Stripping down an SF story (Part 2)

In the last post I summarized a story by Robert Reed by breaking it down into scenes. That seems a useful way to start, because at once we get a sense of the structure.

This time, I'm going to look at some interesting features of this story.

Who is the protagonist?
This is a first person narrative, and it follows an established pattern. A faithful servant replaces his king and restores order. It's interesting, though, that in this case the only real instigator throughout is the Emperor himself.

Stripping down an SF story (Part 1)

For a while my submission policy has been completely crazy. It goes a little like this.

I write a story. I make it as good as I can. Then I submit it.

Sound sane? Then you're crazy. There's a key step missing here. I have not been making any serious analysis of the kind of story that my target publications actually want.

To put that right recently (and it's depressing that I've taken so long to come round to this) I've been dismantling published stories in my target publications to work out how they hang together. The process has changed the way I think about writing a genre story.

I started by taking apart a nice story called “The Long Retreat” by Robert Reed. It was published in this month's Science Fiction & Fantasy magazine (total spoilers ahead, don't proceed if you've been saving up this month's SF&F for a read down the pub). In this, and in the next post or two, I'm going to share my workings. This is part of a new site feature I'm trying out under the tag 'noteshare'. In noteshare posts I'll be, er, sharing my notes.

Let's kick off with a story summary.

An indolent roundup

Off to a slow start for 2010, unlike the rest of the writing community who seem to have leaped from the starting gate as if their tails are on fire. So with so much good material around it wasn't hard to dig up some interesting links.

This time I briefly disinterred my rusty knowledge of literary theory, and then quickly got practical. After some work on characters and scenes, an introduction to screenwriting and some editing advice it was time to daydream about submission. As you do. And after submission, promotion. Speaking of promotion, I admitted at last that I'm not really cut out for the corporate ladder, so I abandoned my cube-dwelling career.

Then I kicked back a little, took in some music, and ended with The Knave. Who abideth.

Sympathy for the devil

I have spent the last week working on the same scene, and I have been finding it hard to lift it beyond the realm of cartoon. Admittedly my story is an adventure, and I'm unashamed of a little evil mustache twirling. Still, I've fallen into the trap of making my villain all bad.

In fact I've had him do almost everything but twirl his evil mustache. Don't get me wrong, he is bad. When it comes down to it, he does terrible, awful things. But then so do people who drop bombs on families in the name of freedom. There remains the old argument about means and ends. Good men do bad things.

Needed: a new time management strategy

I've just taken a sneaky extra couple of days off after the break. After being on the road on and off, and having children on a permanent sugar high around me, I thought I owed myself some writing time.

It was a shock. I have trained myself quite effectively to write around the edges of my life. Faced with whole hours at a time, with more hours on tap to follow, I pretty much shut down. I found myself seeking out bits of coding to do. I configured my email accounts. I made things-to-do lists. Then I colored them in.

I think, in the end, my productivity was only slightly better than it would have been on an average workday, and I felt a whole lot worse about myself.

When eventually I return to the UK and begin freelancing I intend to give over much more time for writing, and I'm clearly going to have to find better strategies for my new circumstances.

For now, here's what I'm going to try.