(Attr. Greg Egan)
The Kitchen-Sink Story. A story overwhelmed by the inclusion of
any and every new idea that occurs to the author in the process of
writing it. (Attr. Damon Knight)
The Whistling Dog. A story related in such an elaborate, arcane,
or convoluted manner that it impresses by its sheer narrative
ingenuity, but which, as a story, is basically not worth the
candle. Like the whistling dog, it's astonishing that the thing
can whistle -- but it doesn't actually whistle very well. (Attr.
Harlan Ellison)
The Rembrandt Comic Book. A story in which incredible
craftsmanship has been lavished on a theme or idea which is
basically trivial or subliterary, and which simply cannot bear the
weight of such deadly-serious artistic portent.
The Slipstream Story. Non-SF story which is so ontologically
distorted or related in such a bizarrely non-realist fashion that
it cannot pass muster as commercial mainstream fiction and
therefore seeks shelter in the SF or fantasy genre. Postmodern
critique and technique are particularly fruitful in creating
slipstream stories.
The Steam-Grommet Factory. Didactic SF story which consists
entirely of a guided tour of a large and elaborate gimmick. A
common technique of SF utopias and dystopias. (Attr. Gardner
Dozois)
PART FOUR: PLOTS
Idiot Plot. A plot which functions only because all the
characters involved are idiots. They behave in a way that suits
the author's convenience, rather than through any rational
motivation of their own. (Attr. James Blish)
Second-order Idiot Plot. A plot involving an entire invented SF
society which functions only because every single person in it is
necessarily an idiot. (Attr. Damon Knight)
And plot. Picaresque plot in which this happens, and then that
happens, and then something else happens, and it all adds up to
nothing in particular.
Kudzu plot. Plot which weaves and curls and writhes in weedy
organic profusion, smothering everything in its path.
Card Tricks in the Dark. Elaborately contrived plot which arrives
