An author begins the creative process with an idea and a blank screen or sheet of paper. Readers arrive much later. An opening sentence presupposes an imagined world that is already present in the completed though as yet unread text. It would be a mistake to think that, because the reading experience consists of reading the opening sentence followed by succeeding sentences, the creative process had consisted in nothing more than writing down the first sentence followed by succeeding sentences! Even if a first draft is sometimes acceptable as the final draft, the author has nevertheless done a lot more work than simply submitting a sequence of words to paper.
A new installment of a future history series might be set on any planet in any period of the history, including a newly invented planet or period. Thus, it might not be immediately apparent that we are reading a new installment of an existing series. CHAPTER I of Poul Anderson's
Virgin Planet is six pages of narrative clearly set on an extra-solar planet but, from internal evidence alone, we do not yet know that we are reading an installment of the author's Psychotechnic History.
(Can anyone decipher that Sturgeon title?) ("The Girl Had Guts"?)
6 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, but I recall reading somewhere, probably in one of his collections, of Isaac Asimov claiming he never rewrote, revised, corrected, etc., anything he wrote. That all of his works, fiction and non-fiction, came straight from his typewriter or world processor without him thinking it needed a second or even a third drafting. Assuming my recollection is correct, I would regret that. Because I think many of his stories could have used rewriting.
Yes, you read the Sturgeon title correctly, "The Girl Had Guts." I even looked up bibliography of his stories to check. I think I read his novel MORE THAN HUMAN.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Dornford Yates claimed that he:
never pre-plotted;
never knew where a story was going;
never knew how his heroes would get out of a fix once he had got them into it;
was surprised when Chandos, not Mansel, married Jenny in SHE FELL AMONG THIEVES;
wrote a detective novel and only knew who the murderer was a few pages before the readers found out;
once or twice, could not finish a novel, writing on this basis, because the inspiration stopped.
Paul.
Yates claimed that he knew nothing of Jenny, the heroine of SHE FELL AMONG THIEVES, until Chandos saw her swimming in a pool in a secluded valley while he was spying in enemy territory.
Kaor, Paul!
That does seem rather extreme of Yates, writing solely as the mood or inspiration struck him! But I assume he, unlike Asimov, did do some revising/correcting of a mostly finished text.
Ad astra! Sean
Remember that authors are specialists in... well... fiction.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Ha! Meaning we should take what Asimov and Yates said about how they wrote with some skepticism? (Smiles)
Ad astra! Sean
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