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From time to time it is necessary for a writer, no matter how experienced, to sit back and learn from another, more experienced writer. So instead of my usual column article, I decided to interview Eugie Foster, a talented speculative fiction writer with a long list of accomplishments. You can find her website at www.eugiefoster.com and her blog is at eugie.livejournal.com. There is much information on her site helpful to writers, so check them out after you read this interview:
SMS: Your short story, "The Life and Times of Penguin," sparked an interesting discussion about "The Problem of Evil" at The Sci Phi Show. How does it feel to know one of your stories became a focus for an intellectual debate?
EF: As I said in my blog in February when I saw there was lively discussion, discourse, and debate revolving around something I wrote: "I think I died and went to writer heaven."
Every writer aspires to create something meaningful as well as entertaining, a work that inspires readers to sit up and go "hmm" at the end. Even if, maybe especially if, these readers end up not agreeing with me, I'm tickled to have provoked them to ponder something they might not have otherwise.
SMS: In your own words, what do you feel is the meaning behind "The Life and Times of Penguin"?
EF: "The Life and Times of Penguin" is my homage to Voltaire's Candide. If people haven't read Candide, they should. Right now. It's short; I'll wait.
It was inspired by a marvelous penguin balloon animal someone made for me at a convention. I'm a sucker for whimsy in all its myriad incarnations, and the balloon made me smile every time I saw it. After the convention, I took my penguin home and gave it a place of honor on my counter so I could continue to admire it. Sadly, as happens with balloon animals, over the course of the next couple weeks, it began to shrivel and wilt as the air leaked out of it. Since I can be sentimental to a fault, I sat down to immortalize its brief existence the best way I could.
On a secondary, non-existentialist note, "Penguin" also reminds folks to Be Nice to Your Toys.
SMS: Some of your stories tend to be re-workings of ancient myths and fairy-tales. How important do you think the meanings behind the myths and tales were to the cultures that created them, and how important are they to us today?
EF: I'm fascinated by and love myths, fairy tales, and folklore. I feel such resonance with the basic and recurring archetypes within these stories—humanity and our place in and understanding of the natural world, the power of love, the influence and definition of evil, the value of morality and making the right choices. They represent the uncertainty people encounter in their day-to-day lives, no matter from what culture, time, or socioeconomic background they come from, and they provide a starting place from which to shape a world view and a set of personal ethics.
Also, these stories are powerful nexuses of mutual sharing and understanding across cultures. They're visceral and evocative, so they're entertaining—and the first and most important rule of any good story is that it must entertain—but they're also good instructors. They can be a basis for appreciating other cultures, but really, they're far more illustrative of how we're all so very alike on a fundamental basis. The same motifs and themes recur in the root stories that underlie folktales and myths worldwide.
Considering how popular such tales still are, I believe they maintain their relevance in our modern society. And they're evolving, like they always have, to incorporate current themes and issues.
SMS: In the process of writing a story, how much thought do you put into themes?
EF: It depends. Normally not a lot, but that's because I have put a lot of thought and consideration into my personal belief system and ethics. When I see a theme emerging, I typically know where it's stemming from as well as the message I want to express without having to deconstruct my position or anything like that. Occasionally, I find myself in the middle of writing a story where the premise seems to clash with my beliefs. In those cases, I usually do pause and try to figure out where I went wrong or what's going on. I'm convinced there's a lot of back brain activity in my writing process that expresses itself as subtext. Jung would be so proud.
So's I don't drown in my own pretension, let me also say that I write a lot of stories that are simply fun larks with no greater purpose or agenda than to amuse and engage. If what I write entertains, then I've succeeded in being a good storyteller, and that's a commendable accomplishment all by itself.
SMS: Do the ideas for the themes come to you before you start writing, while you're writing the first draft, or afterwards during revisions?
EF: Again, it depends. Sometimes a theme evolves as the story does, taking shape and meaning organically with the characters, giving dimension to the players while providing the tale with an added resonance—to me at least; I'm not always sure my themes come across to my readers the way I intend. Other times, I come to a story with a theme already established. With "The Storyteller's Wife" (Realms of Fantasy, June 2005), for example, I had a theme in mind nearly from the first paragraph, which also made it a breeze to write.
Typically, if a theme doesn't present itself by the time I hit "the end" I don't go back in and try to interject one in my editing and rewriting process. I figure some stories are simply fluff pieces and that to attempt to imbue them with greater depth would be inappropriate or worse, kill their entertainment value.
SMS: Any suggestions you'd like to give to aspiring writers on how to give their stories meaning?
EF: It's the stories with salient themes that really stick with readers for the long haul. They're also the ones that I, as a writer, tend to be the most proud of having written, so I definitely consider it worthwhile to make the effort to structure a story with a theme.
The vital thing, of course, is to have something to say, something you believe in and that has significance to you. If your theme is just tacked on as lip service or so that you can point and go "didja catch my theme?" it does neither you nor your story credit.
However, just having something to say isn't enough. The story needs to come first and foremost. Writers often lose perspective on the story as the essential element when trying to make a statement or argue a stance. While a story without a theme can still be worthwhile, a theme without a story—well, it's not a story; it's an essay, or worse, a soapbox. In order to express a theme well, it has to be an integral part of a good story.
Eugie Foster calls home a mildly-haunted, fey-infested house in Metro Atlanta that she shares with her husband, Matthew, and her pet skunk, Hobkin. After receiving her Master’s degree in Psychology, she retired from academia and became a corporate computer drone. When her company asked her to leave the phantoms and fairies in the South and return to the dead-cold lands of the Midwest, she said "no" and retreated to her library to pen flights of fancy.
Eugie is an active member of the SFWA, Assistant Managing Editor of The Town Drunk, and Managing Editor of Tangent. Her fiction has been translated into Greek, Hungarian, Polish, and French, and has been nominated for the British Fantasy and Pushcart Awards. Her publication credits include stories in Realms of Fantasy, The Third Alternative, Paradox, Cricket, Fantasy Magazine, Cicada, and anthologies Hitting the Skids in Pixeltown, edited by Orson Scott Card; Modern Magic, edited by William Horner; and Writers for Relief, edited by Davey Beauchamp—a charity anthology to benefit the survivors of Hurricane Katrina with contributions from Brian W. Aldiss, Gardner Dozois, Joe Haldeman, Nancy Kress, and Larry Niven. She also has stories forthcoming in the DAW anthology Heroes in Training, edited by Jim C. Hines and Martin H. Greenberg, and the Wildside Press anthology Best New Fantasy: 2005, edited by Sean Wallace.
Copyright 2006, Scott M. Sandridge. All rights reserved.
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