This week marks the debut in Futures of Blaize M. Kaye with his story Revision theory. Based in Kwazulu-Natal, Blaize spends some of his time programming and, fortunately, some of his time writing. You can find out more about him at his website or by following him on Twitter. Here he reveals what helped inspire his latest tale — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing Revision theory

Revision theory is a dramatization of a personal insight, followed by its immediate collapse.

It was early evening and I was in my study, working, when I heard my daughter, who had just learned to speak, laughing and playing in her bedroom with my wife. Hearing how happy they were, I considered how insignificant my work was compared with spending time with my little girl. Moreover, it struck me how often I prioritized ‘just finishing something up’ over spending time with my family.

The prioritizing of smaller, sooner rewards over larger, delayed rewards is something that’s familiar to almost everyone, not just fathers of girls with bright smiles and unruly blonde hair. In my case I was prioritizing having happy clients over, potentially, building a closer relationship with my daughter as she grows up.

We all do this though. We do this when we overeat, prioritizing our present satisfaction over our long-term health goals. We do this when we choose to stay up late at the expense of being well rested the whole of the next day. Arguably, addicts of various kinds exhibit this same behavioural pattern. Although this is no place to get technical, the literature on this phenomenon is fascinating and I highly recommend anyone interested to look at the books of George Ainslie and Howard Rachlin, who are giants in a field of giants (I give some suggested reading below).

The irony of my ‘insight’ was that my first instinct wasn’t to get up off my chair and go play with my little girl, but rather to sketch out a time-travel story.

After a moment I saw that I was being an idiot, cursed myself, and stepped away from the keyboard.

But that collapse of my insight, my instinct to do more work rather than simply act on the little bit of self-knowledge I’d been afforded, ultimately, gave structure to the story.

In that moment, I was Themba, hand suspended in mid-air.

Suggested reading:

Ainslie, G. Breakdown of Will (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Rachlin, H. The Science of Self-control. (Harvard University Press, 2009).

Ross, D., Sharp, C., Vuchinich, R. & Spurrett, D. Midbrain Mutiny: The Picoeconomics and Neuroeconomics of Disordered Gambling. (MIT Press, 2008).

Wolfram, S. Reward. Scholarpedia 2(3), 1652 (2007).

Futures is very pleased to welcome back Ken Hinckley with his latest story Six names for the end. Ken first appeared in Futures when he took a trip into the Galaxy with The ostracons of Europa. When not writing stories, Ken can be found at Microsoft Research inventing the future of sensors, mobility and multi-modal interaction. You can find out more about his work at his website or by following him on Twitter. Here, Ken very kindly takes some time out to explain what inspired his new tale — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Six inspirations for the end

Back to the word mines.

Where did this story come from?

Well, if I waited for ideas to lightning-bolt from the blue, I suspect I would never write a bloody thing.

So whenever I find myself at a loss for words, I go back to the word mines — which actually take the form of a spreadsheet in my case — and find me some.

Such a practice affords quite the tonic for productivity.

A dictum regarding a certain pathetic creature.

My philosophy regarding all creative work is the following:

Don’t wait for inspiration.

Seize it by the throat and squeeze the life out of the pathetic creature.

It’s not a crime, and it suits fictive mayhem well.

The fictional combinator.

Hence, I employ a rather abstruse method to devise stories. An algorithm, if you will — albeit a lousy one in that it guarantees no particular result whatsoever.

I maintain a spreadsheet salted with Names; Settings and Locations; and Other Problematical Things. Each occupies a lovely little column of alternating 50% grey.

This is helpful for getting the mind started, since stories (so I hear) tend to feature a Character, in a Setting, with a Problem.

Then I jiggle them about, often with reckless abandon.

Out comes a combination.

And off I go.

The hard part is trusting yourself to come up with something good.

An example, as served up by my spreadsheet overlord.

For this particular exercise in wordsmithing, out came NAMES FOR. (Sometimes the entries in my Names column go a bit meta, but being a purveyor of fictions and other assorted visions of the future, I can work with that.)

My spreadsheet overlord next suggested CAROUSEL as a setting.

And as a problem, arrived THE END. A weighty one, that.

Hmmmm… Names for the end. Not too shabby for a title. Perhaps there shall be six of them. That sounds all badass and biblical, somehow. I suspect I can make it work.

And, as for ‘Carousel’, as I have three young daughters in my loving care, that offers a setting of which I have an alarmingly vast experience.

Neutron stars of storytelling.

Lately I’ve been fond of framing devices, like the titles of these mini-chapters, as a tool for achieving the prime directive of fiction:

Leave out the boring stuff.

If done well, such frames become powerful attractors that draw the reader in, the neutron stars of a highly condensed storytelling.

The relativistic distortions leave the writer free to move about at will, unstuck in time, unbounded by space.

And the things left unsaid, in the vast empty spaces in-between, leave room for the fragments of story to resonate with one another.

A hopeful apocalypse.

I must confess, I’ve never been an especial fan of the apocalyptic story.

Yet Six names for the end suggests just such an unseemly denouement.

So the challenge was to find a hopeful apocalypse.

The story starts with a feint — an opening scene intended to elicit a laugh — then several short, sharp ‘chapters’ laden with despair and shards of hope alike. Only to be followed by…

A swift gut-punch at the end.

And it wraps right back into the image of the cracked skylights from the opening scene.

I have no idea how I came up with that, beyond trusting myself to do so.

And hopefully you enjoyed it. It sure was a fun story to write.

In addition to a forthcoming story (a rather subversive piece that resides way the heck out there on the fringe, tentatively slated to appear in Interzone #265), I’m already working the word mines in search of the next one.

This week, Futures is pleased to welcome Wendy Nikel with her story The Memory Ward. You can find out more about Wendy’s writing at her website or by following her on Twitter. Here, she kindly reveals the twists and turns that led to her latest tale — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing The Memory Ward

The Memory Ward is a product of the Codex Writers’ Group’s annual flash-fiction contest. It was my first time participating, and I am very grateful to the community for reading my work and sharing their feedback.

This particular round, the prompt was a list of words from which we were supposed to choose three. I selected ‘fragrant’, ‘bubble’ and ‘stole’, which — as you can tell — have little connection to the final story. My initial concept was about a character who literally saves time in a bottle and what happens when one of those fragrant, bubbly bits of time is stolen. Other alternate versions included scratch-and-sniff stickers that invoke memories, and memories worn as beads around the characters’ necks. Eventually, through, those ideas warped into what you find in this story: a tale of lifelong friends and the question of what memories we’d choose to remember or forget, if given the choice.

This week, Futures is pleased to welcome back Deborah Walker with her story When the Cold comes. Deborah first appeared in Futures back in 2010 telling us about Auntie Merkel. She has since explored a range of topics from collecting to precognition (there’s a full list of her stories at the end of this post). This week the not-so-humble cold virus takes centre stage, and here Deborah very kindly reveals the origins of the tale for us — as ever it pays to read the story first.

Writing: When the Cold Comes

This story’s title, When the Cold comes, is a small homage to Game of Thrones. Rest in peace, Hodor. Hold the Door. What great skill George R. R. Martin has, to create such emotion-wrenching story arcs spanning so many books. He’s also a great short-story writer, of course. I’d love to see a Nature’s Futures story from him.

But back to my story! I’d written a longer story, which featured my invented recreational drug, Scrag. Scrag is in the form of a virus. My writing friend Alex Collier wanted to know more about Scrag, and said: “Viruses are so fascinating, aren’t they?”‘

“Yes,” thinks I. “They are. I want to write a story all about them.”

I was intrigued by the idea of twisting the common cold virus into a bioweapon. I spent a long time thinking about the colony’s people. I considered making them a little non-human with social and biological eusocial traits like bees and ants. I wanted to explore what extremes an individual might go to for the greatest good for the hive. The research led me to the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper, which I felt just clicked into place within the story.  

It was a fun story to write, exploring the limits of human behaviour in extremis. Consider the Commander Pathologist a saviour or monster: but whatever you do, do not pity her.  

Read Deborah’s other Futures stories: Auntie Merkel | The frozen hive of her mind | Green future | Ovoids | Glass future | First foot | Surrendered human | Sybil | Face in the dark | Good for something