Battlestar Grammactica

Novice writers haven’t changed much in a hundred years. Take this dialogue from Tom Swift and His Giant Cannon:

"I guess Tom’s ears would burn if he could hear your praises, Mr. Damon," laughed Mr. Swift. "Don’t spoil him."

"Spoil Tom Swift? You couldn’t do it in a hundred years!" cried Mr. Damon, enthusiastically. "Bless my topknot! Not in a thousand years—no, sir!"

"But where is he?" asked Mr. Peterson, who was evidently unused to the extravagant manner of Mr. Damon.

"There he goes now!" exclaimed the gentleman who frequently blessed himself, some article of his apparel, or some other object.

What’s Wrong with this ?

Well for starters, the Tom swift stories were so full of this kind of dialogue, the term "Tom Swifty" became a parlor game. take these example, which are humorous, but not much worse than what was actually published:

"How much for the William Shatner poster," Tom said enterprisingly.

"Where are the handcuffs?" Tom said arrestingly.

"I like it when you do that," Tom Ejaculated.

The problem here is that the writer does not trust the simple word "Said."

"I saw you," he said.

"I saw you too," she said.

Then he said, "Well, Didn’t you say anything?"

It gets the job done, but it gets boring. so beginning writers try to dress it up using bigger words and more adverbs. They forget that "Said" is unobtrusive. it’s nearly invisible and for the reader is just a kind of placeholder. Often, It’s not even needed:

"I saw you."

"I saw you too."

"Well, Didn’t you say anything?"

Again, It’s banal, but between two characters it’s easy to tell who said what. If your characters have something to actually say, you can keep track of them other ways too, like this passage from Marion Zimmer Bradley’s A Door Through Space (1961):

But only a minute. Then one of the mob yelled, "We’ll go if you give’m to us! He’s no right to Terran sanctuary!"

I walked over to the huddled dwarf, miserably trying to make himself smaller against the wall. I nudged him with my foot.

"Get up. Who are you?"

The hood fell away from his face as he twitched to his feet. He was trembling violently. In the shadow of the hood I saw a furred face, a quivering velvety muzzle, and great soft golden eyes which held intelligence and terror.

"What have you done? Can’t you talk?"

He held out the tray which he had shielded under his cloak, an ordinary peddler’s tray. "Toys. Sell toys. Children. You got’m?"

I shook my head and pushed the creature away, with only a glance at the array of delicately crafted manikins, tiny animals, prisms and crystal whirligigs. "You’d better get out of here. Scram. Down that street." I pointed.

A voice from the crowd shouted again, and it had a very ugly sound. "He is a spy of Nebran!"

Look at what Bradley does here. Not a single said, but it’s easy to tell who’s saying what through the use of action and dialect. Keep the Tom Swifites out of it.

Dismissed.

Just like the military, Fiction writers use a specialized language born out of a need to accurately and succinctly describe situations in a hostile and changing environment. Enter the Turkey City Lexicon for years. Growing out of a science fiction writer’s group in Austin, Texas, it’s an invaluable resource for all writers.

It’s a collection of humorous writing tips, apt names for writing errors and a kind of secret handshake for writers all rolled into one.

For Example:

• The Kitchen-Sink StoryA story overwhelmed by the inclusion of any and every new idea that occurs to the author in the process of writing it. (Attr. Damon Knight)
• And plotPicaresque plot in which this happens, and then that happens, and then something else happens, and it all adds up to nothing in particular.
• Eyeball KickVivid, telling details that create a kaleidoscopic effect of swarming visual imagery against a baroquely elaborate SF background. One ideal of cyberpunk SF was to create a “crammed prose” full of “eyeball kicks.” (Attr. Rudy Rucker)

And it’s now been released to the public at the SFWA website.

Learn these terms. Use them wisely and you’ll get more out of your writing workshop. The other writers wil no exactly what you mean by an “As you know,Bob” passage and you’ll look like you know what you’re doing.

Which, of course is half the battle.

Me write pretty. Me Sports Journalist.

Welcome to the newest site in the Steel Valley fleet.

We will be training you to produce the best science fiction, fantasy and horror using humor, experience, example and history.

As we add to the site, we expect to be able to offer guidance on style, grammar, crafting, submitting. In return, we expect you to participate fully in the process and apply your butt to your chair and type. There will be no excuses accepted. Unless of course you’re trying to wash out of this service.

Mankind needs you. We are awash in cookie-cutter clones. The same-old same-old fiction that exists only as a product. A slavish imitation of of art that will destroy us all at some point.

You have been chosen to be in the vanguard of this war. You have shown determination, guts and a willingness to look beyond the easy answers. Stick with us and we guarantee it will be worth your while.