PROBE
Jack McDevitt

(continued)

Interview by Alyce Wilson   

Well, yes. Sure. If only because sometimes you can delineate a character simply by having somebody deliver a line where he describes how he drinks his coffee, or something relevant, and you don't have to go three paragraphs about how this person operates.

Like the individual, for example, who in talking to you is always talking back there somewhere, as if he's talking to someone in the distance.

And that reveals more, perhaps, about the psychological makeup, as well?

Ultimately, what I think the reader is most concerned about.

Do you use an outline when you write?

I usually have a synopsis, but once it launches, I tend not to pay any attention to the synopsis. It rarely has much relationship, much similarity between the synopsis and the final product.

Are you an intuitive writer, then? Alice Walker would say that she would channel her characters. Kind of just come into her mind, and she would let them write the story, so to speak.

Which is another way of saying that sometimes the characters take over the story. The characters do not always do what you want, which is one of the reasons you wander off the plan.

There are several reasons why that happens. One is that you get better ideas as you work into it. Another is you discover your original plan, for one reason or another, is simply not workable; the reader is not going to believe it, not the way things would happen.

And the third one and the most common thing, I think, is that the characters simply will not adhere to the plan. "I'm not going into that flipping house. I don't care what you say. I'm not going up those stairs the way they do in the movies."

So yes, I guess in that sense, sure.

If the character works, they do take on a life of their own. And I think the writer gets every bit as emotionally involved with characters as readers do.

I've had readers write and complain, or example, that "Hutch, why didn't she get the guy at the end of the book?"

I got some angry mail over killing off Kim Brandywine's boyfriend, who sacrificed himself. People get really upset.

And of course, that's the kindest thing they can do for me, because that means they're really into the book. And that the book works.

But it is painful for me, too, believe it or not, you know, to kill somebody. I think somebody like Stephen King will talk about he giggles about how he has this one throttled and that. But I don't believe that for a minute. I think that's showbiz.

I think that he feels it. What you have to do is to read his work. I mean, the emotion is all there. And you can't make that up, so he's feeling it, too, as he writes.

Playing to his audience, maybe, talking that way.

But when his characters weep, I suspect he's shedding a few tears himself.

Well, I know that more recently, I guess J.K. Rowling was saying that when she killed off a character in her most recent book that she spent some time grieving over that. But sometimes, you know, it's demanded by the story.

Yes. You know, it's funny. I still remember one of the more painful moments. There was a character in Eternity Road, a young woman who was a priest, which was a post-apocalyptic society. And it's a priest who really doesn't believe in God. And she dies when she sacrifices herself for the other people who are with her.

And one of the other characters makes the comment that he's fearful because she's now in the hands of the God she denied.

And somebody says, "Oh, they loved her as much as we did."

You know, and it kind of moves you when you write that. If you're not getting caught up in it, you should be bricklaying or something.

You have been influenced by a lot of writers that many people would consider to be — I don't really like the term soft science fiction, because that implies that there's nothing to it or something. But the kind of science fiction that's more, almost philosophical, dealing with social issues.

How much do you let that kind of concern inform your work? Do you consciously work in a message, or does it just happen because it's part of your character?

I never have been... Honestly, I'll give you a good example of that. You know, a lot of people say, "We need more aliens in your novels. You don't have any aliens."

My universe, for everything I've written that goes into outer space, it's pretty much empty. And that's for a couple of reasons. It's that I don't think there is much in the way of the aliens out there. I think it's empty. I think we're not hearing any artificial radio signals for the very good reason that there's nobody out there sending any.

But also because what's interesting about aliens is how people react to their encounters. The aliens themselves are actually not all that interesting.

There was a [Philcon] panel yesterday about if a UFO landed somewhere, would science fiction readers be able to deal with it in a more mature way than ordinary people. I'd like to think yes, because they're more open to change, and they've thought about these things; are less likely to be frightened by something that's unusual. Hopefully, they would recognize that anybody who can travel between the stars is not likely to come for dinner.

But you know, who really knows?

But there's another problem with aliens. And I'm not going to speak for any other writers here, but my experience is that they are almost impossible to do effectively. When the alien ship shows up, and you find it sitting out there past Saturn IV or whatever, and it's the first time we've encountered them, that's all exciting. And as soon as that hatch opens, the launch comes down, the aliens come into the ship, all the mystery and romance is gone, you know? And what you've got is these guys in these funny suits that show up on television shows.

So I really like to keep my aliens at a distance. I want them either dead or far off. And let my people react to the artifacts or simply to the knowledge that they either are there or were there, and watch the humans react.

So I guess that makes me basically a human.

You said you've made an effort to improve literacy among young people, by introducing them to science fiction, which was more palatable to them. What is the place today of science fiction?

I think it's less accessible for kids today. It's tougher to read. It's more of a challenge. And I'm not suggesting that we need people to do some science fiction that's specifically for kids. I think science fiction that is accessible, not only to kids but to readers who are not necessarily science fiction readers, is a good idea.

I'm not sure why it's become so complex in so many ways. You know, some of the themes will get involved in what societies are going to look like 25 years from now, when it's a completely computer generated age. And it seems that that kind of thing is of interest, I would think, to people with specialized concerns. You know, the general reading public wants a good story and not a treatise on some kind of technical advance. If that makes sense.

What you just said brings up two things that I'd like to just talk to you briefly about. And one is, regardless of what genre that you work in, fantasy or science fiction, you're talking about the basic elements of writing. They have to be there. Characterization has to be there. The story has to be there.

And you've talked about that very eloquently. Do you think that maybe that is lying behind this inaccessibility? People aren't paying enough attention to those essentials of writing?

You know, I don't know. I think it's a question of people who are writing to their special interests. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as they recognize that they're necessarily narrowing their audience.

I've seen work recently that was extremely good but was not published yet, with publication imminent. Work that was extremely good, but yet that was of a nature, advanced physics, that I felt basically it was written for members of Mensa. Which tends cuts the population down.

And I knew reading it that certainly, adolescents, who are as smart as adults, they just don't have the experience adults do. But adolescents would not stick with some of these things. Would not even probably try them.

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