Back in 1958, at the dawn of the space race, the USAF made a proposal for a secret project to beat the Soviets even before they had even launched a single astronaut into suborbital flight. The aim of Project A119 was to detonate a nuclear bomb on the Moon. Top secret for more than 30 years, it only became known when Carl Sagan leaked the 1959 paper 'Radiological Contamination of the Moon by Nuclear Weapons Detonations'. 1

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Nowadays this all seems obscene and futile - why nuke the Moon? And it even struck people within the loop as disgustingly vile, though not of course the military men, who were all for it. Ten years after Sagan's leak, another leak out of Russia confirmed that the Soviet Union had their own plan to nuke our nearest neighbouring celestial object. If things had gone just a little differently, then, the history of the space race would have been of the major powers using the Moon as a nuclear battleground just for show, a cosmic pissing contest of tragi-comic proportions. 2

Later, in 1969, when Apollo 12 landed next to the Surveyor 3 probe, commander Pete Conrad sawed a piece off and took it back to Earth. Though the piece had been on the Moon for two years, viable streptococcus bacteria were found on it, presumably dating from before launch. We had contaminated the Moon with our microbes. Strict biological controls were put in place by NASA for future missions.

All of this is to emphasise that the Moon is presently an all-but-pristine environment. It doesn't have a biosphere (yet), but it is already part of our ecosystem. An ecosystem is defined as “a system that environments and their organisms form through their interaction,” and the Moon already interacts with us through its gravitational influence. The ecosphere of the Earth is traditionally described as being the planetary surface and the ocean depths, and extends up to the heights that life can exist. But once human life, or even our industrial products, start moving to and from the Moon, then it can be clearly seen that a significant interaction is taking place beyond just the tidal pull.

Too often the rhetoric of Moon (and Interplanetary) colonization just skates over this awkward fact of interdependency without a thought. It is a holdover from the days of colonization of the European conquistadores and settlers from the 16th to 19th centuries, a time when explorers imagined that 'virgin lands' were there, unoccupied, just for the taking. Though it's true that the Moon is indeed unoccupied (unless the rumours of a secret Nazi base on the darkside are correct), it still behooves us to pause a little and take stock before we trample over the last untouched territory within our Earth-Moon system. 3 4 5

Quick Fixes for Slow Problems

Another danger with regard to exploiting the Moon, though this is shared with space exploration more generally and in fact with all high-tech enterprises, is the temptation of illusory 'quick fix' solutions to our urgent Earth-bound problems. Energy crunch? Just set up solar power stations that beam energy down via microwave, no matter that nobody can see how that might work in practice. Global warming? Just seed the polar zones with something reflective to boost albedo (tonal lightness), making the lighter-colored surface reflect more heat.

Well-meaning, and also fraudulent, technical solutions like this have seen the media and investors obsess about carbon-fixing gizmos while cutting down the forests, which have naturally regulated carbon since the dawn of time without need for lithium batteries or miniaturization/pressurization technologies that don't yet exist. 6

I swear, if I hear another "tech start-up" telling us they have a way of making diamonds from the atmosphere, I'm gonna burn my copy of the Alchemist's Manual, carbon emissions be damned. Yet that's one of the curses of ecological discourse: the problem is known, the fixes too, but nobody wants to take those steps, so the magical thinking of 'tech progress' intervenes.

If there's one thing that is more attractive to news media than catastrophe, it's gleamy Blender animations where glossy white pieces of apparatus work unknown wonders. CNBC is almost wall-to-wall vaporware by now.

I digress, but not by very much, for the slick Blender animation is also a speciality of both NASA and SpaceX, and both august organizations have gone to the Moon many times now, if only in animated form. At present NASA is announcing with a straight face that the Artemis III mission will deliver humans to the lunar surface in 2026, despite the lack of a lunar lander. This latter space vehicle is a modified version of the SpaceX starship, which is yet to make a successful flight, and many years from being approved for human flight, or crew-rated.

The New Space Race and the Moon Scramble

So the moon race is on, 2020s style, with confused goals, multiple players and wavering interest among an apathetic public. Unlike the clear two-way sprint of the 1960s, which was designed only to touch base, this madcap dash is more similar to the 19th-century "Scramble for Africa" where multiple powers are contending to claim territory so they can exploit its resources. Only the lack of a native population at the other end is different.

At present the US, both public and private agencies, China, India, and possibly Russia, are headed for the Moon. Japan and the Gulf Arab states are not far behind. The US is ahead in CGI simulations and projected completion dates for projects that haven't yet started, while China and India are ahead in actual hardware touched down on the lunar regolith. The following short video from PBS is an excellent primer both as to the importance of the Moon (which is mostly forgotten) and the present state of play in the scramble itself:

What's there to exploit? A few things, in fact: water to facilitate life in space itself, which can be invaluable in further human exploration. Then there’s lunar soil for construction materials, allowing (with water) concrete constructions of space stations and even huge O'Neill colonies and Stanford Tori, space cities in Earth-Moon orbit, as well as the aforementioned space power stations. And finally, and arguably most importantly: He-3, a rare isotope of helium which if fusion power becomes a reality promises almost unlimited energy at little cost.

Though rare and impossibly expensive to synthesize, He-3 is relatively common on the lunar surface. It's what Sam Rockwell was harvesting in Duncan Jones's excellent sci-fi black comedy “Moon” (2009). It's of such potential value that it may well one day be commercially justified to send not one operative but an unlimited series of clones to exploit this almost-magical resource.

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Four Outcomes for Moon Exploration

Given that the scramble is on, and nothing is likely to stop it short of global catastrophe (which, well... never mind), it's clearly an appropriate moment to look ahead and try to envision likely scenarios for the New Lunar Age of Exploitation/Exploration.

Preserve the Moon as a virgin reserve, with only scientific missions permitted and no colonies or mining operations.

The Moon stays just about as she is today. Only an international agreement is required for this to take effect. You might assume that this is the de facto state of the Moon today, and it more-or-less is, but it really needs a formal global declaration for this outcome to become ironclad.

The existing Outer Space Treaty, which explicitly includes the Moon, states that "outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means." But if history teaches us anything, it's that such provisions fall by the wayside when valuable resources are up for grabs. And while it forbids claims of sovereignty, it doesn't explicitly outlaw "use", meaning the exploitation of resources. For this Virgin Reservation concept to have any effect it needs to become restated more explicitly regarding the Moon and ratified by all countries, not only the major powers. 7

Parcel out territories according to internationally-agreed criteria through a central planning authority.

The UN, or an adjacent international body agreed upon by the international community, allocates parcels of lunar territory that individual states would be allowed to settle and exploit.

Those states would then presumably be free to license private enterprises to exploit those resources, or not, as they see fit. Though in principle this seems easy to implement, and is of course the preferred option for statists everywhere, it has formidable obstacles in practice, nearly all of them political. These include but are not limited to: diminished authority and prestige of international bodies like the UN, the fact that some lunar territories (such as the South Polar Shackleton Crater zone) are infinitely more valuable than others, and the need for ongoing political will of nation-states to enforce the authority's dictates. Any cursory look at an international body like the UN, NATO, or the EU, will immediately reveal how difficult this last issue may become. On the other hand, the example of the Antarctic as a territory administered in this way shows that the obstacles are far from insuperable. All that’s required is leadership and goodwill between nations. 8

Market-based systems drive equitable outcomes for the international community’s exploration of the Moon and its economic benefits.

This brings us to author and space activist Michael Turner's proposal, A Rawlsian approach to Lunar Equity (forthcoming, unpublished). 9

Wisely, it doesn't promise us the Moon; what it offers is a way of using lunar exploration as a wedge issue to introduce equity on Earth, a framework for introducing "market mechanisms for ensuring fairness in the equity of lunar enterprises".

Basically, it posits a "Rawlsian" bidding system where the participants - in theory again nation-states but also including the possibility of private enterprises - bid for territory on the Moon. Proceeds are used to fund offsets in environmental damage (including the diminished lunar gravity on Earth that results from massive extraction) and also generate sovereign wealth funds for fair distribution. It's a complex system which is difficult to summarize in few words, but does at least offer some way of bringing order to the chaos which would otherwise result.

Because of course, if none of these aforementioned solutions are acceptable or brought into effect in time, then by default the outcome will be...

Wild West Free-for-All

This is the option that seems easiest to understand. We’ve seen it often enough in the previous history of colonization, most famously in the Wild West of the US in the 19th century. Pitch your tent, stake your claim, mine or farm your stake. This time there are no Native peoples to displace, no herds of buffalo to extinguish. What could go wrong?

But in fact, it's far more complex than it appears, and there is plenty that can go wrong. First is the sheer danger of space exploration. Absent angry native resistance, hostile wildlife or virulent disease, the life of a settler might not seem so bad. Arduous, maybe, but not much more dangerous than staying at home. But flying space missions is hazardous in the extreme, even for uncrewed missions where absurdly valuable hardware is in play. Any added disorder in this system simply magnifies the risk by unknown increments.

Then there is the unknown consequence factor. Already there’s been mention of the fact that extreme exploitation of lunar material will have an effect in the diminishing of lunar gravity, including tides, on the Earth. What if one zone, the South Polar Region, for example, were mined to the exclusion of all other areas? Would the resulting lunar wobble be trivial or serious? The time to wonder about that is now, not after the oscillations begin. Finally, there is the sheer ugliness and lack of fairness that a scramble like this represents. Wealth distribution on Earth is already absurdly unfair and unproductive. What would we gain if the exploitation of the Moon simply made the oligarchs we already have that much incrementally richer?

Maybe my early sci-fi consumption has influenced my thinking on this issue. When I was a kid, the Gerry Anderson TV series “Space 1999” was a great draw for the youthful viewing public of the UK. In the pilot episode, Moonbase Alpha’s nuclear waste dump explodes after an industrial accident, sending the Moon spinning off its orbit and into deep space adventures. Nonsense of course, but the idea of some kind of environmental catastrophe following extreme exploitation of the Moon is not so far-fetched. Perhaps we should consider more seriously our responsibility to our closest celestial body and most ancient goddess before we sully her beyond remedy.

Conclusion

It seems clear that one's preference for how lunar exploration will develop - and make no mistake, it will develop whether we think about it or not - is based on one's existing political beliefs and concerns about the environment. My own preference would be for the first option, in the words of a famous orange statesman, "a complete shutdown until we can figure out just what the hell is going on here." The Moon will always be there, and options for exploring and even exploiting her may well develop that are not so flagrantly damaging. But at the same time, I accept that there is a lot of impatience to get the whole space-exploration behemoth underway, and the Moon is logically the place to go, many many decades before Mars is anything other than a lethal fantasy.

Perhaps then Turner's Rawlsian scheme? If this plan, or something like it, can actually work out on the far-off Lunar surface, then it promises a way to reintroduce Rawlsian fairness or equity everywhere. Time and again the study returns to this point: "What we are concerned with here is fair global social welfare from lunar exploitation." And it's absolutely true that if off-Earth exploration, whether to the Moon or Mars or anywhere else, is going to mean something, it shouldn't just be a repeat of Wild-West style rape of resources, where private enterprise is allowed to plunder at will, merely making the absurdly rich that much pointlessly richer. Either we all benefit - but really, not from nonsensical trickle-down fairytales, but from real equitable outcomes - or we mustn't go at all.

Authors, editors and newsletter navel gazers were recently embroiled in another discussion about the nature of traditional book publishing, its seedy underbelly of backdoor dealings and mysteriously cloudy sales metrics. Who is buying books, who is writing them and ultimately who is reading them, has once again sucked all of us unwittingly into arguments that haven’t been this ferocious since Amazon launched the Kindle Store. Will eBooks decimate the world of physical books? Tune in, twenty years from now, when the question will remain unanswered.

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To say I don’t care about the machinations of the traditional book publishing beast would be an understatement, although as an author who self-publishes and who founded the Lunar Awards, it would be careless to ignore the industry and what it can offer my fellow writers. My goal is to highlight independent authors and good writing, hopeful that fiction writers in our midst would gain exposure and notoriety for their stories instead of their tweets. There are a few already that I believe will experience success by their own standards. I encourage them to use whatever means are at their disposal and that still allows them to practice their craft with sincerity.

I have no ill will toward any author’s sales and marketing tactics, be they legal and honest, and conceptually the idea of selling out has no merit in today’s gig economy. Find an agent, don’t find an agent, self-publish or don’t, it’s all secondary and inconsequential to the act of writing. But that’s a discussion for another time.

As for me, the desire to write a full-blown novel has yet to grab hold, the only creative force I have constantly inspiring me to write short stories instead. While perceived-as-serious writers focus primarily on longer works — easier to pitch and sell to agents and gather a large audience — a few of us are wholeheartedly embracing the peculiar art of short form fiction. According to common wisdom, it’s the inverse of how success is typically achieved. Only established authors who have published longer works are given the privilege by agents and publishers to express themselves in less than ten thousand words.

Short stories have always been seen as a stepping stone, a method of learning to crawl before we walk and then eventually run to the bank to cash our exorbitant advances. As infants, we are primed with picture books, graduate to little readers and then eventually move on to chapter books. For those of us who continue to enjoy fictional, marvelous universes, we eventually evolve intellectually or pop culturally (if there is such an evolution) to ingest a series, discussing it rabidly with fellow fans. We’re not taught to move backwards, because isn’t that what a short story is, moving backwards?

No, nobody that I know has said such a thing, but it’s implied for both writers and readers. We’re taught that short story collections don’t sell and aren’t remembered, unless you’re a Ray Bradbury or an Isaac Asimov, and even then, many of those stories are collected works written first for literary magazines elsewhere. Short stories are practice pieces for honing one’s craft, or to fill the creative void between something grander. It’s how Stephen King got started before his rise to stardom, so it must be true this is the approved method for attaining greatness.

I don’t disagree with the practice part. New writers should not cut their teeth on novels. They should write vignettes, brief dialogs, even fill pages with long droning expositions so they can get the meaningless drivel out of their system. Submitting finished short fiction pieces also teaches the resilience required to enter the industry, providing new authors an opportunity to discover their voice, and to discover if traditional publishers will be interested in hearing it. These rejections are necessary for improvement, hopefully stoking a passionate fire to press on instead of forcing authors to wallow in self-pity and doubt.

I understand the economics of the matter. When was the last time you walked into a bookstore and asked for a good short story recommendation? There are genres that contain collections, those curated works pruned for a discerning audience, but you can’t purchase a single short. Trying to do so will result in confused looks by overworked customer service representatives, who will shove “The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke” in your face and tell you to go away. Short stories must exist as a unified cohort, the most esteemed of which are called an anthology. There are occasional attempts to proffer singles in digital form, but unlike music singles, which can become a viral sensation overnight, short stories are hard sells as one-shots.

And yet there is something special about a short story that simply can’t be achieved as a novel. In a novel you can make longstanding friends and learn about the patterns of life that change people or cause them to become completely undone. However, trying to qualify a friendship is impossible to do with strangers. Summing up the whole of all experiences, public and private, the gravity attracting you to another individual, requires the same commitment as actually writing the novel. It wreaks havoc on popular book recommendations, where responses fall under two categories: loved it or hated it. Sounds like friendship.

This is easier to accomplish with a short story. As a mechanism for crossing boundaries, for relaying complex information and ideas, the short story is the perfect medium. They are the hilarious anecdotes told around the coffee maker, the inspirational graduation speech from a business magnate or the gruesome details an uncle shares about the war. They are even the ramblings of an addicted homeless man on the corner and the lonely little old lady in the checkout line. These are powerful, electric connections that can succinctly teach us about character during bouts of anxiety and familiar struggle.

The first short story I remember vividly is The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell and then The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. I read them both in middle school, an impressionable age when we ruthlessly question our sense of self, which could explain why they left a mark. The same could be said of any short story, which pierces our facade, digging into the bone and marrow when we’re at our most vulnerable. It’s why I love writing short stories and why they need to be elevated beyond the black sheep of the family, looked down upon as a lesser child.

In our present world, the short story has the greatest capacity for influence. Books like “Animal Farm”, “Fahrenheit 451”, “A Brave New World” and “1984” will always be available as warnings, harbingers of doomsday scenarios we should avoid, but they are academically tainted. We treat them as textbooks, to be analyzed constantly, their impact dwindling as the years erode. What we need are earthquake inducing short stories, fantasy and science fiction that speaks to a generation with dwindling attention spans. The failure or success of traditional book publishing could rest in the hearts and hands of a younger generation who is no longer capable of digesting long form fiction. How will the growing divide be bridged? How will we steal the attention of slaves incessantly pleasured by digital masters?

I’m aware of the stakes as I prepare my second collection of short stories for print publication. The thoughts of mortality in mid-life are intensifying. There is a growing desire to leave behind a prolific and influential set of individual works that connect deeply with readers, to personally transform an audience if possible, and at the very least to make an indelible mark on future society. It’s one reason why I first publish short stories via newsletter on Future Thief, readily available for anyone to digest. I’m optimistic they’ll one day be too powerful to ignore, no longer requiring a defense.

Future Thief

Fantasy and science fiction short stories. Liminal Spaces is where I share personal observations about life's transitional states.

By Brian Reindel 👾⚔️

Within the pages of a mysterious document are the detailed accounts of a monstrous infestation, a parasite living off the souls of tortured people. The document appears without notice on a computer or smart phone and once read, pulls a person unwillingly into a continuous story of suffering. The being manifested, an ambassador representing the underworld, can take many forms, some resembling human characteristics, albeit misshapen and twisted. Other times it takes on the form of a Lovecraftian beast or a less corporeal shape, a mere shadow waiting in our closets or clinging to the walls. But one aspect is consistent — the name, the name we now know and fear — The Suff.

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Born of the Mundane

Like many urban legends, The Suff was born of a rather strange, yet innocuous occurrence. , the founder of Macabre Monday on Substack (the platform providing this newsletter), posted a Note regarding a document he could not delete. It had no origin that he could remember, only a name that invoked dread, a situation he brought to the attention of the broader horror and speculative community for investigation and conjecture.

I believe took on the first story, directly writing about the cursed document, set in the current day. It wasn't until created the infamous picture of the old man with long arms that others started to write about the omniscient being that we've all come to know. was the first to write about The Suff being an entity and going back in history. Passed that, the gloves were off and people were inspired to create a massive timeline of events that involved the Suff.

~ Jeff Kinnard

Urban legends like The Suff are similar to Slender Man, a creepypasta Internet meme within the horror genre that is the result of a prompt or shared experience. These often involve fictional supernatural characters grounded in a mundane reality, given a dramatic flair and stretched to the limits of understanding. In the case of Slender Man, created by Something Awful forum user Eric Knudsen, the creature is a man depicted as a thin, unnaturally tall humanoid with a featureless white head and face, wearing a black suit. In opposition, The Suff tends to take on a less distinctive form but is still considered Substack’s first true urban legend.

Gibberish

Crunch: The Suff

Jeff Kinnard has been cursed: The Chronicler and several others—among them Michael S. Atkinson and Sara Dietz have fueled speculation about this mysterious document, The Suff. I volunteered to offer an attempt to bring it to life. If you have ideas for Prompts, Crunches, Sprints, Relays, Stretches, or other writing exercises in the future, please leave them in the comments! If you would like to write your own…

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2 years ago · 29 likes · 25 comments · Scoot

On the surface, urban legends are created for a myriad of reasons: to explain the unexplainable, to convey moral lessons, reflect the ills of society and most often for frightful entertainment. The Suff first arose from the imaginative depths of Substack writers in order to explain the unexplainable. A document appears, and in some cases, a story unfolds from its pages, digital or analog. The one who discovers it must finish the story. In the worst cases, the unfolding tale finds its way back into the document, a chronicle of events mirroring the tragedy of an unwilling participant. While not a requirement of an urban legend’s inception, the reasons stated tend to give additional weight or power to it.

Manifested in Reality

The best urban legends, those that endure through the ages, are given freedom to manifest in reality and don’t always adhere to a strict dogma. Direct first-person narratives, film, photography and art that illustrate a live encounter tend to take on an increased frenzy of notoriety and longevity. This was the case with the rise in “creepy clown” or “killer clown” sightings in 2016. The fear of clowns, known as coulrophobia, was exacerbated by Stephen King’s book It, and a cinema reboot in 2017. Many thought the sightings were a marketing campaign for the upcoming release. However, the locations, makeup and experiences of witnesses were too unique to attribute to the film.

What proliferated accounts of killer clowns prowling corn fields and forests late at night was an increase in the number of participants, either as clowns themselves or social documentarians uploading YouTube videos. It’s unlikely the phenomenon would have continued if nobody could provide evidence of creepy figures roaming the streets in colorful wigs and large clown shoes, wielding bloodied weapons. Media organizations as well as police departments began to take notice, issuing warnings about the behavior, for fear that real harm would eventually come to those confronting the clowns.

Naptime Novelist

Untraceable

I couldn’t put my finger on why The Suff, the urban legend that sprouted up on Substack recently, seemed eerily familiar. Then it hit me. This is a short story that I wrote for a prompt-based competition back in January of 2023, and Substack’s new favorite Lovecraftian Being may have made an appearance…

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2 years ago · 11 likes · 3 comments · Bridget Riley

This is one aspect of The Suff that may prevent the urban legend from gaining ground outside of the Substack platform. Stories are sure to be written, and the direction of the lore will ebb and flow depending on community interest, but it’s ability to find a foothold in the real world could be limited. Bringing The Suff to the attention of a wider audience requires a more defined existence, the very thing which limits the legend’s ability to morph into something terror inducing. Often times, the direct influence increases popularity, while the remaining mysterious elements can produce greater fear and social anxiety.

Anxiety Inducing

This anxiety is a key characteristic of any urban legend, and The Suff is no different, containing an element of plausibility that forces us to face uncomfortable truths. Finding an unfamiliar document on any digital device reminds us of the havoc a computer virus can wreak, a natural emotional response, but it’s made worse when the document’s contents are ominous and familiar. Solid details need to be present in order to grow the legend, while leaving it ambiguous enough to amplify fear. It’s a natural tendency to bend the facts to supernatural proportions when people are forced to use their imaginations to fill in the gaps.

Twisting the Myths

A Quick Tale: There Is No Escape...

I’m sending out a special email because I am SO jumping on this bandwagon because it is too fun. Enjoy. And remember… She wrote it as a throw away joke. Something she barely gave a second thought once it was sent. As she went about her day, she noticed movement out of the corner of her eye. A chill down her spine. The feeling of being watched…

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2 years ago · 31 likes · 9 comments · Patricia J.L. 👻🧶🖊️

Stories of urban legends like The Suff turn safe settings of family and the bedroom into sources of fear. Ordinary occurrences in everyday surroundings are the perfect opportunity to induce anxiety, in some cases violating social norms to the extent it causes revulsion. For example, it’s not normal to consume live insects for food, but it’s the sort of dichotomy which stimulates an irrational response. Attaching an urban legend to existing societal anxieties can be even more powerful, such as disease and unrest. Although, the more personal and relevant, the higher the likelihood people are to move the legend from their minds into their realities.

Conclusion

It’s possible The Suff will return as variations on its current form or fall totally into obscurity. It’s also possible another urban legend will rise up from the ashes of The Suff, taking over Substack with a heightened level of ferocity. It’s hard to imagine, given how quickly The Suff gained popularity, becoming a fixture of speculative authors on the platform. Several stories that were referenced throughout this essay can be found in the linked post below, as well as links to further explorations of the character and myth. If you’re interested in participating, be sure to tag Jeff Kinnard, founder of Macabre Monday. Or stop on by and read through many of the horrifically entertaining entries.

Macabre Monday

Lunaediesophobia (Loo-Nay-Die-So-Fo-Bee-A) - an abnormal fear or hatred for Monday. Fear not, you found the antidote. The best of horror can be found here, celebrated by it's community. Recommendations, discussions, contests, and more await you..

By Jeff Kinnard

If you find a document named The Suff, it’s best to delete it before opening… unless you want the legend to become reality.

“The Suff”: a comprehensive timeline

On April 28, 2003, Linden Lab announced the public beta of Second Life [1], the software company’s virtual society, which replicated the real world as an online world with a full-blown digital economy. The exchange of real money for virtual currency fascinated financial experts, and the continued adoption of broadband access motivated large masses of users to live alternate, albeit synthetic lives on the internet. Visions previously birthed from the imaginations of science fiction authors materialized in front of a ready and willing audience.

"To date, thousands of people have been early pioneers in Second Life, building the foundations of a vibrant online society that has the complexity and texture of the real world," said Philip Rosedale, CEO and founder of Linden Lab. "... the in-world economy is booming — residents have bought and sold everything from designer fashions to sophisticated weapons in over 30,000 transactions. We are eager to see how the world will evolve and flourish as we open Second Life to an even broader audience."

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While the rise and fall of Second Life requires its own case study, it helped satisfy a burgeoning desire for robust virtual worlds. Conceptually, the combination of the software with the World Wide Web brought everyone one step closer to what the author William Gibson envisioned in his novel Neuromancer. The book is credited with launching the cyberpunk movement, the term “Cyberspace” as well as a virtual reality where users “jack in” and navigate a 3D space representing both data and simulations. 

Second Life followed on the heels of some of the first MMORPGs, Meridian 59, EverQuest and Ultima Online, which proved in the very least that the real world would soon compete with the virtual world for people’s time and resources. At its peak, games like World of Warcraft (WoW), sucked in players with the gravitational pull of a black hole, giving rise to the term “WoW widows”, women with life partners who may as well be dead due to their gaming addiction. Interacting with living, breathing humans could no longer compete with these vast fantastic game worlds.

In South Korea (which often takes the top spot for the fastest broadband network and most wired culture), cybercafes became a mainstay of the landscape. Young men, disenfranchised with the harsh demands of traditional responsibility and the working world, spent unhealthy amounts of time drawn into online fantasies. One of the first publicized instances of the dangers came out of Taegu, South Korea. Lee Seung Seop dropped dead playing World of Warcraft for 50 hours straight. [2]

“He was so concentrated on his game that he forgot to eat and sleep. He died of heart failure brought on by exhaustion and dehydration,” said Park Young Woo, a psychiatrist at Taegu Fatima Hospital, where Lee died.

Years later, stories like Lee’s are commonplace, with parents neglecting children, lifelong relationships ending, and teenagers being sucked into a fabricated universe of social media influencers, fake friendships, catfish scenarios and bullying.  Even so, the current generation of children will never know a time when a large portion of their lives isn’t spent online, playing video games, watching videos, chatting with friends and relatives and even taking classes. The focus and direction are not shifting, and companies are investing billions betting on our real lives becoming entangled with and indistinguishable from our virtual lives.  

The Big Metaverse Bet

Virtual reality, an evolution of that seamless engagement, promised since its inception to remove several of the barriers to a true immersive online experience. Distractions would fall by the wayside as technology allowed for a full 365-degree view, usually requiring a headset. Haptic (tactile) suits offered a chance to experience a wide range of haptics mimicking full body sensations by varying amplitude, frequency, and amperage, delivered via electrodes.

As component costs decreased, companies like Oculus, HTC, Samsung and Playstation infused more cash into the next generation of the technology. Most of the investment came in the form of games, with casual nods to movies, concerts and sports venues. That was until Facebook bet big on the metaverse, a term coined by author Neal Stephenson in his 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash. The metaverse, a loaded term that can mean different things to different people and companies, is at its core the collective digital space shared between the real world and virtual world. It promises a nearly permanent melding of the two, a proposition advertised as a revolutionary ideal by Facebook.

The 2021 metaverse promotional video, which is still available to watch on YouTube, ended with Mark Zuckerberg announcing the complete rebranding of Facebook to Meta, a hard commitment to their ambitious goals. But anyone watching the video quickly realized for all of its vision, it lacked purpose.  

“The Metaverse also suffered from an acute identity crisis. A functional business proposition requires a few things to thrive and grow: a clear use case, a target audience, and the willingness of customers to adopt the product. Zuckerberg waxed poetic about the Metaverse as "a vision that spans many companies'' and "the successor to the mobile internet," but he failed to articulate the basic business problems that the Metaverse would address.” [3]

For as much as Meta’s metaverse failure can be attributed to Zuckerberg’s hubris and a general distaste for the lackluster presentation, it also arrived at the tail end of lockdowns and COVID restrictions. The launch coincided with a stark realization for the general populace; as much as we embrace our online habits and enjoy our virtual worlds, the medium must be consumed on our own terms and within reasonable limits. Watching a company espouse the virtues of a work and play culture devoid of in-person learning and living hinted at Orwellian outcomes. To a great extent, we control our lived reality, but we recognize within our subconscious the metaverse would be controlled by a megacorporation and its advertisers.

According to Business Insider, the company stopped pitching the Metaverse to advertisers, despite spending more than $100 billion in research and development on its mission to be "Metaverse first." Meta's internal metaverse and VR efforts, which posted a loss of nearly $14 billion in a single year, have drawn scrutiny from Wall Street as they have yet to turn a profit. [4] The company appears to have shifted focus, embracing AI as the next profit center, an effort that is already falling behind competitors in the space like Google, Microsoft and OpenAI.

But for all of AI’s advertised (and likely overhyped) efficiencies, it may still fade into the background, to be compared with virtual reality as admirable, but lacking in long term prospects. Conversely, biotechnology advancements are maturing well beyond infancy and showing continued progress with a promising future. While AI, the metaverse and virtual realities provide primarily entertainment value with some business value, they do not improve the human condition, enhancing our physiological, intellectual or psychological capabilities. For that, we must consider transhumanism, the next and possibly last frontier of human evolution.

More Human Than Human

At its core, a transhumanist is an individual who espouses the philosophical and intellectual movement toward combining human biology with technology to transcend our natural capabilities. To think this is presently relegated to science fiction or exists on the fringes of society, is to forget the prosthetics industry is valued at more than USD $2 billion, and according to some sources could be as high as USD $10 billion. 

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A number of videos on YouTube illustrate the positive emotional impact cochlear implants have on patients who are hearing impaired. Prosthetic limbs, which have existed in some form for hundreds of years, have advanced in the last decade to attach directly to a human skeletal structure, and are controlled wirelessly through electrical signals sent from the brain. Much of this technology is expensive, available only to the wealthiest individuals, but it posits a near future full of transhumanist possibilities.

On September 19, 2023, Neuralink, founded by Elon Musk, announced recruitment for clinical trials. Neuralink’s mission is to “Create a generalized brain interface to restore autonomy to those with unmet medical needs today and unlock human potential tomorrow.” According to the press release:

“We are happy to announce that we’ve received approval from the reviewing independent institutional review board and our first hospital site to begin recruitment for our first-in-human clinical trial. The PRIME Study (short for Precise Robotically Implanted Brain-Computer Interface) – a groundbreaking investigational medical device trial for our fully-implantable, wireless brain-computer interface (BCI) – aims to evaluate the safety of our implant (N1) and surgical robot (R1) and assess the initial functionality of our BCI for enabling people with paralysis to control external devices with their thoughts.”

It’s obvious from the examples that corporate interests recognize the potential implications and profits associated with these advancements, pouring millions into research efforts. But it does raise questions about the ethics of providing quality of life care only to those that can afford it or have the right medical insurance. While it’s difficult to argue against those with the means necessary to opt for elective surgeries, the indirect creation of classes of augmented humans is a worrying proposition.

To augment our bodies in order to manipulate or interact with surrounding spaces creates a transhumanist utopia that could marry previous virtual reality attempts with AI programming to create superhumans, coined “cosmic entities” or the more familiar term “cyborgs”. Martin Farbák and Zlatica Plašienková explored this phenomenon in their research article, A New Perspective on Humanity in the Cosmic Future: A Critical Reflection on Some Transhumanist Visions.

Of primary interest to Farbák and Plašienková are views held by macroeconomist and philosopher Ted Chu.

“Chu embraces the probability of transcending biological dispositions and of creating or becoming a completely new form of life. One could mention here Nietzsche’s well-known “superman”, a prototypical new ideal human, which present-day humans should aim for, going beyond their existing level of development, as the transitional link between animal and superman.” [5]

While the authors explore the works of several transhumanists and their reasons for advancing beyond our current capabilities, their focus is primarily on Chu’s philosophy.

“He assumes that humanity finds itself in the situation, where solving the Earth’s global problems (for example, the ecological crisis) is no longer as important as it was; instead, we should be focusing more on expanding into Space. This could be achieved through the creation of Cosmic Beings, which can be described as posthuman techno-beings with enhanced intelligence and multiple physical and mental abilities.”

This ascension is a proposal that aims to give everyone a greater sense of purpose and understanding by exploring our place in the cosmos. To do so, we must transform, but what governing or scientific body ultimately gets to choose who makes that leap? The populace is distracted by reports of the dangerous effects of manufactured dopamine hits or out-of-control AI that will destroy humanity. Meanwhile, a number of academics, scientists and powerful corporations are on track to change the very definition of what it means to be human.

We’re fascinated by novel reports of people having RFID chips implanted as an alternative to carrying credit cards or identification, but this is merely the beginning of an exploratory process. Artificial intelligence and virtual worlds are external forces pushing us toward one outcome. A fusion of our biology and technology is an internal force that could alter our very consciousness. At such a juncture, who or what is really in control?

Works Cited

[1] 'Second Life(TM)' Opens Public Beta. (2003, Apr 28). PR Newswire 

[2] BARBARA DEMICK Times, Staff W. "Gamers Rack Up Losses: In Cyber-Cafe. Ultrawired South Korea, some People Don't Know when to Leave the Cyber-Cafe. for One Obsessed Man, the Fantasy was Fatal." Los Angeles Times (1996-), Aug 29, 2005, pp. 2.

[3] Zitron, E. (2023, May 08). RIP Metaverse, we hardly knew ye. Business Insider 

[4] Tenore, H. (2023, Jul 13). Meta's VP of Metaverse says 'the metaverse hype is dead,' but that's OK. Business Insider

[5] Martin Farbák, & Zlatica Plašienková. (2023). A New Perspective on Humanity in the Cosmic Future: A Critical Reflection on Some Transhumanist Visions: Postdisciplinary Humanities & Social Sciences Quarterly. Human Affairs, 33(2), 210-223. https://doi.org/10.1515/humaff-2022-1020

My childhood home sits adjacent to a funeral home. Cars filled the parking lot on the weekends, and friends and family of the deceased gathered to comfort one another. When military veterans were honored with a 3-volley salute, my brother and I would watch closely in hopes that an officer would gift us an empty shell casing. One Saturday morning, I witnessed the hearse pull up to the rear entrance. The mortician respectfully wheeled out a body wrapped in a white sheet and pushed it into the building. I ran inside and exclaimed to my mother, “They just brought Dracula into the funeral home!”

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How I knew of Dracula at an early age is still a mystery. I’m inclined to believe it originated with Scooby Doo, or Saturday morning cartoons. Photos exist of me as a child, dressed as a vampire for Halloween, complete with slicked back hair, a cape, fangs and fake blood. The blood I knew a vampire drained from unsuspecting maidens in order to bolster his life force. Even before I fully understood the permanency of death, I understood that classic example of how to overcome it. While Dracula remains a myth, the symbols associated with his presence are felt and understood from an early age. 

One of the unique aspects of speculative fiction is that it can examine the complexities of the human experience, including our relationships with one another, through fantastic imaginary elements. Most popular among those elements are monsters and the mayhem they bring into the lives of fictional characters. Not unlike the Dracula I knew, monsters give us access to explore uncomfortable topics from a safe distance.

These creatures reflect our desires, inhibitions, fears, how we perceive civilization’s progress, or even our chaotic decline. Let’s examine some popular monsters from several fantasy and science fiction worlds and better understand what they symbolize.

Vampire

Dracula, Nosferatu, bloodsucker, nightwalker, or just plain vampire, are all names used to describe this monster. The common dark visage of a vampire often includes an heir of elegance, a pale complexion, calm demeanor and an irresistible charisma. Depending on the exact folklore, vampires are repelled by a crucifix, burned by holy water or sunlight and can only die with a wooden stake through the heart. They might be able to fly or have special powers, but the most recognizable feature is they can only survive by drinking human blood.

Blood contains oxygen and is necessary for our human bodies to function. However, for a vampire it is a curse and obtaining it is the cost of immortality. Using contrasts like this is a powerful illustration of the consequences for giving into base desires. You will be consumed by them and in constant need of replenishment. Yet, it only satisfies for a time. The repulsion to a crucifix or being burned by holy water is a direct reference to the converse principle, which is the cleansing power of a blood sacrifice and the washing away of sins. 

Werewolf

Werewolves symbolize the inner struggle between our civilized, rational selves and our primal, animalistic instincts. Circumstances often out of our control send us into a rage and cause us to do harm to strangers and loved ones. In the case of werewolf folklore, this happens by the light of a full moon, a cosmological event in modern times that is associated with a rise in crime rates. Lunar cycles aren’t scientifically proven to cause behavioral issues, but humans look for logical reasons to explain why we’re led to cause harm to others beyond animal urges.

Similar to vampires, the werewolf has a weakness involving purification: a silver bullet. Silver has value and has long symbolized purity, giving it supernatural abilities in folklore. Warding tools, relics, talismans and artifacts share contrasting properties, which make them especially dangerous to mythological monsters.  One of the key properties of weapons used to defeat monsters is permanency, a relationship to everlasting truth. Werewolves are instead transformative, imperfect and untrusted. This duality is a popular theme in speculative works.

Zombie

The concept of reanimated corpses has roots in various cultures and folklore throughout history. One of the earliest appearances of zombies in cinema can be traced back to the 1932 film White Zombie, starring Bela Lugosi. In White Zombie, Bela Lugosi plays a character named Murder Legendre, who is a Haitian voodoo master. He uses his powers to turn people into mindless zombies, essentially slaves under his control. The film is set in Haiti and draws on elements of Haitian voodoo mythology.

Being restrained, under the control of an imposing force, is a powerful theme with zombies. It could be a pandemic or a plague, or like White Zombie, a singular figure. In books and movies, zombies have come to represent the power consumerism has over us, symbolizing the dehumanizing effects of conformity and the fear of the economic collapse of society. We eventually become infected ourselves, turned into mindless followers. Zombies as monsters are a dark reflection on society, since the only way to defeat them in modern interpretations is by destroying the brain. Only death can save us from joining the horde.

Godzilla

While vampires, werewolves and zombies symbolize internalized struggles, Godzilla represents a specific external threat. The monster, and all of its iterative spinoffs emphasize the looming threat of nuclear annihilation. The United States has created fiction and film that explores the after effects of a post nuclear civilization, but Japan’s invention of Godzilla immortalizes a real experience as a massive, chaotic form that destroys everything in its path.

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In recent years, Godzilla has become just as much a neutral party as an enemy, fighting off other monsters that loom on the horizon as a threat. However, the original version encapsulates Japan’s post WWII trauma and the collective fears and anxiety of the people. It’s interesting to note that in the original film, Gojira, or Godzilla: King of the Monsters!, the only way to defeat the monster is by creating a weapon with more power than nuclear energy. The imagery provides a stunning conclusion that there is no way back to a pre-nuclear era.

Cthulhu

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of the infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far."

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories ~ H.P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft’s brand of horror is unique in that it aims to expose incomprehensible and malevolent cosmic forces without symbolism. It is pure chaos, an unreasonable and unexplainable monstrosity that has no purpose other than to terrify. While it could be argued that is the symbolism, there is yet a deeper abstraction that Lovecraft is never content to concretely define. There are parts of our deep subconscious, where we can imagine arcane beings, but if we were to know them fully would drive us mad.

A madness in some form or another is a common theme in Lovecraft’s works, brought on by the deity, Cthulhu, that he introduces. He examines our relationship with this mysterious madness through our continued exposure to the exposed monster. The dread is in knowing we can only confront the monster, but we can never really understand it or defeat it completely. Some choose to worship the madness, while others choose to run from it, only to discover it infiltrates their thoughts and nightmares. Monsters like this are difficult to convey, which is why Lovecraftian horror is so recognizable. 

Conclusions

There are plenty of monsters to research through fiction and film, a wide range of examples beyond what’s been shared. Understanding the symbolism involved can help readers better appreciate a story and help writers better craft a story. Review some of your favorites, from both fiction and film, and identify the unique traits of aliens, creatures from the deep or those mysterious beings hiding among the stars. How do these monstrous characteristics help us better understand ourselves and the world around us? 

Share some of your favorite monsters in the comments!

In 1984, Clive Barker introduced the world to his weird and macabre horror fiction through the short story collection, Books of Blood. It entertained readers with bizarre tales that were just as much fantasy as they were horror. And it is deeply horror (discretion advised). When I read it for the first time in college, I was struck by Barker’s unconventional use of speculative elements. Stephen King praised Books of Blood, leading to a quote from him appearing on the first US edition of the book: "I have seen the future of horror and his name is Clive Barker."

Barker, King and many of their contemporaries, Ray Bradbury, Dean Koontz, Richard Matheson, Anne Rice and Peter Straub, have all written short stories and novels that cross over into fantasy and science fiction, even being nominated for awards in those genres. Yet, most are still considered foremost horror writers, a dying breed of an old guard that profited by writing about grim subject matter. New voices that explore similar themes find themselves lost in general fiction or misplaced in fantasy and science fiction.

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Most libraries and bookstores no longer contain horror sections, in stark contrast to the 80s, when horror fiction peaked, alongside horror cinema. For a time, I lamented the dwindling inventory from traditional publishers, attributed primarily to dwindling sales numbers as the populace turned toward other genres. Post 9/11, at least in America, we were catapulted into an age fed by real life horrors and a few years afterward true crime became the predominant mode of consuming “horror”.

While cinema experiences the occasional resurgence of distinctive flavors of horror, novels have struggled to capture the unique essence of horror possible in conjunction with fantasy and science fiction. Authors like Jeff VanderMeer gave us a peek at what’s possible in his book Annihilation, a rarity in a blended genre that is relying on a select few to fill the void. The industry is ready for a resurgence, for authors to lean hard into the horror possible in speculative by captivating a wider audience.

Morbidity as a Fear Catalyst

The key ingredient of horror is that it’s meant to evoke fear, primarily by exploring our relationship to death. Science fiction, on the other hand, explores the boundaries of what’s possible, while fantasy often comments on our association with the world around us. A better melding of the three would be to introduce the horrors of mutation, a future morbid state of nature in which we become trapped in an unfamiliar state, changing our world forever. The inability to escape from that situation is a key tenant of horror.

It’s an evolution gone wrong as a result of pathogens, alien biotoxins or celestial events we can’t explain. Death should not be the end result. The horror is in the idea that we mutate into an unrecognizable shell of our former selves, trapped in stasis, forced to live in a new hierarchy of beings, providing interesting contrasts. Control, or lack of control can be horrific to many, as familiar and terrifying as death. Removing that control within this framework could produce interesting storylines.

A Future Unknown

Another key ingredient of horror is a fear of the unknown. In a classic sense, creature features explored a familiar unknown, drawing parallels with what it means to be human, or inhuman. Frankenstein’s monster, vampires, werewolves, zombies and all beings with a foundational human biology, forced us to study our capacity for evil, but under the guise of a creature that gave us a healthy distance from reality. Science fiction and fantasy melded with horror is the perfect opportunity to continue the tradition.

In more recent years, the resurgence of AI allows us to study the unknown through uncertain outcomes. Artificial intelligence run amok is a mainstay of science fiction horror. Film opened the door and has provided a swath of visual material when the public needed help seeing what had once been impossible. Now that we live in an age where the public is exposed to amazing new advancements in science and medicine, it’s the right time to illustrate the consequences of our overreach. It takes less effort to suspend disbelief due to advancements, giving readers a taste of the potential horrors on the horizon.

Parallel Worlds and Dangerous Dimensions

One of my favorite novellas is Stephen King’s book, The Mist. Originally published in Dark Forces, a horror anthology, and later included in King's 1985 collection Skeleton Crew, the story examines the consequences of a dimensional tear caused by secret government experiments. It received fair reviews, but it’s also castigated for a Hitchcockian ending, a reader interpreted denouement that left me wanting a definitive conclusion. What it lacked in completeness, it made up for in approaching a subject often reserved for hard science fiction.

Parallel worlds or dimensions that invade our own, continue to be a subject that is fascinating and could provide a refreshing view of horror fiction. The angle has been contaminated by Marvel’s multiverse concept, which overtly suggested parallel worlds must exist beside our own in some sort of reflective mirror or prism. In The Mist, the world and black hole of horrors that seeps into our own, has no resemblance to Earth’s biological systems. For an imaginative author, it’s an opportunity to write a fantastical story, filled with original creatures and ecosystems.

Dark Quests

J.R.R. Tolkien, George R.R. Martin, Brandon Sanderson and Terry Goodkind, to name a few, have all made their living by crafting epic fantasies. Massive worlds with ensemble casts of characters keep bringing a large, willing audience of readers back for more. A few of the adventures may even trend darker in theme, the result of deadly beasts or twisted antagonists, but it never quite transitions to horror. The fear is always wrapped up in a distant observation. We’re entranced, we even care, but we never quite internalize that fear. Epic horror fantasy is a broader unexplored domain.

It’s possible the chasm between horror and epic fantasy is too large a divide to cross. Horror is better served with constraints, a confined space that prevents escape, while epic fantasy lives and breathes in wide open spaces across distant lands. Attempts have been made at recreating horror’s visceral undertones in fantasy, giving rise to a subgenre known as “grimdark”. It’s reminiscent of the paperback schlock produced in the 80s to keep up with demand, yet it makes the same mistake by confusing shock with fear. There’s still room for an author to produce a more valiant effort. 

Conclusions

Instead of trying to resurrect horror using the makeup of its natural DNA, authors could take advantage of speculative elements to mutate it entirely. Fantasy and science fiction have always played a cooperative role in delivering the horror genre to readers, and it’s an opportunity to blend all three into storylines that would appeal to the masses. It might even catapult the genre back into the public consciousness, a frightful concept to consider.

Popular science fiction movies, TV shows and books created in the 1950s were known to exploit the proliferation of nuclear power as a plot device. Atomic energy provided a backdrop for some noteworthy apocalyptic fiction like A Canticle for Leibowitz (1959), On the Beach (1957) and Atlas, Babylon (1959). Movies like Them! (1954), Godzilla (1954) and It Came from Beneath the Sea (1955) explored the effects of radiation on humanity in the aftermath of WWII. For the last seventy years, a number of authors have written about the unregulated misuse of this destructive energy. 

While nuclear weapons will always remain an imminent threat to our existence, the scales tipped toward other potential catastrophes throughout the decades. If authors aren’t writing about war, then they emphasize the negative impact of climate change, disease and pandemics or any number of disquieting socio-political movements. The best speculative works that focus on these topics captivate our imaginations and open up a dialogue, while the worst of them are simply meant to feed off our anxiety. Fantasy and science fiction have the potential to illuminate our dreams, reflect society and reveal the darkest depths of our depravity.

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One of the best examples, George Orwell’s 1984, written in 1949, so eloquently examines the effects of totalitarianism that it’s been used by both liberal and conservative movements at various points in history to identify illicit government surveillance and misconduct. It’s promoted as a commonplace guidebook to raise awareness about newspeak and doublethink, which are fictional words that symbolize a populace under a totalitarian regime.

If you want to write speculative fiction that is both entertaining and meaningful, like Orwell, then it’s important to craft a story that is layered with conflict and realistic characters. The fictional world needs to mirror our own world in some capacity, even though it’s speculative, and the plot needs to amplify the issues you want to highlight. With some careful forethought, you can bring important topics into the public consciousness while giving your readers a story that is appreciated for generations.

Decide Where You Stand

Before you tackle your primary theme, you’ll need to decide where you stand on the issue in question. For example, if you hope to address financial disparity by juxtaposing disparate races, then you should research economic systems. This wouldn’t be in theory alone, but case studies on why generational wealth is so powerful and how cultural norms affect prosperity. You’re not looking to castrate ideals wholesale like capitalism or socialism. You want to highlight the conflict between two opposing systems and how characters struggle to accept one or the other, even in the face of evidence that supports the alternative.

Your personal views need to be clear when attempting this, or your characters and plot will be vague, and the world you build will be riddled with contradictions that don’t align with any particular viewpoint. However, you’re not trying to sell your perspective to the readers. You’re trying to get them to question established norms and think openly about what could happen if a series of events are allowed to transpire without consequence or intervention. Doing this will be impossible if you’re unable to defend your own convictions. Your world will be filled with straw men otherwise.

Amplify the Real Issue

When I was a young boy in grade school, I learned for the first time that petroleum, also known as crude oil, is formed from the remains of ancient marine organisms, such as plants, algae, and bacteria, and possibly even dinosaurs. Since all of those carbon-based life forms are gone, it meant on planet Earth there was a limited supply of this fossil fuel. An interesting discussion followed in class, which included an observation by my teacher that regardless of what anyone believed about “peak oil”, the Earth is a gifted resource that must be tended to wisely.

The real issue is not whether oil, solar, wind or nuclear are the only answers to long-term energy needs. What’s most important is that we understand there are limits to how much man can exploit our planet before it’s detrimental to our well being. The notion is similar to Orwell’s take on totalitarianism. Many are surprised to learn that the author was a socialist, and espoused policies coinciding with individual freedom, equality and social justice. He could have railed against capitalistic tendencies in 1984, but decided to focus on what happens when you reach the extremes in either direction.

Even Orwell’s book, Animal Farm, which could be interpreted as an attempt to unravel inherent injustices within capitalism, ends up masterfully highlighting the real issue that principles of equality and justice can only be upheld when there is a balance of powers. There again, is a way to use power struggles between creatures and fictional people groups to demonstrate how centralized authority leads to destruction. You can invent a well-crafted magic system, or design complex governments within different cultures, but ultimately those structures are as fragile as the people who uphold them.

Unmask Your Character’s Motivation

One big mistake speculative authors make when attempting to infuse meaning into a story is the immediate embrace of perceived stereotypes. Most often these caricatures are representative of the prevailing minority view in the story, or at least the perceived minority according to the author, and are used to support a weak theme. These biases are reflections of popular culture reported by the media, but do nothing to unmask a complex character’s motivations. 

Within speculative fiction, where aliens, goblins, elves and trolls are commonplace, those caricatures no longer make sense. How presumptuous and arrogant to think these beings are simple cardboard cutouts with assigned stereotypical human traits. Even for the representative humans in a story who are placed within our historical context, a speculative element should reveal hidden motivations, or deeper truths that avoid the trope we’re all tribal by nature. People are inherently selfish, and even if they subscribe to a particular group’s views, it stems from personal experience.

There are situations when it makes sense to break this rule. It’s possible a character’s motivations are rooted in a strong desire to adhere to convictions that are stereotypical, but it should be for a well understood purpose. In the Lord of the Rings, the Orcs are ugly, destructive and a formidable force that represents corruption and decay. They have a lust for ruin and are enslaved by darkness, but are motivated by nothing more than the desolation of all mankind. Their characters are symbolic of evil with extreme prejudice, but a narrative device like that should be used sparingly.

Introduce Worldbuilding as a Catalyst

A great way to add meaning into your fantasy and science fiction stories is to introduce worldbuilding as a catalyst to change the momentum of the plot. Complex worlds, which include a number of different ecological systems and races, can affect change and impact the entire flow of the narrative. Even though these fictional worlds are not an exact replica of the real world, they provide an opportunity to reflect systems similar to our own. This device can get your readers thinking about existing issues, but without pulling them out of the story.

A good example of this is Frank Herbert’s Dune, which is primarily a story focused on the rise of a messianic archetype. However, what readers appreciate about Dune, is the amazing way in which Herbert built a world that serves the story perfectly. Underneath the surface of the savior myth is a multi-layered plot about various factions fighting over a limited resource called the spice or Melange. At first the spice appears to be nothing more than a MacGuffin, but it ends up highlighting the necessity for ecological balance, establishes how different cultures assign religious significance and forces us to understand how governments manipulate one another.

Arrakis, the planet where Dune takes place, is dry and desolate, and water plays a role just as spice does, demonstrating how royalty and ruling parties can control one another through its scarcity. Water and spice are central to the plot as a major component of a carefully constructed world. They point toward meaningful concepts like adaptation for survival and how our dependency on ruling elites to meet all of our needs can adversely determine our future. Building the right world makes that possible.

Turn Speculative Elements into Symbols

A core feature of fantasy and science fiction that makes it the perfect genre for writing meaningful stories is the use of speculative devices that manipulate known universal laws. The introduction of advanced technology and magic instantly creates a division between those that possess it and those that don’t. Even among those that do, the way in which the elements are mastered illustrates how good and evil can evolve from the same source. This is readily apparent in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, where Voldemort and Harry represent a schism in the realm of magic.

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All wizards and witches in Rowling’s books have the same potential, which makes for an interesting character study, but only a relative few convert that potential into action. Harry learns that in order to defeat Voldemort, he must reconcile with his past and the death of his parents, rely on the power of friendship, and understand sacrifice is necessary to overcome evil. It would have been easy for Rowling to create a character like Harry with an inherent power greater than all others, but the series would have lost the meaning to some of its greatest lessons.

Using speculative elements in this fashion symbolizes that even those of us who come from uncontrollably poor circumstances can learn to harness what is within our control for the benefit of everyone. If speculative elements emphasize an imbalance, they can be used to create obstacles for a protagonist to overcome, or provide aid in overcoming a challenge. At their core, they can represent an incalculable number of virtues encompassing justice, moral excellence and goodness, or even vices like dishonesty, greed, selfishness and cruelty.

Conclusion

While creating fiction with entertainment value, a page turner for the masses, is fun and rewarding, a fantasy or science fiction story with additional meaning offers another layer of satisfaction. Writing a story with purpose is a careful balancing act that causes readers to question established norms and challenges our thinking. If you’re able to accomplish this without alienating audiences, then you’re on the path to becoming an author celebrated through the ages.

If you enjoyed this essay, please consider a paid subscription, and help the Lunar Awards become recognized as the premiere home for fantasy and science fiction.

You may also enjoy this Desk Notes essay by Charles Schifano, where he explores George Orwell’s writing philosophy in greater depth:

Desk Notes by Charles Schifano

Individual Lies

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3 years ago · 20 likes · 18 comments · Charles Schifano

We’re going to have a little fun this week in the comments, discussing with fellow Substackers our own real world speculative experiences. Have you seen a UFO, or been visited by aliens? Are you dealing with grandma’s ghost in the attic or a mysterious energy force? Have you seen a cryptid, like Bigfoot, Mothman or The Jersey Devil? Have you ever been tricked by a Brownie, or been the recipient of a curse? We’re looking for the best spectacularly true (or rumored to be true) firsthand speculative experiences.

Remember when sharing and commenting to be respectful. The Lunar Awards is a place to celebrate the strange and otherworldly and have some fun in the process.

EVERY FICTION WRITER MUST REACH a point in their creative journey where they realize there are no more books on the craft of writing to be read, no more writing conferences to attend and no more writing groups to join, which will magically graduate them from amateur to professional. Only through the act of writing, and willfully subjecting themselves to sometimes brutal public ridicule, or scathing silence, will they evolve. It’s no different with writing genre fiction, especially speculative short stories. While the following tips will strengthen an existing framework, only by consistently writing will the solid walls of fantasy and science fiction be built.

If you’re new to writing short stories, I suggest you first read my essay “Short Story Tips from the Masters”, published on the Fictionistas Substack.

Fictionistas

Short Story Tips from the Masters

There is no shortage of materials that discuss the mechanics of storytelling. Plot structure, character design, setting and theme are commonplace subjects. This knowledge provides a wonderful foundation, but it can be daunting when a writer wants to focus on the essence of telling a short story as opposed to a novel. This fact, I discovered, in my own q…

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4 years ago · 47 likes · 25 comments · Brian Reindel

While not as popular and enlightening as On Writing by Stephen King, or as comprehensive and revered as The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E. B. White, it will provide an introduction to the art of telling short stories, as communicated by literary masters. Don’t worry, you won’t be led down a deeper rabbit hole, some quasi-alternate dimension of eternally nested links. It’s simply a primer. If you struggle to understand the essence of short stories, it might be difficult to leap from literary fiction to any number of speculative sub-genres.

This leads to my first point. 

Respect the Genre

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED TO describe a difficult concept to a child? The questions are often simple, but the answers are full of difficult to explain facts, surrounded by assumptions and opinions. How does a plane fly? Well, little one, a plane flies because it has wings and an engine. But how does it get off the ground? It uses fuel to power the engine. Yes, but what makes it go? It’s called thrust, a mechanical force generated by accelerating a mass of gas, sort of like your father after a bowl of baked beans.

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The refinement down to genre is similarly linked with increasing complexity and nuance. Writers first learn to write and understand the differences between nonfiction and fiction, navigate literary formulas, incorporate storytelling devices, plot novels with deep characters, lean into the short story as shorthand for it all, and then land on genre. Mastering genre within the short story requires a special touch.

Understanding how a genre impacts readers is key, since some of them are hardcore fans, experts at least in what’s been done before, and what’s likely to offend common sensibilities. Even though readers can’t often point to exactly why they love a fantasy or science fiction short story, it’s apparent when the author did little to understand the genre. This starts by reading the genre in which you write, practicing constantly, getting feedback and ends by dazzling an audience of expectant readers.

Fiction Substacks or online outlets that promote short form fiction are a great place to start. I recommend Clarkesworld Magazine, Uncharted Magazine, Daily Science Fiction!, Fantasy Magazine and Lightspeed Magazine.

Keep It Grounded

ONE OF THE TRICKS TO writing genre fiction is learning how to ground supernatural and otherworldly subject matter in reality. Even when characters are traveling among the stars, fighting trolls or jumping through time portals, it’s important their responses are measured against the circumstances. In some worlds those circumstances are more familiar to the characters than the reader, and in others those circumstances should elicit the appropriate measure of awe and wonder. This is where your voice and experiences become important.

Have you ever lost a pet dragon? No, I suspect you haven’t, but have you ever lost a beloved family pet? We had one dog growing up, a beautiful Golden Retriever named Murphy, and he loved to chase rodents, which was his undoing. Excited to prove his worth, he attempted to retrieve a squirrel, chasing it onto the busy street in front of our home. The car that hit him had no chance of stopping. Our furry friend didn’t suffer, but the experience has been indelibly ingrained in my memory, and that emotion is relatable and transferable to fantasy creatures. It’s grounded.

In almost all of my speculative short stories, I try to ground the narrative with a slice of real-world experience. My most popular story is called “Vanilla Dreams”. It’s about a woman who dreams only of starting a family. She has no other aspirations. I don’t know what it’s like as a man to want to have lots of babies, but I know women, friends, who have wanted to start families and couldn’t. That exposure translates to Erin, the protagonist. She and her husband finally decide to adopt, but realize adoption comes with its own unique struggles. Both of my children are adopted and I’m intimately familiar with the process. I haven’t even told you yet that it’s science fiction and includes interplanetary visitors. 

Future Thief

Vanilla Dreams

The only thing I ever wanted to be was a wife and a mother. A homemaker. While my sisters set their sights on careers in nursing and teaching, I wanted to care for little babies. Lots of them. But my mother told me I had to go to college. Relying on a man to provide for all of my needs would lead to disappointment. I wondere…

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3 years ago · 44 likes · 18 comments · Brian Reindel

One word of caution is that you want to avoid a self-insert. You don’t want a cookie cutter clone walking around your short story. What you’re after is lived experiences, but your characters should have their own unique personalities. Also avoid replicating in their entirety family and friends. It makes for very uncomfortable holidays.

Focus the Narrative

SHORT STORIES ARE SUPPOSED TO be short, and with fantasy and science fiction short stories that means there is only so much room to invest in worldbuilding. While you may think it’s important to unpack all of the rules in your magic system, catalog an entire ecosystem of new creatures or describe the sordid multi-millenium history of an alien race, your readers won’t have the patience. Not in a short story. This is a trap that novelists trying to write a short story fall into by mimicking the serial volumes by their favorite authors. 

The supernatural, magical and technological aspects of the story are meant to help advance the plot and put your characters into interesting predicaments. These speculative devices are not meant to become the focus of the story. Genre readers are attuned to patterns, and the most voracious of them have been exposed to all manner of fantasy and science fiction. It’s unlikely, especially in a short story, that you could invent a world so interesting that it can carry the entire plot. This takes discipline.

In my fantasy short story “Deep Roots”, a young girl is forced to make a decision that will have a significant impact on her future. Her mother is sick, and she knows the cure will come with a great deal of sacrifice. It’s a coming-of-age story, where the protagonist Milena must accept her father’s poor life choices, which is ultimately why she has to become the adult. Her journey is steeped in a bizarre societal norm that associates an individual’s worth with the number of teeth they still have. There’s a great deal of magic and mystery that surrounds the village that I leave to the imagination, and it works better as a result.

Future Thief

Deep Roots

Papa sat on the edge of the bed and caressed Mama’s cheek. He took a rag soaked in a bowl of cold water, rung it out and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She stirred and winced. My younger brother Bertie squeezed my hand, moving close enough to step on my toe…

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3 years ago · 43 likes · 30 comments · Brian Reindel

Avoid the Obvious

WHEN I STARTED WRITING AGAIN after a long hiatus, I knew immediately that I wanted to write fantasy and science fiction. My favorite movies and books were filled with supernatural beings, cryptids and creatures, aliens from outer space and a host of popular storylines that are a mainstay of the speculative genre. I tapped into that immediately and tried to emulate what I thought should work well, but found my short stories to be an amateur rendition. Some of that had to do with my capabilities, which were raw at best. However, the real cause of the mediocre writing was that I added nothing original.

Genre fiction is rife with clichés and done-to-death tropes. If you ever considered submitting to a traditional publisher of short form speculative fiction, then you’ll recognize they each have their own list of “hard sells”. These are the stories they see repeatedly that regurgitate the same themes, characters and speculative devices: talking animals or swords, objects of mysterious origin discovered in a (field, cave, waterfall, etc.), damsels in distress, and dystopian overlords that happen to have all of the characteristics of the present political administration — you get the point. 

There is a method for including these devices without dipping into a well of stale water. Don’t make them the focus of the story. They’re secondary to the primary conflict. The speculative elements can push and pull characters and the plot, but in order for them to be appreciated, even if they are familiar, then they have to be a bit player in the short story. An example of this is “The Gift,” a short story I wrote about a man who loses his wife to cancer, is visited by an angel, and given the power to heal any one person within 24 hours.

Future Thief

The Gift

When I walked into St. Joseph Mercy, in downtown Detroit, the same hospital where my wife breathed her last breath, I almost fainted. No matter how comfortable the leather cerulean blue chairs, or how calming the muted earth tones on the walls, or how inviting the carpet, it could not hide the undeniable truth: this is a place where people die. Still, p…

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3 years ago · 18 likes · 9 comments · Brian Reindel

Visiting angels or spirits and wish fulfillment are commonplace in stories. It’s why the real focus is on the protagonist’s relationship with the living when he can’t deal with the death of his wife. He knows he should use the gift, but struggles to understand why some people are allowed to live while others suffer and die. I tell the story through my own personal lens, which almost ignores the gravity of being given such an opportunity, but it works because that’s not the sole focus.

Establish the Rules

I’VE SPOKEN WITH SEVERAL WRITERS, even those with plenty of excellent literary short stories under their belt, who struggle with writing fantasy and science fiction because they fear it’s too open-ended. The boundaries of real life provide a set of fundamental rules that govern us all. Within the realm of speculative sub-genres, it’s believed there are no boundaries in an open world of endless possibilities. This is an unfortunate misunderstanding and it’s only through the application of constraints that speculative truly works. With short stories it requires extreme discipline.

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While in fantasy this is often associated with magical systems, it applies to a wide range of science fiction devices as well. The most well-known is time travel, or the multiverse, and personally I disdain them both because they have been so abused and misused. Made a mistake? That’s easy to fix, just go back in time and fix it. Did some catastrophe occur that decimated humanity? Just kidding. That was in the other universe. These are cheap gimmicks that demonstrate an author’s unwillingness to embrace limitations, especially in a short story, where boundaries encourage creativity.

“What Would You Do?” is a short story I wrote with a premise that screams for a limitless imagination to be unfurled. It’s about a young boy named Aaron, who discovers he has the power to control fate and to bring anything into existence. Aliens, asteroids, dinosaurs, killer clowns, etc., you name it, and he has, too. That’s a fun story to write, except that it requires limitations. It needs to be a controlled chaos, so I introduced a single rule. Aaron can’t terminate life. He can’t simply vanish something out of existence. Once it exists, only another life form can bring it out of existence.

Future Thief

What Would You Do?

While sitting with a few other survivors in a dimly lit, dank cave, eating Brontosaurus meat, I’m forced to consider the experts and their predictions about how the world would end. The options were endless and boy, did we ever commit with every fiber of our being to those possibilities. What a waste of energy…

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3 years ago · 23 likes · 24 comments · Brian Reindel

There are plenty of examples that prove how effective rules within speculative fiction create a more interesting story. Vampires are immortal but can’t go out in daylight. Ghosts can haunt a house, but they can’t follow you down the street. You can travel back in time but meeting your past self creates a time paradox. Robots are sentient, but they can’t harm their human creators. Short stories also demand that these rules are easy to understand and follow, and are introduced naturally in the telling of a tale.

Conclusion

WRITING FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION can be incredibly rewarding. Once an author begins to recognize the unique nature of the speculative sub-genres, it’s easier to craft short stories that entertain and unleash reader’s imaginations. If you have other tips for your fellow authors, be sure to share them in the comments. The Lunar Awards is dedicated to promoting speculative short form fiction, and we’re excited to build a community that does the same.

ON JULY 7, 2020, BRANDON SANDERSON launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a 10th anniversary leather-bound edition of "The Way of Kings," the first book in his popular "Stormlight Archive" series. It accumulated $6,788,517 in pledges from 29,778 backers, an average of $228 per backer. The campaign was celebrated as a prosperous model by indie authors in an industry still dominated by traditional publishers. 

While Sanderson was lauded for the accomplishment, a correlation could be drawn to the campaign’s popularity and an established book in the fantasy genre. Could a genre author attract readers to a new series with the same results? It took less than two years to get an answer from the same author.

Sanderson launched a surprise Kickstarter on March 1, 2022, through his company Dragonsteel Entertainment. Four books would be sent to backers, one each quarter throughout 2023, which ended up accumulating 185,341 pledges and earning a whopping $41,754,153 — more than $40 million over the $1 million goal. As of this publication it is the largest funded Kickstarter in the company’s history.

His rise to fame and fortune is a mysterious phenomenon to insiders, perceived as a long-shot fluke, as witnessed by the media coverage after the campaign finished. Outlets were left pontificating, including Wired, which a year later published a piece titled Brandon Sanderson Is Your God. The article has been maligned for its arrogance and surface observations, trying to find an angle on Sanderson himself, instead of focusing on how he became so successful.

Other outlets like the New York Times, which published a piece only days after the campaign started, titled Fantasy Author Raises $15.4 Million in 24 Hours to Self-Publish, took a conservative approach, choosing to highlight the indie author’s relationship to traditional publishers and his business acumen. According to the article, even Sanderson admits he’s not dumping traditional publishers any time soon and is apparently grounded in a reality the New York Times can understand.

“I am an artist who was raised by an accountant and a businessman. For a lot of authors, this would be a bad idea because there’s a lot of management.”
~ Brandon Sanderson

Harris, Elizabeth A., "Fantasy Author Raises $15.4 Million in 24 Hours to Self-Publish" The New York Times, 3 Mar. 2022, NYTimes.com

Both outlets touch on his relationship with his fans, but beneath the surface is a deeper strategy, honed over 20 years of writing and publishing. By all accounts it’s as complicated and nuanced as the magical systems in his books, but it can be understood, studied and replicated. In some sense it’s tangibly boring, lacks mystique, and may be the primary reason why he isn’t a catchy household name. Sanderson on any given day can slip into obscurity, a contradiction to his stories, which are remembered by the masses.

Write Often

BRANDON SANDERSON SPENDS MOST of his life writing. He began in his teens and studied English literature at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, where he received his Bachelor's and Master's degrees. His first published novel "Elantris" was released by Tor in 2005. After releasing the book at age 29, Sanderson’s publication frequency became borderline neurotic. Fans new and old are inundated with options, yearly, sometimes multiple times, which keeps his name at the forefront of their minds.

“The other thing is to just write. Know that you don’t have to be perfect when you start. Nobody sits down and expects to be able to play the piano the first time, but a lot of writers it seems get frustrated when they try to write their first book, that it’s not capturing the vision in their head. Don’t be afraid to be bad at it long enough to get good at it.”
~ Brandon Sanderson

BrandonSanderson.com

The writer’s bibliography is astonishingly deep for a writer not yet in his 50s, and Sanderson recognizes it can be difficult to know where to start. On his website, BrandonSanderson.com, he introduces new readers by stating, “I’ve written a lot over the years. It can be a little daunting to get into my work, but it doesn’t have to be. Most of my series can be read independently of one another, and although many of them are connected behind the scenes, references to these things are generally easter eggs or other small-scale connections.”

Aspiring authors with day jobs and families can find writing a single novel a daunting enough exercise, but writing frequently is a necessary component of longevity. The thought of writing volumes of published works vast enough to require guidance illustrates that both quality and quantity is appreciated, not to be mistaken simply for frequency.

Collaborate

IT HELPS THAT SANDERSON HAS been open to collaboration and is respected by his peers. Robert Jordan, who was an epic fantasy author, wrote 11 volumes of his popular series “The Wheel of Time” before dying of heart disease. Tor, a publisher familiar to Sanderson, tapped the author to finish Jordan’s series with the blessing of his widow Harriet McDougal. Because of Sanderson’s love of the series and respect for the fans he honored the completion to the best of his ability.

"I'm both extremely excited and daunted by this opportunity. There is only one man who could have done this book the way it deserved to be written, and we lost him in September. However, I promise to do my very best to remain true to Mr. Jordan's vision and produce the book we have all been waiting to read."
~ Brandon Sanderson

Tor Press Release

Collaborations don’t always end well or guarantee increased popularity or relevance in the genre. What mattered most is Sanderson’s commitment to Jordan’s legacy in service to his fans and work. There’s no doubt it earned him a larger fan base and demonstrated his appreciation of fantasy and magic as a reader and writer.

The best way to approach a collaboration is to consider the unique experience it can provide to readers. There should be reciprocal benefits to the authors, but the experiment will fail if it doesn’t serve the existing readership.

Entertain Your Readers

KNOWING YOUR AUDIENCE IS THE predominant unwritten rule of publishing. It requires a careful balance between telling a story that will hold the author’s interest and captivating an audience. It also demands adhering to expectations inherent to the genre in question, which can include a long list of requirements by loyal readers. This is the case with fantasy and science fiction, where world building, a strong cast of characters, and palpable science and magical systems are necessary to captivate and entertain. 

Speculative fiction also takes great care with political and social commentary, a longstanding examination of how power structures impact people and culture. Authors must remove personal commentary and use characters and plot to examine societal struggles, a feat achieved by Sanderson, and a welcome change in modern times, when drawing a political line in the sand using fiction continues to divide readers. If you want to be successful, and appeal to a wider audience, there needs to be a more careful study of the execution. Readers detest authors who preach. They are hungry for entertainment without a stilted message.

“Stories exist, in part, to explore emotion.  If the story is built well, and handled expertly, the reader will be SATISFIED with the ending even if it’s tragic.”
~ Brandon Sanderson

BrandonSanderson.com

That’s not to say that Sanderson doesn’t have detractors. Of his hundreds of thousands of ratings and reviews, there are several that question how he characterizes women or the working class. With such a volume of work, there’s also the complaint that Sanderson is formulaic, an average literary talent that uses the same tricks to keep fans buying his books. Yet, this is primarily what keeps the author out of the spotlight, keeping the focus on his novels, and discarding the now conventional melding of personal politics with the craft.

Engage Your Fans

ONE OF SANDERSON’S GREATEST STRENGTHS is that he is incredibly engaged with his fans, often interacting with them on social media, answering questions, and attending conventions and book signings. This has helped him grow his readership, who feel a personal connection to his work because of his availability. Reading interviews and watching videos, it’s easy to see that Sanderson casts off any notion of celebrity. He’s too busy interacting with fans to rise above them, illustrated by the innumerable avenues where he connects with his audience.

“I really enjoy talking with fans, and I find their feedback to be incredibly helpful. They help me see things from different perspectives, and that can lead to new ideas and approaches to my writing.”
~ Brandon Sanderson

"Brandon Sanderson on Writing, and the Business of Writing." Interview with Michael J. Martinez. Tor.com, 7 March 2011

Officially, he runs a blog, a website, a YouTube channel, is on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, has a book club, is active on Reddit, launched a fantasy convention and is still teaching. Many of these interactions are no longer a singular effort but the careful tending and curating of his team at Dragonsteel Entertainment, LLC. The key takeaway is that the author is accessible and helpful, a contradiction to the disheveled, emotionally distant angst often associated with authors of mainstream literature.

It’s certainly not possible for everyone to engage at this level, but there are opportunities to build a fanbase by offering knowledge and industry insights, discussing the works you’re writing and sharing accomplishments and failures. Writing is a mysterious, lonely affair and allowing readers exposure to the process is appreciated. Find at least one avenue beyond the writing itself to engage, and it will satisfy other writers and readers on a personal level.

Teach Your Peers

ONE OF THE ATTRIBUTES OF an experienced author is the ability to teach other less experienced writers about the craft, not just the core constructs of literature, but the nuances associated with a particular genre. Teaching is a gift that few can use with ease, a gift that Sanderson uses to help amateurs understand the perfect recipe for solid storytelling. Previously this was only available if a student attended his lectures at BYU. Those classes are now available on YouTube, giving generations of aspiring writers an opportunity to learn from the best.

“One of the things I love about teaching at BYU is that the students are passionate and hardworking. They care about their work and want to learn, and that's a joy to see. Teaching also helps me to become a better writer, because it forces me to articulate and refine my own ideas about writing and storytelling.”
~ Brandon Sanderson

Farrell, John. "Brandon Sanderson Is One Of The Most Prolific And Popular Fantasy Authors Of His Generation." Forbes, 20 Dec. 2018

There is an entire section of writing advice on Sanderson’s website that links to the playlist, but also provides an interesting overview of magical systems as well as a link to Writing Excuses, a website that provides snippets of instruction for the budding writer. Sharing tips and tricks with other writers may not necessarily sell books, but it does demonstrate the capacity to understand fiction and especially science fiction and fantasy. When readers who are not writers can better understand how a plot unfolds, what makes for interesting characters or how worlds are built, they come to a story with greater appreciation.

Videos or classes aren’t the only way to teach. Highlighting decisions made during a story’s birth and development can help provide context that readers are sure to find interesting. It may take a few years of experience before you’re willing to share and teach your peers. Giving back to the community is recognized and appreciated, something that Sanderson has been known to do, and which contributes to his notoriety.

Conclusion

THERE IS NO DOUBT THAT Brandon Sanderson will continue to entertain his fans for decades. Indie authors who want to understand his popularity can study the tactics he employs to entertain readers and gain a following. Sanderson proves more than anything it takes commitment to the craft, but also an understanding of the business behind writing and a dedication to the audience who supports his endeavors.