THE LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE FICTION

The Language of Science Fiction

The Language of Science Fiction

Creative Writing pedagogy is a new area of research for me. My area is fantasy, to be precise the writing of modern fantasy, a distinct genre established in 1977 with the publication of Robin Hobb' Assassin's Apprentice and Stephen William Morris's The Wood Beyond the World. I have long since stopped defending my genre.

Structuralists like Joseph Campbell (1993), Vladimir Propp (1968), Claude Lévi Strauss (1963; 1975; 1978) and even Roland Barthes (1972; 1975) in his early career saw the narratives of the world as being many iterations of a single plot, which Campbell labels the Hero's Journey. The 'There and Back Again' structure that typifies the Hero's Journey is at the core of our storytelling culture, our literary tradition, and yet, as Jakubowski (1990) claims, modern fantasy is often denigrated for its reliance on and adherence to this formula. Rejecting the modern fantasy genre on this account has two major flaws. First, it assumes that all modern fantasy unthinkingly regurgitates the 'There and Back Again' formula, presumably out of laziness on the author's part. Second, it assumes that there is no value in slavish reproductions of that formula. It is this second flaw that I wish to address here- whether or not this perceived shortcoming has any value in the teaching of creative writing.

Because plot is so transparent in modern fantasy, and because it can help lead to a greater understanding of how plots function and also how to identify aspects of plot such as Clute and Grants' moments of recognition, a critical analysis of Nix's modern fantasy series introduces students to questions of reader and generic expectations. The same holds true for other works of modern fantasy. Kate Forsyth's The Witches of Eileanan (1997-2002), for example, fulfils the expectation of a happy ending. At the end of her series the two warring factions are brought together through marriage and peace is restored. Not all works of modern fantasy meet either generic or reader expectations, however. At the end of Robin Hobb's The Farseer Trilogy (1996-1997), for example, it is suggested that the cycle of violence will continue and, though the protagonist's side 'won' the battle, he does not return victorious but melts into the shadows, forgotten. An examination of modern fantasy narratives can help students to identify the fundamental building blocks of their plots and can also introduce them to the ways those plots and a reader's expectations of them can be manipulated.

Reading and analysing modern fantasy texts can aid in an understanding of plot and structure, but writing or planning a piece of their own forces students to consider how to assemble the basic building blocks of a narrative into a cohesive whole. Such building blocks include establishing an initial scene, initiating the action, creating plot points and a climax, and devising a satisfying dénouement. This is the 'what' of the story. Using the Hero's Journey as a model, students can learn how to string these building ...