I read somewhere—perhaps in an interview with Ursula K. Le Guin—that science fiction has both feet planted solidly in the science of today, that the fictional parts are pushing beyond those roots in a way that is both logical and plausible.
So when I read a blurb for CREATION: How Science is Reinventing Life Itself by Adam Rutherford, I immediately thought science fiction. According to Rutherford, we are radically exceeding the boundaries of evolution and engineering entirely novel creatures—from goats that produce spider silk in their milk to bacteria that excrete diesel to genetic circuits that identify and destroy cancer cells. Imagine what stories might be told in a world where such creatures are commonplace, where such engineering is taken for granted. Imagine the products, and the governmental involvement.
Creation by Adam Rutherford
Fantasy, on the other hand, is making it up out of whole cloth. Even so, it could draw on science for an idea. For example, another book I came across recently has such possibilities: TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT SEX DETERMINATION IN VERTEBRATES edited by N. Valenzueta & B. Lance. It contains articles by leading scholars in the field and reveals how the sex of reptiles and many fish is determined not by the chromosomes they inherit but by the temperature at which incubation takes place. Fantasy would be a story in which human sex is determined by ambient temperature. And perhaps it can vary as the temperature varies. And so forth.
Now, if you wrote a story about a world over-run by snakes and fish because of global warming, you would be back to science fiction. Ditto for a world in which the biological engineering described in CREATION results in changing many species to be temperature-reactive and put that in the context of global warming.
TAKEAWAY FOR WRITERS
Check out the latest in science and then let your imagination run wild!
I can’t imagine a writer without some tools of the trade, even if those are only a good dictionary and a thesaurus, preferably a good manual of style as well. I share a few of my favorite resources.
Somewhere in my public life, I mentioned that I collect dictionaries. I have whole shelves of them, everything from slang to carnival jargon to common usage during the Civil War to books of insults and dirty words. I ordered all six volumes of the Dictionary of American Regional English—and then thanked my husband for his birthday present to me.
Writers are readers, by and large, and also word collectors. We tend to fall in love with words. Some writers make a career of writing about words as well as with them.
I can’t imagine a writer without some tools of the trade, even if those are only a good dictionary and a thesaurus, preferably a good manual of style as well.
Most of us have much more than the basics, however. I often set stories in times that are not now. Therefore, in order to get the details needed to enrich the prose and draw the reader into the period, I often rely on bits of dialogue about what something costs, or what’s being eaten or worn.
A few of my favorite references
For the cost of things, I turn first to The Value of a Dollar.
The Value of a Dollar, Grey House Publishing
The most recent volume is 1860-2014, and new it costs $155. I first came across this book in the reference section of a library in Clifton Forge, VA, when I was researching my novel Nettie’s Books, which is set 1930-1935. I was delighted to learn that ham was 8¢ a pound back then, and that Sears was selling 25 Hershey’s 5¢ Almond Bars for $1. I wanted that book! The price of a new one was prohibitive, but by dropping back to the previous edition (pictured above), it was very reasonable. Indeed, I just ordered the one that covers 1860-2009 for $7.91 plus shipping.
As you know from other parts of this website, I collect cookbooks. But I also collect food reference books for writing, such as the two pictured here.
The Century in Food
Fashionable Foods
Being able to put waffle irons, Kool-Ade, Spam, and Jiffy Biscuit Mix in the right period is highly tempting! Among other things, such references may trigger childhood memories for readers and help draw them in.
In addition, I find it very helpful to have good references for popular culture and slang. In fact, I have several of each. I often write stories set in Appalachia some decades past, when saying an overweight woman wears clothes so tight she looks like ten pounds of potatoes in a five-pound sack can create just the right vivid image of the woman in question as well as giving insight into the speaker. A character saying, “What a hoot!” is clearly older than the one who says, “Whatever.” The two books pictured here are rather specialized ones, but more comprehensive options are readily available both new and used.
Remember That? and Butter My Butt and Call Me a Biscuit
I revel in dipping into these and other references even when I’m not researching a particular writing project. Some of my favorites don’t fall into any of the above categories, but they are great stimulants to striving for better, richer language.
Falser Than A Weeping Crocodile And Other Similes
I was a reader before I was a writer (weren’t we all?) and for me, these are great reads! Advice to writers: choose research and writing tools you can enjoy.
You may recall that in one of my previous blogs, I mentioned talking with writers about writing as one of the best things about a writing workshop at Nimrod. Although not as interactive, there are lots of ways to get inside writers’ heads.
His short answer is that how much you write (publish) isn’t a reflection of how well you write. But there are many paragraphs of well-crafted opinion that are well worth reading. Of course, you already know that Stephen King wrote one of my favorite books on writing.
Stephen King’s On Writing
On Saturday, August 29, NPR’s Scott Simon interviewed Ursula Le Guin on Weekend Edition. Among other things, she talked about the effect of aging on her writing. She is 85. It’s well worth a listen.
If you are a magazine person, there are many places to get insights about and from writers. Two of the most popular are Poets & Writersand Writer’s Digest.
There are many books by writers about writing, both classic and modern.
The Spooky Art by Norman Mailer, Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster, Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing
One of my favorite bits is one of Elmore Leonard‘s rules: Leave out the parts the reader is going to skip anyway. It doesn’t get much better than that.
When my interest is piqued, of course I turn to research. A friend told me that the gift shop at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens has two books on the history of bicycle racing in Richmond. True confession: I did not buy them—but you might want to. In the meantime, I did go on-line. As usual, Wikipedia has a lengthy article on the history of the bicycle. You might also be interested in visiting the Smithsonian Institute website, for their series America on the Move. These include pictures. Also, A Pictorial History of the Evolution of the Bicycle has great pictures
I’ll share with you some of what I learned. First of all, the immediate ancestor of the bicycle was the Draisine, also called a Velocipede, Hobby Horse or Swift-Walker. It was designed by Baron von Drais in 1817 and looked like a bicycle, but had no pedals. So one moved by walking along, feet on the ground, while seated. It was made of wood, with iron bound wheels, and weighed nearly 50 pounds. Even so, speeds of eight miles per hour were feasible.
By Wilhelm Siegrist (1797-1843?) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Although a two-wheeled bicycle with pedals may have been created as early as 1839, Pierre Lallement filed the earliest and only patent for a pedal-driven bicycle, in the US in 1866.
Original pedal-bicycle. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.
Soon after, in 1869, a pedal-bicycle was invented for ladies.
Velocipede for Ladies by Pickering and Davis, New York. Engraving from Google’s scan of The velocipede: its history, varieties, and practice, author J. T. Goddard, page 85 in chapter Velocipedes for Ladies. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.A subsequent major development, the Ordinary or high-wheeler was first made abroad in 1869, and in the U.S in 1877. Depending on the length of the rider’s inner leg, the front wheel could have a diameter up to 5 feet! It was light-weight, fast, and dangerous. Because the rider’s weight was so high and so far forward, a bad patch in the road could cause the rider to “take a header” over the handlebars. The rider couldn’t fall free of the machine because his legs would be trapped under the handlebars. Broken wrists were common. And of course, death was possible. Women’s clothing as well as the social norms of the day made this “ordinary” bicycle unsuitable for women. Cycling became associated with reckless young men. Cycling clubs and races blossomed.
The next major development came in 1885, when John Kemp Starley created—but never patented—the first successful “safety bicycle.” His improvements included a steerable front wheel, wheels of equal size, and a chain drive to the rear wheel. Bicycles became very popular for both work (commuting, deliveries, etc.) and pleasure uses. In 1895, Chicago put its mailmen on bicycles. The safety bicycle was the first bicycle suitable for women.
Science museum [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia CommonsA 1889 Lady’s safety bicycle. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1923.
As far as I’m concerned, developments since then are all just tweaking! As the automobile became the preferred mode of individual transportation in the US, bicycles have been taken over for pleasure and exercise. As of the 1970s, cycling was the nation’s leading outdoor recreation. Still, bicycle messengers flourish in major US cities. In other parts of the world, the bicycle is still the “workhorse” of preference. In the People’s Republic of China, the Flying Pigeon was the government approved form of transportation, considered essential for every household, along with a sewing machine and a watch. In the 1970s, the post-Mao leader Deng Xiaoping defined prosperity as “a Flying Pigeon in every household”—which reminds me that in the presidential campaign of 1928, a circular published by the Republican Party claimed that if Herbert Hoover won there would be a chicken in every pot. A lucky duck. True confession: my mind works in mysterious ways.
Flying Pigeons, chickens in pots, and lucky ducks
And that seems as good a place as any to end this!
The Road World Championships (Worlds) is cycling’s pinnacle event, held annually in an international city as chosen by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) through a competitive bidding process similar to the Olympic Games.
Worlds is a nine-day event, featuring 12 Championship races for Elite Men and Women, Under 23 Men and Junior Men and Women. It is a rare opportunity for the athletes to compete for their country, just as they do during the Olympic Games.
Deborah Tannen has published numerous books that might be of interest to writers. Three titles that come to mind are You Just Don’t Understand(male/female communication patterns); Talking from Nine to Five (communication in the workplace); You’re Wearing That? (mother/daughter habits of communication). They are classics by now, but still relevant.
You’re Wearing That? by Deborah TannenYou Just Don’t Understand! by Deborah Tannen
Sometimes a story starts one way and then takes an unexpected turn–sort of like thinking it might be nice to visit Rhode Island and suddenly realizing you’re headed for the Bahamas. So today’s challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to revisit your story about hyperbaric therapy and turn it in a different direction. If it was successful, make it a disaster. Loaded with fear? Make it excitement. Or humor!
ALTERNATIVELY: write about hyperbaric therapy that goes terribly wrong. Of course it could be medical malfeasance or incompetence, but think more broadly: natural disaster, act of God, equipment failure. And what about suicide, assisted or otherwise? Or perhaps murder. Possibly some combination of the above?
To do either of these stories, you must get the details right. For example, a typical pressure is 2.0 pounds per square inch. That is equivalent to being 33 feet under the ocean’s surface. Details like that might mean something to deep-sea-diving readers. Know the benefits and risks of this treatment. Know what would be possible. And remember to bury your research by making it part of plot, dialogue, setting, and action.
And FYI, here’s a picture of a hyperbaric chamber after a treatment.
Research is central to writing. Getting the facts/background right is central to credibility. So here’s a research exercise for all you fans who are also writers. Pictured here is a chamber for the delivery of hyperbaric therapy. It comes equipped with a blood pressure cuff and an oxygen mask. The patient being treated wears four leads to monitor cardiac function. Find out as much as you can about the hyperbaric chamber, the therapy, and the conditions for which it is used. Write a story about someone receiving this therapy. And don’t let your research show!
