Melanie Bell

SFF Book Recommendations and Aristotle’s Building Blocks of Writing

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Writing is a holistic activity, but when it comes to honing our craft, it’s useful to break it down into parts. The June 30 episode of Writing Excuses, a podcast about the craft of writing that focuses primarily on fantasy and science fiction (SFF), introduced Aristotle’s elements of tragedy. These six aspects of writing apply to modern storytelling as easily as they did to ancient Greek plays. While Aristotle placed these elements in a specific order of importance, the authors on Writing Excuses argue that their relative importance changes based on what an author is trying to achieve. In my opinion, there’s no better way to make use of this theory than by looking at how it applies to books that do each element well. Below, I share how each element is used in an SFF book I recently read and loved. Take these examples as a starting point rather than a be-all and end-all. And, if you’re writing a work in progress, think about how Aristotle’s elements apply to it and which ones you want to emphasize. 

Aristotle ranked plot as the most important element of tragedy, and a tightly plotted yarn certainly keeps us reading. In Children of Blood and Bone, the divîner caste in the West African-inspired land of Orïsha have been brutally oppressed since the king eliminated their magic. Young Zélie finds a scroll that temporarily reignites these powers and gets caught up in a plan to bring magic back for good. This novel is tightly plotted and action packed. Each chapter ratchets up the tension, with gladiator battles, kidnapping, and an epic hero’s journey.

Three women take turns narrating this loose retelling of Rumpelstiltskin, and protagonist Miryem has the standout character arc. The daughter of a Jewish moneylender who is too softhearted (and frightened of persecution) to ask for his money back, Miryem resolves to turn around her struggling family’s fortunes and takes over her father’s job. She teaches herself to be relentless and drive a hard bargain. Her skills attract the attention of the mystical Staryk king, who wants to make use of her ability to “turn silver to gold.” Miryem’s evolution from daughter of a struggling family to skilled and hardened moneylender to strong-willed leader is a delight to witness.     

The Tensorate universe is founded on ideas. It has a carefully crafted magic system that involves entering the “slack” and “tensing” different elements to achieve effects. It’s a world where children choose their own gender in their own time and are considered genderless until then. Yang’s two novellas follow the twin children of this world’s dictatorial leader as they choose divergent paths, Akeha (Black Tides) becoming male and leading a rebel faction, Mokoya (Red Threads) becoming female and hunting monsters in the wake of personal tragedy. This intricacies of the magic and gender systems are fascinating and thoroughly explored. What happens when someone falls through the gaps, or thinks they know the rules but might be missing something? Yang has thought of that, too.        

One of the joys of an odd-couple cop story is the interplay between the pair. This novella’s two space sleuths are Long Chau, a consulting detective with a drug addiction and a hidden past, and The Shadow’s Child, a sentient spaceship traumatized from past military service who now makes a living (barely) by brewing and selling tea blends that keep customers’ minds clear in deep space. Long Chau approaches The Shadow’s Child for two things: tea and transport into the deep spaces that still trigger her trauma in order to find a corpse to study. The mysterious circumstances of said corpse’s death lead the pair to investigate. De Bodard’s dialogue is understated, with formal tones conveying the characters’ wariness around each other. Gaps in conversation show where they leave things unsaid and where Long Chau misses social nuances. At times, the characters are edgy and snarky:

 “I’m writing a treatise on decomposition. How the human body changes in deep space is a shamefully undervalued area of study.”

“I can see why you’d be a success at local poetry clubs,” The Shadow’s Child said, wryly.

There’s a lot to appreciate in this story, and the dialogue is one element that works to show evolution in the characters’ fragile trust.

Astrid has spent her whole life on the Matilda, a spaceship that has carried humanity’s survivors for generations towards a promised land. It’s a brutal milieu, divided by nation-like decks, where the lower deckers (intersex people of color) are subjugated and forced to work on the revolving plantation deck. Astrid discovers that the journals of her late mother, an engineer, hold a secret code and that the Matilda’s bouts of power loss and illness may be more significant than anyone realized. Astrid is a nuanced and brilliant protagonist on the autism spectrum whose formal diction sets her apart from fellow lower-deckers, and the inhabitants of each deck in turn are distinguished by their language. Solomon imbues each shipboard culture with its own turns of phrase, use of pronouns, expressions, and cadences. The music that gives shape to this novel’s worldbuilding is exquisite.

Spectacle means putting on a good show. Kuhn’s fantastically fun urban fantasy, the first in a trilogy (with a follow-up novella and more to come soon), is full of flash and dazzle. Evie is the put-upon personal assistant to superheroine Aveda, her longtime best friend. But when Aveda is injured in a demon fight, Evie is called on to impersonate her, and the fire power she’s worked so hard to hide may be the very thing that saves the day. In SFF, spectacle can happen through worldbuilding and description as well as through action scenes. The heroes in Heroine Complex fight fanged cupcakes, and one of the pivotal battles takes place during a karaoke contest. Bring on the popcorn!  

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