No tea. No guns. No phones. No broken hear—
Strike that last. Hearts will be broken.
With apologies to Annie & Dave for this week’s title.
It’s easy to say ‘the rules are there are no rules’ when it comes to creative writing. Good luck with that. You do need some rules and I apply these to the speculative fiction novels I’m currently working on:
No blasphemy.
No guns.
No smartphones.
No tea.
Not your typical list, I agree. If one or more of them ejects you from your comfort zone, please be reassured there remains a host of familiar – and realistic – tropes and themes within my nascent works.
My rules might be simple, but the reasons I apply them are more complex and varied. Let’s address each of them, in reverse order:
No Tea
A new sub-genre has recently gained traction within the science fiction (and its fantasy cousin) market. Similar to the popular ‘cozy mystery’ genre (for which the term was first coined), ‘cozy science fiction’ is an unofficial designation for speculative fiction novels which avoids dark tones and grittier themes. High-stake settings in taxing environments are replaced by comfortable, familiar low-stake situations. Snug, warm spaces, happy families, good friends and solvable woes supplant fear, hate, pain and broken hearts. Cozy readers are after heart-warming charm, not dark conflict. They seek an atmosphere of enchantment not disappointment; tidy endings, not terror. They want a feel-good dream after shutting the book and turning off the bedside light, with a smile still etched on their lips.
Most of the characters in cozy spec fic novels also drink tea. Gallons of the bloody stuff. Often concocted to an ancient family recipe involving five different plants found light-years apart, it is best dispensed in a highly ritualised manner by a multi-armed alien baris-tea artiste.
Sorry (not sorry), but I just can’t write like that. I need greed, corruption and violence, with dollops of wretched despair. It’s a reflection of how our world is managed by those at the top. Yes, there is a better way, but to think otherwise and avoid such reality is naïve - and dangerous in itself.
I struggle to do happy even on the best of my writing days. Darwin didn’t die after some nettle leaves were accidentally dropped into a pan of hot water. None of my characters are going to be swilling the brown stuff. Their time inside the pages of ReidItWrite Land is often short – not that I tell them how long they have. They’ve often got someone’s death on their minds, including their own. There’s just no time to be bartering the remnants of their worldly goods and any remaining calories for a quick cuppa.
So complain all you like, it’s not going to happen: tea of any kind is banned from my current works in progress.
Coffee, however…
No Smartphones
This is an easy one. In the near future, no matter humanity’s parlous or utopian state, we'll have worked out that permanently clutching a mentally and physically disabling data-sucking device is neither possible nor necessary. Billions of us being so easily manipulated by the false Tech Gods of the early 21st Century will be an oft-cited and derided historical footnote for future psycho-historians to ponder on. It might even be turned into a pseudo-religion.
Hop to it, Hari, if it isn't already too late…
“I want to bring a touch of reality to my near-future novels…”
No Guns
Try to track down a popular Hollywood science fiction film which doesn’t involve the sight or use of high-velocity ballistic weapons. It’s a tough one.
It’s not surprising when the country you live in contains more personal weapons than people. In some parts of America, you can not only buy a gun in a supermarket, but carry it around inside one, with your kids still in the shopping trolley. This is in stark contrast to most other countries. At the other extreme, here in Great Britain most kids have never seen a gun in real-life outside of a large airport – carried by a highly-trained police officer. They’ve never held, let alone pulled the trigger on a rifle, shotgun or pistol. They wouldn’t know how to carry, load, aim or fire one – or even release the safety catch (no, gaming doesn’t count). Yet British fictional media is still rife with such weapons – in films, games and streaming services. It’s a never-ending fantasy to see them render people dead, maimed or impossibly untroubled in an increasingly realistic/unrealistic fashion.
So I want to bring a touch of reality to my near-future novels, since they’re set in my home country or the broader Eurasian continent. If you’re in England when the apocalypse hits, and aren’t already breeding chickens, growing vegetables and owning a gun which you can aim promptly and accurately (don’t forget the safety), then it’s too late. If you have tucked those essential life skills under your dystopian belt then good luck. Just don’t try talking to any Americans who’ve already run out of ammo. Them’s the rules.
Moving swiftly on…
No Blasphemy
Last, but certainly not least, it would be highly amiss if I didn't deal with religion. It's a cultural meme which has managed to survive, even promulgate itself, for millennia. There’s evidence of deity worship throughout recorded human history, the first examples being an interesting rebuttal to the latter.
I doubt that even science will have the answers to the biggest questions we can pose in the coming decades, so it would be amiss of me, even churlish, to ignore or dispense with belief in a superior being, one capable of explaining away our remaining existential gaps.
So, have faith, at least one of my characters exhibits characteristics of belief. They’ll also never blaspheme, and neither will the others. For blasphemy applies to all that we might hold sacred.
This is the way – although I doubt it’s the right way.
This concludes my quick rules-based tour. I hope you enjoyed it! They’ll no doubt change in future - add, edit, delete etc - adapting to reality like everything else mentioned here. Do you think writers should have such rules? What rule(s) do you like to apply – and to what?
I think they are entirely reasonable as rules go. (Just having a titter at the idea of you and cosy sci-fi.)
Have you read The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie? It’s the only sci-fi where drinking tea is cool.