Things you shouldn't do in science fiction/fantasy writing

E. E. Knight has posted a list of 20 genre writing sins to his LiveJournal; it's a pretty good list. I'm teaching the Viable Paradise science fiction/fantasy workshop on Martha's Vineyard this year, and many of these items have already come up in the lectures and critiquing sessions.

The Joker: Smiling, and its evil cousin, the grin. I've read entire chapters where characters do nothing but smile and grin at each other, as though they're living in the Treehouse of Horror Simpson's vignette where Bart has mental powers like the kid in the Twilight Zone episode "It's a Good Life" and everyone has to keep on a happy face...
# Don't open the airlock! Another thing that bugs me is a scene that seems to take place in a vacuum. No sense of time, place, no indication that anyone has a history or is concerned with anything other than what's on the protagonist's mind that very second. Please, establish a time and place, even if it's just "midnight at the oasis," before or as you start the action! And remember, everyone in the story has problems of their own.

Link (via Futurismic)

Discussion

Take a look at this

#1 posted by Tim Vaughan , October 2, 2007 4:33 AM

My pet peeve: abusing the fact that you're writing in a fantasy/sci-fi setting. This includes pulling never-before seen magic/science out of a hat and using it to get the characters out of the impossible corner you've written them into.
For an example, see J. K. Rowling or for a writer who uses magic appropriately, see George R. R. Martin.

#2 posted by Kyle Armbruster , October 2, 2007 4:53 AM

What a great little list of no-nos. Not that I write, but if I did, that would really help.

I'd like to point out, however, that Dan Brown has sold like a million billion copies of The Da Vinci Code, and I don't think there's a rule there it doesn't violate.

Not that anyone ever accused Dan Brown of being a good writer, but I guess you don't always have to be.

#3 posted by E.E. Knight