Order your copy now...

The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction is scheduled to be released August 1st. You can preorder your copy at Amazon here. Be sure to let anyone else who may be interested. The cover on Amazon is out of date but that should be updated before release.

SF Guide featured in DMP's July Newsletter...

"The Complete Guide to Writing Science Fiction" is featured in this installment of Dragon Moon Press Newsletter. You can read more details about the guide here. You will also be able to see the new version of the cover there.

And if you want to keep up with what is happening at DMP be sure to signup for their free newsletter.

Building: Part One

As part of my series on previews on chapters within the guide here are a few of the ones within the building chapter.

ALIEN CREATION
by Michael McRae

"My name is Mike McRae, and I am a skeptic. It's a difficult thing to admit in some company as it often inspires thoughts of cynicism and solipsism. In fact, skepticism to me is the healthiest way of seeing the world. It allows me to dream and speculate freely, safe in the knowledge that I won't rapidly confuse the 'possible' with the 'probable'. I can dare to imagine all things that might be and still be aware that reality doesn't conform to our beliefs simply because we desire them.

As a skeptic, I'm always asked if there is anything I do believe in, as if the admission of being critical automatically makes me deny everything. I ask them what they mean by 'believe' - I am fairly certain, for instance, that the sun will come up tomorrow. I also believe that mankind is capable of producing amazing things one moment and destroying them the next, only to regroup and once again create items of sheer wonder. On another level, I believe that life on other planets is possible. This is not to be confused with the belief that this potential life has ever been witnessed by humans, something that would require an entirely different level of evidence. But I certainly feel confident that living processes have arisen elsewhere in the universe.

But in believing this, I also feel obliged to stick to the evidence we have in imagining what it might be like. There's nothing stopping us from dreaming of humanoid robots from Venus, or Arian seraphim from Jupiter, but by using what we know about life here we create certain parameters to sort what is probable from what is possible. Writing the chapter on Alien Creation was tricky in that I had to restrain myself from running wild on speculating what could be out there. It forced me to stick to my own rules of critical thinking, really focussing on what alien life could be like given the laws of nature we observe here on Earth. Some people might find such constraints of 'reality' too rigid. But isn't science fiction made all the more beautiful, all the more awe inspiring, when we read it and think 'one day, this could be revealed as reality'?

I was the kid who sat outside looking at stars, wondering who or what might be looking back. I was never content with just dreaming it, but really desired to know what was actually out there. We're little closer to finding those answers, unfortunately, but our imagination doesn't have to know that."


NAVIGATING YOUR WAY THROUGH OUTER SPACE: FACTS, THEORIES, AND CONJECTURES
by Jeanne Allen

"When Dave and Darin put out a request for a chapter on space travel, I jumped at the chance. Many hours of research and then writing about what I'd learned about the nature of space and how we just might travel to the stars was a most challenging and rewarding experience. It turned out to be a longer chapter than I had originally intended because the topics covered are wide-ranging (from effects of space on the human body to spaceship propulsion) and space is, well, so big. The scope of the chapter is even reflected in the mile-long title: "Navigating Your Way Through Outer Space: Facts, Theories, and Conjectures." I hope the chapter will be a source of exciting world-building ideas for writers of science fiction, and a springboard for further research. Many, many thanks to Dragon Moon Press and to Dave and Darin for undertaking this very exciting and worthwhile project and for allowing me to be a part of it."

DEFINING - Part Two

Here are what the author's have to say about the other chapters in the first section.


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.

DEFINING - The First Chapters

The first section in the Complete Guide to Writing SF is DEFINING. I asked the authors to tell me a little about their chapters. Here is what they told me:

SEARCHING FOR THE DEFINITIVE DEFINITION OF SCIENCE FICTION
By Jeanne Allen

"When I was a teen, the science fiction book that first had a profound impact on me was Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. I remember how my imagination was swept away to other worlds and future times. Ever since, I've been intrigued by stories told around science concepts and futuristic possibilities. I always thought I had a solid foundation on what constituted science fiction, that is, until I ran across an article about Ray Bradbury, who said he writes fantasy, that he'd written only one science fiction story, Fahrenheit 451. He writes fantasy? That threw me for a loop. But it made me curious as to how others defined the genre of science fiction. I began with an internet search of "definition of science fiction," which eventually led to my chapter in the The Complete Guide to Writing SF, "Searching for the Definitive Definition of Science Fiction." The chapter includes quotes from people at various levels of success in science fiction. I found them to be a friendly, generous group, taking the time to answer my emails and expressing interest in the project. My gratitude to David Gerrold, Ben Bova, representatives of Robert Heinlein, Frederick Pohl, H. Bruce Franklin, Deron Douglas, Robert Runté, Orson Scott Card, James Gunn, and Darrell Bain for their insights and for allowing me to use their quotes in the chapter."

THE MANY FACES OF SCIENCE FICTION: SUB-GENRES
By Kim Richards

"When I set out to write this, I thought I could name all the sub genres off the top of my head. Boy was I wrong! I've learned there are many more I've never tried my hand at writing. There were some I'd simply forgotten about. Guess what's on my plan for this year? To write a short story in each. I even played a steam engine role playing game (Deadlands) at a gaming convention--sort of in honor of one that I had initially forgotten.

It's interesting how some of the sub genres have evolved and changed names over time. Some of them have come about as a reflection of the times they were popular in. I find myself now, when watching movies and reading books, classifying them in my mind."

More on the other chapters in this section next time.

What's in the SF Guide?

This time I thought I would tell you a little more about how "The Complete Guide to Writing SF" is laid out. The book is broken down into 5 sections: Defining, Building, Crafting, Specializing, and Publishing & Beyond.

Defining: In this section we go over the history of SF, what is SF and the multitude of subgenres within it. While some of this may be well known to an ardent SF fan, it is important to know what is SF and where it came from if you hope to be a successful writer within the genre. A refresher doesn't hurt anyone, and if there enough else in the book to interest you if this isn't new.

Building: In this section, we go over the building blocks to creating SF with chapters on such topics as aliens, technology, space travel and world building, as well as avoiding clichés.

Crafting: If you have been reading the book up to this point you should have a firm grasp on SF and be ready to write and/or improve your current stories. Here you will learn about such topics as plot, characters, setting and revisions.

Specializing: In this section you will learn about other types of SF writing that may interest you such as writing humor, fan fiction, comic books and writing for children.

Publishing and Beyond: This section is intended for those writers that have written and perhaps even published your first stories. It moves form the basics of initial manuscript submission to finding an agent, promoting your soon to be published books and the general life of a writer.

While no single book could possibly cover every topic (which is why there is a volume 2 in the works), this guide should have areas that interest both the amateur and intermediate writer, as well as any established professional looking to write SF for the first time.

Next time, I will start going through the chapters and what to expect from them.

SF Guide - Cover

As a bit of a teaser I thought I would post the cover. More on the guide next time... :)