Entertaining Audiences from Cavemen to ComiCon

English 6Ms. Levy

SPECULATIVE FICTION

From Dictionary.com: Genre (noun): a class or category of artistic endeavor having a particular form, content, technique, or the like: the genre of epic poetry; the genre of symphonic music.

From Wikipedia: … the term for any category of Literature … based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued. Often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions.

WHAT IS GENRE?

RomanceMysteryThrillers

BiographyMemoir

Young Adult FictionEpic Poetry

Literary FictionLiterary Nonfiction

Short StoriesEtc.

SOME EXAMPLES OF GENRE

At the genre of dreams & legends

A CLOSER LOOK

Funny, they made this new genre called Speculative Fiction; I thought all fiction had always been speculative.

--Teri Louise Kelly

“Speculative Fiction” is an umbrella term, meaning lots of other genres fit under it. It’s been around since the first humans told the first ghost stories around the first campfires.

Speculative Fiction mostly does one thing:

SPECULATIVE FICTION

Yep, that’s mostly all it thinks about.

It keeps asking itself that same question over and over and over.

Inside that fill-in-the-blank speculation is an entire universe of possibilities, from avatars to zombies.

True fact:Shakespeare wrote speculative fiction.

(A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

IT ASKS … WHAT IF?

Worldbuilding: The process of constructing an imaginary world or even an entire universe. It provides the foundation for answering our “what if …” question. A constructed world, or ConWorld, can have its own maps, geography, cultures, languages, etc.

Conventions: These are the rules for each genre determined by popular usage over time. Science fiction must use science, for example, while alternate history has to change some important event in our past.

Tropes: These are the ingredients to our stories that give fairies their wings and spaceships their warp engines. They’re the clichés of each genre because they are so often overused.

HOW TO TALK SPEC FIC

Invent a “What if …” question such as these: • What if … genetics got so advanced you could

grow an extra head? • What if … space aliens came to Earth and stole

all our chocolate?• What if … you could read other people’s minds,

but only when they sneezed? • What if … you found out your parents are really

wizards who lost the only copy of their spellbook?

Be prepared to read it in class!

FREE WRITE

LESSON 2

Fabulist Fiction – Then & Now

Myths are public dreams, dreams are private myths.

-- Joseph Campbell

Folklore grows out of the legends, tall tales, fairy tales, rituals and even jokes from a particular culture.

It usually begins as oral tradition, or stories passed down byword of mouth. It’s sometimes religious in nature, andscholars can draw a straight line from folklore to myth.

Folklore gave us Anansi spider and flying carpets.It gave us Hansel & Gretel and leprechaunsand the alligators in New York City sewers.

FOLKLORE

Folklore conventions can include:• Figurative language, especially metaphor and hyperbole;• Magic;• Suspension of disbelief;• Originating through word of mouth;• Being shared or performed in small groups;• Local traditions and culture;• Addressing an apprehension, unspoken fear or wishful

thinking.Folklore is changing all the time – maybe you will add to BASIS folklore if you invent an urban legend that catches on.

CONVENTIONS

Mythology is pretty much folklore dressed up in its best meet-the-relatives clothing. It’s often more formal in its telling and is meant to be shared across an entire society.There are a few more conventions:• It nearly always has a religious source, or is

deeply tied to spiritual beliefs of the time. • It seeks to answer the deeper questions

about life; who put us here and why, and our role in nature and in life.

• By definition, it involves the supernatural. Folklore doesn’t always include a supernatural element.

MYTHOLOGY

Imagine a bunch of fairy tale characters moved to present-day Phoenix. Which ones might move in next

door to you? Which one would coach your soccer team? What kinds of things would they do for a

living? How would they dress?

Pick just one and describe an encounter between you and this fairy tale character. Where does it

happen? What happens and what do you say to each other? Remember to describe the character to us!

FREE WRITE

LESSON 3

Science Fiction

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

– Isaac Asimov

Just like the name says, there is science in this fiction, first

and foremost. SF (never call it SciFi) begins with the rational.

The worldbuilding must be plausible within the context of

the story and sparked by something – anything -- in the laws of nature. There must be

some sort of scientific postulate backing it up, even

if it’s as simple as “faster than light travel will happen

in our lifetimes.”

SCIENCE FICTION

• Nearly always takes place in the future;

• Contains no magic! Everything must have a (mostly) plausible explanation;

• Is obsessed with how technology affects us, particularly our sense of humanity;

• Technology often fails, doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to work, has unintended consequences or is used for evil ends;

• Mostly concerns humans. Even if there are aliens, they’re not the ones reading it.

CONVENTIONSScience Fiction:

Hard Science Fiction is based on “hard” sciences such as chemistry, physics, and astronomy. It looks at very complex technology such as faster-than-light travel.

Soft Science Fiction uses “soft” sciences such as psychology or anthropology. It looks at the ethics of how we use technology.

HARD VS. SOFT

True fact: Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is considered the first science fiction novel.

Dystopic SF: Imagines a really dreadful future when something has gone wrong with government or throughout society and people live in constant fear and hardship.

Alternate History: Imagines what it would be like today if some event in the past had come out differently. What if the South had won the Civil War? What if someone assassinated Hitler in 1938?

Steampunk: A form of alternate history that combines both past and future technology. It usually takes place during the Victorian era of the 19th and early 20th century, when most machines were steam-powered.

Cyberpunk: Combines high tech with low-life characters who live at the fringe of society.

MORE SUB-GENRES

Here’s your big chance at an invention to change the world. Answer these four questions in your

composition notebook:

1. What is it?2.What would it do?

3.How would it help people? 4.What might go wrong with it?

FREE WRITE

LESSON 4

Fantasy

Reality is the part that refuses to go away when I stop believing in it.

– Phillip K. Dick

All the piles of fantasy novels on your bedroom floor or stuffed onto groaning library shelves owe their existence to one person:

JRR TolkienAs author of Lord of the Rings, he invented this genre in his cramped office at Oxford University in England. He started with myths, folklore and storytelling conventions from Norse, Northern European and ancient British traditions. He was especially inspired by Beowulf, but his Dark Lord owes more to Hitler than Grendel.

FANTASY

ANCIENT

• Creatures, monsters or characters inspired by mythology & folklore

• Supernatural elements• Heroes and Hero’s Journey• Outer vs. Inner conflict• Big stakes!

MODERN

• Has Internal Consistency, meaning:

• Worldbuilding is thorough, logical and transparent

• Magic follows laws & rules• Magic has limits, flaws or

consequences

CONVENTIONS

High or epic fantasy: Also called Sword & Sorcery, this is the main type of fantasy. It deals

with larger-than-life heroes in richly imagined ConWorlds. The stakes are immensely high and

the story’s sweep is epic.

Urban fantasy: Set in modern times, especially in cities and to young people in their teens and

20s.

Paranormal romance: Combines the tropes from the romance and horror genres, but the

vampires and werewolves and other creatures have been metaphorically defanged to become

love interests.

FANTASY SUB-GENRES

This genre began in the mid-20th Century with the writings of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in Columbia but has since spread all over the world. College professors who sneer at fantasy love

magical realism and consider it a very high form of literature.

But it still uses magic and folklore and sticks it into our modern, confusing, everyday world. There’s no internal consistency as there is with fantasy, however. The magic in magical realism is

random, chaotic and unpredictable. It pops in and out, seemingly at the author’s whim.

MAGICAL REALISM

• Uses magic only as it shines a light on characters, showing us what’s inside them.

• Focuses on people’s hardest struggles in the real world.• Comes from countries where violence and famine are

often so horrifyingly real that the imagined chaos and insanity of the story makes as much sense as anything else.

• Local reality is more insane than the magic.

MAGICAL REALISM

A wizard grants you three wishes.

There’s just one catch: for every wish that comes true, you have to lose a

finger.

Nope, you don’t get to choose which finger. And you can’t wish for more

wishes or more fingers or more wizards.

What three wishes would you want?

FREE WRITE

LESSON 5

Horror

We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.

–Stephen King

Unlike our other genres, Horror is defined pretty much solely by the raw emotion it evokes. Readers and movie audiences should feel a raw, primal dread. It doesn’t matter if that’s achieved through magic or murder or both.

Horror may borrow bits and pieces from fantasy & science fiction, and also from mystery and thrillers.

It sneaks around stealing what it needs from other genres.

HORROR

Horror is deeply personal – not all of us are terrified of the same things.

Even so, it uses some common conventions: • It deals with the morbid and the macabre• It’s often grotesque, surreal or super-

suspenseful;• Horror often injects some disturbing

supernatural element into everyday life;• Death or the threat of death looms

everywhere;• Our Hero is never safe.

CONVENTIONS

Nightmare time! Describe the worst nightmare you ever

dreamed. If you can’t remember one, make

one up. Be prepared to share. If you need a teddy bear, I’ll bring

one in for you to hold.

FREE WRITE

LESSON 6

Please get out your composition notebooks

"Fairy tales are more than true. Not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us

that dragons can be defeated." — G.K. Chesterton

FINAL THOUGHT

Pick any of the writing assignments from this packet and craft a short story around it. First, do this pre-writing:1. Craft a new “what if”

statement 2. Worldbuild – describe

what would happen in your world if your “what if” statement came true

3. Invent a protagonist and an antagonist and their conflict.

4. Use a bubble map or an outline to sketch out a simple plot

5. On a new page, begin your story (To be continued in tomorrow’s class)

FINAL WRITING ASSIGNMENT

Final writing assignment. SKIP LINES. All categories worth 6 points apiece: ___/ Thorough worldbuilding, including limits on the fantasy or tech (ideas)___/ Clear conflict, expertly & fluidly presented (organization)___/ Clear plot structure with an identifiable climax (organization)___/ Word Choice, Sentence Fluency & Voice___/ English Conventions

GRADING GUIDE

Wikipedia’s Speculative Fiction Portal

NY Folklore SocietyEncyclopedia Mythica

Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America

Myth in Human History, Great Courses

Ultimate Science Fiction Web GuideAlternate Reality Web ZineHorror Writers Association

Orson Scott Card, How to Write Fantasy & Science Fiction

Jon Evans at Tor.com, “Magic Realism, Not Fantasy. Sorry”

SOURCE NOTES