This book by Orson Scott Card has been timely, and very helpful for me. It goes in depth on topics like character building, world creation, and story structure. I want to re-read this book because of how many, "WOAH, that makes SO MUCH SENSE!" moments I had while reading it. I want to highlight all over it, annotate it, and keep it next to my dictionary and my Bible. I'm glad I bought myself a used copy!
Not only is this book good for writers of science fiction or fantasy, it is applicable to any fiction especially Chapter 3 on Story Construction, and 4 on Writing Well. It is also applicable to anyone who is vaguely interested in role-playing games, or even readers of sci-fi/fantasy. Chapters 1 and 2 (Boundaries of Sci-Fi and World Creation) would be very useful to those people. This book is over 20 years old, written in 1990, but that makes it even more universal. The things that are specific to Card's time period or genre which are probably no longer valid could be taken out, and the rest of the book could apply to any fiction writer, anywhere.
Card goes in-depth about everything from idea-generation to publication. He starts by explaining the difference between science fiction, which is his own native genre, and other genres. Fantasy is the one he particularly draws comparison and contrast to, but he also discusses genres like romance and young-adult. He sets the stage for how to create a science-fiction novel by defining exactly what makes a novel science-fiction, giving boundaries, and explaining the billions of possibilities that exist within sci-fi. He also includes resources and lists of great sci-fi authors that I will be reading soon to learn more about the genre's style and history.
He goes on to discuss how to set up a science fiction world-- what scientific concepts should be addressed, how to design an environment, how to set up laws and guidelines that provide more and more possibilities, and how to create characters that interact well. The creativity of the sci-fi and fantasy genres are limitless, and adding these guidelines help the writer to dig down into the story.
In total, I love this book! I recommend this to anyone who wants to create stories for any reason-- role-playing games, writers game creators, and more.
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