Katherine Su: "Dear Bridget Smith: Spice Things Up and Mix 'Em Around!"

Dear Bridget Smith: Spice Things Up and Mix ‘Em Around!

By

Katherine Su

I have a passion for cooking but an aversion to following recipes. I find that some of the most delicious dishes use eclectic ingredients: For example, instant ramen combined with peanut butter creates an effortless yet satisfying Pad Thai, mangoes dusted with chili powder have just the right kick, and a dash of vinegar makes chocolate cake heavenly. My habits in the kitchen have led me to discover that most things are more interesting, fun, and exciting when they’re unconventional!

50 pages into Suzanne Collins’s The Hunger Games, you know what’s going to happen: [SPOILER ALERT… I guess] First, Katniss will be selected as a tribute. Then, she’ll fight in The Games, become champion, and ultimately lead a successful revolution against the Capitol. (Easy peasy! No surprises here.) We see this predictability in many other series, like Harry Potter, The Twilight Saga, and The Chronicles of Narnia. As it seems, many authors use tropes like dystopian societies, autocratic governments, sexy vampires, and wizards. However, the fact that they accept these themes as previous literature has defined them means that we, as readers, can expect typical storylines like courageous coup d’états, star-crossed vampire-human relationships, and warfare between good and evil magic. Thus, the acceptance of tropes for what they have been (rather than what they could be) results in predictable plotlines and makes for some pretty uninteresting reading.

A few months ago, however, some of my classmates showed me that recurring themes and character types aren’t necessarily a bad thing. They pointed out that deviating from or mixing up existing literary archetypes (i.e. The Monomyth) can actually give a story more depth. For example, the absence of “The Refusal of the Call” in Diana Wynne Jones’s Howl’s Moving Castle demonstrates that our hero, Sophie, transforms not only physically, but also mentally. By accepting her curse, she demonstrates her newfound strength and belief in her personal will and power.

In addition, in science fiction, unconventional or divergent representations of common archetypes (like aliens and robots) can effectively elicit different responses from the reader. For example, the intangibleness of the aliens in Robert Silverberg’s “Passengers,”creates a strong sense of unpredictability and an even greater fear of the unknown. The aliens in “Passengers” are quite different from the ones found in stories like Paul Cornell’s “Find a Way Home” and Terry Bisson’s “They’re Made Out of Meat,” who demonstrate a very visible power and thus evoke feelings of immediacy and realization. In Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles, the similarities between the alien race and humanity create a strange and unsettling familiarity. Each of these works showcases a different type of alien, and, by this method, is able to evoke a different reaction from its audience.

I do believe that there are some “classic elements” of science fiction and fantasy that are beneficial in and of themselves. For example, Philip Martin’s ideas of Recovery, Escape, and Consolation (which he discusses in his work Fantasy and Belief), are essential to fantasy stories. Without these aspects, a story would fail to transport its readers to another world, to liberate childish wonder, and to expose its audience to new perspectives. Without, Recovery, Escape, and Consolation, fantasy (if we would still call it that) would not be able to do its job and would ultimately be much less enjoyable to read. In addition, some science fiction conventions, like Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics and Clarke’s Three Laws, allow writers to create worlds that are logical, consistent, and structurally sound. Asimov’s and Clarke’s laws give science fictional worlds the ability to function, and thus play a valuable role in the genre of science fiction.

So, yes, there are some classic elements of SFF that are valuable. However, in order to produce something truly interesting, writers must not be afraid to deviate from the norm! By spicing things up, mixing things around, and adding in the unexpected, SFF authors will be able to create more powerful, exciting, and compelling stories.