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landscape itself, rather than any alien race, is the prime focus. Aliens may appear, but they are dwarfed by the land they live in.
    There are, naturally, thousands of science fiction stories, each subtly or obviously different than the last. But I believe that all of them can be categorized in these eight forms, without stretching the point much. Those published works that don't seem to fit any of the eight slots are usually composed of a combination of two or more of the plot types, such as John Brunner's
Stand on Zanzibar
, Keith Laumer's
The Long Twilight
, and my own
Beastchild
.
    By now, your plot at least sketchily outlined according to the simple plot formula mentioned in Chapter One, your background detailed, you are ready to begin putting the story on paper. It is not sufficient, however, merely to launch into the tale. A science fiction novel requires that certain conditions be met in the first paragraph, others in the first few pages, if the finished work is to be successful. We'll examine these conditions, and how to begin, next.
    Every category novel must hook the reader's attention in the first paragraph and, if possible, in the very first sentence. It must provoke in him an immediate "need to know" how the situation, stated in the first paragraph, will be resolved. Once the narrative hook has been planted, the story may hold the reader's interest in one of two ways:
    (1) the original situation, which caught his attention, turns out to be the major problem of the story and will not be resolved until the conclusion, after many intermediate challenges to the hero; (2) the hook turns out to be a minor problem that leads the hero rapidly into his most important bind. In either case—though (1) is preferable to (2)—the pace must be swift, the danger and the suspense continuous.
    In a science fiction novel, you should not only present a strong narrative hook in the initial paragraph, but also give the reader a glimpse of the background of the story, thereby acclimating him to all the extrapolative detail yet to come. The sooner the reader understands that the story is set on another planet or in the future, the better equipped he will be to follow the plot without confusion.
    Yet this information should not come in a dry, encyclopedic fashion. It should be a part of the narrative, incorporated into the developing story without causing the slightest hesitation in the plot pace. The following selection of first paragraphs should help you to understand how this requirement can be met.
    This, from my own novel,
Anti-Man
:
It was really too much to hope for, but we seemed to have lost them. We had jumped from Knoxville to Pierre, South Dakota, from that drab terminal to Bismark, North Dakota, and on to San Francisco. In the City of the Sun, we had walked unknown with our hands in our pockets and our faces open to the sky, feeling less like fugitives than we had any right to, grabbing a day of much needed rest and a moment to collect our thoughts before dashing on. We had spent the day buying gear for the last leg of our escape, eating our first decent meal in two days, and sitting through some atrocious toto-experience film just because it was dark in the theater and, therefore, safer for the two most wanted men in the world. At midnight, we had bought tickets and boarded the next Pole-crossing rocket flight that would take us over Alaska. As the high-altitude craft flashed above Northern California and into Oregon, I took Him into the bathroom at the end of the First Class compartment (fugitives should always travel First Class, for the rich are always too concerned with the way they look to notice anyone else) and locked the door. "Take off your coat and shirt," I told Him. "I want to see that wound."
    Here, the narrative hook is planted in the first sentence, when the reader discovers the narrator and his companion are on the run from someone. The second sentence elaborates that point. The third sentence labels them