An Interview With Ian Benke
First: Forget about science fiction. You’re just telling a story.
Second: Forget about “world building.” Build characters who live in a world. How they interact with it will create the world for the reader.
Science Fiction and Fantasy are hugely popular genres. What does it take for a writer today, to write compelling and successful Science Fiction and Fantasy stories? Authority Magazine started a new series called “How To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories”. In this series we are talking to anyone who is a Science Fiction or Fantasy author, or an authority or expert on how to write compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy .
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing R.S. Mellette
R.S. MELLETTE, originally from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, now lives in San Clemente, California, where he toils away at turning his imaginary friends into real ones. While working on “Xena: Warrior Princess,” he created and wrote “The Xena Scrolls’’ for Universal’s New Media department and was part of the team that won a Golden Reel Award for ADR editing. When an episode aired based on his “Xena Scrolls’” characters, it became the first intellectual property to move from the internet to television. Mellette has worked and blogged for the film festival Dances With Films as well as the novelist collective, From The Write Angle. He is on the board of the L.A. region of the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators and a member of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share a story about what first drew you to writing over other forms of storytelling?
I come from a family of storytellers, story requesters and story interrupters. My grandmother was a story requestor. She knew all the family stories and who told them best. So at just the right time at a family reunion, she’d say, “BIIIIILLY” in her southern accent. Billy was my Dad. “Tell the Chicken Coop story.”
The people standing close to this conversation would get quite and take notice, but the rest of the party would still be talking. My Dad would honestly say, “Mama, everybody’s heard that story. They don’t want to hear that.”
I say “honestly” because a lesser rejection would be like the old Vaudevillians on TV holding up one hand to ask the audience to stop applauding while waving them on to continue under the TV frame. Dad’s humility wasn’t false, but it served the situation well because his mother would turn to the whole party, “Ya’ll want to hear the Chicken Coop story?”
Everyone would end their conversations to give focus to the storyteller, knowing that the next two or three hours would be devoted to stories.
A couple of my cousins shilled as story interrupters — a title I believe they changed to story “enhancers.” If a character introduced by the storyteller showed promise, they would speak up with a well-timed single sentence to fill in some embellished detail.
The family reunions happened on the week between Christmas and New Years throughout the 1970s, so from when I was 8 to 18. I have never laughed so hard for so long and with such abandon as I would for that one week each year. I miss it a lot.
But I never meant to be a writer. I studied acting in college, but it turns out, acting is fantastic training toward writing. It must be. Most of the people I went to school with got their success from writing. Some of them are household names. Seriously, when you talk to an actor studying at a university, they’ll say, “I’ve done Shakespeare, Neil Simon, Aaron Sorkin…” When you study another writer’s characters from the inside out, then get up on stage to make them living, breathing beings in front of a bunch of other living, breathing beings, you learn fast and deep what works and what doesn’t. A writer who has been onstage will never let a flat scene escape into the wild.
I eventually got into writing because if I didn’t write down the stories in my head, they would possess me like demons. I had to write them to get them out of my system. Now that there are projects I have to write, I find myself trying to summon the demons back! [For the record and for those who might see only this last sentence, I’m using demons as a metaphor. Please don’t think I need an exorcist.]
You are a successful author. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
Actors, who speak for a living, are trained to listen.
Musicians, who make noise for a living, are trained to hear.
Visual Artists are trained to see.
Writers must learn to observe. When I get into a groove and the writing is good, I’ll sometimes take a break. I’ll go for a walk with my writer’s voice still in my head, like Sherlock Holmes, observing everything. Using all five senses like I’ve taken a crazy party drug that hasn’t been invented yet. It’s exhilarating and maddening at the same time.
It also helps to be an opinionated S.O.B. If you’re one of those people who says, “Actually…” when someone at a party mentions something about polyester being a modern invention, then you’ll probably make a good writer. If you want to SELL your books, you’ll have to learn to keep those little factoids to yourself and just smile and nod.
Can you tell us a bit about the interesting or exciting projects you are working on or wish to create? What are your goals for these projects?
I am SOOO excited about the release of my book, “Kiya And The Morian Treasure.” I know, I know… you think I’m just plugging my latest — and I am — but this is my baby. I first wrote it in 1996 and I’ve been trying to find a home for it ever since. The project is now older than the characters. The number of times I’ve heard major publishers say, “I love it, but I don’t know what shelf it goes on,” or “Girls will read books about boys, but boys won’t read books about girls — can you change the narrator to a boy? Can you add a boy character?”
Finally, it’s coming out on my terms. I really hope I’m right.
Wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Let’s begin with a basic definition so that all of us are on the same page. How do you define sci-fi or fantasy? How is it different from speculative fiction?
Let’s start with “speculative fiction.” I know what that means for screenplays. It means a script a writer wrote on his or her own in hopes of selling it. The writer is like a gold miner, speculating. In publishing? It’s just something someone with too much time on their hands made up.
Fantasy, in my mind, is a story with a magical element without even trying to explain why or how something works. The best of these stories are vampires, werewolves, Harry Potter. The worst have computers or some other kind of tech that just pop up out of thin air without regard to the laws of physics or logic.
Back in the ’80s Harlan Ellison and a few others tried to kill the term “sci-fi” in favor of “science fiction,” mostly because they thought their writing wasn’t getting the critical attention it deserved next to those writing literary fiction. Fair enough. So I now say sci-fi is pop-culture and science fiction is literary — both involving stories that… speculate…on the effects of science and technology on societies.
Given that definition, I wholeheartedly embrace the label of sci-fi for my work. I couldn’t care less what critics think, since most of them don’t pay for the books anyway. If you paid your hard-earned money for one of my books, I hope I give you your money’s worth in pure entertainment. Some people boohoo “pop” culture. To them I say, culture that isn’t popular isn’t culture. It’s just a bunch of stuff nobody knows about.
Oh, and, I wrote “Billy Bobble Makes A Magic Wand” because I got tired of seeing all of the fantasy stuff in the sci-fi section of book stores. It’s a sci-fi way of making magic.
It seems that despite countless changes in media and communication technologies, novels and written fiction always survive, and as the rate of change increases with technology, written sci-fi becomes more popular. Why do you think that is?
Well, first of all, sci-fi readers are, by our nature, tech-heads. We’re going to get the latest gadget that does the latest thing. E-readers? Bring it! Stories with links embedded to fill out the backstory, cool. Whatever tricks IT can bring to an author, sci-fi fans are going to eat it up.
On another level, there’s something so personal about reading. You are literally reading another person’s mind, or at least their thoughts. There are so many ways to take in a story, but nothing strikes the soul like reading.
In your opinion, what are the benefits to reading sci-fi, and how do they compare to watching sci-fi on film and television?
Having said that nice stuff about reading, full disclosure, I’m dyslexic. I also come from a film and TV background, so I’m going to tout all media. I will never forget the spaceship flying over my 15-year-old head in the opening of “Star Wars” or fighting with my mom about watching “Star Trek.” I think if someone handed me those stories as books, I wouldn’t have gotten through them.
Then again, Larry Niven’s books kept me reading in high school, which is important for dyslexics. I remember my dad saying, “If you like one book a writer writes, then you’ll probably like the others.” That was a new concept for someone who didn’t like books at all. I scarfed up anything with Niven’s name on it. And Dad was right.
Then I moved on to “Dune.” I remember, reading the books, I felt guilty whenever I went to the bathroom. All that water, waisted! I didn’t feel that way watching the 1984 movie. In fact, I couldn’t stop laughing. It was horrible!
So in that way, reaching inside of you to change your perspective, I think reading has a great advantage over film & TV. I know when I was writing Billy Bobble, I used to walk around thinking I had a real magic wand in my hand. I convinced myself I — as Billy — could really make magic. Pro tip. Don’t try to pay your bills that way.
What authors and artists, dead or alive, inspired you to write?
Besides Niven and Frank Herbert: Vince Gilligan. Larry Gelbart. Carl Reiner. William Gibson. Shakespeare, of course. Mike Neel. Neil Simon captured American speech like no other playwright. Peter Shaffer — incredible speeches! I’m currently reading The Expanse series, so James S. A. Corey (both of them).
And then there are some in a special category for me — each for their own reasons: Richard Butner. Suzanne Collins. Mary Beth Bass. Mindy McGinnis. Steven Carman. Wilton Barnhardt. John Kessel.
That’s a lot of writers for a reluctant reader.
If you could ask your favourite Science Fiction and Fantasy author a question, what would it be?
It kind of depends on the situation, doesn’t it? I mean, if we’re having dinner, I might ask him or her to pass the salt. And I would judge them harshly if they didn’t include the pepper.
If we’re working together, I’d ask all kinds of questions, but I rarely go Fan Boy on anyone. The closest I ever came was working on a charity event with Dick Van Dyke. We had a few minutes together while waiting for the stage, so I said, “You know, it doesn’t matter how long you’re in this business there is always someone who’ll get you star struck.”
He said, “Yeah, that’s true.”
“And for me, you’re one of them,” I said. He thanked me and we had a little chat about his career — such a nice man!
We’d like to learn more about your writing. How would you describe yourself as an author? Can you please share a specific passage that you think exemplifies your style?
I like to say I write like I’m painting with watercolor. In that medium, so many variables determine the outcome. You can’t obsess over it. The paint is going to absorb and run how it wants to. You have a certain amount of control, but it’s the natural interaction of the paint with the canvas or paper that’s gives it life. Later, you come along with a sharp pen to highlight the structure — some you meant to happen, some you’ve just discovered.
As for an example — my publisher may kill me, because I’m supposed to be promoting “Kiya And The Morian Treasure” (order it now from your favorite indie bookstore!) — but I’m going to pull a scene from “Billy Bobble Makes A Magic Wand.”
“Suzy?”
“Billy?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m right here. Where are you?”
“I think the question is, where are we?”
“I can’t see anything,” said Suzy.
“See, hear, taste, touch, smell — pretty much all of my five senses are toast.”
“You can hear me, stupid.”
“Oh, yeah…” Billy ran his mind over that for a second then offered, “Unless we’re talking telepathically.”
Suzy was going to say that was dumb but thought better of it. Then she wondered if Billy knew what she just thought. Then Billy didn’t seem to be around at all. Suzy panicked for what could have been five seconds or five years. She had no way of knowing.
Then she felt something. “Billy! Is that you?”
“Is what me?”
“I felt something.”
“I don’t think it was me,” said Billy, though he had no way of supporting his statement.
“Wait a second.” It could have been a second. It could have been a hundred years before she said, “I think it’s tweed.”
“What?”
“Tweed. You know, the fabric.”
“Can you see it?”
“No. I can’t see anything.”
“Then how do you know it’s tweed!?”
“Don’t yell at me.”
Billy realized that he couldn’t hear his own voice but thought he might have been yelling. “Sorry.”
“I don’t know how I know it’s tweed, but it definitely is. It’s a tweed jacket.”
“Augh!” said Billy. “What’s that?”
“What?”
“I got something in my mouth.”
“What is it?”
“Fur. I have a fur coat in my face. Suzy! I told you to think about your lab. How did we end up in your closet?”
“I was thinking about my lab, and this isn’t my closet.”
“How do you know?”
“I don’t own any tweed! … or fur!”
“Okay, you don’t have to shout either.”
It was Suzy’s turn to have the strange sensation of not hearing her own voice. “Billy…” an impossible idea crept into her head. “I don’t think we’re in a closet.”
“It’s dark, quiet, and we’re surrounded by clothes, where else could we be?”
“A wardrobe,” said Suzy. “As in The Lion, The Witch And…”
“Suzy! I told you to think about your lab, not your favorite book!”
“How is this my fault?”
“Because I never read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.”
“Billy? Seriously?”
“Suzy! I don’t think this is the time — “
“I gave you my copy.”
“Suzy — “
“You told me you read it.”
“I watched the movie, okay?”
“You’re impossible.”
“And yet I exist none-the… wait a minute, maybe I don’t.”
“You annoy me, therefore you are,” said Suzy, paraphrasing Descartes.
“Will you focus on your lab?”
“I’ve been thinking about my lab the whole time, but somehow we’ve landed in an armoire in 1940s rural England.”
“That also happens to be imaginary.”
“Where’s the wand?”
“I don’t know. In my hand, I suppose.”
“Where’s your hand?”
“Should be on the end of my arm, but I have no idea where that is.”
“Is your finger still on the button?”
“I don’t know.”
A flash of red sheet lightning filled the nothingness, and a low roll of thunder prowled around them.
“Suzy?” Billy’s question was as much to ask if she was still there as to get her attention.
“Yeah?” There was fear in her voice.
“Don’t get scared. It gets bad when you’re scared.” Billy concentrated as hard as he could on taking his finger off the button.
Based on your own experience and success, what are the “Five Things You Need To Write Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories?” If you can, please share a story or example for each.
First: Forget about science fiction. You’re just telling a story.
Second: Forget about “world building.” Build characters who live in a world. How they interact with it will create the world for the reader.
Now onto the things necessary to make any good story.
Objective: What do the characters want?
Obstacle: What is preventing them from getting what they want? If a scene lays flat, intensify the obstacle.
Tactics (this one I added when learning about the other two in acting classes): HOW is the character going to get what they want? What are their rules? This defines the character.
When all else fails, learn the TV writer’s phrase. “Put a clock on it.” Meaning, add a ticking timebomb or a breaking tree limb. Anything that makes the characters have to immediately overcome the giant obstacle to gain their objective.
Okay, this time a sample from “Kiya And The Morian Treasure” — available on Amazon and wherever books are sold! 😊
The ship’s alarms cracked me out of my fascination with the workings of the vessel. “Incoming missiles!” The monitors were going crazy with red flashing lights.
Kiya turned to Dad with a casual report. “This might get a little bumpy.”
She then started surfing on the disk, which was floating in the floor. She leaned to the left, raised her right arm — the monitors showed the wings shift accordingly — and the ship turned to the left.
Kiya flicked her wrist and two canisters erupted from one of those portals I had seen when I came aboard.
“Decoys away,” proclaimed the ship.
Kiya leaned back and we shot straight up… at least I think it was up — hard to tell in space. A second later, the incoming missiles blasted the decoys to smithereens.
A little bumpy?! Those explosions shook the soul out of me. And they missed!
Dad was surprisingly calm. “They’re not wasting any time.”
Kiya was calm, too, which was not surprising. “Relax. He’s not a real threat.”
Just then, more explosions rocked the ship.
“That cannon fire seems real enough.” How did Dad know about cannon fire?
Kiya looked up, and I guess the glasses looked with her, ’cause she said, “That’s Derek’s ship,” like she could see it. “He’s an old… friend.”
As if to say Ha! Derek’s cannons exploded against the ship.
Kiya shouted like he could hear her, “You still shoot too quick, Derek!” Then she turned to us, “I know all his moves.” And again, we were blasted — this time harder and longer — making Kiya mad.
“Hang on, we’re going to Tick,” she snapped.
Now Dad was scared. “We haven’t been sedated!”
Without missing a beat, Kiya swung around and kicked Dad in the nose. “Now you have.” Blood spattered all over Dad’s face. He was out cold.
“Holy–” It’s a good thing Dad was unconscious, ’cause I said something he wouldn’t have liked.
Kiya looked at me with wild eyes, “You want to be sedated, too?”
“Uh… no, ma’am!”
“He’ll be fine, don’t worry.”
Derek’s ship did something that made Kiya steer hard to the left. Another explosion. Another near miss. But I was worried about something else.
“They say you’ll go crazy if you Tick without sedating.”
Kiya cocked her leg up like she was going to kick me, too. I winced like a schoolgirl, which is what I was.
“I never sedate do I look crazy to you?”
“Well… yeah!” Hey, it was true. Her eyes were wide with excitement, and her hair had changed color. Instead of the multi-color brown, it was now a glossy black.
Under this new look, she smirked out the closest thing to a smile I’d seen from her. “I like you, kid.” Instead of kicking me, she pressed a button on the console in front of her and we Ticked.
Imagine living your entire life in less than an instant yet experiencing every moment of every day of every year. Then imagine that you don’t like how it turns out, so you go back to where you think it went wrong and live your life all over again — still in less than a second. Don’t like the way that one comes out either? Do it again, and again, and again, and again. Eventually, lifetime after lifetime pile up on each other. You experience every bit of them, from birth to death — but all in less time than it takes to blink. Then just as fast as it started it stops. That’s a small fraction of what it’s like to be awake during a Tick.
Not that it really stopped for me. It actually got worse. The Tick was over, but I was still Tickled, as they call it. When we popped back into Time, the lives began to last a little longer. And it hurt. When someone hit me, I felt it physically. When a loved one died, I felt it emotionally. And millions upon millions of such painful possibilities flooded me all at once. I found myself screaming again.
Through this haze, I heard one voice shouting at me.
“That’s the pain!” It was Kiya’s voice. “Feel it. Let it happen. You can’t run from it. All the emotional pain you’re ever going to feel in your life. Here it is, all at once.”
Her words weren’t exactly helping, but then again I was just barely aware that she was real, and not just another one of the temporary lives flashing before my soul.
“Every broken heart you’ll ever have. Every death. Every loss. Every betrayal. It all happens,” Kiya said.
She wasn’t lying. I felt all of that, and it hurt me to the core. I gave birth and raised a family a thousand-million times. A few of my children died before me. That hurt the most. Sometimes, I died alone, which wasn’t a lot of fun either.
“Let it happen.” Kiya’s tone was quick and to the point, like a doctor performing emergency surgery at the scene of an accident — only she was working on the victim’s emotions.
Somewhere in my head, I became aware of Dad struggling to get out of his chair. “What have you done?”
“She’s just a little Tickled. She’ll be fine.”
“Tickled? You mean insane! Oh, by all that’s holy!”
I still didn’t have a clue which of the lives I was a part of was the one I should be living. Kiya was everywhere, and several of her copies were talking to me. “Everything happens, Nadir!” one would say.
“The good and the bad,” said another.
“You feel the pain first, okay?” I was losing count of them all.
“It’s sharp and it’s overpowering.”
“Breathe, Nadir, remember to breathe…”
This one was good, ’cause suddenly I realized I needed to take in some air. As I did, Dad stepped in front of me. “Come back to me, baby. Come back!”
Kiya stopped him, “Not yet!”
“What?!”
Four or five Kiyas spoke to me. “Stay in it. Don’t deny it. Don’t fight it.”
My multiple Dads were upset. “No, that’s wrong! All of the manuals say–”
“Well, they’re all wrong!” She’d snapped so hard at my Dads and with such conviction that most of them shut up.
The Kiyas turned back to me. “You can’t run away from it, baby. Your life is a big, beautiful, painful mess. It hurts sometimes, right? But not always… right?” I noticed that I was still screaming in fear and pain… had been the whole time. The emotional and physical pain of life was so overwhelming that I didn’t want to live. I couldn’t understand why anyone would choose to live if they knew what I knew at that moment. Life was pain. If I had come out of the Tick right then, I think I would have done anything I could to end my own life.
But Kiya’s words worked their way into my brain. I somehow decided that screaming wasn’t helping.
“Let the pain fall away. Feel the joy. Feel the happiness that’s ahead of you. That’s what stays with you.”
Slowly, I began to see that for every dark moment of pain, there was a brighter, longer, time of enjoyment — usually before it, sometimes after. Light, shadow, then light again.
The Kiyas continued. “Everything happens. The good and the bad. You feel the bad first and most, but it doesn’t last. Don’t linger on it. Find the joy.”
As she said that, the brighter moments blocked out the painful ones. I began to feel warm and comfortable and loved. I must have smiled, ’cause the Kiyas relaxed.
“There’s the joy. It’s nice, isn’t it?”
It was. Kiya’s voice was soothing, but still detached. Her job was to get us safely to Caseri and getting me out of my Tickled state was a part of that.
“Remember every romance, every kiss, every birth, every time you loved someone, and every time they loved you back. Embrace all of the life you’re about to lead.”
The sense of joy was so overpowering. I’d do anything to get it back again. I can understand why people get addicted to being tickled. You can’t imagine how good it feels once you’re past that whole life is too painful to live part.
But just as I closed my eyes to live forever in imaginary bliss, Kiya coaxed me back.
“Sweetie,” she said, like she was my best friend. I think she just couldn’t remember my name. “Come back to us now.”
While she brought me back, she must have grabbed Dad and put him in front of me, because he was be the first thing I saw. “That’s it,” she told me. “Your eyes are open. You can use them now.”
I did, and there was Dad in the flesh. I’d just lived countless lives with him; felt the pain every time he died, and the great joy of every moment I was with him. Once I was with him for real, something inside me said that the actual joy was better than the artificial one I’d just felt in the Tick. I gave him such a big hug that I think I squeezed all the air out of him.
“That was intense!”
Kiya got nonchalant. “Eh. A billion lifetimes in less than an instant… some can’t handle it.”
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Entertainment, Business, VC funding, and Sports read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them 🙂
I’ve had Kiya in my head for so long, I’d like to meet with potential Kiyas. I hesitate to mention anyone specific because I’ll forget someone who might think I did that on purpose. So, I’ll leave it to you: What actresses today do you think would make a fantastic badass big sister to a shy, bookish, young woman just a few years short of going out on her own? I’m thinking someone like (or actually) Miley Cyrus. Zendaya. Tina Turner when she was 19 but looking like she did in Thunder Dome.
Your turn. Tag away!
Also, there is a tete-a-tete scene between my villain and a sick, dying hero that I based on, of all things, the dinner scene in Eugene O’Neill’s “Ah, Wilderness!” What I wouldn’t give to have Ian McShane and Gary Oldman in a rehearsal hall to get that scene on its feet!
Or anyone with enough money to turn the book into a movie. Hey, Jeff Bezos? Elon Musk? Want to partner up with Elena and Dmitry Lesnevsky to shoot this in space at the SEE-1 studio? Let’s do this!
Dreams…
How can our readers further follow your work online?
I’m @RSMellette pretty much everywhere. I’m mostly on Facebook a little bit on Twitter.
Thank you for these excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent. We wish you continued success.
About The Interviewer: Ian Benke is a multi-talented artist with a passion for written storytelling and static visual art — anything that can be printed on a page. Inspired by Mega Man, John Steinbeck, and commercials, I.B.’s science fiction writing and art explore the growing bond between technology and culture, imagining where it will lead and the people it will shape. He is the author of Future Fables and Strange Stories, the upcoming It’s Dangerous to Go Alone trilogy, and contributes to Pulp Kings. The CEO and Co-Founder of Stray Books, and an origami enthusiast, Ian is an advocate of independent, collaborative, and Canadian art. https://ibwordsandart.ca
Author R.S. Mellette On How To Create Compelling Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.