THE ICE PICK

How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, by Orson Scott Card. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2001. ISBN 1-58297-103-X. $12.99. 140 pages.

Written by one of the very best science fiction and fantasy authors, this book is a treasure you should be familiar with if you want to write and sell speculative fiction. Written with great gentleness, clarity, and simplicity, it is full of concise, straightforward gems of advice.

Card begins by explaining what science fiction and fantasy are and what they are not, and why publishers and bookstores categorize them the way they do. He explains that "fantasy writers are virtually forced to begin selling at novel length" because the market for fantasy short stories is so small.

Card then goes on to explain how you can go about creating a world for your story, giving you questions to ask yourself, problems to solve, and the advantages and disadvantages of certain ideas. He tells why it is important in science fiction to decide your rules of starflight and let your reader know them early on in your story, and why you must do the same with rules of magic in fantasy. He gives possible rules for time travel, including what might work and what the problems would be. He warns about the dangers of trying to invent your own language and tells how to show your different culture.

He shows you how to set up your story in terms of character, viewpoint, and plot. He gives warnings about the use of high language, literalism, and naming characters. And he explains the importance of having a "sense of mystery and awe" in your protagonist and of having a "beginning that sets up the end."

In what he calls the MICE quotient, Card explains that Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event must be present in every story. In milieu stories the most important thing is having your characters explore your world. Idea stories begin with a question raised and end when the question is answered, e.g. Who killed him and why? Character stories concern the transformation of a character. And in event stories something is wrong in your world and must be dealt with. Each of these kinds of stories presents different problems and should be handled differently.

There is so much good stuff in this book, not least of which is his mention of our very own Kathleen Woodbury and our very own Workshop.

If you already own the 1990 edition, you don’t need to buy this reprint; but if you don’t have it, you should get this helpful and wonderful book. I recommend it very highly.

{Published in SF and Fantasy Workshop Newsletter, Apr. 2002.}