The new anthology, The Science Fiction Tarot, contains many fascinating stories by marvelous authors. Today I present another interview with one of these writers—Ben Coppin.
Ben Coppin lives in Ely in the UK with his wife and two teenage children. He works for one of the big tech companies. He’s had a textbook on artificial intelligence published, as well as a number of short stories, mostly science fiction, but also horror, fairy tales and other things. All his published stories can be found listed here.
On to the interview:
Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?
Ben Coppin: Maybe the real question I should answer is what stopped me. As a kid, I loved writing — I still have some stories I wrote from when I was 7 years old — science fiction before I’d ever ready any real science fiction. But then when I did A-Levels, which is the final set of exams you do in the school system in the UK I had to choose between sciences and language-related subjects, and I chose the sciences. And from that moment on, writing became pretty irrelevant. I didn’t even write an essay until many years later when I did a Master’s degree in Linguistics. And then in 2002, 2003 I was figuring out what I wanted to do, and what I wanted to be, and I had this instinctive idea that writing was the right direction. So I wrote a textbook on AI which got published in the US and was used as a college text book.
It was an amazing experience, but also very grueling. I was working full-time and writing this book at the same time, and I’d foolishly agreed with the publishers to write it in half the time I estimated it would take — I told them 18 months, they said it needs to be 9, and I agreed. And so when I finished it, I was pretty sick of writing, and certainly didn’t want to write any more text books.
Then fast forward to 2018. I had an idea for a novel but no idea how to go about writing one. So I took a load of online writing courses, and although I did start on the novel, I also realised that I needed to practise on something shorter. So I got into writing short stories. I completed a second draft of that novel, but have never got it to a state where I think of it as being finished.
P.S.: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?
B.C.: As a kid I read almost exclusively science fiction. Mostly Asimov, Heinlein, Harry Harrison, Arthur C. Clarke. I also loved (and still love) The Hobbit, which I think is my favourite book. I branched out a bit when I went to University, and now I read all kinds of things, but I do tend to gravitate back to science fiction. Iain M. Banks, William Gibson and Neal Stephenson are particular favourites. In the past few years I’ve also particularly loved some books that are perhaps on the border between science fiction and fantasy — the Broken Earth trilogy by N. K. Jemison and the Terra Ignota series by Ada Palmer. Both feature incredible world building and mind-blowingly good writing that keeps you hooked. Oh, and I’m really liking the trend towards what to me seems like more positive, more human, perhaps a bit lighter science fiction from writers like Becky Chambers.
P.S.: You’ve had more fiction published in just the last four years than many writers do in over a decade. What’s your secret?
B.C.: Heh. I find competitions are a good forcing function. They provide a prompt and a deadline. Deadlines are so important for motivation, at least for me. If I start a story that is not for a competition, there’s a much higher chance that I’ll just never finish it. With a deadline I just have to get it done, even if it doesn’t feel perfect. I’m also lucky in that I am never short of ideas—it’s not always easy to turn them into stories, but at least I rarely find myself stuck for ideas.
P.S.: Has your expertise in AI helped you in your fiction writing? If so, how?
B.C.: Maybe. Or maybe it’s a hindrance. I know a lot of people like science fiction to be very grounded in science, full of scientifically accurate scientific detail. Personally, I prefer Star Wars, Iain M. Banks and Ada Palmer precisely because they’re not constrained by things we consider to be scientifically plausible today. Perhaps that’s part of the reason that I’ve tended to try to avoid AI in my science fiction writing. Having said that, it often creeps in because it feels like such an essential part of the future of our world.
P.S.: Is there a common attribute that ties your fiction together (genre, character types, settings, themes) or are you a more eclectic author?
B.C.: I guess I’ve tried lots of things. I wrote a romantic comedy a couple of years ago which is one of the stories I’m most proud of. Admittedly, it’s set on a dying earth, so it is also science fiction… So yeah, I guess I tend to write science fiction even when I try to write other genres. And I tend to like writing about protagonists who are a bit lost, not really sure what’s going on or what they need to do. Heroic heroes don’t really appeal to me so much, at least when I’m writing.
P.S.: In what way is your fiction different from that of other science fiction authors?
B.C.: Hmmm… This is a good question, and a hard one to answer. I guess I like to think that I allow myself to draw on a broad range of genres and styles — I have written science fiction westerns, detective stories, comedies and adventures, all of which I’d consider science fiction, but all of which make use of the tropes of other genres. But that’s not unique, of course.
P.S.: Tell us about “The Time Lottery,” your story in The Science Fiction Tarot. Winners of this lottery don’t get money, do they?
B.C.: Hah! No, indeed. The idea came from two places: A friend of mine, Paul, messaged me out of the blue one day, saying, “I had an idea for a story: time lottery.” I asked him if I could use it, and he agreed. Around the same time, I’d also been reading Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones in which she mentioned the idea of a couple who lived in such a way that when one of them was awake, the other was asleep. And those two sparks gave me this idea of a society in which there wasn’t enough resource for everyone to be awake at the same time, and the idea that a lottery would be a fair way (perhaps) to decide who got to be awake, and for how long. So then the story was set in a utopia, but a utopia with a problem. And when the protagonist wins the lottery and is woken up, he has a goal in mind that is not easy to achieve.
P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?
B.C.: Easiest: coming up with ideas. Hardest: actually sitting down and writing. Seriously, I find it so difficult sometimes just to get out my laptop and start typing. Once I’m typing, it’s not so bad, but getting going is always the hardest part.
P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?
B.C.: I’m working on a second novel. It’s science fiction, obviously, and is about legacies and how we can focus too much on the legacy and not enough on what’s going on now. It’s actually based on an idea I had many years ago, and in fact wrote a very short story about it, which got published a few years ago. I won’t say which one…
Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?
Ben Coppin: Just write. It’s the hardest thing. Reading books and taking courses are super helpful for the basics and for getting a sense of what the rules are: as people always say, if you want to break the rules, you need to know what they are first. But once you’ve done all that, just write, as much and as often as you can. The more you write, the easier it is to keep doing it. Even if you just write garbage, it is easier to then write something worthwhile than if you’ve written nothing. And if you don’t write anything, you’ll never get anything published. So if publication is what you’re aiming for, write, and submit. A lot.
Thank you, Ben.
Readers can find out more about Ben at his website.