Part Three: On Writing Science Fiction Serials
When is a writer not a writer?
When he is asked to write outside his specialty.
Writing is not a unitary matter. A person who is a skilled science writer, or who can turn out fascinating popular histories, may be hopeless when it comes to writing fiction. The reverse is also true.
Even a person like myself who is adept at both fiction and nonfiction and ranges over considerable variety in both subdivisions is not a universal writer. I can't and won't write plays, whether for the theater, motion pictures, or television. I don't have the talent for it.
It is surprising, in fact, how thinly talent can be subdivided. The functions, advantages, and disadvantages of fiction differ so with subject matter that every writer is more at home in one kind of fiction than in another. I can do science fiction and mysteries, but I would be madly misjudging myself if I tried to do "mainstream " fiction or even "new-wave" science fiction.
Oddly enough, even length counts. You might think that if someone is writing a story, it can be any length. If it finishes itself quickly, it is a short story; if it goes on for a long time, it is a novel; if it is something in between, it is a novelette or a novella.
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.