Book: Writing Science Fiction And Fantasy

Writing Science Fiction And Fantasy is a little book of 200 pages and an ugly cover that truly took me by surprise. The lessons in the book go straight to the point and are founded on literary theory and criticism (Northrop Frye, Joseph Campbell, etc). Crawford Kilian’s writing is accessible and entertaining, as well as direct and clear.

The first part of the book “Knowing your genre”, it’s mostly needed for those not familiar with Science Fiction and Fantasy genres. I learnt about Connecticut Yankee the genre.

The second part really got my full attention and won me over: “The Craft of Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy”. Killian covers every aspect of how to engineer a story. Notice I say “engineer” because his approach is very methodical covering all aspects of storytelling without leaving anything to chance. He is also aware that rules as meant to be broken, but only after you know, understand and master them. In this second part he covers: plot structure, scene building, story arch, character archetypes, etc, etc.

The book focuses particularly on the symbolism of writing and the importance of every piece of the plot (characters, location, etc) as supporting element for the main topic of the story. Repeatedly Killian encourages the writer to thing what the story is about, and to echo those ideas in every segment of writing.

The last part might be less relevant for independent writers today since it focuses on traditional publishing (mass market, trade paperback, etc). This book was originally published in 1998 (although this edition was from 2007), so it makes sense that it doesn’t cover self-publishing or ebooks.

Overall a great book for analytical minds, writer who like to plan ahead, and those who appreciate the subtleties of symbolism and connotations in writing.