Bill Johnson's A Story 
is a Promise & The Spirit of Storytelling book cover

Science Fiction Corner

by Bill Johnson

My first love as a young reader was science fiction. When I grew up and later in my life began to explore storytelling by breaking down popular stories, my main focus was films and popular fiction. On this page I intend to break down the openings of some of my favorite science fiction novels, progressing to more recent novels in the genre.

My process in breaking down an opening is to set out the first lines or lines, followed by some comments of what makes the opening 'work' as a story. I continue this through 1-3 paragraphs, so I'm really focusing on what about an opening page of the novel pulls a reader forward to read a second page. On my main web site, www.storyispromise.com, I do go into greater depth. For example, I break down the first several pages of the Exorcist.

On my YouTube web site, Oregon Writers Speak, David D Levine (Hugo award winner for Tk'tk'tk) and Mike Shepherd (Chris Longknife) speak about their writing, and Patty Wells speaks about Orycon, a science fiction convention held in Portland.

The novels I'm starting with are:

Night of Masks, Andre Norton
Clans of the Alphane Moon, by Philip K Dick
Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein
Childhood's End, by Arthur C. Clark

The first novel I'm breaking down is Night of Masks, by Andre Norton. The first sentence,

Outside, the day was as gray as the wall behind Nik Kolherne, where he hunched under the arch roof well above his head.

This introduces a character alone and suggests desolation.

The steady drizzle of rain was as depressing as those thoughts he could not push out of his mind, even by the most determined effort.

This next sentence suggests Nik's state of mind, and raises a clear question about why he feels this way. Popular stories are often journeys of feeling, and feelings are what makes characters accessible to an audience. That Nik is depressed by thoughts he cannot escape suggest narrative tension, something that he cannot easily resolve, but that he desires to resolve. Narrative tension generally fuels the main character in a novel; it's what propels them to act in spite of obstacles. Norton here is suggesting Nik's narrative tension ahead of details about what he looks like. Struggling writers generally start with the details which lack meaning.

His thin-fingered hands moved restlessly, smoothing the front of the worn and colorless jump coat that hungs in folds about his thin chest and shoulders.

The details about Nik speak to a truth about his life, that he's poor and destitute outwardly, which reinforce the sense of his life being about inner and outer desolation. As readers, we can now 'see' Nik.

The damp had him shivering, but he made no move to seek shelter through the door immediately behind him.

The end of this first paragraph ends on a powerful question, why does he not seek shelter? This chapter is a strong step forward into the world of this story with the story's main character.

First sentence of second paragraph,

There was shelter inside but nothing else in the big barracks of Dipple.

This sentence begins to suggest the wider world that Nik exists in, but also raises the question, why is there nothing else for him here? What is the 'Dipple?'

Next sentence,

Those without family ties held no more rights than the tentative possession of a bunk, and that only as long as they could defend it, should one of their fellows in misfortune take a liking to it.

This answers a question about the suggestion about Nik's desolation, that he's without family, a refugee. This paragraph sets up the question, refugee from what? And, can he change his status? Or, maintain control over a bed?

Everything about these two paragraphs on this first page operate to draw the reader into this world, and then forward. Two paragraphs, two steps forward. The basic situation Nik's life, and the cause of his narrative tension, his status as a refugee, is made clear. The next sentence of the third paragraph begins to suggest a deeper cause for that tension, coupled with the cover of the novel that shows a young man with a scarred face holding a mask. The offer of a new face would be a powerful inducement to Nik to do things he might not normally agree to do, and would put him into a tremendous state of narrative tension with a situation in life that cannot be easily resolved.

Powerful storytelling.

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Clans of the Alphane Moon

by Philip K. Dick

The first sentence,

Before entering the supreme council room, Gabriel Baines sent his Mans-made simulacrum clacking ahead to see if by chance it might be attacked.

This sentence raises several dramatic questions. Why does Gabriel fear being attacked? What's the nature of this supreme council? Who are the Mans? The sentence also quickly gets across that this story is set in a future time. Although it wouldn't be obvious here, this opening also sets up a scene on my all-time list of funny book scenes, when Gabriel gets in a minor vehicle accident and all the safety systems on his vehicle almost kill him.

The second sentence,

The simulacrum-artfully constructed to resemble Baines in every detail-did many things, since he had been made by the inventive clan of Manses, but Baines only cared to employ it in its maneuvering for defense; defending himself was his sole orientation in life, his claim to membership in the Pare enclave of Adolfville at the north end of the moon.

This sentence gets to the truth about Gabriel and his obsession. Like Nik in Night of Masks, we get to the truth of a character ahead of the details that describe Gabriel. Again, a quick set up of more questions: who are the clan of Manses, and why did they invent simulacrum? What is the Pare enclave? The name Adolfville suggests an exploration of issues of tyranny?

Next paragraph, first sentence,

Baines had of course been outside Adolfville many times, but he felt safe-or rather relatively safe-only here, within the stout walls of this, the Pare city.

There's a question here of why this city has such stout walls.

Next sentence,

Which proved that his claim to membership in the Pare clan was not contrived, a mere simulated technique by which he could gain entry into the most solidly-built, sturdy and enduring urban area anywhere.

The subtle question here is why he would need to claim membership in a clan, and why is this city so solidly-built?

Next sentence,

Baines beyond doubt was sincere...as if there could be any doubt of him.

For example, there was his visit to the incredibly degrading hovels of the Heebs. Recently he had been in search of escaped members of a work brigade; being Heebs they had perhaps straggled back to Gandhitown. The difficulty, however, was that all Heebs, to him at least, looked alike: dirty, stooped creatures in soiled clothing who giggled and could not concentrate on any complicated procedure.

These sentences begin to develop who are the clans of the story. Each clan embodies a different type of mental illness, and the moon is a former mental colony now abandoned and left to the former inmates. When someone from Earth shows up in the middle of a galactic struggle, the clans of the Alphane moon must choose whether to side with humanity or a competing alien race.

This is a very funny, and very observant, novel.

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Stranger in a Strange Land

by Robert A. Heinlein

The first sentence,

Once upon a time there was a Martian named Valentine Michael Smith.

This opening suggests the story to follow is a fable, and raises the potent question, how did a Martian come to have this name?

Next sentence, next paragraph,

The first human expedition to Mars was selected on the theory that the greatest danger to man was man himself.

This sentence sets out an issue for the story to explore, the violence of humanity and human relationships.

At that time, eight Terran years after the founding of the first human colony on Luna, an interplanetary trip made by humans had to be made in free-fall orbits-- from Terra to Mars, two hundred-fifty-eight Terran days, the same for return, plus four hundred fifty-five days waiting at Mars while the planets crawled back into positions for the return orbit.

The previous sentence suggests why this long passage of time will be crucial in this story, because it raises a question of whether the crew on this trip will be able to avoid violent behavior fueled by strained relationships. Without that suggestion to establish what this story is about, the reader would be left with what I call plot questions, about Smith, about the flight itself and the resolution for that. I teach people to make a distinction between story and plot because it's what a story is about that gives meaning to characters and plot. Without that context, readers have to memorize details until the context appears.

Next sentences,

Only by refueling at a space station could the Envoy make the trip. Once at Mars she might return--if she did not crash, if water could be found to fill her reaction tanks, if a thousand things did not go wrong.

These sentences suggest the drama of the voyage, and gets across the point that Heinlein intends to create a quality of realism to the story

This opening chapter, which is two pages long, details how a compatible crew is assembled, that the ship and crew reach Mars. That was the last message received. A very, very powerful question to end the chapter, pulling readers foward to keep reading. That's what powerful stories do. They draw in and maintain a hold on the interest of readers, never letting that go until a story fulfills its promise.

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Childhood's End

by Arthur C. Clark

The title of this novel suggests what the story is about. It becomes clear in the first chapter that the story is about the end of humanity's childhood.

First sentence,

The volcano that had reared Taratua up from the Pacific depths had been sleeping now for half a million years.

The first sentence suggests awakening, and also raises the question, what's happening on this island?

Next sentence,

Yet in a little while, thought Reinhold, the island would be bathed with fires fiercer than any that had attended its birth.

This sentence raises the dramatic question, what could be more firey than a volcano, and, who is Reinhold? His introduction here suggests he's a significant character in the story.

Next sentence,

He glanced towards the launching site, and his gaze climbed the pyramid of scaffolding that still surrounded the "Columbus."

This sentence answers the question, why this island. It also raises the question, what is the Columbus? The word fiery suggests a vehicle to be launch.

Next sentence,

Two hundred feet above the ground, the ship's prow was catching the last ray's of the descending sun. This was one of the last nights it would ever know: soon it would be floating in the eternal sunshine of space.

This paragraph suggests that the childhood's end of the title will be people leaving their birth home of earth for a journey to the stars. The body of the prologue, which is four pages long, ends with a stunning revelation that the end of childhood for humanity has arrived in a different guise.

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The Spell Sword is a novel in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series. The novel begins with an intriquing first sentence:

He had followed a dream, and it had brought him hear to die.

Some of the questions, who is he, what is his dream, where is he that he faces death?

Half conscious, he lay on the rocks and thin moss of the mountain crevasse, and in his dazed state it seemed to him that the girl he had seen in that earlier dream stood before him.

This second sentence begins to answer the question, where is he, and sets out that a girl is part of his dream. The answers in the second sentence raise new questions: who is the girl, where is this crevasse.

You ought to be laughing, Andrew Carr said to her imagined face. If it weren't for you I'd be halfway across the galaxy by now.

Not laying here half dead on a frozen lump of dust at the edge of nowhere.

These sentences give the narrator a name, and suggest that somehow this girl interrupted what he felt was his purpose in life. There's also the question of how he ended up in this place.

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I break down other novels, plays, and films at my web site, A Story is a Promise. I teach this method of breaking down stories to help teach the principles of creating a powerful, dramatic novel.