Okay, I'm a Steele Groupie
January 24, 2001
7:32 a.m.
I've just got to face the fact that I'm an Allen Steele fan. Now, take this with a grain of salt, I suppose. I've only been exposed to his longer fiction through a small piece of something he read at a convention I went to a few years back. But I've read probably ten or fifteen pieces of his shorter work, and I've got to say I can't remember a single time I got stuck anywhere in the middle--which is saying a lot. I read with a pretty critical eye anymore. I stop "reading" and start "dissecting" almost everything I look at these days. What's got me thinking about it now is his short story "The Days Between" in this month's Asimov's. It's a sequel to "Stealing Alabama," which I also liked. This one, though, is about as stand-alone as you can possibly get. It's also riveting and scary and very, very real. Over on Compuserve, I asked a group of newer writers "What is the purpose of setting in a story?" Now, I understand that there are several answers to this question. But not a one answered it. They went of on other tangents, and a good old discussion seems to have broken out on the merits of structure and all that. But the purpose of setting is to make a story real. To me, it's just that simple. All the other literary stuff you get into, and all the other thematic things you can say, and all the statements you can make about politics or whatever in regard to where you set something are true. But in the final act of putting words on paper, the final analysis boils down to the fact that working on your setting provides you the ability to make the story real to the reader. You do this, I think, by making it real to you. "The Days Between" is a great example. Steele puts you on a spaceship so firmly that you can't help but feel it. And then he's yours to do with as he sees fit. Now, I know Allen just a teensy bit. Not enough to say we're friends, but enough that I can shake his hand and say "How are you doing these days?" and have a positive conversation without feeling ... intrusive. I know Allen Steele is a space nut. My guess is that Allen Steele was living in the spaceship during the time he wrote this story. My guess is he was totally immersed, and that he had a pretty good time writing it. But he's able to do this because he does the work up front. I'm certain he sticks his nose into spacecraft whenever he gets the chance, and he reads, and he studies. It's not as hard for him to do this as, say, the average new writer, because he works at it. But, the bottom line is that as a reader, I've gotten to the point where I know I can trust Allen Steele to give me a story that holds together. And it's his ability to write setting and character that, I think, does this. This is something that's been on my mind for the past few days because I know I need to work more heavily on putting setting into my work. I look at pieces I like, and I ask myself "What's the difference between this, and my stuff that doesn't sell?" The answer I get back is that in most cases it's not deep enough. I didn't care about the work enough to get under its skin. The stuff I sell does this better. And the stuff I sell, and goes on to be comented on favorably pretty much (I think, anyway) does this well. Which, I suppose, might be a topic for another entry ...  Write what you know? So, when do we see the story about the vacum between your ears, huh? Daily Persistence is © Ron Collins |
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The preliminary Nebula Award® ballot was formally released this weekend. [insert cheesy grin here] |
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