Last week, we talked about emotions and how they drive each scene. On Monday, we talked about points of no return.
So, let’s take a look at theme, the thread that binds emotions and points of no return together. It’s time to take another look at how George Saunders employed themes in his sci-fi masterpiece, Escape from Spiderhead.
In 2015, I took George Saunders’ book, Tenth of December, to Cannon Beach as my summer beach read. For me, the most compelling tale in that collection of short stories was “Escape from Spiderhead.”
Escape from Spiderhead was first published in the December 12, 2010 edition of the New Yorker. It is a science fiction story set in a prison. It is built around several themes. The central theme is crime and punishment, and Saunders grabs hold of this theme and runs with it.
He asks us to consider where punishment ends, and inhumanity begins.
Saunders gives us the character of Ray Abnesti, a scientist developing pharmaceuticals and using convicted felons as guinea pigs as part of the justice system. The wider world has forgotten about those whose crimes deserve punishment, whose fate goes unknown and unlamented.
Saunders poses questions that challenge us to re-examine our own virtue. Do we have the right to treat a person inhumanely just because they have committed a crime?
He takes a deep dive into the theme of redemption in this tale. He didn’t take the expected path with his plot arc and didn’t opt for revenge by giving Abnesti the drug, which was the obvious choice.
Instead, he takes us on a journey through Jeff’s personal redemption, which is why this story impacted me.
Of course, the scenario is exaggerated, as it is set in a future world. It exposes the callous view modern society has regarding criminals and what punishment they might deserve.
That raises the theme of morality vs. immorality. Who is the real criminal here, Jeff, Abnesti, or a society that would even consider operating such a prison?
Then there is the theme of compassion. Abnesti explores love vs. lust for his own amusement. The different drugs Jeff is given prove that both are illusionary and fleeting. Yet Saunders implies that the truth of love is compassion. Jeff’s final action shows us that he is a man of compassion.
What does it mean to be human? This theme is a foundational trope of Science Fiction. Saunders shows us that to be human is to be aware and compassionate.
The character of Dr. Abnesti demonstrates that one may be genetically and technically of the human species, yet not human in spirit. He is not aware of others as people; without that awareness, he has no compassion and no humanity.
A common theme in science fiction is the use of drugs to alter people’s behavior and control them emotionally. That theme is explored in detail here, ostensibly as a means to do away with prisons and reform prisoners. But really, these experiments are for Abnesti, a psychopath, to exercise his passion for the perverse and inhumane and for him to have power over the helpless.
Jeff is aware of the crimes he and his fellow prisoners have committed. Still, he sees Heather struggling with her dose of Darkenfloxx and states his belief that every person is worthy of love.
Spiderhead (the movie) premiered in Sydney on June 11, 2022, and was released on Netflix on June 17, 2022. The film received mixed reviews from critics, and to be honest, I wasn’t impressed.
I will say now – the story and the movie are two different things. The film bears some resemblance to the story it is based on, but – it goes in a different direction and is not that story.
- All writers should be aware of this important fact: you give up control of your story when you sell the movie rights.
In the short story, Escape from Spiderhead, Saunders’ voice, style, and worldbuilding are impeccable. It is a stark journey into the depths to which some humans are capable of sinking in the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge.
This short story was as powerful as any novel I’ve ever read, proving that a good story stays with the reader long after the final words have been read, no matter the length. His questions resonate, asking us to think about our true motives.
Where do we draw the line between crime and punishment? When is a legal act really a form of criminal behavior? What does it mean to be human?
For me, that is what good science fiction does—it raises questions and requires us to think.
To learn more about this story, go to Escape from Spiderhead Summary – Litbug.
The majority of this post first appeared here on Life in the Realm of Fantasy on June 29, 2022, https://conniejjasperson.com/2022/06/29/how-the-written-universe-works-exploring-theme-part-3-escape-from-spiderhead-by-george-saunders/.
But what happens when a few insignificant cracks appear in that construction? What is the point of no return for the people living downstream?
We must identify this plot point, and by mentioning it in passing, we make it subtly clear to the reader that this moment in time will have far-reaching consequences. Knowing something might be wrong and seeing the workers unaware of a problem ratchets up the tension.
Nick Carraway, the 
Fitzgerald is deliberately unclear if this act is deliberate or accidental—the murkiness of Daisy’s intent and the chaos of that incident lend an atmosphere of uncertainty to the narrative. If Nick had turned back at any of the above-listed points, Daisy wouldn’t have been driving Gatsby’s yellow Rolls Royce and wouldn’t have killed Myrtle in a hit-and-run accident.
When I am writing a first draft, the crucial turning points don’t always make themselves apparent. It’s only when I have begun revisions that I see the opportunities for mayhem that my subconscious mind has embedded in the narrative.
Then, there’s hunting down and killing the trash and recycling so that we don’t live in a slum, alongside the unlovely side-quest for a clean bathroom. I do these tasks, but they don’t “bring me joy.” I do them so I can get to the good stuff, the best part of the day—which is writing.
Motivations drive emotions, and emotions drive the plot. People have reasons for their actions, and I needed to give my bad guy a good one. Now I know why he must go there.
Sometimes, the story demands a death, and 99% of the time, it can’t be the protagonist. But death must mean something, wring emotion from us as we write it. Since the characters we have invested most of our time into are the antagonist and protagonist, we must allow a beloved side character to die.
Motivations add fuel to emotions. Emotions drive the scene forward.
Characters aren’t fully formed when you first lay pen to paper. They evolve as you go, growing out of the experiences you write for them. Sometimes, these changes take the story in an entirely different direction than was planned, which involves a great deal of rewriting. It helps me remain consistent if I note those changes on my outline because then I don’t forget them.
I highly recommend the 
At any gathering of authors, a determined group will proclaim that thoughts should not be italicized under any circumstances. While I disagree with that view, I do see their point.
In a good story, bad things have happened, pushing the characters out of their comfortable rut. They must become creative and work hard to acquire or accomplish their desired goals.
Mood is long-term, a feeling residing in the background, going almost unnoticed. Mood shapes (and is shaped by) the emotions evoked within the story.
Robert McKee tells us that emotion is the experience of transition, of the characters moving between a state of positivity and negativity. 
These visuals can easily be shown. Grief manifests in many ways and can become a thread running through the entire narrative. That theme of intense, subliminal emotion is the underlying mood and it shapes the story:
This is part of the inferential layer, as the audience must infer (deduce) the experience. You can’t tell a reader how to feel. They must experience and understand (infer) what drives the character on a human level.
As we read, the atmosphere that is shown within the pages colors and intensifies our emotions, and at that point, they feel organic. Think about a genuinely gothic tale: the mood and atmosphere 
However, there is an accessible viewpoint just at the entrance, and we can go there and just absorb the peace. Several years ago, I shot this photo from that platform.
Action and interaction – we know how the surface of a pond is affected by the breeze that stirs it. In the case of our novel, the breeze that stirs things up is made of motion and emotion. These two elements shape and affect the structural events that form the plot arc.
So, how can we use the surface elements to convey a message or to poke fun at a social norm? In other words, how can we get our books banned in some parts of this fractured world?
Creating depth in our story requires thought and rewriting. The first draft of our novel gives us the surface, the world that is the backdrop.
Beta Reading is the first look at a manuscript by someone other than the author. The first reading by an unbiased eye is meant to give the author a view of their story’s overall strengths and weaknesses so that the revision process will go smoothly. This phase should be done before you submit the manuscript to an editor. It’s best when the reader is a person who reads for pleasure and can gently express what they think about a story or novel. Also, look for a person who enjoys the genre of that particular story. If you are asked to be a beta reader, you should ask several questions of this first draft.
Editing is a process unto itself and is the final stage of making revisions. The editor goes over the manuscript line-by-line, pointing out areas that need attention: awkward phrasings, grammatical errors, missing quotation marks—many things that make the manuscript unreadable. Sometimes, major structural issues will need to be addressed. Straightening out all the kinks may take more than one trip through a manuscript.
A good proofreader understands that the author has already been through the editing gauntlet with that book and is satisfied with it in its current form. A proofreader will not try to hijack the process and derail an author’s launch date by nitpicking their genre, style, and phrasing. 
The problem that frequently rears its head among the Indie community occurs when an author who writes in one genre agrees to proofread the finished product of an author who writes in a different genre. People who write sci-fi or mystery often don’t understand or enjoy paranormal romances, epic fantasy, or YA fantasy.
Repeated words and cut-and-paste errors. These are sneaky and dreadfully difficult to spot. Spell-checker won’t always find them. To you, the author, they make sense because you see what you intended to see. For the reader, they appear as unusually garbled sentences.
At some point, your manuscript is finished. Your beta readers pointed out areas that needed work. The line editor has beaten you senseless with the 
Also, the two combine to help in deciding how long it will take to complete a task.
While I had finished the RPG game’s plot and the synopsis, I didn’t have some details of the universe and the world figured out. So, in a burst of creative predictability, I went astrological in naming the months. I thought it would give the player a feeling of familiarity.
Time has a tendency to be elastic when we are writing the first draft of a story where many events must occur. Sometimes, many things are accomplished in too short a period for a reader to suspend their disbelief.
What if your fantasy world uses leagues as a measure of distance? A league is 3.452 miles or 5.556 kilometers. Generally speaking, a horse can walk 32 miles or 51.5 K in a day.
Many readers have a route they walk or run daily to maintain their health. These readers will know how long it takes to walk ten blocks. They will also know how far a healthy person can walk in one hour on a good road.
The part of the world where I live has large tracts of forests, many wide rivers, and is mountainous, with numerous volcanos. Our roads are often winding and sometimes travel in switchbacks up and over many of these obstacles. It takes time to go places even though the original road-builders plotted the roads through the most accessible paths.
Travel and events take time. A calendar, either fantasy or the standard Gregorian calendar we use today, and a simple hand-drawn map will help you maintain the logic of your plot.
Sometimes, a first novel is well-received, with engaging characters and a plot arc that moves along to a satisfying conclusion. People want more, and so the series begins.
The episodic series is like a television series. Each novel has a new adventure for a previously established set of characters. In some ways, these are easiest to write, especially when each book features established characters in an established world. (Sorry about the repetition there.) Many cozy mysteries and fantasy series are episodic. They are an infinite series of standalone stories.
The story usually has a strong theme that unites the series. It might be a theme such as the hero’s journey or young people coming of age. Or it might follow the life of one main character and their sidekicks as they struggle to complete an arduous quest. 
Prequels are one of my favorite kinds of novels. I am always curious as to how the whole thing started.
Once you have figured out the entire arc of the series, make an outline of book one. This allows your creative mind to insert foreshadowing. This will happen via the clues and literary easter eggs that surface as the series goes on.
Next week, we will look at creating a calendar for stories set in a speculative fiction world. We will look at some of my failures and see why simpler is usually better.
Technically, I am a full-time writer. For about ten years after I retired from corporate America, I had regular office hours for writing. Nothing lasts forever, and now I am drawing on the habits I developed during my years as a hobbyist. I write when I can and devote the rest of my time to caring for my family.
So, let’s talk a little more about what we write. Most of us don’t intentionally write to preach to people, but the philosophies we hold dear do come out.
We each grow and develop in a way that is unique to us. Sometimes, we are hardened by our life experiences, and our protagonists have that jaded sensibility. Other times, we accept our own human frailties, and our protagonists are more forgiving.
The battles we fight on the home front don’t have to be serious all the time. Sometimes, they can be hilarious. When your spouse has Parkinson’s, life is like a 
Suddenly, some joker turns the blender on, and everything goes to hell. They turn it off, and you think, “Okay, disaster averted. It’s gonna be okay.”
Life is like a blended margarita. It’s all in how you look at it, so stay cool and enjoy the party for as long as it lasts.
Life in the Realm of Fantasy 