From Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by David Gerrold:
“Readers come to your story wanting to believe. To create believability, you have to believe in it yourself—because if you don’t believe in it, how can anyone else?….
“Theodore Sturgeon used to encourage would-be writers (and everyone else as well) to ask the next question…..He used to say, ‘The writer has to know what is in every nook and cranny of the story. You don’t have to write it all down, but if you know what’s there, it’ll show.’
“So after you build it, you have to move into it. You have to look around, listen, taste, touch, smell and feel what you have created—then report back, so the reader can feel it too. The reader wants to see the scenery, hear the music, taste the spices, pet the critters,smell the air, and most of all, he wants to feel the emotions. This is the excitement of science fiction: It gives the reader a chance to be someone else for a while—someone profoundly different; someone is a different universe, facing different challenges….
“That’s why science fiction and fantasy are sometimes called escape literature. They provide escape from reality—but in the hands of a good storyteller, the literature of imagination is also an access to something much more profound.
“As you create your story, it takes on a reality of its own—and as you explore its workings, you metamorphose. Your thinking changes, your perceptions shift, you become a different person: You become the kind of person who can tell this story from the inside. If you succeed, then the way you describe events and places and characters will be as a resident would describe it, and it will feel to the reader as if you’ve been there yourself.”
What a compelling way to capture the art of imagining! I just learned about Worlds of Wonder in a wonderful workshop on “Creating Conflict” by the award-winning author Todd Mitchell (http://toddmitchellbooks.com).
Whether we’re writing science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction or simply a story set in an unfamiliar time and place, we’re building a world for our readers to inhabit for a while. And as David says so well, to make that world believable, we need to be residents in it. We need to travel there ourselves and then come back.
What a wonderful way to think of ourselves! As writers who create new worlds, we’re residents reporting back to our readers. When we experience our new worlds ourselves, we can share what we know as insiders. We’re not just creators, we’re believers. What a bold idea! One to ponder and apply as we all write on!
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