STEP 1: HAVE AN IDEA
Great
sci-fi begins with an idea. Unfortunately, as people will tell you, all
the good ideas were taken long ago. But that's only true if you believe
ideas are indivisible, like, "A guy goes on a journey and experiences
personal change" covers everything from Moby Dick to me
visiting the bathroom. In fact, ideas are totally divisible. There's no
idea that you can't make new by filtering it through your brain.
The
way to tell whether an idea is good is to see if it makes you feel like
writing about it. There are no other criteria. I know that sounds
trite. But it's true. Many people have great-sounding ideas for books
but never write them. That means they are bad. The ideas, not the
people. The people are probably bad, too. If an idea can't clear the
first hurdle in a marathon, a marathon that has hurdles in it, then it's
a bad idea. It is as bad as the idea of having a marathon with hurdles
in it.
Note: If your idea involves parallel universes, now proceed to all steps simultaneously.
Note:
If your idea involves time travel, follow steps in the order of your
choice, taking care not to invalidate any future step (relative to you:
past step). If you do accidentally invalidate a step, please cease to
exist, at least in this timeline.
STEP 2: HAVE A SITUATION
Some
ideas sound like good stories but aren't. In science fiction, it's
possible to ram an ill-fitting idea into a story, the same way it's
possible to force a cat into a little tuxedo, but it takes the same
amount of effort and the result is just as awkward. When an idea feels
enticing but won't come out, like a cat under the sofa who's gotten wind
that you want to put it in a little tuxedo, it's because you have a
concept but not a situation.
Stories
are about change. A story that has no change in it, or the threat of
change, is a painting. And stories that aren't about people are
landscape paintings.
So
you need to find the situation inside your idea. That's the part of the
concept that impacts specific people and causes change to or around
them.
STEP 3: INFLATE EGO
Ego
is a critical part of a writer's toolbox. Without ego, you'd succumb to
the fear that the eighty-to-one-hundred thousand words you're preparing
to dump on the world may not measurably improve it. This will only seem
ridiculous if you have a tremendous ego, the kind that can look upon a
work-in-progress crammed with of plot holes, opaque character
motivations, and spelling errors that have dogged you since third grade,
and think: Mmm... not bad.
What
works for me is telling myself that all writers' first drafts are bad. I
can't tell for sure because other writers don't show me their first
drafts—probably because they're so bad. You see? So what I hawk out onto the screen in draft one is pretty good, relatively speaking.
Remember
the last time you read a novel that was so awful, just getting to the
end was tortuous? Someone managed to write that. They typed out every
single word. And they did it as a first draft, when it would have been worse. Thanks to ego.
STEP 4: WRITE NOVEL
There are plenty of ways
to do this. But all you need to know is that no technique works for
everyone, and what's best for you is whatever gets you regularly putting
down words and feeling good about them.
This
step takes three months if you are Stephen King, 6-12 months if you are
me, and a year or two if you have a real job. Add one to ten years if
you have small children.
STEP 4A: DELETE THAT LAST BIT
You
are stuck and unmotivated. Delete that last bit. I can't emphasize this
enough. Delete it. I know you don't want to. I know, logically, it
seems like a good idea. DELETE THAT LAST BIT. It's killing you.
STEP 4B: AVOID RESEARCH
I'm
unsure whether not doing something can be a step. But that's not
important. What's important is avoiding research. I'm serious. Research
is useful in two phases: the idea phase and the rewriting phase. In
between, research is a stupid boring voice that says, It doesn't work like that. You know what? I'm writing this story, I'll tell you how it goddamn works. I'll make it plausible in rewrites.
Don't
tell anyone this, though, because when they ask, "Did you do a lot of
research?" the only acceptable answer is: "Yes, I personally lived the
entire experience, creating this transcript of actual events." But
research isn't what great writers are great at. In the middle of the
first draft, research is a distraction from what's important, which is
story-telling.
STEP 4: READ NOVELS
I
call this Step 4 also since it occurs in parallel. Keep reading books.
Yes, their influences will seep into your writing. But what are you
going to do, never read again?
STEP 5: DEFLATE EGO
It's
fine to leave dangling threads and unrealized characters in a first
draft, because you're creating something from nothing. Literally
anything you add is better than what you had. Plus, since you're full of
ego (Step 3), everything you wrote is pretty damn good, you feel. This
is only way to finish a first draft.
But
now it's time to read over your story like you just happened across it
in your printer's out-tray. Read it like you're a little impatient.
Scrawl on it in pen. React to it like a reader.
Then
rewrite. I won't tell you how long this step lasts, or how many times
it repeats, because it's different for everyone, and the answer is
always terrifying.
STEP 6: PUBLISH
This
means writing thirty query letters to literary agents and responding to
the one who replies asking to see some chapters. The other option is
self-publishing, which is also viable if you have plenty of time and
enthusiasm for self-promotion.
Either
way, though, the best marketing is write a good book. Do that and other
people will promote it for you. That's much easier than persuading
anyone to pick up a book no-one much likes.
STEP 7: BASK IN ADULATION
Now
the good part, where you let the praise roll in. Unfortunately, science
fiction people are the most demanding readers in the world. They sniff
out implausibilities no reasonable person should care about. They take
weak plots as a personal insult. They compare any idea to one better
executed in an all-time classic. And they are super visible about it,
because they live online.
On the flipside, though, when they like you, they adore you with the passion of a thousand burning suns. So there's that.
There
is a reason for this, though. Science fiction readers truly believe in
books. They know in their hearts that the world is improved by good ones
and diminished by bad ones. They don't read books like consumables.
They read them like ideas. And you, as both a reader and writer of
science fiction, believe that, too: that this matters. When you think
like that, it's immensely satisfying to write a novel. It feels like the
best thing you ever did.
Best of luck. You need that, too.
Max.
