TVWriter™ has always had a soft spot for Charlie Jane Anders, and there’s no question why: She’s absolutely the best person on the interwebs writing about science fiction today. It’s lucid thinking and prose like this that make her a gem:
by Charlie Jane Anders
The best science fiction and fantasy stories are impossible to tear yourself away from — and often, that thrilling sense of momentum comes from the sense that the danger to the world keeps getting bigger and scarier. But how do you raise the stakes without sacrificing your characters?
This is a huge challenge — we’ve all come across stories where fully-fledged three-dimensional characters get weaker, and less believable, the more massive the scope of the threat they’re facing becomes. The only antidote to this is twofold: to raise the stakes in a way that stays grounded, and to stay focused on your characters, even as the plot ramps up and up.