How to Write a Robert Charles Wilson Novel, a Recipe

Irrational insomniacs have for centuries fought sleeplessness with objects designed to keep them awake.  Who am I to break with tradition?  So I have spent the past two nights engrossed in the works of Robert Charles Wilson.  (Someone I trusted told me someone he trusted had recommended Wilson.  Three degrees of separation suffices in the sci-fi community.)  I read and was impressed by Spin.  So I was groggily enthused when I began reading Blind Lake late last night.  "Here is an author," I said to myself, possibly aloud, "who rigorously works through the implications of his fantastic premises."  Blind Lake proved to be an original and inventive novel.  Unfortunately it proved to be the same original and inventive novel I'd read earlier in the week.  "Why does this keep happening!" I yelled as The Little Womedievalist's alarm sounded. 

"What?"

"Nothing, dear, nothing.  Just blog stuff."

"What?"

"Nevermind," I said.  So, without further ado, I present the recipe for writing Robert Charles Wilson novels:

1 large bowl
2 isolated group of humans
1 tsp. kosher salt
1 woman who "wants to feel again"
2 men who want to feel her again
1 rogue genius
2 inexplicable phenomenon caused by pervasive interstellar Buddhism
1 cipher to embody it
3 large eggs

Isolate one scientifically-inclined human community in an inexplicable planetary envelope or military cordon in a large bowl.  Add the woman who wants to feel again and beat her until she's good and numb.  Slowly add one of the men who wants to feel her again.  (Set the second aside for later.)  Once you see life enter her eyes again, quickly pour the first inexplicable phenonemon caused by pervasive interstellar Buddhism into bowl.  Add one large egg and beat until she almost can't feel again.  You want her dejected but not suicidal, so pay attention to how much she cries.  If she starts balling constantly, ease up on the whipping until you think she can handle it.

Once you get her to the brink, add in the other man who wants to feel her again.  (Some people like to spice this up with the rogue genius, but I prefer to wait until after the second inexplicable phenonemon caused by pervasive interstellar Buddhism.)  Stir.  Once the two men who want to feel the woman who wants to feel again have been properly agitated, add 1/2 a tsp. of kosher salt and another egg and beat vigorously.  You want one of the men to fall apart.  Once one has, remove the other and set him alongside the genius.  (You'll need them to season the second inexplicable phenonemon caused by pervasive interstellar Buddhism.)  Add the cipher and refrigerate.  This part of the recipe should bore you.

Pre-heat the oven to 3500° for fifteen minutes.  As soon as the boredom is replaced by real narrative heat, remove the cooled plot from the refrigerator.  Sprinkle the other man who wants her, the genius and the second inexplicable phenonemon caused by pervasive interstellar Buddhism on the mixture and place it in the oven.  Let it cook for 150 pages.  (About two hours.)  When you think it's done, violently open the oven door and yank the mixture of the oven.  Don't worry if it ends up all over the cabinets and walls.  You weren't going to eat it anyway.  You had it once, remember, and while satisfying the first time you knew you didn't want to have it again.  Then why did you cook it?  That's right:

Henry Farrell told you to.  Once you've cleaned the kitchen up, sit at your desk, turn on your computer and send him anonymous hate mail.
 

Comments

[Vance Maverick]

I suspect "balling" s/b "bawling", though perhaps it reads better this way.

[N. Pepperell]

Yes, I paused over the potential appropriateness of that alternative meaning, as well - it might even be attractive to your latest comment contributor... ;-P

[Rich Puchalsky]

Yeah, but almost every SF writer writes the same book over and over to some extent. In descending order, the repetition gets more annoying for: theme (e.g. PKD), universe (Banks), reused characters (Bujold), plot structure (your description of RCW), narrative voice (Wolfe), non-reused but indistinguisheable characters (Vance). Of course SF's attempts to bow towards the new prevent them from reaching the heights achieved by fantasy in this area. David Eddings, for instance, employed *all of the above* at once complete with a within-universe rationale for why things had to be that way.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

VM and NP, that pun wasn't that bad, was it? (Or was it simply by virtue of being a pun?)

[Vance Maverick]

Sorry. Apart from lacking humor, I missed that she had already begun to feel by that point.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Have no fears, Vance; not catching that groaner means you have a sense of humor.

[N. Pepperell]

I was only wondering whether the innuendo would attract further posts from last night's spammer, who seemed to be selecting posts based on salacious content :-)

[Vance Maverick]

Either that, or that I think other people don't.

Regardless, he is a FUCKING GENIUS.

If you could write this well, you would.

But you can't.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurn.

[Aiden]

His recipe for his Perisids Short Story Collection is very similar although you don't cook it as long so there is only time for one guy.

[Tim Moran]

Clever, funny in parts, but wrong. The fact is Spin is a very good book and Blind Lake is not. That's why you liked the former and disliked the latter. Its not because you read one first. I read The Chronoliths, Blind Lake, Bios, and Spin in that order and I loved Chronoliths and Spin and thought Bios and Blind Lake were mediocre. I would have thought the same regardless of the order (although I might not have kept reading his stuff if I had not loved The Chronoliths). The "formula" you discern is too complex to be a real "formula". I could go through and show all the differences but whats the point. You could do the recipe trick for all but the very best "literary" novels I bet, and maybe even some of them.

If your complaint is that while Wilson aspires to merge the literary novel with the hard science fiction novel (see Paul De Filippo's thoughtful review of Spin), he, like Kim Standley Robinson, is ultimately a better genre writer than a literary beacon, I would say, no kidding. That's why he received the Hugo Award but not the National Book Award, and why his name is Robert Charles Wilson and not Richard Powers. But if you want thoughtful science fiction with relatively believable characters, elegant writing, well thought out and exectuted premises, you can't do much better than Wilson.