讲故事与叙事2019web.archive.org编辑精选
如果所有故事都按科幻小说的写法来写（2004）
If All Stories Were Written Like Science Fiction Stories (2004)
导读
这篇 2004 年的讽刺作品展示了科幻写作中常见的毛病：把所有设定像说明书一样解释给读者听。评论者由此讨论如何用「沉浸式」手法让世界观自然流露，并指出科幻的本质其实是「社会小说」——关注人和社会的改变，而非技术细节。对任何虚构写作者都有启发：让读者自然进入你的世界，而不是被设定说明拦在门外。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
避免「接线图小说」：别让角色或叙述者跳出来解释设定常识，让读者从故事行动中自己拼出世界。
- 02
描述效果比解释机制更重要：写出科技带来的感官体验和后果就够了，技术流读者可以自行脑补，冒险型读者也不会被技术参数绊住。
- 03
好的虚构设定真正吸引人的是人和社会的反应（如果有机器人或龙，人们会怎么活），而不是设定本身。
- 04
时刻检查你的故事是「有科学没故事」还是「有故事有科学」——如果读出来只剩 S 而没有 F，那就回去重写。
HN 评论精选
推崇「沉浸式」写法——让角色对虚构世界的常识习以为常，只写效果不写机制，避免「接线图小说」。
我更喜欢「沉浸式」手法：角色和叙述者都不去评论什么在他们所处的世界里是寻常的。科幻小说也老得更优雅，当作者不是基于 1980 年写作时读到的一篇如今已被推翻的《新科学家》文章来构建关键元素时。只描述效果，不要过于具体地说明机制，冒险型读者什么也不会错过，技术型读者也能用自己的想象力填补空白。
philipkglass查看英文原文
Taken to extremes in actual science fiction, this tendency yields "wiring diagram fiction [1]." It was more prevalent in older SF. A few contemporary authors produce it often enough that I prefer reading the Wikipedia entries for their novels over the actual books. I prefer the "immersion" approach where neither characters nor narrator bother to remark on what is considered ordinary from the perspective of their fictional setting. Science fiction also ages more gracefully when the author doesn't base some key element on a now-discredited New Scientist article that he read while the story was being written in 1980. Just describe the effects without being overly specific about the mechanism, and adventure-oriented readers miss nothing while technically-minded ones can fill in the blanks from their own imaginations. [1] From the delightful Turkey City Lexicon: https://www.sfwa.org/2009/06/turkey-city-lexicon-a-primer-for-sf-workshops/
用《火星救援》的例子说明，通过角色对话或叙述自然解释机制，读者反而觉得好看，不会觉得是信息倾泻。
这对新科幻小说和老科幻小说同样适用，而且我很喜欢。比如 Andy Weir 的《火星救援》选段——「赫尔墨斯号由离子引擎驱动。它们以极快的速度从船尾喷出氩气，获得微小的加速度。关键在于它不需要很多反应物质量，所以一点氩气加上一个为设备供电的核反应堆就能让我们全程持续加速。你一定会惊讶于长时间保持微小加速度能达到多快的速度。」
exclipy查看英文原文
This is just as true for new SF as for the old, and I love it. eg. Andy Weir: https://io9.gizmodo.com/read-an-excerpt-from-andy-weirs-space-thriller-the-ma-1495315872 > Hermes is powered by ion engines. They throw argon out the back of the ship really fast to get a tiny amount of acceleration. The thing is, it doesn't take much reactant mass, so a little argon (and a nuclear reactor to power things) let us accelerate constantly the whole way there. You'd be amazed at how fast you can get going with a tiny acceleration over a long time.
提出「社会小说」视角——虚构的真正魅力在于考察社会和人类行为在变革中如何重塑，设定只是起点。
我最近有个想法：科幻和奇幻本质上应该叫「社会小说」——如果我们有机器人或龙，人们的行为会如何不同，这会如何重构社会？传统西方文学探索的是当前社会下人们的所有行为方式，直到工业革命、世界大战、太空竞赛、信息革命之后，人们才开始看到并想象社会可以如何改变。
205guy查看英文原文
A thought I had recently is that science fiction and fantasy should really be called society fiction. If we had robots/dragons, how would people behave differently, and how would that restructure society. Traditional western literature explored all the ways that people could behave within their current society, and it wasn't until the industrial revolution/world wars/space race/information revolutions that people started seeing and imagining how societies could be changed.
自嘲式地印证了「有科学没故事」的陷阱——故事如果只有设定没有人物，自己都会读不下去。
大学时我上了一门创意写作课。课程结束时，每个人都要向全班朗读自己写的一段故事。我手里拿着打印好的稿子，急切地等着轮到我，但一开口我就意识到自己写了一篇垃圾科幻——主要是 S，F 不够。我心灰意冷，读完就离开了教室，再没回去。
klodolph查看英文原文
I took a creative writing class in college. At the end of the class, we each read a section of a story we had written to the rest of the class. I had a typed up copy of my story in my hands, eagerly awaiting my turn, but the moment I opened my mouth I realized that I had written a garbage piece of SF that was mostly S and not enough F. Devastated, I left the classroom after reading it, and didn’t return.
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