I have been trying to post a link to a Poul Anderson interview on Youtube but either can't do it or don't know how to. The reference is:
https:www.youtube.com/watch?v
=qsstCR44lbo
When I click on this link on an email, where I received it, I get straight to the video whereas, when I go to the link online, I get "Video unavailable." However, searching for:
"Poul Anderson SF writer interview/advice on writing"
- gets me straight to the video.
After all these years of writing about Poul Anderson, this is the first time that I have heard him speak - apart from overhearing a conversation at a Con party.
Summary From Notes Taken While Watching The Video
Anything said about plot in sf applies equally to all fiction. Sf is a set of narrative techniques. Plot, character, background and ideas are not separate. A plot is a scheme of events in a story.
Achilles' character drives the plot of the Iliad because it determines when he stops, then resumes, fighting. The plot would have been different with Odysseus as hero. Hamlet's character drives the plot of Hamlet because it prevents him from killing Claudius earlier. The plot of the Iliad is external whereas Finnegans Wake is internal.
The three plots according to Heinlein are:
Boy meets Girl;
The Little Tailor;
The Man Who Learns Better.
(Anderson takes the Little Tailor to be "The Man Who Solves A Problem" whereas I took Heinlein to mean "The Man Who Beats City Hall.")
The Heinleinian plots can be reversed or combined. In sf, problems are solved by the hero's ingenuity. (Many examples in Anderson.) A man who fails to learn is tragic or farcical. The wrong lesson learned is ironic. In Anderson's World Without Stars, the narrator "learns better" that the girl of "Boy Meets Girl" is long dead. (The characters also solve the problem of how to escape from their "World Without Stars.")
There are other ideas of how many plots there are but Anderson is one of those who think that plots cannot be classified although Heinlein's list might be helpful.
Anything can suggest a story if you have that frame of mind. The experience of bureaucratism while traveling around Europe followed by the experience of McCarthyism after returning to the US generated "Sam Hall." McCarthyism was not as frightful as it has become in legend and it was possible to mock it with impunity even at the time.
A plot should combine logic or rightness with surprise or newness. The surprise should nevertheless be a logical outcome of the premise. (I noticed this with Brob.) Coincidence in plots is acceptable to readers only if it is disadvantageous to the hero.
That is not all but all that I wrote. Link here.
7 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
I'll be very interested in trying to find this interview given by Poul Anderson. I'm inclined to agree with PA, you can't really classify or list all the different kinds of possible story plots, altho Heinlein's list suggests some broad plot generalizations.
Sean
Sean,
Try what I did. Search for:
Poul Anderson SF writer interview/advice on writing
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I did exactly that! Thanks for letting us know about this rare interview by Poul Anderson, circa AD 1970. I used Closed Caption to make sure I followed his argument. And I noticed how PA frequently glanced down at notes placed on the balcony.
Later, I will watch the Isaac Asimov interview.
Sean
Sean,
We think that the interview was an adaptation of the talk it was mentioned he had just given.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That explain the notes I saw PA so frequently glancing down at. The same as what he had used for the lecture.
Sean
Kaor, Paul!
I saw and heard the interview a little over 24 hours ago. It was interesting to hear the great author’s voice and thoughts, although I would rather have read a new Hugo-winning story of his.
Best Regards,
Nicholas
Kaor, Nicholas!
Poul Anderson's son in law Greg Bear did once tell me his father in law left behind boxes of papers after he died. It's possible those boxes contains publishable fragments, perhaps even one or two unfinished stories needing only a bit of polishing up before being published. Let us hope!
Regards! Sean
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