A Word in Your Eye

Writing Excuses 5.15: Steampunk with Scott Westerfeld

from http://www.writingexcuses.com/2010/12/05/writing-excuses-5-15-steampunk-with-scott-westerfeld/

Key points: Steampunk is Victorian science fiction, extrapolated without restriction to current notions of possibility. It's also very tactile. Fashions and manners and brass and chrome and leather. Plus flamethrowers. Not just a literary genre. To write Steampunk, start with alternate history world building, and add other technologies -- crazy weird stuff. The familiar and the strange. Do your research, but don't bury the characters and the story under the world. "If it's not fun, you're doing it wrong." Cherie Priest.
( Under the steam robot clanking... )
[Howard] Final piece of advice for us, Scott? For writers who want to embrace the steamy punkiness of the Victorian era?
[Brandon] Or just any writing advice?
[Scott] Well, I'll quote Cherie Priest. "If it's not fun, you're doing it wrong."
[Brandon] Writing prompt is Tesla is President. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses, now go write.

Writing Excuses Season Three Episode Eight: What Star Trek Did Right

From http://www.writingexcuses.com/2009/07/20/writing-excuses-season-3-episode-8-what-star-trek-did-right/

Key points: If you are going to twist a genre or bend expectations for a surprise, do it early. Character climaxes resonate with audiences. A cabbage head character, a Watson, a naive person can help readers learn. Use hooks to help readers identify the characters, but character development to help them identify with them. Characters in conflict with themselves can be fascinating. Paired arcs can cross and support each other. A prosaic setting can help non-science-fiction readers get oriented fast. Use the setting to provide subtle hints to the passage of time. Spock is not a rooster.
( Behind the crossed spaceships )
[Just the writing prompt]
[Howard] I don't want to give people a Star Trek writing prompt. No, that's good. Start with iconic Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Start with those iconic characters and then make them your own characters with their own justifications. Spock cannot be an elf... or a rooster. Now you're out of excuses. Go write.

Tell your friends, tell your booksellers, tell everyone!

As explained right over here, http://rolanni.livejournal.com/439604.html Sharon Lee invites everyone to join in celebrating Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers (that would be the people who write the books and stories that we all read) on June 23.

So plan to thank a writer that day. To blog where speculative fiction has never been blogged about before? To read a book for the cause? Anyway, to give three cheers for Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers on this very special day.

Please pass this meme along to make Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Day bigger and better than ever! (All right, so the first one is automatically the biggest and best yet. But still, pass the meme, please?:-)

The short version: Good science fiction uses science as a stage for examining human relationships and emotions at the point where we start feeling emotional about technology. So sayeth Alex Terzich, in the midst of a lengthy essay. But is that really what good science fiction is all about?
( More musings . . .  )

Good or bad, science certainly play a part in science fiction. And thinking about exactly what that role is might just be useful for a writer of the stuff, right?