In this edition of Philosophy (in a Teacup), I sit down with author, community organizer, and NaNoWriMo leader Joe Gremillion. Joe Gremillion spends his time writing and critiquing fiction, leading local hikes, and photographing landscapes. His website, like his novel, is in perpetual development. But if you don’t mind the figurative sawdust then head over to www.joephotos.art.
Thank you for joining us! Tell us more about your book/ series/ short story work.
My sci-fi novel in development tells the story of people from conflicting ideologies who learn to see each other’s side. Pressure’s on as the antagonist exploits an ecological disaster and people’s fears. It started with a different premise — or more like a challenge. How many boring sci-fi tropes could I tweak, break, or parody? But over time it turned serious and led to some new ideas.
Why do you write speculative fiction? / What is speculative to you?
I’ve enjoyed reading about distant worlds since I was knee-high to a tribble. How would people adapt to a world whose day lasts nine hours? How do you enforce laws when everyone can vote by flying to a different planet? On an airless moon, is making air a type of farming? What are seasons like when you have two suns?
These aren’t real, or even realistic. But they’re based on contemporary physics, which gives them a connection to our world, our lives. Even better, “contemporary” is the crucial qualifier. When I started writing stories, we assumed that other stars had planets but didn’t know for sure. Now astrophysicists have a list of more than 3,000 and some are beyond anything we thought possible. Reality keeps challenging imagination.
Where do you find inspiration for your stories?
I’m an introspective sort. Many of my ideas come from juxtaposing absurd ideas and asking questions. My favorite is to play either “five steps of what if” or “five steps of why don’t.” A bit of worldbuilding from my novel began with, “what if space stations didn’t have outside walls?” I asked myself five times before coming up with a concept that did more than reinvent space habitats. It also created the basis for my novel’s premise.
“What if” and “why don’t” works for story concepts too. The Planet of Hats trope is useful in a short story or single episode, but got I tired of entire cultures defined by one trait. So one day I juxtaposed two ideas: “why don’t Klingons wear t-shirts?” Laugh if you will, but that was my first step. The second was, why don’t Klingons have self expression?” Then, “why don’t we see Klingon artists? Or plumbers? Or hair color specialists? It is a good day to dye.” Extrapolating on humorous ideas led me to create a caste-based system with unique beliefs and history from which two of my MCs hail.
Earlier I mentioned two protagonists with conflicting ideologies. This caste-based society was the second. But the more I developed the second, the more I changed the first to contrast against it. From Klingons wearing peace-sign shirts came, “what if self-expression was compulsory?”
What is your favorite sci-fi, fantasy, or horror trope? / What is your favorite sci-fi subgenre?
You may have noticed that I don’t like tropes themselves, but I have a few go-tos. The Fish Out of Water Character is always fun (and useful when introducing readers to strange new worlds). The Mentor/Apprentice or Jaded-Soul/Eager-Explorer pairs often appear in my stories. Binary stars — a classic. The Hero’s Journey is a solid framework … but lately I’ve started exploring the Heroine’s Journey too. And then there’s the old favorite: Peter’s Evil Overlord List.
What is your favorite speculative fiction book (besides yours)? / What is your favorite speculative short story?
My current favorite is Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. I enjoyed how it balances explaining science while advancing the plot; two unlikely characters who make assumptions that baffle each other; how the story unfolds using the ol’ “amnesia” plot to let the story unfold naturally.
What is your favorite unusual speculative fiction story? / What is the most unusual story or book you’ve written?
Hard to answer that with anything except The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But there were others:
- I was too young to understand Stranger in a Strange Land when I read it. It qualified as “unusual” to me at the time. Same for Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
- Looking back, three books opened my eyes to unusual environments: The Integral Trees, Heart of the Comet, and Rendezvous with Rama. They’re not unusual stories, but much of my writing depends on the setting so these were influential.
- The Starless Sea.
- And one unusual yet notable nonfiction mention: In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and the Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build a Perfect Language
What is the world you long to see?
Mine. I’ve slogged away at this for years. I love it and I hate it and I’ve quit it three times and it won’t leave me alone aarrrrgh.
How do nature and your photography influence your writing?
Not much. I enjoy landscape photography but see it as a separate hobby. Although it does change my perception of the world. And the vast array of our natural world is incredible, when you think about it. How insects fly is amazing. It’s also fun to see how photographers capture different photos of the same person to tell different stories. Photography tech keeps advancing, which is often overlooked in sci-fi worldbuilding. If someone invents, say, an antigravity device, we rarely see its failed prototypes — much less offshoots, spinoffs, or surprise applications.
(What if we turned an antigravity device upside down? Would it double gravity? Imagine a gymnasium where weight lifting and aerobics were the same thing. Hmm, where’s my pen?)
So except for changing my perceptions, inspiring alien ecologies, observing human behavior, and adding dimension to worldbuilding by watching technology advance, what have the Romans done for us?
Bonus question: Novels or short stories? Which do you prefer to read? Which do you prefer to write?
Novels. Definitely. Endings are my personal antagonists, and writing novels keeps them further away from me than short stories.
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