Returning to simplicity

I'm a big fan of simple storytelling.  But while I've been researching SF short story markets I've come across several magazines that want 'leading edge' and 'experimental' fiction, whatever they are.  Or 'stories that play with form and expectations', whatever that means.

The thing is, a story only is a story if it has a recogniseable structure.  Basically, it needs a boring old beginning, middle, and end.  That's very old-fashioned, I know, but plot is driven by event/action/result/new event/action/result.  The tests and challenges pile up and get steadily harder while we wonder how our heroine is going to overcome this latest impossible challenge.

The very simplicity of simple storytelling structure hides the power of effortless storytelling.  This is particularly so in young adult SF.  There you'll find fast-paced, logical stories, but you'll also find strong SF ideas being well worked out. Which is more than can be said for some of the adult SF stories I've read.  Some of these seem no more than a mish-mash of clever scenes cobbled together with no narrative thread, no obvious connection, and sometimes no obvious storytelling purpose.  They're the sort of thing beginner writers produce thirty years before they learn to write a story.

Perhaps that's why I love YA quest stories.  The little child inside me wants to go on a adventure, wants to face danger (but in a controlled way), wants to struggle alongside the hero/heroine (but not too much.). That's why I wrote my own YA novels The Code River, Geneship, and Auroradawn.  These characters are all people on a quest to find the truth.

To me, far too many adult SF novels are too complex.  They have several viewpoints, jumps in time, alternating first person viewpoints that don't identity the viewpoint character.  All this clutter gets in the way of telling a good story.  Maybe that's why Anne McCaffrey is one of my favourite authors.  Among young adult writers I like Scott Westerfeld, Teri Terri, Anthony Horowitz. All these books have fabulous and hard-hitting ideas, but great storytelling too.  Statistics tell us that more adults than young adults read YA books.  Maybe the simple storytelling is one reason why.

It's time we followed YA's lead in adult SF.  It's time to focus on good old fashioned storytelling, putting over our dazzling ideas without pretentious forms of writing.  And if we returned to simple storytelling maybe more adults would be drawn to SF stories.  Maybe, just maybe, the genre would go mainstream.

The ten books meme

Facebook and Twitter are full of posts by people listing the ten books that have been most important to them.  I thought I'd join in for today's post and list the ten most Important books for me.

1.   All The Weyrs of Pern - Anne McCaffrey

In this book the Pern colonists discover their ancestors' AI 2500 years later.  I love the self-referential nature of the book, and the way McCaffrey has blended fantasy and SF elements in the story.  Guided by the AI's knowledge, the citizens of Pern do something impossible.  They move the Red Star into a new orbit.

2.  The Ship Who Searched - Anne McCaffrey

This is one of here 'brainship' books, this time with an archeology theme.  The relationship between Tia and Alex was one of the major influences for my own book Eyemind, where I have a similar relationship between Keri and Bi, but set against an art background.

3.  The Pride of Chanur - CJ Cherryh.

I love the portrayal of the Hani Pyanfur Chanur.  This alien is alive and real.  And the details of taking a ship through interstellar space are stunning.  It reads as if she's really been there.  And if you want a masterclass in handling dangerous interstellar politics, read this book.

4. Vatta's War - Elizabeth Moon

Ky Vatta is a disgraced Spaceforce cadet who ends up leading her own Space Defence Force and saving human space against ruthless pirates.  I'm not normally a fan of military SF, but this series is much more than that.  It is multi-viewpoint, and most of the viewpoints are civilians.  The books show us how ordinary people's lives can be threatened by one ruthless individual.

5.  Polar Ciry Blues - Katherine Kerr

This book shows us life on Hagar, a planet close to a red giant sun.  It's a murder mystery with interstellar ramifications, as an alien has been murdered.  It's a fabulous depiction of life on a planet where it's dangerous to be out in the daytime, and where interstellar politics are again finely drawn.

6.  Dragonsinger - Anne McCaffrey

A girl dreams of being a Harper.  But she's female, and girls can't be Harpers.  At least, according to her brutal father.  This is a feminist tale of Menolly running away from home and seeking her dream.  And eventually finding that her incredible talents are appreciated by others.

7.  Treaty Planet - Anne McCaffrey

This is the third of the Doona books, the first being Decision at Doona.  I love its portrayal of Hayuumans (humans) and Hrrubans (a walking big cat like species), and the way they live together in harmony on Doona.  Despite the meddling of their respective governments, the colony is a success.  There are some great descriptions of friendships across species.  These people don't just co-exist, they're workmates and best friends.

8. Slated - Teri Terry

This is a YA novel about a brutal repressive society where teenagers get brain-wiped to "correct" their behaviour.  Kyla somehow recovers her memories from before her Slating, and brings down the brutal totalitarian government.  A message that there is always hope in the darkness, if we look for it.

9.  Uglies/Pretties/Specials -  Scott Westerfeld 

Okay, I cheated.  This is three books, but you need to read all three to get the whole message.  It's a story about the dangers of pursuing extreme beauty treatments, and what their real cost might be.

10.  Freedom's Landing/Choice/Challenge - Anne McCaffrey 

Okay, so I cheated again with three books.  This is the story of how transported humans build a new life for themselves on Botany with only cups, knives, and blankets.  Human ingenuity triumphs, and this is also a tale about how they learn to accept a member of their oppressing species.

A straightforward new world

I've spent the last week getting new bookcases and organising my totally out of control book collection.  And now that my books are all sorted and proudly displayed, I'm reflecting on some of the discoveries I've made.

I hadn't realised I owned so many of Anne McCaffrey's works.  I don't have anything like all of her output, but a fair chunk of it.  And then there's the Elizabeth Moon Vatta's war and Serrano Legacy, all neatly arranged.  I've a chunk of CJ Cherryh's works, and a lot of Terry Pratchett. Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines books take up one end of a shelf, next to Scott Westerfeld's' Uglies, Pretties, and Specials.

I began to wonder why I like those authors' works so much and  keep returning to them.   I've decided that one of the main reasons is that those stories are told in a straightforward writing style.

I have no problem reading about new tech or different social systems provided they're introduced in a straightforward way.  I want a novel new world, not a novel new way of writing about it.  The stranger the world is, the more straightforward I want the writing about it to be.

If we're dressing up our cultures in obscure rituals or writing in an overly-technical way about the tech of our world, chances are we don't know it enough.  We need to be clear about the theme of our book, and the way our plot supports that theme.  

I've just finished reading EJ Swift's Osiris.  It's told from two alternating viewpoints, with lots of tech and an original city setting.  But at the heart of the story is the clash of the rich and poor, the privileged and the underclass, and how each one is changed - or not - by coming into contact with the other.

Knowing our theme before we start to write helps to keep us on track, to make sure we make the points we want to.  It gives substance to our story.  If our theme is woven through our story, supporting our plot, then we find it easy to write in a straightforward style.  We know our world and its issues, and now all we have to do is get on with describing it.  Straightforwardly.

Why I love YA SF

One of the reasons I haven't been drawn to adult SF for a while is because my local bookshop is stuffed full of traditional white male SF space opera.  The few female SF authors they deign to stock are writing about prostitutes or kick-ass heroines, neither of which I can empathise with.

The issues I want to read about are more likely to turn up in YA SF these days.  There are some things in the genre I can't identify with, like going to school, which is thankfully far in my last.  I also can't be doing with first love stories.  But beyond these issues YA SF stories present us with important issues and questions.

Scott Westerfeld's Uglies/Pretties/Specials books show us what might happen if we don't change our obsession with beauty and the perfect body.  Sarah Crossan's Breathe is a cautionary environmental tale about what happens when you kill off all the trees.

Teri Terry's Slated gives us a nightmare world of a totalitarian state and mind-wiped children,  Sam Hawksmoor's The Repossession and The Hunting show us what happens when ruthless corporations are left alone to experiment on vulnerable children.

The worlds these authors create are genuinely chilling, all the more so because most of them are near future SF, rooted in developments that are going on in our present societies right now.  

But I think the real reason I loveYA SF so much is because the ideas and messages in the books are wrapped up within a damn good story with a beginning, middle, and end, and twists and turns that keep us gasping and guessing.

If adult SF wants to appeal to a wider audience it would do well to learn from YA SF.  Ordinary people are forced into becoming extraordinary, and there are lots of strong feminist heroines saving the world. It's time we saw more of that in adult SF.

My favourite authors - Scott Westefeld

Scott Westerfeld is the author of, I think it's eighteen novels now.  His characters range from AIs to steampunk sentient flying creatures, and he's written both adult and young adult books.

My favourite books of his are the Uglies/Pretties/Specials series.  Convincingly written from the viewpoint of a teenage girl, it warns of the dangers of our beauty-obsessed society.

In the world of Uglies, everyone calls themselves Ugly until their bodies are re-shaped by extreme cosmetic surgery and body sculpting in their teenage years.  Every teenager can't wait to be old enough to be made Pretty.

Of course, this world of beautiful people isn't as benign as it looks.  There's a price to be paid for being Pretty. But they don't know what it is until Tally stumbles upon the truth.  Scott has set up a brilliant world where people are controlled by beauty in far more terrifying ways than even the present day.

Scott manages to show us the dangers of accepting a culture where we're encouraged to cut our bodies open, inject them with dangerous stuff, and think of it as success.  In Uglies and Pretties, the characters pay the ultimate price for their acceptance of beauty.  They lose their freedom to think for themselves.  But, crucially, Scott gets over his message without preaching to us, which makes the stories even more powerful.

What I love most about these books is that the story is a modern-day parable.  There are many women who are prepared to turn themselves into stick-thin airhead false blondes if they think it will make them more "popular".  Take a look at Uglies and Pretties, and don't do it.

Entry-level SF

Yesterday I was reading a discussion about entry-level SF.  It was a long discussion, with many different viewpoints, all of them recommending their best books to hook people into reading SF.

SF has an image problem.  It always has had, but for me as a woman SF writer wanting to write about the world from a feminist perspective it's even more of a problem.

So what would I recommend as entry-level SF for women readers?  Sadly, nothing that I've seen recently on my local bookshop's shelves. That's a problem in itself, as the bookseller clearly believes SF is for men and doesn't stock most of the new books by women authors.  The few that do make it onto the shelves are military SF.  Not a great introduction to the genre for women.

No, if you want entry-level SF go look in the young adult section. It isn't marketed as SF, but one look at the covers and blurbs of many of the books will tell you that they most definitely are.  And just as importantly, many of these books tackle soft SF issues wrapped around the hard SF core of the story. Most of the exciting new SF I've read for the last decade has been YA.

Take Scoff Westerfield's Uglies/Pretties/Specials trilogy, exploring the consequences of extreme re-making of our bodies.  Everybody ends up Pretty, but there's a price to pay, a price that keeps people controlled and docile.  If you want a warning about what cosmetic surgery could become, read them.

Then there's Sam Hawksmoor's The Repossession and The Hunting.  Teleportation experiments on vulnerable kids, anyone?  Or how about Sarah Crossan's Breathe, taking the old joke about taxing the air we breathe and showing what happens when we do.

Memory wipe?  Try Teri Terry's Slated and Fractured.  An exploration of not belonging and its consequences?  Try Veronica Roth's Divergent.

Mobile cities?  Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines series, with their terrifying cyborg Stalkers.

All these books deal with hard SF issues, but they also explore the soft SF cultural and individual consequences for people of the worlds they've drawn. And just as importantly, they all tella damn good story, something a lot of adult SF has got too up itself to do.  But that's another rant for another day.