How Do I Become a Science Fiction Writer?
by Edward Willett

This article originally appeared in Freelance, the  Saskatchewan Writers Guild newsletter,  in 2002. Hello, my name is Ed, and I'm a science fiction writer. OK, sure, I admit it, I also write lots of other stuff.  My published or soon-to-be-published books range in subject matter from Ebola hemorrhagic fever to careers in outer space to skateboarding to Internet safety to how to get the most out of Microsoft Office.

But I'm also the author of four young adult fantasy and science fiction novels, Soulworm, The Dark Unicorn, Andy Nebula: Interstellar Rock Star, and Spirit Singer, plus a number of short stories published in a variety of science fiction magazines--and as far as I'm concerned, that's my "real" writing.

Yes, I make far more money writing non-fiction than I do writing science fiction, and yes, it's the non-fiction that allows me to write full-time.  But that doesn't matter.  In my heart, I'm first and foremost a science fiction writer.  In fact, the only reason I became a writer was so that I could write science fiction and fantasy.

I made that decision in high school.  Oh, I had other interests--I knew I wanted to be either a writer, or an actor, or an artist, or a scientist.  (A high-school guidance test I once took suggested I should consider forest ranger, but living in southeastern Saskatchewan didn't seem like a good start for any career that involved trees, so I ignored that advice.) But I chose writer, and the reason I chose writer was because I loved to read--and what I loved to read above all else (and still do) was science fiction and fantasy.

Which brings me (finally) to the question that forms the title of this article, "How do I become a science fiction writer?"  I have a three-part answer, and the first part of that answer is:  "Read."

Read, read, read.  Then read some more.  And (it should go without saying) read science fiction.  All literature is a dialogue with that which has been written before.  This is particularly true in SF.  (Quick aside:  some people call it SF, some call it sci-fi, some call it speculative fiction--whatever you call it, we're all talking about the same thing, although you can get into tremendous arguments over the correct nomenclature if you have the time and inclination--and many SF fans do.)  If you do not read what has been and is being written in the field, then you are almost certainly going to write stories that have already been told--in some cases, 60 or 70 years ago.

And no, watching Star Trek and Star Wars isn't going to do it.  There's a world of difference between written SF and media SF.  Star Wars, for example, is current, cutting-edge science fiction--from about 1940.

The second part of my answer to the question at hand is, "Write."  Write SF.  Write, write, write.  And then write some more. By all means, show your writing to your friends who like to read SF; that can be useful.  Make each story the best it can be.  But eventually you will have to swallow hard and accept the third part of my answer to the title question: "Submit."

Sounds a bit like what alien invaders are always telling Earthlings they must do in bad science fiction films, doesn't it?  But in this case you're not submitting to bug-eyed monsters, but to editors.  (A fine distinction, I admit.)

This is the hard bit for two reasons.  One, it's scary.  What if your story is rejected?

Well, I've got news for you; it probably will be.  You either get used to rejection, and develop the necessary thick skin to continue submitting your stories, or you give up.  And the reason the first story you submit will probably be rejected (along with the second, the third, and most likely the fourth, fifth and sixth) is the second reason submitting stories is hard: the competition is fierce.

It's an interesting fact that a great many people who read SF and fantasy are immediately struck by the desire to write SF and fantasy.  After all, people who read Tolstoy aren't usually moved to immediately start writing an immensely long novel about suffering Russians.  But a very high percentage of SF readers would also love to be SF writers.  As a result, every magazine that publishes short SF is swamped with submissions.  That means you have to be heads and antennae above everyone else in the crowd to find a niche.

On the plus side, with the advent of the World Wide Web and online publications, there are now far more markets than there used to be.  However, the top three U.S. print magazines remain the same:  Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Analog Science Fiction and Fact, and The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy.  These remnants of the golden age of pulp magazines, digest-sized and printed on newsprint, present the bulk of the best short stories written in the field each year.

In Canada, the best-known SF magazine in English is probably On Spec; in French, it would be Solaris.

But there are dozens of lesser-known markets in both the U.S. and Canada (and overseas), some paying professional rates (usually defined as three cents a word U.S. or better--did I mention very few people are getting rich writing science fiction?) some paying semi-professional rates, some paying nothing at all.  There are many Web sites that list SF and fantasy markets, but the best one I've come across is Ralan's Webstravaganza, which divides markets into pro, semi-pro and "4theluv" (i.e., non-paying).  Ralan also lists book publishers, open anthologies, and more.

Some other sites to check out if you're interested in writing SF are Locus Online, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and SF Canada.  Locus Online is the Web component of Locus Magazine, which is the main professional newsmagazine in the SF field.  It reviews most of the major releases on a monthly basis.  SF Canada and SFWA are organizations of professional writers of SF; you have to have a certain number of professional sales to qualify for membership, but their Web sites include lots of useful information about the field.

There's one other thing you should be warned of if you have your heart set on being an SF writer:  at some point, someone is going to ask you, "Why do you write that stuff?"  It sometimes seems that, like Rodney Dangerfield, SF writers "can't get no respect."

A great many "serious," "literary" writers, editors and critics look down on science fiction as something childish and inferior.  This attitude is particularly noticeable when one of these "serious" writers decides to write a novel set in the future, extrapolating from the present (the very essence of science fiction) and then hastens to assure everyone (as does his or her publisher and every critic that reviews it) that what he or she has written absolutely is not science fiction--even though those well-read in the SF field know that the writer has simply rehashed (and often not as well as they were originally hashed) ideas long since explored by SF writers.

SF readers and writers are used to being condescended to, ignored, or even insulted by mainstream writers and critics, but they don't like it, which has led to a corresponding backlash among some SF fans and writers against the mainstream.

Personally, I believe there is good writing to be found in every genre, from mainstream to SF to mysteries to romances, and the walls between them are artificial creations of publishers, marketers, critics and academics.   I believe equally strongly there is bad writing to be found in every genre, some of it produced by the most well-respected writers and publishers.  As Theodore Sturgeon, himself an SF writer (and a very good one) put it, "Sure, ninety percent of science fiction is crud. That's because ninety percent of everything is crud."

So I've never felt I was lowering myself to write SF and fantasy.  Quite the contrary; writing fiction strictly about the here and now, or the recent past, seems incredibly limiting to me; it's like typing while wearing a strait-jacket.  SF and fantasy allow my imagination free rein; any time in the past, the present or the distant future and any place in this universe or any other are available to me as settings; creatures both human and non-human are at my beck and call to serve as characters; and there is no idea so outré that it cannot be couched in SF terms and turned into a story.

SF writers often speak of "the sense of wonder."  That's what the best SF and fantasy appeals to.  That's what I hope to wake in my readers.  That's what you can wake in yours, if you, too, become a science fiction writer.

How do you do it?

Read.  Write.  Submit.  It's that easy...and that hard.