by Isaac Asimov
That’s just not so. Length is not the sole difference. A novel is not a lengthy short story. A short story is not a brief novel. They are two different species of writing.
A novel has space in which to develop a plot leisurely, with ample room for subplots, for detailed background, for description, for character development, for comic relief.
A short story must make its point directly and without side issues. Every sentence must contribute directly to the plot development.
A novel is a plane; a short story is a line.
A novel which is too short and thus abbreviates the richness of its development would be perceived by the reader as skimpy and therefore unsatisfactory. A short story which is too long and allows the reader’s attention to wander from the plot is diffuse and therefore unsatisfactory.
There are writers who are at home with the broad swing of the novel and are not comfortable within the confinement of the short story. There are writers who are clever at driving home points in short stories and who are lost in the echoing chambers of the novel. And of course there are writers who can do both.
A magazine such as ours is primarily a vehicle in which the short story is displayed. It is important we fulfill this function for a variety of reasons:
1. Short stories are worth doing and worth reading. They can make concise points that novels cannot, in ways that novels cannot.
2. A group of short stories which, in length, take up the room of one novel, offers far more variety than a novel can; and there is something very pleasant about variety.
3. Those writers who are adept at the short story need a vehicle.
4. Beginning writers need a vehicle, too; and beginners are well-advised to concentrate on short stories at the start. Even if their true skill turns out to be in the novel, initial training had better be in the short story, which requires a smaller investment in time and effort. A dozen short stories will take no more time than a novel and offer much more scope for experimentation and “finding one’s self.”
When George, Joel, and I began this magazine, we were aware of all these points and were determined to make it a magazine devoted to the short story exclusively. And we are still so determined.
Yet it is not easy to be rigid. It is perhaps not even desirable to be rigid under all circumstances. There are times when the best of rules ought to be bent a little.
What are the forces, for instance, that drag us in the direction of length?
To begin with, there are (rightly or wrongly) more literary honors and monetary rewards for novels than for short stories, so that if a writer can handle any length, he usually finds himself gravitating toward the novel.
Naturally, since a novel requires a great investment of time and effort, it is the experienced writers of tried quality who are most likely to move in that direction. And once they’ve done that, they’re not likely to want to let go. It becomes difficult, in fact, to persuade them to take time out from their current novel in order to write a short story.
As long as we stick rigidly to short stories, therefore, we tend to lose the chance at picking up the work of some of the best practitioners in the field. Newcomers, however worthy, tend to have lesser experience and their writing tends to be less polished.
For the most part, this does not dismay us. We want the newcomers, and the freshness of concept and approach is quite likely to make up for what clumsiness of technique is brought about through inexperience. The clumsiness, after all, will smooth out with time-and at that point, the new talent will almost inevitably begin to write novels.
Occasionally, then, we bend. If a story comes along by an established writer that is unusually good but is rather long, we are tempted to run it. We have indeed run stories as long as 40,000 words in a single issue.
There are advantages to this. If you like the story, you can get deeply immersed in it and savor the qualities that length makes possible and that you can’t get otherwise. And there are disadvantages. If you don’t like the story and quit reading it, you have only half a magazine left and you may feel cheated.
George must judge the risk and decide when a long story is likely to be so generally approved of that the advantage will far outweigh the disadvantage.
But what do we do about novels? Ignore them?
Most novelists do not object to making extra money by allowing a magazine to publish part or all of the novel prior to its publication as a novel. And most magazines welcome the chance of running a novel in installments.
Consider the advantages to the magazine. If the first part of a serial is exciting, well written and grabs the reader, it is to be expected that a great many readers will then haunt the newsstands waiting for the next issue. If many serials prove to have this grabbing quality, readers will subscribe rather than take the chance of missing installments.
Magazine publishers do not object to this. Even Joel wouldn’t.
There are, however, disadvantages. Some readers actively dislike novels. Others may like novels but bitterly resent being stopped short and asked to wait a month for a continuation, and may also resent having to run the risk of missing installments.
We are aware of these disadvantages and also of our own responsibility for encouraging the short story, so we have sought a middle ground.
These days there are so many novels and so few magazines that there isn’t room to serialize them all. Many good novels are therefore available for the prior publication of only a chunk of themselves-some chunk that stands by itself. We have been deliberately keeping our eyes open for these.
It’s not always easy to find a novel-chunk that stands by itself. The fact that something goes afterward, or comes before, or both, is likely to give the reader a vague feeling of incompleteness. Sometimes, then, we try to run several chunks, each of which stands by itself, or almost does. This comes close to serialization, but if the second piece can be read comfortably without reference to the first, then it’s not. Again, George must use his judgment in such cases.
But then, every once in a long while, we are trapped by our own admiration of a novel and find ourselves with a chunk we would desperately like to publish, but that is too long to fit into a single issue and that can’t conveniently be divided into two independent chunks.
Then, with a deep breath, if we can think of no way out, we serialize. We hate to do this, and we hardly ever will. But hardly ever isn’t never!
When there’s no other way out, rather than lose out on something really first-class, we will have to ask you to wait a month.
But hardly ever.
The Name Of Our Field
In last issue's editorial, I talked of Jules Verne’s “extraordinary voyages” and that brings up the point of how difficult it was to find a name for the kind of items that are published in this magazine and others like it.
This magazine contains “stories”; and “story” is simply a shortened form of “history,” a recounting of events in orderly detail. The recounting could, in either case, be of real incidents or of madeup ones, but we have become used to thinking of a “history” as real and of a “story” as made-up.
A “tale” is something that is “told” (from the Anglo-Saxon) and a “narrative” is something that is “narrated “ (from the Latin). Either “tale” or “narrative” can be used for either a real or a made-up account. “Narrative” is the less common of the two simply because it is the longer word and therefore has an air of pretentiousness about it.
A word which is used exclusively for made-up items and never for real ones is “fiction,” from a Latin word meaning “to invent.”
What this magazine contains, then, are stories-or tales-or, most precisely, fiction. Naturally, fiction can be of different varieties, depending on the nature of the content. If the events recounted deal mainly with love, we have “love stories” or “love tales” or “love fiction.” Similarly, we can have “detective stories,” or “terror tales,” or “mystery fiction,” or “confession stories,�
�� or “western tales,” or “jungle fiction.” The items that appear in this magazine deal, in one fashion or another, with future changes in the level of science, or of science-derived technology. Doesn’t it make sense, then, to consider the items to be “science stories,” or “science tales,” or, most precisely, “science fiction”?
And yet “science fiction,” which is so obvious a name when you come to think of it, is a late development.
Jules Verne’s extraordinary voyages were called “scientific fantasies” in Great Britain, and the term “science fantasy” is still sometimes used today. “Fantasy” is from a Greek word meaning “imagination” so it isn’t completely inappropriate, but it implies the minimal existence of constraints.
When we speak of “fantasy” nowadays, we generally refer to stories that are not bound by the laws of science, whereas science fiction stories are so bound.
Another term used in the 1920s was “scientific romance.” Romance was originally used for anything published in the “Romance languages,” that is, in the popular tongues of western Europe, so that it was applied to material meant to be read for amusement. More serious works were written in Latin, of course. The trouble is that “romance” has come to be applied to love stories in particular so “science romance” has a wrong feel to it.
“Pseudo-science stories” was sometimes used, but that is insulting. “Pseudo” is from a Greek word meaning “false,” and while the kind of extrapolations of science used in science fiction are not true science, they are not false science either. They are “might-be-true” science.
“Super-science stories,” still another name, is childish.
In 1926, when Hugo Gernsback published the first magazine ever to be devoted exclusively to science fiction, he called it Amazing Stories.
This caught on. When other magazines appeared, synonyms for “amazing” were frequently used. We had Astounding Stories, Astonishing Stories, Wonder Stories, Marvel Stories, and Startling Stories all on the stands, when the world and I were young.
Such names, however, do not describe the nature of the stories but their effect on the reader, and that is insufficient. A story can amaze, astound, astonish, and startle you; it can cause you to marvel and wonder; and yet it need not be science fiction. It need not even be fiction. Something better was needed.
Gernsback knew that. He had originally thought of calling his magazine “Scientific Fiction.” That is hard to pronounce quickly, though, chiefly because of the repetition of the syllable “fic.” Why not combine the words and eliminate one of those syllables? We then have “scientifiction.”
“Scientifiction,” though, is an ugly word, hard to understand and, if understood, likely to scare off those potential readers who equate the “scientific” with the “difficult.” Gernsback therefore used the word only in a subtitle: Amazing Stories: the Magazine of Scientifiction. He introduced “stf” as the abbreviation of “scientifiction.” Both abbreviation and word are still sometimes used.
When Gernsback was forced to give up Amazing Stories he published a competing magazine, Science Wonder Stories. In its first issue (June, 1929), he used the term “science fiction” and the abbreviation “S.F.”-or “SF” without periods-became popular. Occasionally, the word has been hyphenated as “science-fiction,” but that is only done rarely. The story, however, doesn’t end there.
As I said last issue, there is a feeling among some that the phrase “science fiction” unfairly stresses the science content of the stories. Since 1960 in particular, science fiction has tended to shift at least some of its emphasis from science to society, from gadgets to people. It still deals with changes in the level of science and technology, but those changes move farther into the background.
I believe it was Robert Heinlein who first suggested that we ought to speak of “speculative fiction“ instead; and some, like Harlan Ellison, strongly support that move now. To me, though, “speculative” seems a weak word. It is four syllables long and is not too easy to pronounce quickly. Besides, almost anything can be speculative fiction. A historical romance can be speculative; a true-crime story can be speculative. “Speculative fiction” is not a precise description of our field and I don’t think it will work. In fact, I think “speculative fiction” has been introduced only to get rid of “science” but to keep “s.f.”
This brings us to Forrest J. Ackerman, a wonderful guy whom I love dearly. He is a devotee of puns and word-play and so am I, but Forry has never learned that some things are sacred. He couldn’t resist coining “sci-fi” as an analog, in appearance and pronunciation, to “hi-fi,” the well-known abbreviation for “high fidelity.” “Sci-fi” is now widely used by people who don’t read science fiction. It is used particularly by people who work in movies and television. This makes it, perhaps, a useful term.
We can define “sci-fi” as trashy material sometimes confused, by ignorant people, with SF. Thus, Star Trek is SF while Godzilla Meets Mothra is sci-fi.
Hints
EVERY ONCE IN A SHORT WHILE I GET a letter from some eager young would-be writer asking me for some “hints” on the art of writing science fiction.
The feeling I have is that my correspondents think there is some magic formula jealously guarded
by the professionals, but that since I’m such a nice guy I will spill the beans if properly approached.
Alas, there’s no such thing, no magic formula, no secret tricks, no hidden short-cuts.
I’m sorry to have to tell you that it’s a matter of hard work over a long period of time. If you know
of any exceptions to this, that’s exactly what they are-exceptions.
There are, however, some general principles that could be useful, to my way of thinking, and here
they are:
1) You have to prepare for a career as a successful science fiction writer-as you would for any other highly specialized calling.
First, you have to learn to use your tools, just as a surgeon has to learn to use his.
The basic tool for any writer is the English language, which means you must develop a good vocabulary and brush up on such prosaic things as spelling and grammar.
There can be little argument about vocabulary, but it may occur to you that spelling and grammar
are just frills. After all, if you write great and gorgeous stories, surely the editor will be delighted to correct your spelling and grammar.
Not so! He (or she) won’t be.
Besides, take it from an old war-horse, if your spelling and grammar are rotten, you won’t be writing a great and gorgeous story. Someone who can’t use a saw and hammer doesn’t turn out stately furniture.
Even if you’ve been diligent at school, have developed a vocabulary, can spell “sacrilege” and “supersede” and never say “between you and I” or “I ain’t never done nothing,” that’s still not enough. There’s the subtle structure of the English sentence and the artful construction of the English paragraph. There is the clever interweaving of plot, the handling of dialog, and a thousand other intricacies.
How do you learn that? Do you read books on how to write, or attend classes on writing, or go to writing conferences? These are all of inspirational value, I’m sure, but they won’t teach you what you
really want to know.
What will teach you is the careful reading of the masters of English prose. This does not mean condemning yourself to years of falling asleep over dull classics. Good writers are invariably fascinating writers-the two go together. In my opinion, the English writers who most clearly use the correct word every time and who most artfully and deftly put together their sentences and paragraphs are Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and P. G. Wodehouse.
Read them, and others, but with attention. They represent your schoolroom. Observe what they do and try to figure out why they do it. It’s no use other people explaining it to you; until you see it for
yourself and it becomes part of you, nothing will help.
But s
uppose that no matter how you try, you can’t seem to absorb the lesson. Well, it may be that you’re not a writer. It’s no disgrace. You can always go on to take up some slightly inferior profession like surgery or the presidency of the United States. It won’t be as good, of course; but we can’t all scale the heights.
Second, for a science fiction writing career, it is not enough to know the English language; you
also have to know science. You may not want to use much science in your stories; but you’ll have to know
it anyway, so that what you do use, you don’t misuse.
This does not mean you have to be a professional scientist, or a science major at college. You
don’t even have to go to college. It does mean, though, that you have to be willing to study science on your own, if your formal education has been weak in that direction.
It’s not impossible. One of the best writers of hard science fiction is Fred Pohl, and he never even finished high school. Of course, there are very few people who are as bright as Fred, but you can write considerably less well than he does and still be pretty good.
Fortunately, there is more good, popular-science writing these days than there was in previous
generations, and you can learn a great deal, rather painlessly, if you read such science fiction writers as L.
Sprague de Camp, Ben Bova, and Poul Anderson in their nonfictional moods-or even Isaac Asimov.
What’s more, professional scientists are also writing effectively for the public these days, as witness Carl Sagan’s magnificent books. And there’s always Scientific American.
Third, even if you know your science and your writing, it is still not likely that you will be able to put them together from scratch. You will have to be a diligent reader of science fiction itself to learn the
