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Things that scifi writers do that you hate?
I read SFF for enjoyment, not to expand my ability to read. Take just a few more baby steps in that direction and you are in the gray shadow of the Ivory Tower, whose grim denizens do not read stories--they analyze and parse them unto death.
David wrote: "But don’t writers have some kind of moral obligation to expand their readers’ ability to read?"Readers buy to be entertained. The first moral obligation is to entertain, in order to avoid fraud.
More on what I'm trying to point out in info dumps. Well done info dumps like Weber's or perhaps easier to understand really any story that is like AND THE MAIN CHARACTER USED X GUN WITH Y SPECIALIZED ROUND AND Z CUSTOM OTHER THING. Is it's supposed to a mixture of a teaser for what will happen in the future. Like normally mid combat it doesn't do this it will break you out of the action. Perhaps a more modern example was the quick teases of Godzilla in the new movie before you got to the slug fest at the end. Another thing that is commonly used is something is expressly explained how it works so it is MORE badass when a character breaks those rules and does something crazy. Probably the most popular example is the wizard rules in the Dresden Files is basically a laundry list of things Dresden will do.Because when you take this to the logical extreme of don't explain anything to me. You could sum your story down to X was a pretty bad dude, Y was a good guy so he won out in the end. YOU CAN JUST FILL IN YOUR OWN DETAILS YOU STUPID IDIOT.
I personally get really frustrated when an author likes to talk about the decor of the room or how pretty the elf village is for like 10 pages when I don't really give a shit. But a good number of people like this heck Tolkien is pretty bad about this at times. Tolkien at least for the most part didn't break an action sequence with LOOK HOW COOL THIS IS, which is where the real crime of info dumping occurs when it occurs in the middle of an action scene...again unless a character is breaking the rules.
That being said I have read fantastic books where stuff doesn't even receive a handwave it just goes on by.
"But you can be too ruthless in paring away narrative (Gordon Lish comes to mind) and you shouldn’t necessarily eliminate everything the reader can live without, just the bits that take him or her out of the narrative. "
YESSS
Kenneth wrote: ""But don’t writers have some kind of moral obligation to expand their readers’ ability to read?"
Yes David!"
NO, NO THEY REALLY DON'T.
Message/Western Union: I get it, but when “entertainment” elicits a cash flow, it’s always the tease. And it’s not to improve their reading (like furigana) it to improve their ability to recognize (and appreciate) what they’re reading. It’s an imperfect duty (maybe you can’t elevate someone’s taste) but it is a Kantian duty (and if you agree with Mills, then it’s also a Utilitarian duty).
Richard Feynman made an interesting observation shortly after they hired him to teach at Cal Tech. He was feeling pressure to perform to the level of their expectations (if you can imagine him being insecure) until he realized that there was no moral obligation to do so. Ought implies can: you do your best and you live with it. No prostitute has a moral obligation to see that his/her client gets off; no prostitute has a moral obligation to earn money. No writer has a moral obligation to entertain or publish anything. Deciding what you want your writing to do is part of the decision to write. Maybe I was too harsh, and the only moral obligation anyone should feel is the obligation self-imposed.
All of this talk about info dumps reminds me of that classic sci-fi space opera Moby Dick. Now that was a book that had some serious info dumps going on. If I remember right some of them were twenty or thirty pages depicting the different species of alien.Oh, also, it was in an ocean instead of space. Every author likes to put a twist on their sci-fi, but that's a pretty strange one.
Mary wrote: "David wrote: "But don’t writers have some kind of moral obligation to expand their readers’ ability to read?"Readers buy to be entertained. The first moral obligation is to entertain, in order t..."
That's as sweeping a generalization as the one that David and I made.
Call it two different camps: those who read to be entertained, and those who read to expand their horizons, which itself is a form of entertainment.
Neither one is wrong, but I prefer to err on the side of the latter if I can.
David wrote: "No writer has a moral obligation to entertain or publish anything. ..."But if you don't actually publish anything you might as well call yourself a brain surgeon or a a performance artist :-)
Jim wrote: "But if you don't actually publish anything you might as well call yourself a brain surgeon or a performance artist :-)"A few months ago at MidSouthCon, I was on a panel with several other writers. One of the other panelists pretty well summed it up: You are a writer if you are compelled to write, if you have to keep writing no matter what. He described himself as a "drinker with a writing problem" -- as far as he was concerned, writing was an addiction.
That doesn't necessarily make you a GOOD writer, nor does it require that you publish your writing (though you might also be compelled to try to do so); but at least you can go to Writer's Anonymous and stand up and declare "My name is Bob, and I am a writer..." :-)
Older novels, like MOBY DICK or LES MISERABLES, are operating under slightly different constraints. In a period before cheap photography and magazines and Wikipedia, it was entirely possible that your reader had never seen a whale. It was quite possible that when you said "Paris" your reader would visualize Duluth, MN -- whereas you the 21st century reader see the Eiffel Tower, maybe, right? You had to describe a lot more back then. That doesn't really count as data dump. It was necessary.
Writing and publishing are two completely different activities. Writing is motivated by the desire to understand (maybe also, with fiction, the desire to create). Publishing is sought by “authors” from the desire for an incentive (something beyond the writing). I wrote academic papers to understand the topic of my writing (I suppose this would be consistent with the Cultivation of the Intellect paradigm). I published academic papers to keep the dean off my back, and because my vitae would look pretty bare without them (this would be Organizational Effectiveness). I read Stephen King because my sister loves him (I would call this Personal Improvement). I suppose (to round this out) Ivan Illich and Paolo Freire wrote from the desire for Social Transform. These are schools of educational philosophy, all of them are legitimate, but not all of them need apply to everyone (to every writer/reader).I suppose I could call myself a brain surgeon, but not in public without violating my state’s professional licensing code (if I call myself something alone in the forest, do all the trees fall down?). I suppose I could call myself an author, because I have published. I do write fiction, I just don’t publish it. Partly, this is because the ground is muddy enough without me.
Brenda wrote: "...You had to describe a lot more back then..."Plus, they were polite, and didn't have TV (think The Knight's Tale).
Brenda wrote: "Older novels, like MOBY DICK or LES MISERABLES, are operating under slightly different constraints. In a period before cheap photography and magazines and Wikipedia, it was entirely possible that y..."Audiences were different then. Today's audience has no patience for info-dumps. TV and the movies have pretty much accustomed them to almost instant immersion into the active part of the plot. The murder takes place in scene one, or the plane falls out of the sky, the dirty deed is done with the hero (as an infant) looking on as his parents are savaged.
Then it's a segway to the people who have to clean up the mess. About the only formula that allows a leisurely start is the airline/cruise ship disaster as you watch the doomed people board and learn their back stories (as much as is going to be revealed at that time). And even that is tapering off.
You book is going to be browsed by someone who will make the buying decision based upon what s/he sees in the first few pages that Amazon shows him/her. Make it count!
Two things I hate, but not limited to sci-fi:1 - Plots that are primarily driven by stupidity. I don't want the story limping along from one chapter to the next because some dope who should know better repeatedly forgets to close the airlock and kills half the crew. Being in space presumes certain standards of training and preparedness, so the characters need to live up to that.
2 - Plots driven by luck: AAUGH! If there's one thing that makes me throw a book across the room in frustration, it's when the hero has no clue how to solve a problem, but manages to stumble across the answer with no directed effort on his own part. Hey, as a writer, I understand what it's like to paint myself into a corner, but anyone who wants to write good fiction shouldn't be afraid to back up a few chapters and take the work in a better direction. Just sayin'...
DL wrote: "1 - Plots that are primarily driven by stupidity."I hate this one too. GRRRRRRR.
I have to observe that it's a pet peeve of mine because even when the characters are so well-drawn and I know that with their weaknesses and blind spots, having them NOT act stupidly would be an artistic flaw -- I hate it.
I hate it when sci-fi writers think that knowing how molecules do/react or whatever is more important than a good plot and spent half the book explaining chemistry or physics. I know some people like explanations for everything, and I don't mind a little but when you feel as if you're actually studying instead of entertaining yourself, I draw the line.Also, not limited to sci-fi. Stop repeating yourself Forget the word count. Tell your story once. :/
If all your problems can be solved by luck (magic, money, super-powers, someone else's stupidity) then you don't have much room for conflict (well, interesting conflict).
I'll push.... this button! Okay, you got away with it once author. Not twice in the same book.
Brenda wrote: "Older novels, like MOBY DICK or LES MISERABLES, are operating under slightly different constraints. In a period before cheap photography and magazines and Wikipedia, it was entirely possible that your reader had never seen a whale. It was quite possible that when you said "Paris" your reader would visualize Duluth, MN -- whereas you the 21st century reader see the Eiffel Tower, maybe, right? You had to describe a lot more back then. That doesn't really count as data dump. It was necessary. "I agree, but flip the bit and look ahead into the future. Replace Eiffel tower with...spaceship the audience has never seen before or has anyway to look up. I think certain types of info dumps are kinda required in certain genre's, especially if what you are describing is important to the plot later on.
Example: The mote in god's eye starts off with pew pew, but the next 30-40 pages are info dump (essentially) about the structure of the society and who has what relationship to who. It's a fairly concentrated dose of key data that gets referenced throughout 2 (maybe 3?) more books. But its like 30-40 pages of it.
I think a lot of the reviewers i've seen on goodreads would consider that a "bad" info dump in a book they were reviewing, yet it was an essential ingredient to the significant success of that book.
Thirty to forty pages of info dump? Sheesh, and I was afraid that using anything close to ten pages of such info dump would alienate my readers! There must be ways to cut the verbiage and limit the size of those info dumps.
If done correctly, info dumps can be just as interesting as the story itself. They just can't read like a technical manual. It's like if you buy this awesome new piece of electronic equipment, that's the story. It's manual is the boring info dump. Then you start playing with your new toy, and you're back to the story.
But if instead of reading the manual, you go to the product's webpage and watch the really awesome promo video of everything it can do, that's a cool info dump that entertains you before you get back to the story.
Note: I buy lots of electronics.
Ten pages in a hunk, no. Chop it fine and blend it in! Chocolate chip ice cream, everybody! I can undertake to get the data dump small enough so that there's a bit in every sentence.
You have to remember that exposition is a short-cut (telling rather than showing) but a well-crafted narrative has room for both. The whole point with exposition is to advance the plot more quickly, if you’re not doing that, then you need to be more creative.
Jay wrote: "If done correctly, info dumps can be just as interesting as the story itself. They just can't read like a technical manual..."I agree. Sometimes what might be info dump is actually so well written and incorporated that it's actually fun to read, while technical manuals just make me put the book down and move to the next on my list.
I guess it depends on how talented (or not) the author is.
Thomas wrote: "Thomas Weaver (ThomasWeaver) | 12 comments Trike wrote: A really cheap trick many writers pull (and we see this in movies a lot) is the newbie character who has to have everything explained to them.It's less ham-handed than the infamous "As you know, Bob..." technique, if only because the ignorant character is ignorant and thus, within the context of the story, does legitimately need the explanation. However, it is sometimes so obvious that this is the character's purpose (or, if they have another role in the story, the only reason they're written as ignorant) that the technique still doesn't work half the time."
One of the single best examples I've ever seen of this is from the little-seen and forgotten (yet absolutely superb) 80s movie The Manhattan Project. The boy is a technical genius and a nerd while the girl (Cynthia Nixon, who will become famous for Sex and the City) is the artsy one. In one scene she quotes Anne Frank and he asks, "Who's Anne Frank?" And she, knowing he won't care and that it's not important, replies, "A girl in my English class."
What they did was basically stay true to how teenagers (and adults, really) behave, often with a single mania for something: sports, sci-fi, whatever. In his case it's physics and in hers it's literature.
Here's the trailer. The five-leaf clover scene is just one example of how they efficiently give us an infodump while making it dramatic and interesting, primarily because of the payoff.
The Manhattan Project would be an excellent double feature paired with War Games.
War Games has similar characters, with Matthew Broderick being the brain and Ally Sheedy being the heart. Nowadays the Broderick character would be Action Boy!, but back then they created characters and stayed true to them. You can even see this in secondary characters like Falken, the guy who programmed the defense computer when he says, "Now, listen carefully. Path. Follow path. Gate. Open gate, through gate, close gate. Last ferry 6:30, so run, run, run." That's structured exactly the same as a list of program commands. Writers so rarely take the time to do that any more.
The infodumps and "as you know Bob" moments in both movies are organic and often leavened with humor.
G.G. wrote: "Also, not limited to sci-fi. Stop repeating yourself Forget the word count. Tell your story once..."I wish someone would have told that to Wagner. ;D
Danny wrote: "Maybe I'm being a little to over board on this one but for me its a bog down when someone who is in a man-made structure..with a man-made floor and they lay something on the GROUND....is that accep..."Everyone has good stuff, but Danny's list hit it best for me. I want my SF to be imaginative, to be smart enough to pay attention to details. The future is going to be *different* ferpeetsake! Well, at least it is in the books I prefer to read.
I'm obviously not caught up reading this thread so maybe someone already said - but my pet peeve is related to Danny's. The future will not only have different doors, desks, etc., but it will have a different societal structure and culture.
Horatio Hornblower would *not* feel at home in 3017 on New Caledonia! Women would *not* be as timorous and unnecessary as Sally Fowler! Did Niven and Pournelle use up all their imagination on the Moties, and have none to spare for the future history of the humans?!
Sorry, rant over. Don't worry, I'm not trying to start a flame war, and I'm actually a nice person. So, hi all!
Heh. Cheryl, you should read REVISE THE WORLD. I fixed it.
Jay wrote: "I never used to hate this element but now I do: Transporters. I really like the two newest Star Trek movies but you can't use transporters as your get-around-every-problem solution. No piece of tec..."Not even duct-tape?
:lame joke:
Ok, I'm caught up, and I admit that I'm in the minority here. I don't particularly care about the page-turning adventure. What I want is: 1. World-building. And if that includes some not-too-clumsily done 'well you know Bob' exposition, of technology or culture or history or alien physiology, that's fine with me.
2. Smart, likable, fully-developed characters. I want to care whether they succeed.
3. Editing - for continuity, rule-breaking, typos, all of that.
Is that too much to ask? Brenda, I will look at your book. I'll also consider other suggestions. :)
(Brenda, I actually have that on one of my to-read shelves already... how do I make sure to get the fixed edition? Feel free to PM me. :)
No, the edition you have is good -- sorry for the confusion! What I meant was, the problem with the future being different? the difficulties of arriving there and being there? That's what the book is about.A lot of the problems that people complain about here? They are not confined to F&SF. They are simply bad writing, which alas! You can find anywhere.
Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "Ok, I'm caught up, and I admit that I'm in the minority here. I don't particularly care about the page-turning adventure. What I want is: 1. World-building. And if that includes some not-too-clumsily done 'well you know Bob' exposition, of technology or culture or history or alien physiology, that's fine with me.
2. Smart, likable, fully-developed characters. I want to care whether they succeed.
3. Editing - for continuity, rule-breaking, typos, all of that...."
Actually I think that they're good things.
But I see no reason why they cannot be combined with a page turning adventure, and I'd say that a page turning adventure that does not contain them is poorer for it.
Cheryl in CC NV wrote: "The future will not only have different doors, desks, etc..."I don't really follow that thinking. Doors haven't really changed much since (at least) ancient Egyptian times. They've changed materials and changed in opening mechanisms used in commercial buildings...but not really in their structure or concept.
And there's a reason why: there's no need to change the design unless humans themselves change. Doors are almost universally vertical rectangles that conform to our upright, 1.4 to 1.8 meter average height.
There's no need for that to change except if human form changes, or if the setting/environment of a story dictates something more practical--for example, hatches become more practical than rectangular doors in zero gravity or in vertical structures like inbetween decks of a ship or submarine.
Form follows function.
I see your point, Micah - but I would imagine the setting/environment in SF *would* change, and dictate change in furnishings etc. Think, for example, of the little pull-out for the keyboard that most desks made in the last couple of decades have. New form due to new function, eh?Or think of Ender Wiggins, who recognized that "The enemy's gate is down" and so won the war games. Or think of The Roads Must Roll, which changes infrastructure as basic as, yes, roads. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road...
I read SF because it's Speculative Fiction, it's the What If, it's the Fiction of the Imagination. If you're not taking me to a world that's different, I'm not sure I want to be going with you.
Jim - thanks. I almost agree. Trouble is, as others have said, how to do it all? How to build an imaginative and detailed brand new world *and* do all the rest of the stuff we discerning readers demand? I sure don't know - I have no inclination to write... but I do say, if you're a writer struggling to reach the target audience that I represent, you can def. sacrifice the action for the Ideas. :)Also, Brenda, tx for clarifying. I've not bought your book yet but I do plan to asap.
A lot of world creation can and does go on that doesn't include imaginative furniture and fantastical architecture. And sometimes authors obsess over extraneous stuff just to make a world seem exotic or cool, but end up only succeeding in making the world seem contrived (sorry Snow Crash and Back to the Future, but zero gravity "skates" or skate boards don't cut the believable muster).As long as it's in support of the internal logic of a story, I'm cool with it. Otherwise...it's probably not important.
It is said of worldbuilding that it is like icebergs. The reader only sees ten percent. The bulk of the work is underwater, where you don't see it. But it supports the entire structure.There are many tricks that authors use to do this (we should start a separate thread for this). But from the outside, from the reader's viewpoint, everything should serve the story. To hold up the plot and characters while you describe the superneat FTL drive you invented is unconscionable.
Anthony wrote: "I think my biggest issue is when the author gets so tied up in the cool sci-fi elements of the story that they forget about writing interesting characters and their stories. I don't care how unbeli..."I couldn't have said this better. It is all about the characters for me!
Anthony wrote: "I think my biggest issue is when the author gets so tied up in the cool sci-fi elements of the story that they forget about writing interesting characters and their stories. I don't..."My thoughts exactly. Like Kate said, it's all about Characters for me also. (Wished there was a like button).
If I want to read technical, I'll read a study book. :P
Good narrative prose has to have four things (concept, story, characters, and language). Japanese fiction (particularly over the first half of the 20th Century) is very character driven, but their plotlines suffer. I think brevity and clarity (which is just about everything with technical writing) fall under the rubric of language. “Cool sci-fi elements” would fall under concept—but you need to show, rather than talk about it. If you show it working (LeGuin’s ansible) then how it works becomes irrelevant.
I can't get into a sci-fi if they focus more on their made up world than the characters. Do a data dump, and have characters that are unrelatable, and I'll stop reading the book.
The thing is that this is not a problem confined to SF. I am sure there are mysteries where, instead of focusing on the characters and the solving of the mystery, the book wanders away on police procedure or forensic detail. Or Regency romances that become diverted into descriptions of muslins and shoe roses. Or porn that -- oh, well I guess that's not a problem.
I remember a book (female author, I can’t remember any more than that) where every woman who entered would be described (from head to toe) by what she was wearing.
I remember reading an obscure book (fantasy, not sci-fi) where it described not just what everyone was wearing, but what everyone was eating. I think it was "Game of..." what's the name..."Throne of..." No... "Game of Thrones!" That's it. :) I thought the world building was fantastic, and the characters were fantastic, and the writing was really good. But unless it was really interesting or important to the plot or characters, I really couldn't care less what people were wearing or eating.
Melinda wrote: "I remember reading an obscure book (fantasy, not sci-fi) where it described not just what everyone was wearing, but what everyone was eating. I think it was "Game of..." what's the name..."Throne..."Yeah, or the minutia of their heraldry.
Well, I don't really read a whole lot of other genres, so I guess I've only noticed it in science fiction lol
For some reason, I've gotten sensitized to the word, "whilst". ESPECIALLY in science fiction. It was a form of "while" that was waning a century ago and sounds pretentious today.As an editor, I won't allow it prose (unless it's in dialog and makes sense there).
Al wrote: "For some reason, I've gotten sensitized to the word, "whilst". ESPECIALLY in science fiction. It was a form of "while" that was waning a century ago and sounds pretentious today.As an editor, I w..."
I like "whilst" occasionally, for humorous effect.
As an editor and a writer, I dislike "utilize," a word devoid of charm and, with the exception of computer tech-speak, almost devoid of, well, utility.
Do not use utilize, I say, use use.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
On Basilisk Station (other topics)The Roads Must Roll (other topics)
The Quantum Thief (other topics)
Mutated (other topics)
Authors mentioned in this topic
David Weber (other topics)Robert Jordan (other topics)
Tom Godwin (other topics)
Yes David!