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One of the things I like about reading science fiction and fantasy is that you never know how things might turn out. What’s different about F&SF, as opposed to what we might call mainstream or mundane stories, is that at the end the world can be radically different from what it was at the beginning.
Nov 27 '23
What exactly makes for a “happy ever after” ending?
Sep 21 '21
Love at first sight is one of the most ancient and familiar romance tropes. But contemporary genre romance has its own spin on the matter. There, the first impression is decidedly physical: once the main characters meet, they can hardly keep their hands off each other. It follows that there must be obstacles that prevent them from getting together at once, and it is through meeting them that they learn about each other. What does this tell us about whether love at first sight is real?
Oct 31 '20
In many stories, a romance is founded on a Big Lie. Resolving that discontinuity—bringing the relationship safely onto a firmer footing—tends to become the main issue of the storyline. And because at least some of the characters are mistaken about what’s going on, incongruities abound, and the natural home of such stories is romantic comedy.
Sep 13 '20
What are the best inventions of the 20th century? Sometimes it’s the small everyday innovations that do the most to make our lives easier, and our worldbuilding plausible, whether we’re dealing with technology or with magic.
Aug 14 '20
Our story approaches its climax: Our Hero prepares for the cataclysmic action on which all depends. She tenses her muscles, tightens her fists, screws up her face into a tense grimace. Or does she? There are actually two ways to imagine how one achieves some brilliant feat. We have conflicting ideas about how we can make action most effective.
Jun 05 '20
The ancient prophecy is a staple of fantasy. The source of the information is often vague, but once we've heard the prophecy, we know it's going to come true - somehow. There's also a comparable science fiction trope: the long-term Plan. But the Plan functions rather differently. Here we take a look at the two together.
May 21 '20
One of the things that distinguishes science fiction and fantasy is the direction they look to for greatness. In SF, we expect things will be better and greater in the future than they are now. In fantasy, the great days are behind us.
Jul 01 '19
Witty wordplay is fun to find in a story. Conversational sparring comes in a number of varieties—and especially in exchanges between romantic interests. The combination of verbal sparring and affection reaches its apex when the two participants are in love with each other, whether or not they know it yet.
Feb 02 '19
It’s hard to root for a romance if you don’t care about the characters. What happens when we don’t like the person the main character’s supposed to be interested in? Just as there’s peril in making the romantic interest too perfect, there’s a corresponding set of pitfalls if the object of our protagonist’s affections pushes imperfection to the point of no return.
Nov 14 '18
Why are SF writers so fond of equipping future societies with kings, emperors, and aristocracies? The reasons include the appeal of colorfulness; stability; personal loyalty; and individual agency. But we can only concede such power if the king is characterized by virtues such as humility and selflessness.
Sep 24 '18
Why is Star Wars so fond of Death Stars? What’s the mysterious attraction of this plot device? The choke point is a great plot convenience. We can focus the storyline so that an entire campaign can be resolved in a single concentrated set of actions, ideally carried out by a few individuals.
Sep 10 '18
Writers have to name a lot of characters. Coming up with the right names is tricky; some writers are better at it than others. Name styles can range from the convention to the fantastic, and different writers’ approaches contribute to the distinctiveness of their worlds.
Aug 15 '18
Some stories—especially comedies—include a character who seems to have the job of making sure everything comes out right in the end. We can call them the Master Contrivers. A Contriver naturally falls into the niche of the benevolent uncle or aunt—a kindly older person who isn’t typically a player himself, but an enabler of other characters’ fulfillment. In a comedy, it’s reassuring to have someone around who can be trusted to untangle all plotlines to a happy ending.
Jan 20 '18
One of the specialties of science fiction and fantasy is to evoke a sense of strangeness. In dealing with the alien, the cosmic, that which is far away in space or time, SF can make us feel we are encountering something that passes the limits of our knowledge or understanding. This isn’t as easy as it looks.
Nov 14 '17
Since advanced weapons are available in much science fiction—the famous "ray gun" is iconic—it’s surprising how often a fight comes down to the humble, and archaic, sword. Some examples show us how this is justified in a science fiction context, and why authors and readers may be fond of swordfights.
Oct 08 '17
Ever find yourself approaching the end of a new book—and you realize there’s no way the author can tie up the plot in what remains of the novel? It’s that moment when you realize: we’re in for a sequel. But the story alone hasn’t told us there will be a sequel. Rather, we’re drawing on something outside the text itself—our knowledge of how much of the book remains—to tell us something about the story. We can call this process of drawing on outside information “meta-reading.”
Aug 08 '17
A story may tell you it covers vast distances—but the reader’s or viewer’s experience doesn’t always bear that out. Travel time, difficulty, and variety govern how we perceive the size of a world.
Jun 27 '17
The great tales tend to be open to reshaping. But how far can we go with this sort of adaptation, and still claim to be retelling the original tale? How much stretching and twisting can a given story take before it becomes something else altogether?
Feb 07 '17
The wise old mentor is a staple, not only in fantasy, but in all kinds of stories. From a narrative point of view, though, these mentor figures are rather an inconvenience – which is why they so frequently go missing.
Jan 19 '17
A dialogue scene has to perform some function in the story, or it shouldn’t be there at all. But it also has to be realistic—it has to sound like the way people talk. It has to flow the way real conversations do. How can we achieve both things together—story function and plausibility?
Sep 20 '16