Writing popular fiction

ACTION
    A strong plot consists of a story that is reinforced by the plot skeleton we mentioned earlier; that simple, linear formula. But a strong plot can seem weak and bland without action: movement from place to place, confrontations between characters, personal confrontations between a character and himself. The reader wants to be kept in perpetual anticipation. The hero and heroine must constantly be engaged in conquering some barrier that grows logically from their own actions in trying to solve their major predicament. Action can come in the form of the fist fight or gun battle—or as suspense, the psychological game-playing which leads to the fight. Suspense is usually more desirable than the fight itself, because the anticipation of the fight is always more nerve-wracking than the actual confrontation.

FIVE: A COLORFUL BACKGROUND
    Not every suspense novel must take place in Jamaica, Istanbul, or Singapore. One of my own,
Blood Risk
(under the pseudonym Brian Coffey), is set in Pittsburgh and the surrounding countryside, certainly a mundane place. No matter where the story is set, the writer should create gritty background, a stage on which hotels, houses, streets, and people are uniquely painted. This is part of the escape a category novel provides and is as important to the suspension of disbelief on the part of the reader as is an intriguing plot or solid characterization.
    In short, what distinguishes category fiction from mainstream fiction is its use of all five of the elements named above—a strong plot, a hero or heroine, clear and believable motivation, plenty of action, and a colorful background. With this in mind, let's look at the seven major genres and see how they are similar—beyond these five rules—and how they differ. When you have learned to write well in one category, you will be able to write well in others.

CHAPTER TWO    Science Fiction and Fantasy
    Rayguns, helpless maidens stranded on alien planets, bug-eyed monsters, invasions of the Earth by wicked creatures, arch-fiends bent on the destruction of the race, super heroes—if you believe this is what science fiction is about, you either stopped reading it
circa
1930, or have formed your opinion from motion pictures and television programs. The science fiction stories of the 1930's and 1940's were often ludicrous, but they have long ago given way to the same sophistication of theme, background, characters, and style found in other genres. The film medium has rarely done justice to the field—notable exceptions being 2001: A
Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Village of the Damned
, and
THX-1138
. Before trying to write science fiction, read it (a truism applicable to
each
category of fiction, because each has its special requirements). When you read the work of Poul Anderson, John Brunner, Arthur Clarke, Harlan Ellison, Robert Heinlein, Barry Malzberg, Samuel R. Delany, Theodore Sturgeon, Robert Silverberg, and Roger Zelazny, you'll discover that the rayguns have been packed in mothballs; the helpless maidens have taken to women's liberation; the heroes, once flawless, are now quite human.
    Of the five required elements of genre fiction, perhaps
background
is the most important in science fiction novels.
    Since most science fiction takes place in the future, the background must be wholly of the writer's imagination. The future can be researched to only a limited extent (even the most well-informed scientists can only
conjecture
what it will hold). The writer's vision must be detailed and believable, or the reader will ultimately not believe anything—not the characters, motivations, or the plot. This intense detailed creation is a challenge, but a fascinating one for the writer willing to invest more of his mind and soul than he would have to in the average Gothic or Western.

THE NEAR FUTURE
    Structuring a story background of the
near
future—twenty, thirty, or forty years from now—is in some ways more difficult than creating an entire alien planet in some impossibly distant future, because it cannot be made up
wholly
of the imagination. You must research to discover what engineers and scientists project for each area of living. From this data, you must then
extrapolate
a possible future, one which might logically rise out of the basis for the future which we are building today.
    This doesn't mean that every science fiction novel set thirty years from today must be placed against the same background. The future, even