greater amount or degree of any of those attributes gives a manuscript a better chance of becoming a best-seller.

Looking back over our list, I see one problem. Some attributes are beyond the author’s control. The first one depends on chance. The publisher controls the second one, for the most part. Attributes 3 through 5 depend on reader reaction. Attributes 6 through 8 depend on society in general.

I put the list in rough order from least author control to most author control. The author has some influence on all the attributes except number 1, but has greatest control over the latter items in the list.

Moreover, not all the attributes would be equally important. Best$ell 1.0 would know the weights to assign to each attribute, of course, and it may well be the last items in the list outweigh the first ones. That would give the author greater influence.

Of course, that last attribute might be fully under the author’s control, but it’s not a very actionable attribute. How, exactly, do you write high-quality prose?

Well, it looks like Best$ell 1.0 has a few bugs and isn’t ready for release. But it’s a start. The next version will be much better, given the talent and expertise of our top-notch team: you and—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 23, 2019Permalink

The History of Science Fiction…So Far

Many people have written histories of Science Fiction, including Anthony Gramuglia, Robert J. Sawyer, and (in infographic form), the artist Ward Shelley. What follows is my version.

I split SF history into five ages. For each age, I’ll give the years covered, some characteristic aspects, how the age reacted against the previous age, and a list of representative authors. The timeframe for each age is approximate; within each, some authors wrote works hearkening back to the age before, and some presaged the age that followed. My lists of authors are short and therefore incomplete. I’m only discussing text works here; the history of SF in movies tended to lag behind that of written works. Here we go:

Age of Wonder

This covered the time before the year 1800. There were few works, and they tended to involve pseudo-science and took place in exotic settings. They used magic or unexplained methods to convey characters to those settings, and often the character was a chance traveler and passive observer. Representative authors included Lucian of Samosata, Johannes Kepler, Cyrano de Bergerac, Margaret Cavendish, and Voltaire.

Age of Science

This age spanned from 1800 to 1920. With the advent of the Industrial Age and the Scientific Method, authors incorporated scientists actively discovering or inventing, and then exploring in their steam-driven machines. The settings were exotic, but more realistically described. This age rejected the magic and chance of the Age of Wonder, and highlighted the scientist deliberately creating his invention. Representative authors included Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Age of Engineering

Covering the years 1920 to 1980, this age exploded the genre with a lot more authors and stories. It was the age of aliens, robots, space opera, pulp fiction, atomic power, and mad scientists. Aimed at a largely white male audience, the heroes were often white male engineers who reasoned out the problem using science, rescued the woman, and saved the universe. This age rejected the primitive naiveté of the Age of Science, updating it with the latest rocketry inventions and astronomical/nuclear discoveries. Authors included Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, and Larry Niven.

Age of Punk

This age ran roughly from 1980 to 2010. It explored the consequences of computers and artificial intelligence, often with dystopian results. It gave us numerous alternate universes, epitomized by cyberpunk, steampunk, and many other punks. Female writers proliferated. Heroes were less often white males, and antagonists had backstories and motivations beyond pure evil. It reacted against the Age of Engineering by including racial and feminist themes, and warning against the hubris of over-engineering. Representative authors included Philip K. Dick, Ursula K. Le Guin, Connie Willis, William Gibson, and K. W. Jeter.

Age of Humanity

Spanning from about 2010 to the present, this age turns inward more than any previous age. It’s about humanity in all its variants, and less about exotic settings. More than just women and blacks, we see LGBTQ authors delving into the future and consequences of sexual options. This is science fiction about biology and climate change. It includes mundane science fiction taking place in our solar system, without extraterrestrials or faster-than-light travel. Reacting against the negativity of the Age of Punk, it’s more a positive celebration of what it is to be human. Representative authors include Neal Stephenson, Melissa Scott, Robert J. Sawyer, Ted Chiang, and Charlie Jane Anders.

Age of…?

What’s next? I don’t know. Perhaps the next age of Science Fiction will be created by someone reading the blog posts of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 16, 2019Permalink

Viewers GoT Angry

Admission: I’ve never watched even one episode of the ‘Game of Thrones’ TV show, nor read even one of the novels in the series by George R. R. Martin. Still, my lack of authority on that (or any) subject won’t stop me from weighing in.

As an author of short stories, I felt stunned to read about the amount of viewer backlash against the screenwriters of the show with regard to the last episode, and the entire last season. Over 1.6 million people have signed a petition challenging HBO to hire competent writers and re-write the final season.

What struck me was the intensity of the fury and the resulting call to action. As far as I know, it’s unprecedented. It seems to me most people could rattle off the names of ten or more living novelists, but how many could name even one screenwriter? Yet millions of viewers vented their ire against the GoT showrunners, whose names figure prominently in the petition.

I wondered how I’d feel if thousands of readers demanded that a more competent author rewrite one or more of my stories.

Without getting into any specifics about the GoT TV series or book series, (since I can’t), it seems to me that two factors combined to channel viewer anger into a petition:

  • The rise of a social media forum where millions of viewers and readers can discuss all aspects of books and TV shows; and
  • The fact that TV shows broadcast, and are viewed, at specific times.

The first point provides a meeting place for ideas, where emotions can feed on each other. The second point focuses the reactions within a small slice of time. Viewers all watch the TV show simultaneously, not in the staggered way readers read novels.

Are we entering a new era? Will such petitions become more common? Will the practice spread beyond anger over TV shows to books?

Some say the opposite, that GoT represents the ending of widely-shared entertainment.

I doubt that. Twitter and Facebook are a new form of water cooler, around which millions can gather at once and add their opinions. I believe we will see future instances like the GoT petition, where viewers concentrate their displeasure (or admiration) on screenwriters.

As for whether book readers will someday make similar demands of authors, I don’t know. To answer my earlier question about how I’d feel if 1.6 million readers documented their rage over one of my stories and demanded a re-write by a better author, I can’t say I’d be happy about it.

Still, it would be nice to have that many readers in the first place. Perhaps one day you’ll see, sitting uncomfortably upon a throne of pens—

                                                Poseidon’s Scribe

June 9, 2019Permalink

Celebrating Short Story Month

It’s Short Story Month, also known as May. Why they didn’t pick February—the shortest month—I’ll never know.

What is a short story? According to Wikipedia, it is a prose tale you can read in one sitting, one that evokes a single effect or mood. That ‘single effect’ idea can be difficult to understand. Edgar Allan Poe called it ‘unity of effect.”

Think of the effect as the emotional response induced in the reader by the story. The intent of a short story is to produce a single such effect, and every paragraph, sentence, and word of the story must support that goal.

There’s something ancient and primal about the short story form. It hearkens back to stories our tribal ancestors told around the fire at night. Those storytellers had to hold the attention of tired listeners as they fought fatigue, so had to keep them focused and interested.

There’s something new and trendy about the short story form. It’s well suited to our fast-paced age of commuting, smart phones, and hectic schedules. Given our brief snatches of time available for reading, it’s easier to enjoy and appreciate a short story than to maintain focus on a novel read a piece at a time.

I know what you’re thinking: Thanks for all that background, Poseidon’s Scribe, but how do I celebrate Short Story Month? Sadly, this occasion hasn’t captured the public’s imagination yet. There are no relevant songs to sing, or particular food items to prepare and eat. It’s not a traditional gift-giving month. No short story parades appear on the schedule.

However, don’t despair. I’ve come up with six ways you can celebrate:

  • Read. Well, this one’s obvious. You can celebrate by reading one or more short stories. You can re-read a past favorite or find a new one. I could crassly suggest you read one of mine, but I’ll resist the temptation.
  • Analyze. Select your favorite short story and re-read it, but this time, jot down what you like about it, your favorite parts, and maybe some notes about the overall structure and plot. You’ll likely learn new things and come away with a deeper appreciation for the story.
  • Write. Even if you haven’t written a story since your school days, you might find it fun to write your own short story. You have a story to tell, and short stories are, by definition, short. You can do this.
  • Submit. As long as you took the time to write one, you might as well submit it for publication. You can use The Submission Grinder to search for potential markets. Pick one, follow its submission guidelines, and submit your story.
  • Promote. We’re in the age of social media, so tell the whole world how you’re celebrating this month. Whether you love a short story by another author, or had your own short story published, tell everyone about it on Facebook, or on Twitter using @shortstorymonth, or on some other platform.
  • Party! Invite some like-minded friends over to your place. Decorate using themes from your favorite short story, and serve appropriate food based on that story. The highlight of the party will be when someone does a dramatic reading (or acting) of the story.

And you thought another Short Story Month would pass you by without notice. Not so. Now you know six ways to celebrate it. Lucky for you, this is just the sort of helpful service provided free by—

Poseidon’s Scribe

May 19, 2019Permalink

Outsmarting Your Inner Dinosaur

You’re working hard, but not making progress toward your real writing goals. You just can’t seem to get to those tasks you know will help you write better in the long term.

The problem: your inner dinosaur is holding you back. I’ll tell you the way to outsmart the beast.

I’ll credit Al Pittampalli with the idea, though he wasn’t specifically discussing fiction writing. I’ll first summarize the content of his article, but I encourage you to read it here. It’s well worth reading, and Mr. Pittampalli writes in a compelling style using a wonderful driving simile.

Here’s the short version. True productivity isn’t getting more tasks done; it’s getting the important tasks done. You’re spending time in “Maintenance Activities,” those normal actions that seem urgent. You should work on “Growth Activities,” those tasks activities that would truly help you in the long term (education, extended projects, self-improvement) but require some effort now.

The reason you don’t get to your Growth Activities is that the dinosaur part of your brain (the primitive limbic part) sees them as a threat to your survival and overrules the prefrontal cortex (the rational part). The dinosaur takes over right at the moment of decision. Simple willpower won’t defeat it because the dinosaur is clever and relentless.  

Two ways to combat the dinosaur are (1) implementation intentions (tasks expressed as if-then statements, linked to situational cues), which outwit the dinosaur for a while, and (2) the Grit Protocol (commitment to another person that you intend to keep your implementation intentions—reinforced by brief daily meetings). These commitments give the dinosaur a greater fear than the Growth Activity—admitting failure to keep a promise.

How does this apply to writing fiction? Let’s say your long-term goal is some variant of this: to write better fiction that sells well. During your Grit Protocol meeting with your partner, you’ll state that goal aloud. You’ll then list some Growth Activities that would move you toward your goal. Examples of Growth Activities include:

  • Writing some number of words per day
  • Participating in Nanowrimo
  • Taking a course or workshop in fiction writing
  • Doing writing exercises (not necessarily stories) that focus on improving known weak points
  • Learning about marketing fiction
  • Reading one or more books about writing fiction
  • Reading some classic fiction or fiction in your genre and doing an analysis of why those books sell well.

So far, the dinosaur has prevented you from getting to tasks like these. The next step is to break your chosen growth activity into sub-tasks you could realistically accomplish in one day. Then turn those tasks into implementation intentions expressed as if-then statements with a triggering cue. Examples include:

  • If the kids are in bed, then I’ll spend an hour writing
  • If dinner is over, then I’ll write 1700 words without distraction toward my Nanowrimo goal
  • If it’s my lunch break, then I’ll research upcoming nearby writing courses and select the best one for me.
  • If I’m on my bus/subway/train commute, then I’ll write a setting description of that commute to improve my ability to set a scene.
  • If I’m drinking my morning coffee, then I’ll scan some blogs about marketing fiction and make a list of marketing actions I should take.
  • If I’ve just gotten into bed, then I’ll read another chapter of On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King.
  • If I’m just sitting down at my home computer, then I’ll make a list of the things I liked most about that novel I just finished reading, and identify techniques the author used to entice me.

When the triggering cue occurs, execute the task you’ve chosen and to which you’ve committed yourself. Then report that success to your partner at the next day’s meeting.

You’re on your way to accomplishing your most important writing goals by outsmarting your inner dinosaur. Now, excuse me. I’m being reminded it’s time to eat by the dinosaur inside—

                                                            Poseidon’s Scribe

May 4, 2019Permalink

Your Passion for Writing

When I read the title of Stephanie Lee’s article in The New York Times, “Why ‘Find Your Passion’ is Such Terrible Advice,” I gaped in astonishment. Was she saying ‘Don’t Find Your Passion; Live a Passion-Free Life’? What kind of life is that?

Then I read her article, and I encourage you to do so as well. She’s really saying you should have the right attitude as you seek your life’s passion. Though she doesn’t provide alternative advice, I believe she would have you ‘find and develop your passion.’

The shorter version (“Find your passion”) may lead someone to believe it’s just about the search. “Ah, I’ve found something I enjoy. Now the gods will smile on me and I’ll simply display my in-born talent for the world to see.”

Lee’s article drew heavily from a study by P.A. O’Keefe, C.S. Dweck, and G.M. Walton called “Implicit Theories of Interest: Finding Your Passion or Developing It?” The study contrasted people with two views:

  • Fixed Mindset. These people are uninterested in things beyond their accustomed interests. When they do try new things, they don’t foresee difficulties and lose interest quickly when they encounter problems.
  • Growth Mindset. People with this viewpoint assume they must develop their passions over time. They know they’ll have to invest effort and overcome obstacles.

The study’s authors worried that if you tell someone with a fixed mindset to “find your passion,” that person will likely pour energy into a single interest and quit when the going gets tough. Moreover, the person may generalize that failure and conclude she or he won’t be good at anything.

Those with a fixed mindset are limiting themselves and missing an opportunity to enjoy some interest in life. The key, then, is to shake off the fixed mindset and adopt a growth mindset. But how?

First, I’d like to separate two things people often mix up. Let’s define passion as a strong interest in, even love of, some activity. Let’s define talent as a level of skill in performing some activity. This sets up the four possibilities illustrated in this table.

The key quadrants are 2 and 3. Quadrant 3 points the way out of the fixed mindset. By enjoying and celebrating the fruits of small achievements, you begin to associate favorable outcomes with effort and determination. Quadrant 2 is where all passions start. With any luck, your enjoyment of the activity will carry you through the inevitable difficulties and setbacks.

How does this apply to writing fiction? Like any other activity, some love doing it and some hate it. Some are skilled enough to produce good stories and others lack that talent. I suspect there are very few in Quadrant 3, who hate writing but somehow produce high-quality stories.

If you’re in Quadrant 2 and struggling to get to Quadrant 4, you’ll need that growth mindset to keep you plugging away, writing better stories and perfecting your craft.  

If you suffer from the fixed mindset, think about the Quadrant 3 areas of your life. You do have a talent for some things, after all. You didn’t become good at them by accident. You worked at them and persevered. Now do the same thing by writing some fiction.

In summary, find and develop your passion for writing fiction. That’s the non-terrible advice of—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 28, 2019Permalink

Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation Project

Humanity just doesn’t go in for long-term projects anymore. The fire at Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral this past Monday got me thinking about projects that extend beyond a single human lifetime.

The French are determined to repair their beloved medieval church. Estimates of the duration of repairs range from five to twenty years or more. Those timeframes would have astounded the laborers who built it. They needed 182 years to finish the cathedral.

That sort of project duration was typical for cathedrals of the period. It seems we’re no longer accustomed to ‘generation projects.’ We’re used to completing large structures (buildings, dams, tunnels, bridges, etc.) in spans of less than thirty years.

Imagine what it took to build something that required centuries. The original planners, designers, and workers knew they’d never see the completed work. The designers passed on their plans to others, and hoped the enthusiasm for the project would carry through. Laborers in the middle years worked on a project they didn’t originate and knew they’d never finish. Only the final generation of workers lived to enjoy the project’s culmination.

As an engineer with some program management experience, I marvel at such long-term projects. As a fiction writer, I try to understand the motivation behind them. How did builders sustain the guiding vision generation after generation? Let’s explore some historical generation projects, proceeding from most recent to oldest.

Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família. When finished, this will be a Roman Catholic Church in Barcelona, Spain. Begun in 1882, the project encountered difficulties including war and fire that delayed it, though it’s due to complete in 2026, fully 144 years after its start.

Saint Basil’s Cathedral. Begun in 1555 in Moscow, this church took about 123 years to complete in 1678.

St. Peter’s Basilica. This Italian Renaissance church stands in Vatican City. Construction began in 1506 and ended in 1626, 120 years later. Construction delays included difficulties with its immense dome and a succession of architects redesigning it, among them Michelangelo and Raphael.

Leaning Tower of Pisa. This cathedral bell tower in Pisa, Italy was doomed from the start of its construction in 1173, as it stood on unstable subsoil and started to lean. The difficulty of compensating for that lean was only one of the factors delaying its construction. War with other Italian city-states was another. Despite these setbacks, builders completed the project after 199 years, in 1372.

Notre-Dame de Paris. The fire on April 15 reminded us all that all of humanity’s creations are subject to damage, and fire is perhaps the biggest threat to wooden structures. Construction of this medieval Catholic Cathedral began in 1163, and was mostly done by 1260, but modifications continued until 1345, a total of 182 years.

Angkor Wat. According to one source, the building of Angkor Wat (in what is now Cambodia) began in 802 in the Khmer Empire and completed in 1220, taking 418 years. It started as a Hindu temple and later became a Buddhist one.

Temple of Kukulcan. Also called El Castillo, this Mayan step pyramid, built as a temple to the god Kukulcan, stands in the ancient city of Chichen Itza in what is now Mexico. Construction started in the year 600 and continued in phases to 1000, a duration of 400 years.

Great Wall of China . On my list of generation projects, the Great Wall boasts the longest duration. One site dates its start as 400 B.C. and its completion as 1600 A.D., or two millennia. Ordered by the emperors of various dynasties including the Qin, Han, Qi, Sui, and Ming, the guiding vision seems to have been protection against raiders from the northern steppes.

Stonehenge. Now we come to the oldest generation project on my list, a Neolithic structure in England begun around 3100 B.C. and completed around 1600 B.C. The builders left no records, and the structure’s purpose is unknown. Theories include a burial site, an astronomical observatory, ancestral worship, a symbol of peace and unity, and a place of healing.

From the above list, we can see that, with the exception of the Great Wall and possibly Stonehenge, religion provides a strong motivation for embarking on and sustaining a long-term project. Also, it’s generally true that these projects took a lot longer than originally planned, encountering various disruptions and delays along the way.

If we graph the timeline of these generation projects, it’s clear the timeframes are shortening, likely a result of advancing construction techniques and laborsaving machinery.

Given the faster pace of modern construction, have we lost the ability to plan and accomplish long-term projects? Could we sustain the enthusiasm of a building project over centuries, as our ancestors did?

If we desire to build megastructures on a planetary or stellar scale someday, things such as terraformed planets, Shellworlds, Niven Rings, Dyson Spheres, and others, it’s likely we’ll have to reacquire the multi-generational mindset of those who came before us.

To sustain a project of that type we’d need a motivating spirit, a shared vision as powerful as the ones (like religion or protection) that inspired our predecessors.

Alternatively, we could work on extending the human lifespan. A career length of two thousand years, sufficient to oversee the entirety of the Great Wall, seems like a fine notion to—

  Poseidon’s Scribe

April 21, 2019Permalink

Twistery History

When writing fiction, do you set your tales in historical times? If so, you must resolve the inevitable conflict between The Facts and The Story. In other words, you’ll have to twist some history.

Author Colin Falconer expresses the problem well in a post titled “How to Mix Historical Fact and Fiction.” He says real life is chaotic. It doesn’t obey the rules of fiction. It’s filled with aspects that interfere with a good story.

Here’s a table that contrasts historical fact and historical fiction:

Historical Fact Historical Fiction
Chaotic, messy Planned, ordered
Mostly boring Mostly interesting or exciting
Has real people, with infinite complexities Has a protagonist, antagonist, and supporting characters
Events occur as they will, often by chance or coincidence Events occur in a believable order, in a way that supports the plot
How people lived is as interesting to us as what people did What characters do is more important than details of how they live
Historian’s aim is to get the facts right Fiction writer’s aim is to entertain and engage the reader

I should also mention an important distinction between historical fiction and alternate history. Colin Falconer writes historical fiction, where he takes a set of historical events and fictionalizes them. I write alternate history, set in another universe whose history matched ours until some Point of Divergence (PoD), after which things proceeded quite differently.

Even in alternate history, though, readers want to know the author took the trouble to study history and get some details right. If the story takes place in the past, readers expect the author to transport them there, and not jar them with anachronisms like the clock striking three in the second act of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. (I know, I know—Shakespeare might well have deliberately used a not-yet-invented clock as a dramatic and metaphorical device.)

Here’s how I twisted history in my most recently published alternate history tales:

In “Ripper’s Ring,” set in 1888, the PoD occurs the moment a troubled mortuary worker comes across the legendary Ring of Gyges, the invisibility ring mentioned by Plato. Other than that, I tried to remain true to the facts about Jack the Ripper. I did invent a fictional Scotland Yard detective, but the rest of history didn’t get much twisting.

Regarding my story, “Ancient Spin, (in the Hides the Dark Tower anthology) I hesitate to categorize it as alternate history, since it’s about the Biblical Tower of Babel. Still, I gave my characters Babylonian names and tried to depict the mood and scene after the collapse of a large ziggurat in that time period.

“After the Martians” takes place during our World War I, but the PoD happened sixteen years earlier, in 1901, when the Martians of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds invaded. Since the combatants in my story use Martian technology, that changes the very nature of the war, so my story doesn’t bear much resemblance to the actual conflict. Even so, my photographer character uses an actual camera from that period, and the old woman treats the soldier’s injuries using techniques of that time.

My story “Instability” (in the Dark Luminous Wings anthology) derives from a legend about a medieval monk in a British monastery around 1000 A.D. I tried hard to get details right about life in a Benedictine monastery including daily schedules and the layout of the abbey. I used one of the actual abbots of Malmesbury Abbey as a character. Aside from the improbable legend itself, I didn’t do much twisting of history in this one.

“The Steam Elephant” (in The Gallery of Curiosities, Issue #3) takes place during the Anglo-Zulu War of 1879. The PoD is my assumption that the events and characters of Jules Verne’s novel The Steam House were true. Again, I strove to keep details of the Battle of Isandlwana accurate, including the names of British commanders and the Zulu king. However, since my story occurs twenty-two years after the setting of Verne’s novel, I stretched things by assuming his characters remained nearly unchanged despite the passage of years.

As you write your historical fiction, try to strike a good balance between getting facts right and telling an interesting story. If you have to twist some history to do that, well, you’re in good company along with—

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 14, 2019Permalink