"Nothing ever happens by accident in the fantasy world.  Some phenomenon—supernatural or magic or otherwise—is responsible.  This is the logic of fantasy."

"You can make up any rules you want for your fantasy story—but once you set those rules, you are bound by them.  You cannot break them; you cannot change them midway through the book.  Doing that betrays the trust of the audience.  Remember: If you are creating a world, you are behaving like a god—and gods don’t cheat."

"You don't have to be a scientist to write effective science fiction, but you do need to be enthused about the adventure of discovery."

"Every great writer was once a beginner.  Remember that.  Don't beat yourself up for not knowing something.  Go out and learn it."

"Fantasy is about the assignment of consciousness and reason.  In fantasy, everything is conscious, or at least potentially conscious—animals, plants, rocks, machines, the wind.  Everything."

"Almost all fantasy relies on personification—that is, whatever happens in a fantasy, there is an anthropomorphic reason, a causative agency."

"When you ask a science fiction question, the first thing you have to do is root it in reality; you have to explain to yourself why it's possible, so you can believe in it yourself."

"Fantasy looks like the abandonment of the laws of science. ... That's what it looks like.  Dig deeper.  Like science fiction, fantasy also starts out with an if."

"As you create your story, it takes on a reality of its own—and as you explore its workings, you metamorphose.  Your thinking changes, your perceptions shift, you become a different person: You become the kind of person who can tell this story from the inside.  If you succeed, then the way you describe events and places and characters will be as a resident would describe it, and it will feel to the reader as if you've been there yourself."

"Fantasy is not the abandonment of logic.  It is the reinvention of it.  A believable fantasy is the creation of an alternate structure of logic."

"Real storytelling happens when writers forget the 'rule book' and write to the characters. They get inside the people in the story and experience the sights, the sounds, the smells, the emotions, and they let the reactions of the characters drive the incidents of the story."

"The reader wants to see the scenery, hear the music, taste the spices, pet the critters, smell the air, and most of all, he wants to feel the emotions.  This is the excitement of science fiction: It gives the reader a chance to be someone else for a while—someone profoundly different; someone in a different universe, facing different challenges."

"The first issue in any science fiction story is believability.  Because science fiction is rooted in science—what we actually know about the way the universe works—the writer has a responsibility to stay consistent with that body of knowledge.

"A metaphor is a one-sentence fantasy.  It assigns lifelike or magical qualities to ordinary objects.  Metaphor and fantasy are bedfellows—and many fantasies are intended as metaphors; George Orwell's Animal Farm is the best example of this."

"Readers look for the surprises in your story the same way a child looks for the prize inside a box of Cracker Jacks.  If you don't surprise your audience, they walk away from your story wondering why they bothered."

"Go ahead, make something up!  Anything.  After all, this is fantasy, right?  Wrong.  The audience still wants to believe in your world—and believability comes from the recognition of an internally consistent system of logic.  If things are not consistent, they are (literally!) unbelievable."

"So after you build it, you have to move into it.  You have to look around, listen, taste, touch, smell, and feel what you have created—then report back, so the reader can feel it too."

"Remember: The most important part of science fiction is the science.  Otherwise it isn't science fiction."

"A great story is a series of surprises.  Every chapter should have a surprise, every paragraph should have a surprise, every sentence should have a surprise."

"That sense of wonder is what you aspire to create; that's what you must create if you are going to write effective science fiction and fantasy."

"The sense of wonder is the marvelous heart of every great science fiction or fantasy story.  It comes from the surprise of discovery.  It comes from the recognition of the magic within.  Most of all, it comes from the realization—the acknowledgment—of something new in the universe."

"Of all the things I've learned about writing, this is the most important: There's a domain of excitement and eagerness and delight that can be astonishing.  It is a place of commitment and discovery and wonderment.  It is the far side of passion.  It is totality of purpose, an inspired obsession.  I like to call it stardrive.  It's the engine at the center of your personal starship.  It's your heart of brightness.  It is who you really are.  It is simply you—you are the source."

"The literature of the fantastic is about awakening that feeling of awe—and exercising it."

"Your job is to look for surprises in the world.  And share them."

"Your goal, as a storyteller, is to evoke the sense of wonder in your audience.  You start by evoking the sense of wonder in yourself.  Where one person is awestruck, others are also likely to be amazed."

Worlds of Wonder