Glossary of Terms Useful in Critiquing Science Fiction

In Alphabetical Order
Compiled by David Smith
Version 46: Last revised December, 2002
164 Terms Total
v46 12/7/02, 6/15/03 7:55 PM
This is only a partial list of the terms we have found most useful in critiquing sf. The
glossary is issued now and then ... but it is a living document. Amendments are welcome. If
you use additional terms, or have better examples than those listed here, please suggest
them via email (to Dsmith@recapadvisors.com).
Action outline presents the plot and conflicts with little regard for staging. The author is
describing a world idea, not telling the story. An action outline is a synopsis of a book not
yet written; it is a precursor to a scene outline. See Scene outline.
Armature. Adapted from engineering, where it means the rotating part of a motor (or the
metal frame that holds a clay sculpture), armature represents the (invented) structure of a
society, problem, history, or story; it is the set of external forces that will exert pressure on
characters and thus drive the plot. See Rules of engagement and Plastic window handles.
At stake. Drama is powerful if something is at stake: that is, if the characters involved
have something to gain and something to lose. The reader must have something at stake as
well -- a desire to see the outcome. Usually this is either a stake in the theme, in the
characters and their aspirations, or in the resolution of the conflict. When nothing is at
stake, there is no drama. (Jim Morrow)
Author surrogate. A character whom the author, consciously or unconsciously, models
after himself. Such characters (e.g. Jubal Harshaw, Stranger in a Strange Land) often
dominate the story when they should not, or acquire too many positive attributes, too few
faults. Author surrogates often hog the point of view to the detriment of other characters.
Authorism. Inappropriate intrusion of the writer's physical surroundings, mannerisms, or
prejudices into the narrative. Overtly, characters pour cups of coffee whenever they're
thinking, because that's what the author does. More subtly, characters sit around doing
nothing but complaining that they don't know what to do ... because the author doesn't
know either. (Tom Disch)
Backfill. Providing background in the storyline flow, rather than in a prolog. Many devices
are available: flashback, lecture (generally static and to be avoided), dream sequence,
explanation to an ignorant character. A subset of Exposition.
Bait and switch. When an author encourages the reader to invest attention in a developing
emotional or suspenseful situation ('bait'), only to substitute ('switch') a high-action payoff

which has nothing to do with the previous development, or a POV cut so that the expected
climax is unresolved but instead left to the reader's imagination. A bad habit because it
leaves the reader feeling vaguely unfulfilled and unwilling to invest energy in future setups,
because the reader doubts that paying attention will be rewarded. (CSFW: Alex Jablokov.)
Begin fallacy. Describing action that is introduced to the reader for the first time by saying
that so-and-so 'began to' <verb>. Eliminating the 'began to' almost always strengthens the
text. A detail of Style.
Big scene. A scene is big when its drama is powerful and when the drama is central to the
theme. Big scenes should occur at regular intervals, neither bunched too closely together
nor strung too far apart. (Jim Morrow)
Black box scene analysis. A convenient means of evaluating how important a scene is.
Think of the scene as a black box: characters go in to it and come out of it. What have they
gained or lost? What irrevocable things have happened? How are they different people
afterwards than before? The black-box scene analysis is a useful means of separating local
dexterity (entertaining imagery) from important plot or character development. (CSFW:
David Smith)
Blood and guts. Describes an event or scene which involves characters in their
fundamental, primal desires, stripped of convention, artifice, or propriety. (CSFW: David
Smith)
Bogus alternatives. Cumbersome narration of infeasible actions that a character didn't
take because it would mess up the story. Usually goes overboard and includes long-winded
explanations why. If you're going to handwave past a dumb choice, the faster you do it, the
better. (Lewis Shiner)
Borrowed energy. A story element that gives the reader an emotional impact not from its
internal values but because the reader attaches external connotations from the concept's
original use. (Larry Taylor)
Bridge. A sentence or paragraph which connects two different scenes together. Often used
to get into and out of flashbacks.
Caesar's palmtop. A handy device an author introduces, in all innocence, whose existence
in this particular fictional universe implies a huge offstage infrastructure that demands so
much overhead explanation that it knocks the reader out of paying attention to the story.
(CSFW: David Smith)
Card tricks in the dark. Authorial cleverness to no visible purpose. Wit without dramatic
payoff. (Lewis Shiner)
Characters. Those who people the premise, affect it and are affected by it. The best
characters are complex, with good and bad points, triumphs and tragedies. They face moral

choices. Over the course of the story, they evolve and their evolution mirrors the theme the
author is after. They care strongly and face obstacles, and because of these the reader cares
strongly for them. Examples of excellence: Herbert, The Dragon in the Sea, Sparrow,
Ramsey, Bonnett; Silverberg, The Man in the Maze, Muller, Boardman, Rawlins.
Chekhov's gun. If you put a gun onstage in Act I, Chekhov once wrote, you must use it by
Act III. A Chekhov's gun is a fictional element (threat, character, mystery, prize,
challenge) introduced early and with fanfare and in which the author expects the reader to
invest. That investment must pay off with deployment later in the story even if the
Chekhov's gun then disappears offstage for a long interval. (CSFW: David Smith)
Chewing the furniture. Characters who are over-emoting for their situations. The term is
adapted from the theater, where it is used to describe poor actors who ham it up. (CSFW:
David Smith)
Chrome. From the chrome on an automobile. Scenic detail which has no plot significance
but brings a place, character or period to life. (CSFW: David Smith)
Clever-author syndrom. Where an author shows off with some literary fireworks -- tendollar vocabulary, obscure references, overly artful constructions -- which remind us how
smart the author is but detract from the story. (CSFW: David Smith).
Conflate. 'To blow together': to combine two similar dramatic elements (such as
characters or scenes) to eliminate dramatic redundancy.
Conflict. The opposition of forces between focus characters and their surroundings: either
other focus characters or 'natural forces' (which include, in addition to the elements,
peripheral characters). One can have conflict without drama, but it is almost impossible to
have drama without conflict.
Cookie. An element, not necessary to the plot, which rewards the reader who has been
paying careful attention. Ideally, a cookie is a clever turn of phrase, an image, an allusion,
or some other element of richness which the lazy reader will pass by Then the careful
reader, who finds it, realizes that the author has left this small package just as a reward for
paying attention ... and that, in turn, encourages the reader to pay even more attention.
(CSFW: David Smith)
Countersinking. Expositional redundancy, usually performed by an author who isn't
confident of his storytelling: making the actions implied in the story explicit. "'Let's get out
of here,' he said, urging her to leave." (Lewis Shiner)
Dare to be stupid. An exhortation by a critic to an author whom the critic thinks is not
stretching enough. Authors grow by daring to write bolder, more imaginative, more
personal, or more emotionally powerful situations and confrontations. Since writing that
stretches is by definition unpracticed, the result may be rougher than a less ambitious effort.

The author must trust the critics to recognize the stretch and help the author build or expand
his talents. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
De-stage. To move offstage action which has been shown onstage. Things can be
intentionally de-staged (when they're undramatic) or unintentionally (when the author's
staged the wrong things). (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
Destination. The emotional endpoint of a story: where the author's intent coincides and
rings with the action in the story, where the experiential contract between writer and reader
is fulfilled. The author sets out to create certain responses in the reader; the destination is
the place where the author does so. One may have plot destinations (Frodo gets to the
Crack of Doom), character destinations (Frodo masters the Ring and himself), or
understanding destinations (Frodo learns he's adult and strong enough to scour the Shire).
But stories must always have destinations. In the best writing, the characters' struggle
involves multiple destinations that relate to one another (inner and outer journeys echo
each other). (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
Deus ex machina. Miraculous (often offstage) solution to an otherwise insoluble problem.
Look, the Martians all caught cold and died! (Lewis Shiner)
Disengage (to). A reader who is not paying close attention to the text is disengaged.
Offstage action or a poorly-realized fictional dream disengage the reader: he skips or
skims sentences, paragraphs, pages or whole chapters. The ultimate disengagement is the
reader who puts down the book without bothering to finish it.
An author must use both carrot and stick with the reader. Punish a reader who disengages,
by making sure that necessary material is woven throughout the book, so that nothing may
be skipped. Reward a reader who engages, by making every scene alive, tight, and wellwritten.
Drama. The ability to create powerful scenes, to present conflicts in a way that grips the
reader, whether or not the storyline is believable. The tension of conflict forms the bedrock
of drama. Example: Bester, The Demolished Man. Drama differs from conflict because
drama takes place exclusively onstage, and in a manner the reader engages. Drama differs
from staging to the extent that the drama is the conflict present in the situation, staging the
extent to which it is realized in front of the reader. Badly staged conflict loses most of the
force of its inherent drama.
Easter egg. Adapted from computer programming, a specialized form of cookie in which
the author 'hides' some surprise, not germane to the story (indeed, often irrelevant or
irreverent), deep within the text, to be discovered only by the closest possible reading. For
instance, in Quest of the Three Worlds, Cordwainer Smith encoded, as the first letters of
consecutive sentences, the phrases KENNEDY SHOT and OSWALD TOO, without
disrupting the flow of his narrative. Tuckerizing is a form of easter egg. (CSFW: David
Smith)

Economy. At the beginning of a story, the author invests words in introducing characters,
premise, plot. The reader invests time. By the end of the story, those elements should pay
off. A story is economical if all elements introduced pay off, preferably in many different
ways. Stories which introduce elements that later prove largely irrelevant are
uneconomical, lead the reader to disengagement. Good Varley (Millennium, Ophiuchi
Hotline) is extremely economical. The epic form can sustain a certain intentional use of
uneconomic structure; indeed, it may be said to be part of the epic form. Wolfe, Book of
the New Sun, is lavishly and deliberately uneconomical. (CSFW: David Smith)
Edges of ideas. The places where technology and background should come onstage: not
the mechanics of a new event, gizmo, or political structure, but rather how people's lives
are affected by their new background. Example of excellence: the opening chapters of
Orwell's 1984. (Lewis Shiner)
Emotional circuit breaker. A tendency in an author to cut away from a scene when the
stakes get high, just as it is reaching its emotional peak, often followed by a lower-stakes
retelling or narration of the same events (but safely removed in time or space). Generally
speaking, the emotional circuit breaker is a bad thing, because it deprives the reader of the
tension and excitement created by the immediacy. (CSFW: David Smith)
Emotional disturbance. The internal corollary to the out-of-whack event, it represents a
character whose inner state is fundamentally unstable and who must do something
assertive to restore equilibrium. Often the out-of-whack event triggers the emotional
disturbance, but sometimes a character's emotional disturbance can be the reason the outof-whack event occurs. (CSFW: Pete Chvany)
Emotional endstate. Usually applied to a protagonist or a focus character, the last
(usually stable) emotional state the protagonist experiences throughout the story. A story's
emotional arc thus traces the protagonist's inner journey from emotional disturbance to
emotional endstate. The emotional endstate need not be pleasant, nor entirely resolved, but
it is one that both the character and the reader understand will persist for some time after
the story has closed. (CSFW: David Smith)
Empathic universe. A common feature of melodramatic or romantic writing, it occurs
when the author customizes the environment to match the protagonist's moods. Lightning
flashes as a Gothic horror opens; fog descends when the protagonist is confused; rain falls
on funerals but the sun returns when the mourner becomes hopeful. Usually overused.
(CSFW: David Smith)
Engage (to). Used intransitively, it means a reader who is paying close attention. Used
transitively, it means an author or a piece of fiction that forces the reader to pay close
attention. A reader who is engaged is following closely, intent on capturing everything that
occurs in the story. The stronger the reader's engagement, the stronger the fictional dream.
Stories which are economical, and in which the important events occur onstage, engage the
reader. Readers are also engaged when scenes are so vital, alive and well realized that the
reader cannot skip past them. See Local dexterity. Setting action offstage, or including
inefficient material, causes the reader to disengage. Puzzle-oriented mysteries engage the

reader, because anything and everything may be a clue. The primary objective of the first
four pages of any story is to hook and engage the reader. Whatever its flaws, Dune
accomplishes this by the striking visuals of its early scenes. (CSFW: David Smith)
Escalating powers. A flaw peculiar to science fiction and especially fantasy: a story
introduces a protagonist or antagonist with some distinguishing ability (a power). As the
story progresses, the author gradually increases the character's powers greater scale,
more attributes, ancillary skills. (Once an author has discovered how giving a character
powers can be dramatically useful, the author becomes unconsciously infatuated with the
new toy ...) By story's end, not only may the character be suffering from Superman
syndrome, the distortion of abilities often undermines the credibility of whatever is at stake
and reduces or makes a mockery of lock-in situations. (CSFW: David Smith)
Exposition. Directly conveying information from author to reader. This may be done
through overt description by an omniscient narrator, a mental movie camera inside the head
of a point-of-view character, dialog among characters, and other ways. In exposition,
normally less is more; it's better to learn a setting as a byproduct of engaging action than
through exposition.
Expository lump. A chunk of exposition that, whether or not relevant to the plot, is
insufficiently integrated into the story being told. As such, is seems to come from left field,
as if a page from an encyclopedia accidentally got shuffled in. Asimov is famous for these.
A subheading, known as "I've Suffered For My Art (And Now It's Your Turn)" occurs when
the author, having done masses of boring research, proves this by unloading them on the
stunned reader.
Eyeball kick. A perfect, telling detail that creates an instant and powerful visual image.
(Rudy Rucker)
Fast forward. The literary convention of shortcutting things the reader already knows but
the characters may not. Example: Rex Stout's Archie Goodwin: "I got home and told Wolfe
everything that had happened since I stumbled over Helaine Bradford's body in Adam
Roberts' room. He grunted occasionally and belched when I was done.") Especially handy
in mysteries. (CSFW: David Smith)
Fat writing. A plethora of unnecessary and grandiose verbiage -- too many words. A
woman "saw me abandon my wagon and shovel for greener pastures and intersected me"
could become a woman "across the street stopped me." Why not be simple? Also known as
verdant greenery. (CSFW: Sarah Smith)
Ficelle character. From the French word for 'string,' a term used by Henry James to denote
a character who exists simply to move the plot or drama from place to place. In
Shakespeare's "Hamlet," Rosencranz and Guildenstern are ficelle characters. Vladimir
Nabokov called them peri characters. (CSFW: Alex Jablokov)
Fictional dream. The illusion that there is no filter between reader and events, that the
reader is actually experiencing what he is reading. The stronger the fictional dream, the

more immediate the story. Disrupting the fictional dream is usually bad. Pointless
digressions, expository lumps, lists, turgid prose, unrealistic characters, or a premise with
holes in it, all disrupt the fictional dream. (John Gardner)
Film it. A self-test of critiquing. To judge a scene or chapter, mentally convert it into a
movie or screenplay. This effectively subtracts all narration and exposition and leaves only
description, dialog, and action. Things which shrink dramatically when filmed are heavy
on telling, light on showing. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
First-draft-itis. Various flaws which everyone, including the author, agrees immediately
should be corrected. E.g.: a character who has blue eyes in Chapter 2 has brown eyes in
Chapter 7; or an important feature of the society which is first manifested in Chapter 20 and
implicitly contradicted in what was written before. See Retrofit.
Flinch the premise. The author's premise has a dark side character insights, plot
consequences that the author declines to explore because they seem incendiary or
painful. A failure to allow a powerful idea its proper expression. (CSFW: David Smith)
Focus character. A character who serves a dramatic purpose greater than simply
illustrating or illuminating the world -- a character about whom the reader cares even when
he's offstage. Focus characters have distinct personalities; they further the themes and
interact directly with other focus characters. In Lord of the Rings, for example, Saruman is
a focus character but Sauron is not (he's a natural force). (CSFW: David Smith)
Fog. A reader's state of inability to imagine clearly the setting or action the author is
presenting. Usually arises because the author has skimped on tactile description or
otherwise shortchanged the reader of critical external clarity. Stories can (and should)
sustain motivational ambiguity but they should blow away fog. (CSFW: David Smith)
Foreground (to) (v.t.). Draw attention to for artistic effect, or make the central element in a
scene or story. (CSFW: Sarah Smith)
Frame. A structure which puts boundaries on a story about to be told -- as, for example, a
character announces to another character, I'm going to tell you a story. Often used in a
prolog. Sometimes used to link many stories together into a novel form, as in The
Canterbury Tales, where the pilgrimage is the frame, or The Bridge of San Luis Rey,
where the bridge collapse is the frame. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
Freeze-frame. Adapted from the movies, a brief pause for description of a new person,
thing, or event. (CSFW: David Smith)
Gag detail. Unnecessarily unrealistic detail that blows the credibility of the story. "I can
accept a Neanderthal going to Harvard, but a Neanderthal with a middle name? Gag."
(CSFW: Sarah Smith)

Get-it-in-the-mail syndrome. Prose over which the author, in his eagerness to finish a
work, has taken too little time or care. It implies that the author can easily fix the problems
if he concentrates on them. (CSFW: Sari Boren)
Grouper effect. Named after the grouper, which eats by opening its capacious mouth and
swallowing a huge volume of water, toothlessly capturing its prey in the resulting suction,
the specialized form of get-it-in-the-mail syndrome which results when participants in a
workshop feel get-it-in-the-mail pressure to submit works to the group. A pun. (CSFW:
Alex Jablokov)
Handwaving. Distracting the reader with verbal fireworks to keep him from noticing a
severe logical flaw. (Stewart Brand)
Head fake. A plot action that appears to be significant but is rapidly proved to be a net null,
leaving the plot moving in exactly the same direction. Excessive head fakes undermine the
reader's engagement because the reader becomes trained that they are not real. (CSFW:
David Smith)
Here-to-there mistake. Over-describing interim stages because of a mistaken belief that
the reader will not infer them. A writer whose character's eyes are closed, for example,
wants to describe something visually and feels compelled to say, 'he opened his eyes'.
Omitting this phrase usually works better -- the reader can infer the eye-opening from the
visual description. Similarly, 'he got into the car, put the key in the ignition, started the
engine and backed out of the driveway' is too much description: 'he got into the car and
backed out of the driveway.'
Homoism. Similar to Nowism, the mistake of making aliens behave in inappropriate human
ways, use inappropriate humanoid gestures or facial expressions, or generally manifest their
emotions in human terms. (CSFW: David Smith)
Honorable near miss. Description of a work which aims at a worthwhile objective but
fails to achieve it. (Quoted by Darrell Schweitzer)
Hook. Making the reader engage quickly. In a novel, the reader must usually be hooked in
the first chapter; in a short story, by the end of the first page.
Imitative fallacy. The common trap of trying to make the narrative imitate the personality
of the protagonist. When the novel is concerned with an unlikable or inaccessible
protagonist, the narrative is also unlikable and inaccessible. Since the reader cannot figure
out the protagonist, nor is the reader given any reason to care about the protagonist, the
reader disengages. The prose must transcend the imitative fallacy. Two examples of
excellence are Sinclair Lewis, Elmer Gantry (hypocritical evangelist), and Babbitt (smug
placid businessman). (CSFW: David Smith)
Inappropriate metaphor. A metaphor should serve two purposes: create a tactile image
and also convey an emotional or contextual subtext. A metaphor is inappropriate when the

subtext is inconsistent with the author's intentions: "The desert cowboy blew out his
bearded cheeks like a startled puffer fish." Puffer fish in the desert? (CSFW: Alex Jablokov)
Inappropriate mystery. An author will often use mystery as a means of propelling a
reader forward: characters speak of things that are opaque to the reader, a character goes
offstage to do something important, or a development is referred to indirectly ("I was just
heading out the door when the phone rang, with terrible news"). Mystery is inappropriate
when the expected dramatic followup is lacking: the offstage action proves to be a
diversion, or the suspense proves false. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
Info dump. Another accurate term for an expository lump.
Instgruction manuals. Unnecessary description of how futurist technology works.
Best dumped entirely, because they usually signify that the author's so proud of his device
he can't risk describing its operations. "Bob spoke into the telephone, where his sounds
vibrated the compressed charcoal, producing an electric current that traveled over the
wires ..." See how silly that sounds? (CSFW: David Smith)
Laputa. Named after Gulliver's floating aerial island, this is a fictional construction
introduced without foundation. Readers will initially delight in Laputas but, the longer they
float along without foundation, the more their suspension of disbelief erodes. They thus
tend to work best in small doses like short stories. (CSFW: David Smith)
Laughtrack. Emotional countersinking, where the characters' give cues that tell the
reader how to react. They laugh at their own jokes, cry crocodile tears at their own pain,
and, by feeling everything themselves, eliminate the reader's imperative to do so, so the
reader disengages. (Lewis Shiner)
Local dexterity. An authorial facility with the micro-units of fiction -- lines, images,
paragraphs, even scenes -- so that they are a pleasure to read and are vivid to the reader.
Example of excellence: anything by Ross Thomas. Local dexterity can occasionally
disguise the absence of drama or conflict in a scene. A symptom of this: after reading a
piece, the critic thinks, "I really enjoyed reading it but nothing happened."
Lock in (to). A character is locked in to a situation when he cannot escape from its
conflict, usually because the stakes are high enough, and the consequences of nonparticipation so onerous, that trying and failing to better than doing nothing. For example,
Robinson Crusoe is locked in; he must survive. Usually there is an irrevocable action, early
in the story, which locks the character into his problem.
Maid-and-butler dialog is dialog in which (probably ficelle) characters tell one another
things they should already know, so that the reader can overhear them ("So sad that
Madame had her cardiac arrest in the parlor and was carried out on a green stretcll
her last Thursday, June fifth, Nineteen Thirty-Four," or, "Gee, Rod, here we are on Mars.
It's a good thing we were able to flee the wreckage of our burning spacecraft.") Usually

manifested by apparent simple-mindedness of the characters forced to deliver these

inanities.
Main character. The most important (sole?) focus character.
McGuffin. An external constraint (object, fact, person) whose sole dramatic purpose is to
force a character or characters into actions which serve the author's dramatic theme.
Examples: the Maltese Falcon, the One Ring (in Tolkien). (Alfred Hitchcock)
Melodrama comes in two varieties. Melodramatic Settings are when the environment
too-visibly reflects, often in a pushbutton fashion, the characters' emotional state (Bogart
in the pouring rain on the Paris train platform, being stood up by Ingrid Bergman).
Melodramatic Actions are taken by peripheral characters for the principal purpose of
making the protagonist's life miserable and without furthering the peripheral character's
own objectives; indeed, they are often nonsensical or contrary to the peripheral characters'
interests. (CSFW: David Smith)
Microwaving the souffl. A tendency to rush past important setup material in the author's
haste to get to the payoff. Generally leaves the reader feeling frustrated on two counts: (1)
the setup, being rushed, is uninteresting, and (2) the payoff, being insufficiently set up, is
not earned. (CSFW: David Smith)
Milepost character. A character who is absolutely unchanging throughout a story. A focus
character's different perspectives on him or him show us, in emotional parallax, how the
focus character has changed. Examples include Mr. Micawber in David Copperfield and
Bill Ferry in Lord of the Rings.
Mime conversation. A dialog supposedly loaded with portentous significance to all
participants contorted facial expressions, heavy word emphasis, significant looks but
completely opaque to readers because relevant facts are neither stated nor inferrable. "But
when you told me that " "Yes! And thus he couldn't " "Of course, and I was such a
fool, so now if " "not if, but when! And " Such conversations are infuriating to the
reader and also cheat him of the genuine emotional conflict and change that are core to
viable fiction. (CSFW: David Smith)
More ink around the dogs. A colloquial exhortation to emphasize a bit of chrome, taken
from an otherwise dreadful story featuring fascinating dogs, the only feature the critics
found worthy in the entire tale. (CSFW: Sari Boren)
Motif. A recurring visual objective correlative of the theme. In Catch-22, for instance, the
theme is that war is insane, so the recurring motif is one character calling another
character crazy, under a wide variety of circumstances, so that we continually revisit the
same element, each time with a different view. (CSFW: David Smith)
Motivation. Characters act for two reasons: (1) the author wants certain things to happen
in a story, and (2) the actions further a character's objectives. The latter is motivation;

when it is bad, the reader becomes angry with the apparent stupidity or illogic of the
character, and disengages. See Plot-driven.
Mystery-opacity-irresolution. When a story opens, some significant things are unknown
to the reader: what a character's motivation may be, how two characters are related, a
character's origins. Over the story's course, the reader discovers whether each conundrum is
a:

Mystery. The author knows, the reader doesn't, but when the story is over, the reader
will too. (Ideally, solving the mystery will have both thematic and plot payoff.)

Opacity. The author knows, the reader doesn't, and when the story is over, the reader
may or may not know, but the author can always provide the explanation even if it is not
staged.

Irresolution. The author doesn't know and never decides, so the reader never knows.

Often, early in the drafting or writing of a story, the author will be irresolute, not knowing
why a character is or does something but when the work is finished, and published,
irresolution should be replaced with either mystery or opacity. Irresolution in a published
work is a mistake. (CSFW: David Smith)
Nowism. Short for 'now-chauvinism'. The tendency to export present-day forms,
conventions, technology or morality to a future setting where they are inappropriate or
unlikely. (CSFW: David Smith)
Objective correlative: the tangible manifestation of an intangible, created and used by the
author to help the reader grasp the intangible concept. Most literature is about emotions or
ideals -- things that you cannot see or touch. So the objective correlative becomes a focus, a
tangible surrogate. In The Picture of Dorian Gray, the painting becomes the objective
correlative of Dorian Gray's soul -- it shows the invisible rot. In The Scarlet Letter,
Hester's child is the objective correlative of her sinful passions.
An important characteristic of objective correlatives is that they are usually vested with
attributes which tilt the reader toward the emotion the author wants him to feel in relation to
the intangible being staged. (T. S. Eliot)
Offstage. Events which occur other than onstage. Examples: reminiscence, narration,
indirect quotation. Events which can only be inferred are the ultimate distance offstage.
Onstage. Events which are shown directly to the reader, who becomes a real-time observer
while the action takes place. Onstage events are more dramatic and the reader weights
them more important than events offstage.

Organ music. Details which seek to countersink an emotional response in the reader even
before anything happens (such as crackling lightning and rain outside a window before
anyone's murdered). (CSFW: David Smith)
Out-of-whack event. In Aristotelian drama, the story concerns a character whose stable
life is knocked out of whack by an external force. The remainder of the story concerns his
attempts to put his life back into whack, and his success or failure. The out-of-whack event
inaugurates the struggle.
Commonly the out-of-whack event occurs at the novel's opening (e.g. Heinlein, Stranger
in a Strange Land, Valentine Michael Smith is brought to Earth; or Zelazny, Nine Princes
in Amber, Corwin recovers his powers but not his memory). It may already be in the past
(e.g. Silverberg, The Man in the Maze, the aliens tamper with Muller's brain to broadcast
evil emotions).
If the out-of-whack event is delayed too long, the story seems to move slowly. "Shoot the
sheriff on page 1." (CSFW: David Smith)
Outline speak. The shorthand of an outline, mistakenly translated into dialog. Often
happens when an author is rushing the characters from A to B and does so with a sketchy
set of authorial motivations and with inadequate tactiles. (CSFW: David Smith)
Overhead. The amount of reality-bending in a science fiction or fantasy story which the
reader must absorb as a precondition of enjoying the work and appreciating the dramatic
point. Science fiction has more overhead than mainstream fiction: the author is building a
world that does not exist so as to stage something which cannot be illustrated in the world
that does exist. Staging overhead unobtrusively but unmistakably is always a problem; the
shorter the work, the harder the problem (see Info dump). Well-balanced stories have no
more overhead than necessary to make the dramatic point; part of the difficulty in writing
sf short stories, thus, is the need to provide overhead in a cramped space. This may in part
contribute to the proliferation of used furniture, which (however tacky and cliched) is at
least familiar and thus requires less overhead. (CSFW: Alex Jablokov)
Pace. The timing by which the major events in the plot unfold and by which the big scenes
are shown. Dramatic tension is largely a function of pace. Pace is also the process of
stretching out the big scenes (slowing down time) and compressing the offstage action
(speeding up time) to match the reader's emotions.
Packing peanuts. Elements included in a story to fill out spaces between big
scenes or important events. All stories need some packing peanuts; be wary of stories
which are nothing but packing peanuts. (CSFW: Alex Jablokov)
Pay off (to). To be employed later in the furtherance of the dramatic or thematic intent of
the story. Under the principle of economy, elements which fail to pay off weaken the story
and cause the reader to disengage. (Jim Morrow)

Perception fallacy. If a scene is told from a particular character's point of view (that is, no
omniscient narrator), everything shown in that scene must be perceivable by the POV
character. The perception fallacy is the common mistake of assuming that, if this is so, all
description must be filtered through the senses of that character, rather than being
presented directly. ("I got into the cab. I saw that the steering wheel had blood on it. I
looked under the seat and found the knife." rather than "I got into the cab. The steering
wheel had blood on it. The knife was under the seat.")
The difference is whether the POV character is intrusive and disruptive or unobtrusive.
This often has several unintended negative consequences:
1.
Reality is filtered through an extra lens. Instead of saying "rain poured down" the
author writes "I felt the rain pour down". A story always has one filter -- author telling
reader -- and good authors generally try to make the author as unobtrusive as possible.
Adding this second filter -- author telling character to tell reader -- is not only
uneconomical, it is also often intrusive.
2.
Feeling trapped into the restriction that all information must come to the point-ofview character, with the result that characters often rush onstage to tell the point-of-view
character something. This is even worse than the first problem, because now we have a
third filter: character telling character telling author telling reader.
3.
Confusion between the perception of the author, the narrator (if any), and the POV
character. See Author surrogate.
Peripheral character ego. The antidote to superman syndrome, the legitimate desire of
peripheral characters to be doing something even when being ignored by the protagonists
and author. Every peripheral character should behave (whether onstage or off) as if he or
she is the most important actor in the story, with his or her own genuine motivations and
independence. Tom Stoppard, the maestro of this conceit, built it into a whole play,
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. (CSFW: David Smith)
Phildickian. Named for Philip K. Dick, a surrealist science fiction writer, it describes
situations in which reality and illusion become indistinguishable, or moments when the
reader's perception changes so that reality becomes illusion or vice versa. 'When two people
dream the same dream, it ceases to be an illusion' -- Philip K. Dick. (CSFW: Sarah Smith)
Placeholder. A useful bit of scaffolding: the use of a deliberate oversimplification or
marker that the author writes into an early draft so as to concentrate on the story's larger
structure, intending to return later and provide a piece of local dexterity. "She handed
Sergei Somethingovitch something astonishing." (Unfortunately, some authors use used
furniture as placeholders and then forget to replace the placeholder with something
genuinely unique and interesting.) (CSFW: David Smith)
Plastic window handles. From a cheap Volkswagen Rabbit, whose interior window
handles would snap off when cranking the window, a dismissive term indicating that a
story's armature does not in fact work. Plastic window handles may be survivable in fast-

moving stories or if they are truly peripheral, but their discovery really undermines the
readers' suspension of disbelief, especially when they weaken essential rules of
engagement. (CSFW: David Smith)
Plot. The external motivation, the narrative melody around which the story is told. Plot is
the action that dramatizes premise or makes characters come to life. Example of
excellence: Heinlein, The Moon in a Harsh Mistress; Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, and
many others.
Plot coupons. Items that force a character to undertake an external journey. Often used
pejoratively to indicate that these are just placeholders or irrelevant to any emotional
content, just something used to shove the focus characters around.
Plot-driven is action which occurs, not because the characters are motivated to make it so,
but because the author wants to yank the story in a particular direction. Usually manifests
by the characters refusing to act in the way that the author has programmed them to, or by
being wooden when performing the actions in question. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
Plot inversion. Events are meaningful to the reader when the reader understand what they
signify. Thus for a scene to be meaningful, there must be (1) table-setting to establish what
is at stake, and (2) the action itself. Normal plot construction puts the table-setting first, so
the reader is prepared. Plot inversion reverses this order, so we have the events and only
later learn what they mean. Although this can sometimes be very effective (it's a standard
device in whodunit mysteries, where deceiving the reader is part of the game), usually it's a
mistake. (CSFW: David Smith)
Point of view and point-of-view character. The 'hidden camera' through which the reader
perceives a scene. It may be inside a focus character (we see that character's thoughts and
reactions to events), it may move among characters, or it may remain outside of all
characters as either an omniscient narrator or an active, present author-voice (e.g. John
Fowles, Italo Calvino) commenting on the action.
Point of view is a scarce resource, since it may be only one character at any one instant.
Almost by definition, the reader will perceive the point-of-view character as the most
important in a scene, and will be sympathetic to the point-of-view character (see Author
surrogate). Identical action will be perceived very differently by the reader if the point-ofview character is shifted (e.g. Rashomon; or Durrell, The Alexandria Quartet and The
Avignon Quincunx). Granting a character point-of-view status for a scene usually signals
that the character is a focus character, and is an easy way to separate focus and peripheral
characters at the beginning of a story. Among the common points of view are:
THIRD PERSON:
Omniscient: The narrator knows everything, can shift in time and place at whim, from
character to character, inside people's thoughts, feelings and motives.

Intrusive: The narrator editorializes on the story being told (Dickens, Fielding, Dostoevsky,
John Fowles).
Unobtrusive or impersonal: Presents the story without comment (Zola, Flaubert, Dashiell
Hammett).
Limited: The narrator is confined to a single character, sitting on his shoulder or inside his
head, observing only what is available to that character (Henry James, Raymond
Chandler).
FIRST PERSON narrator is almost always intrusive and limited: confined to a single
character who may be a witness (c.f. The Great Gatsby), a minor participant (Doctor
Watson), or the central character (Chandler's Philip Marlowe). First person narrators are
frequently either reader surrogates, author surrogates, or both.
Polysyllabism. The tendency to use a big word for effect even when a small word is better.
(CSFW: David Smith)
POV. Abbreviation for point of view.
Powderpuff. The authorial habit of being too nice to characters about whom the author
cares. Violates the basic principle, if you want your reader to care about your characters,
do horrible things to them early on. Also called Pitty-Pat. (CSFW: David Smith)
Premise. The science fiction universe. In mainstream fiction, the premise is almost
exclusively the present, real world. Science fiction uses the real world as a springboard or
boomerang; it changes one or more major elements, then builds from that difference,
showing us the shadow-side of changing human biology, technology, sociology, or
psychology. Example of excellence: LeGuin, Left Hand of Darkness, the planet Winter
populated by human beings who are hermaphroditic neuters for most of their lives; Huxley,
Brave New World, regulation in the guise of hedonism; Asimov, The Foundation Trilogy
or I, Robot.
Prolog puppy. A subcategory of red velour shirt, sacrificed very specifically in the prolog
as a kind of heavy organ-music overture to the main tale. Common in bad fantasy. (Julia
Junkala)
Protagonist. The central character of a story. Often the protagonist is a POV character or
the sole POV character, but not necessarily (Sherlock Holmes is the protagonist, but
Doctor Watson has the POV throughout; same for Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin).
Pump up (to). Expanding a scene's staging to give it more impact on the reader:
foreshadowing it, placing it onstage, stretching out time, increasing the stakes. It is the
literary foreplay that allows a scene to deliver its maximum dramatic impact. (Jim
Morrow)

Punish the careless reader. An authorial device to make a reader engage: to sprinkle
throughout the story information vital to understanding subsequent events; this punishes the
careless reader by making him retreat and reread. Punishment works only when matched by
rewarding the careful reader. See Cookie. (CSFW: David Smith)
Pushbutton words. Words used to evoke an emotional response without engaging the
reader's intellect or critical faculties, like 'song', 'poet', 'tears' or 'dreams'. They are supposed
to make us misty-eyed without quite knowing why. Commonly found in romance novel
titles. (Lewis Shiner)
Reaction shot. From the movies, a cutaway shift inside a bundle of narrative action which
shows us the emotional or other responses of a character, usually a reader surrogate.
Reader cheating. Producing a result (a surprise, a deduction, an unexpected
denouement) without having given the reader a fair opportunity to foresee the result. For
instance, having a detective deduce the murderer based on evidence the author has willfully
concealed from the reader is reader cheating. (Example: a point of view character who
knows things and acts on them but lies in internal narrative so as to distract the reader.)
(CSFW: James Patrick Kelly)
Reader surrogate. A focus character who voices or experiences the thoughts, reactions
and emotions which the author desires the reader to have. Usually the point-of-view
character, usually observing a scene or being acted upon (e.g. being tortured or
interrogated). (CSFW: David Smith)
Rear-view mirror description. The habit of describing things only after they've figured in
the action, never before they're used. "She dodged behind the boulder that she'd just seen
out of the corner of her eye." The effect on the reader is that the description isn't seen for
itself, but rather as if glimpsed only in the rear-view mirror. (CSFW: David Smith)
Red velour shirt. A character (usually a ficelle character) whose sole purpose is to die or
otherwise be abused as a means of demonstrating that a situation is dangerous. Usually
used in indicate that the character in question is insufficiently realized. From the old "Star
Trek" television series, where the faceless crewman who beamed down with Kirk, McCoy,
and Spock inevitably wore a red velour shirt and died before the opening credits. See "He's
dead, Jim." Rosenkranz and Guildenstern wear red velour shirts. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
Replacement principle. The axiom that, in the future, everything we know now will be
replaced with something more technological and better. Often an important means of
avoiding nowism, it can sometimes be taken to absurd extremes. (Kathryn Cramer)
Retrofit. An editing term. To rewrite a previous chapter or scene for the purpose of making
a later scene work better, by setting up something that is needed later, introducing a
premise, situation or character so that its presence later in the story is justified. To revise a
previous chapter or scene to conform details to what is necessary later in the story. (CSFW:
David Smith)

Reward the careful reader. The counterpart of punishing the careless reader: rewarding
means, in this case, providing extra bonus details, small bits of readerly pleasure.
Tuckerizing (see below) is a simple example; others are eyeball images, resonant
metaphors, throwaway jokes, and so on. "As for you, the writer, never forget the following:
the reader is like a circus horse which has to be taught that it will be rewarded with a lump
of sugar every time it acquits itself well. If that sugar is withheld, it will not perform." -Milorad Pavic, Dictionary of the Khazars. (CSFW: David Smith) See Cookie.
Rhinoceros. Abbreviated from "there's a rhinoceros in the room," this is an attribute (a
story element or of the author's writing) which is shriekingly obvious to everyone except
the people closest to it. (In horror movies, the idiotic willingness of characters to split up
and search dark mansions is a rhinoceros.) The term is most useful in a critiquing context
as a means of helping an author identify recurring tropes, tics, or fetishes in his own
writing. (CSFW: David Smith)
Rubber science. An explanation (often of story armature) which, although probably false
according to what we know of the universe, sounds technical and convincing. Rubber
science is acceptable in all forms of sf except hard-core hard sf, where the main dramatic
point is the complete credibility of the science shown. (CSFW: David Smith)
Rules of engagement. An element of overhead: the definitions of permissible and
impermissible contact and behavior of a fictionally-created device or being, and thus the
armature of character groups. Aliens are most real when they have consistent rules of
engagement, which operate according to logic not easily visible to the reader, but which is
nevertheless clear to the aliens (and, most likely, to the author). Often when designing
aliens or rubber science, it is helpful to write a separate description of the rules of
engagement, not to be included in the story (where it would be an info dump), but rather as
a guide to the author as to what the new creation will and will not do. (CSFW: Steve
Popkes)
Runaround. Frenetic activity by characters we don't care about, usually in search of
objects or goals we're uninterested in seeing them achieve. Usually injected into action
stories when the author realizes that he's failing his dramatic objectives. Can be recognized
when, although the action is fast and furious, the reader skims along with a glazed eye.
Often the more spectacular the gore -- e.g., the more bodies left on the battlefield at scene's
end -- the greater the runaround, and the weaker the story. A tipoff of weak
characterization. (CSFW: David Smith)
Said-bookisms. Large words that mean 'said,' designed to connote additional information
not conveyed in dialog or description. If used to excess, they result in overwriting: "I'm
climaxing!" he ejaculated. See also Tom Swifty. (CSFW: James Patrick Kelly)
Scaffolding. Cathedrals and office towers are not constructed in a vacuum, they are buil\t
up inside scaffolding, necessary to hold up the working structure under assembly, that is
then removed when the building is done. Something similar occurs in the development of
complex stories. Early drafts may include a lot of authorial scaffolding slow scenes,
lengthy background, detour descriptions, plot dead ends. Their existence in early drafts is

not a bad thing, they are often essential development phases but they should be removed
as the work approaches completion. On this theory, writing more and editing it back are
essential steps in developing complex fiction. (CSFW: David Smith)
Scene is the basic dramatic sub-unit -- an interaction involving one or more focus
characters. Scenes are usually ended by the announcement that time has passed ('a week
later'), by a termination of the dialog ('she left then'), a shift in point-of-view character, or
an external event ('the room exploded'). A scene which straddles a chapter break is a
guaranteed tension-maintainer.
Scene outline is a blow-by-blow description of the onstage events. It covers everything the
action outline covered, but also (1) segregates background information from the narrative
flow, (2) identifies point-of-view characters, (3) addresses what is shown onstage, what
offstage, (4) is subdivided into scenes or chapters. A scene outline is often a useful
successor to an action outline: it can help a writer avoid staging scenes which are
undramatic. The following things typically go into it:
Expression of the theme
Background information, broken into convenient subheadings
Scene-by-scene description of the story.
Any outline should define any jargon it intends to use. Focus characters should be
introduced with solid capitals so the reader-critic knows to pay attention. An outline should
be edited and polished, if not for drama, at least for clear economical exposition. Often
scene outlines are written in present tense. (CSFW: David Smith)
Segue. Another term for bridge: a phrase or sentence which links two different scenes. In
general, the smoother and less obtrusive the segue, the better.
Shadow staging. Presenting a crucial event (such as an out-of- whack event) by its
consequences rather than showing it directly. In Sophie's Choice, for example, Sophie's
choice is shadow-staged throughout the whole novel. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
Simile of action. Metaphors or similes can be considered as a means of coining adjectives
by repackaging nouns: "He was as strong as a bull, rosy-fingered dawn, it was as easy as
pie." Metaphors are relatively seldom used to convey adverbs, and especially seldom to
convey intention. It can be done in a few words if you know what to look for: namely, a
simile in a structure such as: "He <verb> as if he was <metaphoric verb>ing," as in a
sentence like "he regarded the outstretched hand as if it were a day-old fish." This has the
extremely desirable result of describing intention without shifting narrational point of view;
the technique can be used with high frequency without becoming obtrusive. (CSFW: David
Smith)

Smart subconscious. Term used when a critic (or the author) reviews text in light of a new
approach or theory and discovers, much to his or her surprise, that within the previous text
are a whole series of small items or details which help express this approach or theory; the
smart subconscious was planting them in hopes that they would eventually be discovered.
Smart subconscious is a possible explanation for subtext. (CSFW: Paul Tumey)
Snark rule. "I tell you once, I tell you twice, what I tell you three times is true." Lewis
Carroll, The Hunting of the Snark. When three or more critics concur on an element in a
story, it is highly likely to be true. (Jennifer Jackson)
Sorcerer's apprentice's mop. A device or gadget which, if introduced into a society will
spread, become pervasive, and change every aspect of society (cf. the telephone or the
nanobots in Greg Bear's Blood Music). Authors who intend such devices as throwaways
introduce them into their stories at great peril, because eventually the author must either
abruptly chop off exploration of the gadget (frustrating the reader) or make it the focus of
the entire story (frustrating the author). (CSFW: David Smith)
Space western. A pernicious form of used furniture where every Martian or Jovian town
looks and sounds like Dodge City (Lewis Shiner).
Staging is bringing scenes to vivid life, making them so tangible and evocative that the
reader is transfixed, bringing out the inherent drama or magnifying it so that it hits with
great force. Example: Peake, Titus Groan, Steerpike in the kitchen with the chef Swelter;
Orwell, 1984, O'Brien interrogates Winston Smith.
Stalling. When an author, knowing a big scene or crucial event is upcoming, writes
desultory here-to-there scenes as a means of deferring the more difficult (and emotionally
charged) task of writing the big scene. Common in first drafts. (CSFW: David Smith)
Stapledon. A character prone to holding forth, at length and without interruption, while
various info dumps are unloaded on the helpless reader. Often surrounded by sycophantic
peripheral characters whose lines are generally limited to, "Why, it certainly seems so,
Socrates. No man of sense could dispute that." (Lewis Shiner)
Storyboard. Adapted from the movies, a visually-oriented simple description of the events
in a scene. Often useful for authors wishing to structure or restructure their plots and
separate these elements from dialog, narration and other details of technique. (CSFW:
David Smith)
Style. Style is using words to create an aura, an effect that permeates the story. Extreme
style becomes baroque, obtrusive stylization, but when handled deftly, the words become
part of the fabric of the world. Examples: Cordwainer Smith, Norstrilia; Zelazny, Lord of
Light or Jack of Shadows; and Wolfe, The Book of the New Sun. Example of style run
amok, disguising melodrama: late Hemingway.

Story clock. The pace at which action is internally described. See fast forward and travel
time. (CSFW: James Patrick Kelly)
Subtext. A secondary level of action or content in a scene. Not stated overtly -- that is, not
perceived by the characters -- and sometimes not even consciously perceived by the author.
Superman syndrome. The habit of magnifying the good points of focus characters and
either giving them no bad points whatsoever or obscuring and rationalizing the minor ones
they have. Usually leads to melodrama and heavyhandedness. (CSFW: David Smith)
Tense. The dominant verb-tense in which the main story is told. Most are told in straight
past tense, although in a few cases (e.g. Tiptree, Brightness Falls from the Air; Atwood,
The Handmaid's Tale) the present tense is sustained throughout. Tense is a very powerful
way of distinguishing point of view or voice. Giving the present- tense solely to one
character immediately makes that voice unique, whenever and wherever the reader
encounters it.
Texture encompasses both crispness of prose and efficiency of delivering images to the
reader. At one level, it is word choice: at another, image choice. (E.g. when dealing with
aliens in whom smell is the dominant sense, most things should be described by their
aroma, and the characters should respond to aroma rather than to other attributes.) See
Inappropriate metaphor.
Texture often completes the circle by building a whole-book, macro-level vision of the
premise by sustained, consistent micro-level evidence. Examples: Burgess, A Clockwork
Orange, where the Russopunk vocabulary is laced throughout the book; and Brunner,
Stand on Zanzibar, which intercuts storylines with news broadcasts, ads, and other
vignettes of existence.
Thematic redundancy. Retelling essentially the same story without changing any major
element.
Theme is the underlying element which governs the author's selection of dramatic events
to show onstage. Can be a belief (e.g. Catch-22, war is insane, only lunatics fight in wars),
a proposition to be proved, a moral dilemma, or an attribute of human character.
The theme of Left Hand of Darkness is sexuality; Dragon in the Sea, neurosis; and Lord
of the Rings, the evil of power. Implanting the theme in every aspect of the story -- setting,
characters, plot, texture -- often strengthens its power. In Left Hand, beings who are
sexually indifferent live on a planet named Winter. Cold affects every aspect of the story
just as neuter androgyny affects the personality of every character. Just as the point-ofview character -- a normal human who serves as the reader surrogate -- becomes
physically cold, he becomes sexually neutral.
Three-act structure. The classic plot:

Act 1. The protagonist's life is knocked out of whack. He confronts an obstacle which he is
locked in to solving or being vanquished by. In great literature the obstacle is tied directly
into a specific theme.
Act 2. The protagonist investigates the obstacle, tries to solve or conquer it, and is repulsed,
leaving him worse off than before. The situation is desperate.
Act 3. Using the knowledge gained in Act 2, the protagonist formulates a new plan and
risks all. The story's resolution may be heroic (the character succeeds and the reader is
uplifted), tragic (the character is destroyed but the reader learns something about the
theme from his destruction), or nihilistic (the character is destroyed and no one learns
anything). (Aristotle)
Tic. A minor mannerism -- verbal, visual or otherwise -- which is uniquely assigned to a
particular character as a means of identifying him. One character twirls his hair; another
ends many of his sentences by saying "right?" Used properly, they help the reader
distinguish among characters in the early going and can, by the finish, be sufficient to
identify a character even without further attribution. (Jane Yolen)
Tom Swifty. A fetish for adverbs, usually in modifying speech. "'We'd better hurry,' said
Tom swiftly." As Strunk and White say, an adverb is a leech sucking the strength from a
verb. Whenever the tone is clear from the context or dialog, omit the adverb. (Lewis
Shiner)
Toon. A comic relief character generally intended to be recognized as such -- Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern are toons (most of Shakespeare's comic relief characters are toons).
Toons have a limited place in fiction; an excess of them can render an otherwise serious
work trivial. (CSFW: David Smith)
Travel time. A component of pacing. Characters don't reverse important decisions in their
personalities overnight. The emotional distance a character travels should generally be
proportionate to the amount of travel time -- measured in words -- the change requires.
Travel time can be increased by intercutting a different story, by filling the intervening
space with straight action, or by developing other characters, description or thematic
material.
Trope. A figure of speech, usually used to describe overworked images, literary or
dramatic conventions, or stale ideas borrowed from other authors. See Used furniture.
Tuckerizing. Named after Wilson Tucker, the practice of introducing as peripheral
characters, or offstage icons, names recognizable to the reader. (For example, naming the
Moon's capital Heinlein and its main street La Rue de la Professor Bernardo de la Paz.) A
subclass of rewarding the careful reader.

Underserve. When an author gives an element less stage time than it deserves. Most often
underserved are peripheral characters or those for whom the author feels little sympathy.
Stories are strong in proportion to the obstacles -- events or bad guys -- that the good guys
overcome. If you underserve your peripheral elements, you undercut your drama. (CSFW:
David Smith)
Unperceived source. An inspiration for an author's creation which the author does not
recognize until it is pointed out to him. Many authors resist acknowledging their
unperceived sources. (Geoff Ryman) See smart subconscious.
Unreliable narrator. A storyteller who is eventually revealed to have been concealing the
truth, or even mis-stating it (unintentionally or deliberately). A development of twentiethcentury literature (first made famous in Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd),
the unreliable narrator is often used to force the reader to reinterpret events previously
experienced. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
Unstage. To de-stage something intentionally. Often used as a rewrite term.
Use it or lose it. A critiquing comment. A story or novel will introduce many elements,
some of which are put onstage at an early point in the proceedings with the apparent
implication that they will figure in later action. If the element is later unused, the reader
feels dissatisfied, because he has not been rewarded for paying attention to it. Thus a critic
will often note an element in a story with a recommendation that it either to pumped up to
play in the themes or plot (use it) or that it be deleted (lose it). (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
Used furniture. A background out of Central Casting, often chosen by an author too lazy to
invent a good one. (Lewis Shiner)
Voice. The narrational form used. Often confused with point of view, but it is distinct. The
same scene, told from the point of view of the same character, will have a very different
texture if done first-person-singular ("I raced down the alley") rather than third-personsingular ("Our hero raced down the alley"). In very rare occasions (e.g. McInerny, Bright
Lights/ Big City), second-person is used ("you open the door and are hit in the head; lights
explode in your brain"). In a story with multiple points of view, each character may have
his own tense and voice, and thus distinguish characters on a textual level.
Adjusting voice can increase or decrease the distance between author, reader and character.
Using first-person, for example, brings reader and character practically into the same head.
Using a narrative-reminiscence style shortens the distance between reader and author.
Watson. A supporting character whose principal purpose is to voice the reader's confusions
and concerns, so that the protagonist is given an opportunity to answer them without
resorting to expository lump. "My God, Holmes, you mean the bell-pull was a snake?"
(CSFW: David Smith)

White room syndrome. An authorial imagination inadequate to the situation at hand; most
common in the beginning of a story. "She awoke in a white room." The white room is
obviously the white piece of paper confronting the author. (Lewis Shiner)
Zipper story. A particular form of story involving two (or more) alternating strands, which
in the story's beginning appear completely unrelated but which over time come closer and
closer together until their connection becomes the story's climax. Fred Pohl's novel
Gateway is a zipper story. (CSFW: David Smith)
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Copyright 2002 David Alexander Smith