TIME LINE: A HISTORY OF SCIENCE FICTION
by Darin Park
"Of all I have written in the past, SF, Fantasy or any other genre, this chapter on Science Fiction has probably been the most difficult. When writing stories, the author delves into the imagination to create the scenarios, plots and characters, then intertwines "facts" from the real world to make those stories "live." In order to create this chapter, imagination was put to one side and facts had to be dredged up from the far reaches of history to create a timeline that would guide the reader from the beginnings of Science Fiction to its modern day incarnation. No easy task.
This challenge was one I thoroughly enjoyed. I spent many, many hours putting together information, setting the tone, and placing events into their proper slots - purely a fact finding mission that enlightened me on many things I didn't know about the genre that I was writing about.
My only regret about the chapter is that because of limited space I had to reduce this fascinating journey through time to a synopsis of SF history, which meant touching more on the major literary events and spending less time on the impact of SF through the ages. I think that would take a book all in itself and is probably not for me to write. I hope to see such a work in the future written by a major contributor to the field of Science Fiction. I'm sure all writers in the SF field would be fascinated by and could benefit from such a work.
I am very proud (and humbled) to be part of this project and I'm sure many people will benefit from and enjoy "The Complete Guide to Writing SF Volume 1 - First Contact."
SCIENCE FIRST, FICTION SECOND: THAT’S SCIENCE FICTION
by Bob Nailor
"What possessed me to write this chapter? Back in the 50s when I was a mallable child in fifth grade, I read a book about bat-like creatures on Venus when our explorers reached that planet. My mind wandered at the thoughts of such creatues existing. At that time we knew very little about Venus other than it was what some considered our "sister" planet, hidden under the swirling masses of clouds. Therefore the story had some credence. Today we know better; those clouds are extremely hot swirls of dangerous gases. That is science. My bat-like creatures vaporized. Was I devastated? Well, sort of but I got over it. I guess that was the fiction part of it and today that story would be considered more fantasy. One only has to remember that science changes over a period of time. Think back, prior to 1932, children were taught the names of the eight planets -- then Pluto was discovered. Up until mid-2006, we had nine planets. Pluto was down-graded. Science has again fluxed.
But that's not why I wrote the chapter. Science fiction is a story where the science should be an integral part, if not almost a character itself. Yet science does have its laws and those laws must be adhered to when writing science fiction or you will have the reader dropping out of the "realm" you have created. A man cannot fly by flapping his arms but he can appear to fly if the gravity is extremely less than what he is normally acclimated. So, in my chapter I touched on certain laws and their implications. Also, I reviewed some of the great writers of SF and their backgrounds which made them the "authority" on science in their field, or not. Wait! There are successful writers of science fiction without scientific backgrounds and I reviewed them, too. So, the bottomline is: science fiction is about science."
Next time, I will start delving into chapters on BUILDING.
