Science Fiction Writing

Fall 2007

This course is limited to 18 people. If more than that number have signed up, there's a simple algorithm to choose the 18, which we'll apply at the end of the first class meeting.

Your grade in this course will come from five different kinds of writing:

_ Three trial story beginnings (about 5% each)

_ Your critiques of other students' stories (together about 10% of your grade)

_ Your critiques of the readings (together about 5% of your grade)

_ The rough draft of a story (about 20%)

_ The finished draft of that story (about 50%)

_ Attendance counts.

So a good first draft is important, but you want one hell of a good rewrite.

Deadlines:

19 Sept -- First trial beginning (or flash fiction)

26 Sept -- Second trial beginning

2 Oct -- Third trial beginning

16 Oct -- First draft of story

rewrite due two weeks after return of first draft

Texts: The Year's Best SF 11 (BEST), The Hard SF Renaissance (Hard SF), SF Hall of Fame (FAME), latest Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (F&SF).

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I want your opinions of the readings. At least a paragraph for each story -- what you liked or didn't like -- and more if you feel like it. Email your evaluation to me by Monday night.

THIS IS THE ONLY WORK I WILL ACCEPT ON-LINE. EVERYTHING ELSE IS TO BE PRINTED OUT ON PAPER.

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11 Sept.

Administrative delights. "What is SF? " and what is it not. How to start a story. A seemingly sadistic assignment that is for your own good.

Read for next week: FAME: A Martian Odyssey, Arena, Fondly Fahrenheit, The Cold Equations

18 Sept. -- First trial beginning due

1. Description/Narration

2. Scenes

3. Workshop exercise

Read for next week: FAME: Scanners Live in Vain, The Little Black Bag, That Only a Mother, Flowers for Algernon

25 Sept. -- Second trial beginning due

1. Plot and structure; suspense

2. Writer's block

Read for next week: Hard SF: Gene Wars, The Hammer of God, Think Like a Dinosaur. F&SF: two stories

2 Oct. -- Third trial beginning due

1. Point of view

Read for two weeks from now: Hard SF: A Walk in the Sun, Reasons to Be Cheerful,

Understand. F&SF: two stories

Please schedule a formal conference time with me sometime 2-4 October, to talk about your story. I'll pass a time sheet around. Of course we can talk before that, as well.

9 Oct.

No Class. Celebrate the memory of the last person to discover America.

16 Oct. -- First draft of story due

1. Dialogue

2. Writing and experience

3. Workshop

Read for next week: Best SF: When the Great Days Come, Mason's Rats, Guadalupe and Hieronymus Bosch

23 Oct.

1.Build-a-planet exercise (Science in science fiction)

2. Workshop

Read for next week: Hard SF: A Career in Sexual Chemistry, Best SF: Sheila, The Edge of Nowhere.

30 Oct.

1. Sex & Violence!

2. Workshop

The rest of the semester should be given over to workshopping, with occasional discussions of this or that.

Last class meeting 4 December, unless workshop schedule forces an extra class.

No final exam. Go off and sip that firehose.

----------- The Trial Beginnings -------------

Everybody has to do the first Trial Beginning, due 21 Sept. Of the six other suggestions, write any two (due 28 September and 5 October).

Your story must be taken from one of these Trial Beginnings.

No credit for old stuff recycled into this class.

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Trial Beginning #1

Each student will be given a randomly chosen topic taken from a list of a couple of dozen sf themes. Choose one of the beginning strategies we discussed and write the first 2-4 pp. of a story.

(This is a "Where do you get your crazy ideas?" demonstration. Ideas are everywhere; can come from anything.)

Just write a first draft. Bring two copies of it into class Tuesday.

Extra Credit: For this one assignment, you may try "flash fiction" -- a complete story less than five pages long. If it works, you earn double credit.

"Description" Trial Beginning

Pick an existing location in Cambridge or Boston or your home town -- park, bar, classroom, church, whatever -- and start a science fiction story there. Describe the place unobtrusively but in some detail, by having your characters rub up against it.

Here's the science fiction part: everything about this place is just like the here and now, except for one aspect. You aren't allowed to say explicitly what that aspect is, but by the end of the scene, it will be clear to the reader.

"Aliens" Trial Beginning

Here is a list of things that (it could be argued) make humans different from other creatures on Earth:

Creation/appreciation of art Scientific curiosity

Ability to sin Modesty

Communication of abstractions Knowledge and fear of death

Sarcasm anxiety over scent

-- and so forth. Take one such characteristic and, in a scene from a story, introduce an alien creature who lacks it.

Do this knowing that, in the context of a complete story, the function of this deficiency would be "refractive"-- having the creature lack, say, the ability to lie must make some statement, preferably oblique and original, about lying and human, not alien, nature.

For maximum credit, write the scene two ways: once from the alien’s point of view, and once from a conventional POV. Which do you think works better?

"Characterization" Trial Beginning

There are two basic science fiction situations: a normal person in a bizarre setting and a bizarre person (or "creature") in a normal setting. I want two story openings, each a couple of pages long, that characterize both kinds of people:

1. Take a science-fictional idea like the "random" topics. Put a normal person into a world where that phenomenon exists.

2. Pick a setting from your own experience. Move someone through it who is weird in a science-fictional way: alien, mutant, whatever.

"Science" Trial Beginning

Pick an article from a recent science journal or popular science magazine and use it as the springboard for a story set a century or more in the future. Along with the opening scene, turn in a photocopy of the article and a couple of paragraphs about your extrapolation.

"Experience" Trial Beginning

Use something that happened to you -- an incident, a disaster, an observation, a person you know -- and translate it into the future, using it as the basis of a story about a similar thing happening at least a hundred years from now. Write an opening scene and hand it in along with a couple of paragraphs describing the incident or person out of your own experience. (Footnote: be careful, writing about real people. Change names and physical appearance. Your good buddy might not be such a buddy when the movie based on your story comes out, and there he is having carnal knowledge of a chicken.)

"Opposites" Trial Beginning

People with opposite personalities are as often extremely attracted to one another as they are opposed. I want an opening scene in a science fiction setting where two opposite types meet. This is how you generate their personalities:

At http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm you'll find a version of "Keirsey Temperament Sorter," a survey with a few dozen questions like "If you came upon a person eating a live animal, would you (A) call the police or (B) ask for some?" It takes three or four minutes to click through the questions. Then the program gives you your "temperament description," a pair of qualities like Idealist/Healer or Guardian/Superior. One click and you get a couple of paragraphs describing who you are.

Do the Sorter for yourself, and print out the description. Then go through it again, giving the opposite answer to each question, and print out the description of the "anti-you."

Put them in a science-fictional situation together. Think about it: best not to do the obvious, making yourself the hero and your anti-self the villain. (Let me have a copy of the temperament descriptions as well as the story beginning -- you don't have to tell me which one is you .... )

Workshop critiques and Trial Beginnings may not be turned in late. Period. Allowances may be made for the story drafts if and only if you come to me at least a week ahead of deadline -- and at least two weeks before workshop date -- and try to explain what's wrong. Then you may be rescheduled if and only if you can find a volunteer to take your workshop date.

Manuscript presentation

Trial Beginnings and stories handed in to me must be printed out double-spaced on white paper. Space-and-a-half is okay if it's comfortable to read. Stories copied for workshopping may be printed out single-spaced to cut down on your copying costs.

Inked-in corrections are fine so long as they are legible and unambiguous.

You won't be formally graded on the physical appearance of your manuscript (with one exception: if it isn't typed or printed out, I won't read it) or on your mastery of grammar and spelling. But don't kid yourself. I am almost human, and the less trouble I have reading your manuscript, the better I will feel toward your story.

(To this end, you will receive a bitchy handout called "Grammar: High Crimes and Misdemeanors." Read it and try to remember some of it.)

If you have persistent problems with grammar or basic composition skills, I'll ask that you seek help from the Writing Center, located at 14N-317. (A pink slip means I'm requiring, not "asking.") It's hard to scrape up a couple of extra hours per week, I know, but many people have found that time spent at the Center was as valuable as any course work, even in their majors. The people who work there are professional analysts and tutors, and can save you a lot of rewriting time.

What kind of stories?

I really hate Course Six stories. Anything with a computer as a character or some character Billgibsonized to screw around inside the net will probably bore the hell out of me. Likewise stories about telepathy or similar amazing powers. Boring, boring, bo-o-o-oring. I won't forbid them, but you're flirting with a low grade if the teacher keeps falling asleep over your manuscript, waking up at the noise of his forehead whacking the desk.

Don't try to sell me any stories about the following:

Mighty-thewed Conanesque heros TV series characters

Deals with the devil Golly! They turn out to be

"And then the sun went nova." Adam & Eve

Golly! It was all a dream Golly! It wasn't a dream after all

Werewolves, vampires, etc. Huge ants, beetles, beavers, etc.

It was just a video/cxomputer game It wasn't a video/computer game

Space-opera shoot-em-ups Tracts (atheist, fundamentalist,

In-group MIT flaming communist, anything-ist)

On the other hand, I will smile benevolently upon the following:

Clarity Careful writing

Well-thought-out science Humor

Compelling characterization Anything really new

Real suspense Truly experimental writing

Good alien aliens (not slapdash easy stuff)

No padding Emotional honesty

Workshop Procedure

Third class meeting, I pass the hat: eighteen slips of paper with dates on them. On that date you will workshop your story, or face death by Mongo.

During the break you can buy, sell, trade with each other. After the break I record who's when.

You will always hand out eighteen copies of your story on or

before the Tuesday class meeting the week before workshopping.

Everybody prepares a written critique (one page, more or less, depending on the length and complexity of the story) and brings two copies to class -- one for the writer and one for me.

In a roundtable fashion, your classmates in turn either read their critiques or make oral summaries, especially if reading would take more than a few minutes. I read last. The author is not allowed to speak during these presentations. Afterwards, the author may take a reasonable length of time to indulge in self-defense. Then a free-for-all to round out the hour.

You receive between one and five points per critique -- zero in extremity -- based on logic, clarity, and depth. Insofar as it is humanly possible, you aren't graded on whether I agree with your opinion of the story.

Some people never get this far in the syllabus, or don't actually believe it, and all semester they hand in critiques that are a couple of hastily jotted paragraphs. Zero times thirty, ouch.

Two points, perhaps obvious, about the preparation of your critiques:

• Even if you didn't like a person's story, try to find something positive to say about it. Your negative criticism will then be taken more seriously.

• If your criticisms of other manuscripts are consistently vicious, don't be surprised or hurt if your own work is torn apart with red-hot tongs.

Plagiarism earns an automatic F for the whole semester and will be reported to the Registrar. Period. We'll discuss in class the difference between plagiarism and "influence." Basically, if you made it up yourself, it's okay, even if somebody else made up a similar thing, unbeknownst to you.

Collaboration isn't allowed, but that doesn't mean you can't pass the story around for advice. If your grammar is really lousy, you might want to run things by a friend who's a grammar whiz, or consult the Writing Center, before you subject me to them.

Two nice things about this course (honest!) are that the textbooks are cheap and the workload tapers off toward the end of the semester.

You do the trial beginning assignments and hand in your first draft on or before 17 October. I'll prepare a detailed critique. Your rewrite is due two weeks after I return the first draft.

Office hours Wed. 2-4. Anytime by appointment. 14N-234 (X7390)

Home phone 617-374-8870. Please don't call before 9 a.m. or after 9 p.m.

E-mail address: haldeman@mit.edu or, if the MIT system melts down, haldeman@earthlink.net

The old-fashioned screed The Elements of Style, by Strunk and White, is recommended for people who have persistent problems with grammar and style. You can read through it in a couple of hours. Skip the stuff you already know and mark the unfamiliar stuff, and use the marked parts as a guide.

21W.773 -- Reading and Writing Longer Fiction, Fall 2007

Deadlines:

Assignment 1 (due 12 Sept.): Write a short chapter-by-chapter outline of a novel you recently read, and perhaps enjoyed. What would you change?

Before 19 Sept. -- Decide whether you want to work on a novella or a novel.

Assignment 2 (due 3 Oct): Novel -- a draft of your synopsis plus some pages of the text. Novella -- the first 10-12 pages and a note about where you think you're headed.

Assignment 3 (due 24 Oct): Novel -- The first draft of your synopsis and sample chapters. Novella -- first draft of your novella.

Assignment 4 (due 31 October): A paper on an approved topic. This can be an analysis of one of the novels, based on your presentation* given to class. Otherwise, come up with a topic or help me suggest one for you.

Assignment 5 (due two weeks after return of Assignment 3): rewrite of Assignment 3.

At least fifty percent of your grade will be based on Assignment 5.

For this course you'll read and analyze one short book about writing, two novellas, and five novels. You will read and comment on one another's work, in an informal roundtable workshop.

You have two options: novel or novella. Of course you don't have to write a whole novel in one semester; what I'm asking for is a synopsis (5-10 pp.) and at least two chapters (more than 25 pp.).

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*The first day of class, I'll ask for volunteers to help start the discussions about the readings. It's basically writing a general paper about the novel or novella, a presentation thirty to forty-five minutes long. If you do this, you don't have to write an analytical paper for Assignment 4.

--> A "page" is defined as about 270 words -- an old typewriter convention, 27 lines of double-spaced 12-point Courier type.

A novella is a long story. The commercial definition is a story between 12,500 words and 40,000 words long. The structural, or artistic, definition is a little more interesting.

I'm not Procrustean about it. You don't have to present a story 46.3 pages long. Anything over thirty pages is long enough if it's good enough. There are, obviously, two kinds of bad novellas: the bloated short story and the gutted novel. We'll talk about what makes a good novella.

Here's something to keep in mind, when you're thinking about which direction to take: endings are hard. For me, a novella is harder to write than the first couple of chapters of a novel, plus a synopsis. The novella has to be a finished, rounded piece of work. The novel "package" is a work in progress.

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There will be a little bit of writing every week. I want you to write about a page (as defined above) about the reading assignment. It's sufficient just to say whether you liked it or not, and why. You might also think about whether it might work for other people.

--> Please email me those comments by the morning before class on Wednesday. A whole day before would be nice.

The first couple of weeks, while we're reading from King's On Writing, you might just want to comment on the ideas and opinions he expresses. Useful? Confusing? Bullshit? (I recommend the first part of the book as a fascinating exercise in autobiography, but you're only required to read the later parts.)

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5 September -- Professor in Yokohama, World Science Fiction Convention. Another teacher will hand out the syllabus and answer general questions.

• Read for next week: On Writing, 103-195. Handout on the novella.

(Assignment 1 [due 12 Sept.]: Write a short chapter-by-chapter outline of a novel you recently read, and perhaps enjoyed. What would you change?)

12 September -- How 2 Write I

• Read for next week: On Writing, 195-284

19 September -- How 2 Write II

• Read for next week: Troll -- A Love Story

(Decide whether you want to work on a novella or a novel.)

26 September -- artistic and commercial aspects of the novel and novella; their relationship to other media

• Read for next week: The Great Gatsby

(Assignment 2 [due 3 Oct]: Novel -- a draft of your synopsis plus some pages of the text. Novella -- the first 10-12 pages and a note about where you think you're headed.)

3 October -- Art and craft and some history of the novel. (Movie after class -- The Great Gatsby)

• Read for next week: "Nerves" and "The Marching Morons" (SF Hall of Fame)

10 October -- Genre considerations. (Movie after class -- Idiocracy)

• Read for next week: Eight Million Ways to Die

17 October -- Moral and ethical considerations. Workshops. (Movie after class -- Eight Million Ways to Die)

• Read for next week: "Eréndira"

(Assignment 3 [due 24 Oct]: Novel -- The first draft of your synopsis and sample chapters. Novella -- first draft of your novella.)

24 October -- Style, research. Workshops. (Movie after class -- Eréndira)

• Read for next week: "Universe" and "Who Goes There"

(Assignment 4 [due 31 October]: A paper on an approved topic. This can be an analysis of one of the novels, based on your presentation* given to class. Otherwise, come up with a topic or help me suggest one for you.)

31 October -- Workshops. (Movie after Class -- The Thing)

No class meeting on 21 November, the day before Thanksgiving vacation, because who wants to talk to an empty classroom?

*Four people will have the option, in lieu of writing a paper, of doing a general presentation about the novel under consideration each week. This would be an informal 30-45 minute talk about the work's strengths and weaknesses, its critical reputation, how it stands in relation to other works in its genre, and so forth.

I'll pass out a list the second week of class. If you dread public speaking, just don't sign up. If more than one person signs up for a novel, the lucky one will be picked at random. (It's probably easier than doing a paper, for most people, since you have to read the book anyhow.)

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Manuscript presentation

Stories must be printed out double-spaced on white paper. Space-and-a-half is okay if it's comfortable to read. Stories copied for workshopping may be printed out single-spaced to cut down on your copying costs.