If you love fantasy and science fiction, you know Philip Athans. He wrote his first novel in 1985, he published his first, Baldur’s Gate, in 1998 and has gone on to publish many more, including Annihilation , which earned him a spot on the coveted New York Times best sellers list in the summer of 2004. He also wrote The Guide To Writing Fantasy and Science-Fiction: 6 Steps To Writing and Publishing Your Bestseller. When you want to learn about writing fantasy and science fiction… Mr. Athans is the guy to ask. So that’s just what we did. We asked Philip to talk about what defines these two genres, why he’s drawn to them, what writers should know about world-building, and much more. Here’s what we learned in our Author Learning Center (ALC) interview with Philip Athans.
ALC: For new writers, can you describe the fantasy and science fiction genres?
PHILIP: When I interviewed friends and associates—fellow authors, editors, and agents—for The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction, that was my first question, and has remained so for every interview I’ve done on Fantasy Author’s Handbook. My definitions for the book were:
“It could be that if you ask a hundred different people you’d get a hundred different answers, but in terms of the genre publishing world, fantasy is fiction that depends on magical or supernatural elements not specifically meant to scare you—if it scares you, at least as its primary goal, it’s horror. If the magical elements are replaced with imagined technologies, it’s science fiction.”
And I’m willing to stand behind that.
ALC: What makes for great science fiction & fantasy?
PHILIP: One word: IMAGINATION. Now, all fiction depends on the imagination of the author, and the reader, but I’d argue that imagination is even more important for science fiction and fantasy. For a mystery or romance author, you might have to do some research if you’re writing historicals, or research . . . I don’t know . . . corporate law or the fashion industry for contemporary settings. But SF and fantasy authors usually have to invent the entire world, even the entire universe, in which their stories are set. And though I insist that worldbuilding serve the story and characters, not the other way around, it’s that strange new world, with its own rules and laws of physics, its own unique religions and political systems, its own weird races and monsters, that fans of the genre gravitate to.
ALC: What draws you to this genre?
PHILIP: I was a child of the Space Race, growing up in the 60s and 70s, so I was exposed to a lot of science fiction more or less from birth. The cartoons I watched were SF like Johnny Quest or Space Ghost. My toys were Major Matt Mason. Star Trek premiered the day after my 2nd birthday. As a kid I was enamored of the high-tech, space-oriented future at a time when there seemed to be a sense that technology and engineering were going to save the world.
Though the space part of that didn’t quite come true, an awful lot of the rest of it has, including a good deal of stuff that SF writers of the 60s and 70s never imagined. The future is always out there, always still to be explored, and always serves to ignite the imagination.
My first forays into serious fantasy were the Conan comic books of the 70s, which led me to read the original stories by Robert E. Howard. Though fantasy tends to take the opposite approach from SF, glorifying (to some degree at least) the past, and archaic concepts like magic and alchemy, I was drawn in by the same sense of adventure and exploration that drew me into SF.
ALC: In a recent blog post you said the one consistent piece of advice you would offer authors is “write as fast as you can”. Can you talk about that?
PHILIP: What I mean by that is don’t bother trying to edit yourself as you go, and for goodness’s sake don’t try to perfect anything. Just get the story out of you, as fast as you can. Work under the concept that a rough draft is better than no draft at all. If you get the story out of you fast, what you’ll end up with might look like a mess, but what I guarantee it will be is the best raw material possible. The story will be what sincerely moves you, the characters will be who they insist on being.
Then you’ll have as much time as you need to go back in and fix everything that’s wrong, get a better idea here, delete this scene there, and add layers to that initial rough draft. You’ll never “perfect it”—there’s no such thing as the perfect novel, and there never will be. But the trick is to get the story out of you and onto paper (or your computer), and for me at least, the best way to do that is to open the flood gates and get the heck out of the way.
ALC: You wrote a book called The Guide to Writing Fantasy and Science Fiction. Can you talk about the advice you offer in the chapter “Have something to say”? Why is this an important element of Fantasy & Science Fiction writing?
PHILIP: Even the most entertainment-oriented pulp fiction still has something to say, has some kind of point of view. Science fiction, maybe more so than fantasy, often takes on a political tone. Two of the great classics of the SF genre, George Orwell’s 1984 and Frank Herbert’s Dune, are both very thinly veiled political polemics. Dune is a warning against the dangers of a single-resource economy, and it’s no accident that it’s told against the backdrop of a desert planet inhabited by the Fremen, whose culture is greatly inspired by the Arab people.
But even if you don’t have a political axe to grind, like Orwell’s railing against the rise of the totalitarian oligarchy post-World War II, surely you have something to say about the enduring quality of loyalty (Starship Troopers), the power of good to triumph over evil (Star Wars), or the corrupting influence of power (The Lord of the Rings).
Fiction, ultimately, is about ideas first.
ALC: What is the most important aspect of world-building?
PHILIP: The most important aspect of world-building is consistency. Too often you’ll hear SF and fantasy being criticized, even by fans of the genre, as “unrealistic.” Well, as soon as there’s a dragon or a faster-than-light starship in it it’s inherently unrealistic. What I think those people mean is that the story is somehow implausible.
Readers in general, but readers of SF and fantasy in particular, want to believe. They want to suspend their disbelief at least. They want to feel transported to this strange new fantasy world or out into the galaxy to a distant future. Readers will accept whatever rules you set. How big do you want your dragon to be? How fast is your starship? You tell me, but whatever that new rule is, be sure to apply it consistently. If all of a sudden the dragon is smaller or bigger, the starship faster or slower, for no apparent reason, your readers will be taken out of the story while they try to figure out what went wrong.
And once you have a reader in your story, you don’t want them leaving until THE END!
ALC: Is there one area of craft that new writers tend to need the most help with?
PHILIP: Every new writer comes in with a package of strengths and a package of weaknesses, and I’ve been a professional editor long enough to know that each one will surprise you, but I can caution aspiring SF and fantasy authors to keep an eye on those rules we talked about above, and add to that the absolute necessity for strongly motivated characters.
If I were to ask you why your villain is doing what he, she, or it is doing, can you answer right away? If you have to pause even for a second to think about it, your villain needs stronger, more personal motivation. Being “An Evil Genius Bent on World Domination” is never enough. What makes him “evil”? Why does he want to take over the world, exactly? What is it inside that’s driving him?
ALC: Why did you include information on the business of writing fantasy/science fiction instead of just focusing on the writing of it? Why is it important for new writers?
PHILIP: I’ve found that new writers either have an unrealistically rosy view of the publishing business (if I get an agent, I will get published, and if I get published I will be rich and famous) or an unrealistically bleak view of the publishing business (I can’t get published unless I have an agent, but I can’t get an agent unless I’ve been published), so I felt at least a little context that says, “Hey, this is possible, but it ain’t easy” would actually help writers concentrate on writing, and get to the business only after they have something of quality to sell.
But beyond that, if you want to do anything professionally, you need to have some idea of how the business works, how to approach other professionals in a professional manner, etc. and the sooner you start to get that straight the better.
ALC: How has your writing changed since you hit the NY Times bestseller list in 2004?
PHILIP: I hope that I get a little bit better (at least) with everything I write. Like I said earlier, creative writing is not something you’ll ever be able to perfect. It’s a pursuit that doesn’t require much if any physical strength or stamina, so unlike, say, professional football or modeling, you can keep doing it as long as you’re still alive, and so you can keep learning, keep bringing in new ideas, new experiences, and developing perspectives.
As long as you remember that no one is ever 100% smart, there is no way to know everything about anything, really, then you’ll be open to new ideas, new approaches, and so on—and you’ll get better and better with practice.
Which segues nicely into your next question . . .
ALC: As a bestselling author of 10 books, including one on how to write good fantasy/sci-fi… some would think you know all you need to know about writing… but we are always learning. Can you share with us something you learned recently that makes you a better writer?
PHILIP I’ve been exploring recently some ideas about what makes a particular character resonate with readers, what qualities are most appealing (for a hero) or least appealing (for a villain). Part of this exploration is learning as much as I can about human behavior, and my sense of what it means to be “good” or “evil” has changed quite a bit in the past year or so.
I’ve written blog posts about some of this, including my assertion that every author needs intellectual curiosity—you really have to be interested in the world around you and have the kind of mind that’s open to new ideas, new experiences, new attitudes, new colloquialisms . . . anything and everything you can soak in. But at the same time, it helps to listen to your editor and trusted readers (but never critics or “the crowd”) to find what might be lacking in your writing and focus that intellectual curiosity on filling those gaps, and strengthening your craft.