Steven Rasnic Tem returns to Analog with “The Shiny New Folk” in our [March/April issue, on sale now!] In this Q&A, he talks about his interest in the intersection between aging and technology and how his writing process has evolved.
Analog Editor: What is the story behind this piece? How did this story germinate?
Steve Rasnic Tem: “The Shiny New Folk” came to me the way a lot of my science fiction stories do. The implications of some new or proposed technology begins to fascinate me (in this case the notion that someday we may be able to extend our lives by downloading our consciousness into a piece of hardware), and I start building a story exploring how that technology might impact ordinary people. As much as I admire scientists and engineers, it is the people forced to live with a new technology which truly fascinate me, people who often have only the vaguest idea of how that new technology works. Especially older people who, in their twilight years, are confronted with a new way of doing things. Adjusting to new methods and rules can be quite a struggle. Do you take the time to learn this new technology or do you attempt to live your life without it? The cost of ignoring new developments is that you may become increasingly isolated from the rest of society.
Whenever I’m working on a new short story I try to find the most efficient setting and scenario to convey the ideas and emotions I want to explore. Although I don’t subscribe to everything Poe said about the short story form, I agree with him about the inherent power of a singular effect in a story which can be read in a single sitting. In my fiction I’m looking for ways to create a focused narrative in which all the elements—character, dialogue, setting, plot—mirror each other to maximize the emotional effect. In this story I have two old friends meeting each other after a long absence. What better setting than a favorite café whose clientele has changed over the years of their patronage? Introduce a third friend, someone emblematic of these uncomfortable changes, and then I simply allow them to have a conversation. Often the best writing strategy is letting your characters tell you the story.
AE: Do you particularly relate to any of the characters in this story?
SRT: Because of a semi-autobiographical novel I wrote with my late wife Melanie, The Man On the Ceiling, readers often look for biographical elements in my stories. The last few years I’ve written a lot of stories about seniors. I recently turned 75, so I’m quite familiar with the issues and emotions involved in aging, and I perceive that the experience of old age is underrepresented in genre fiction. But I’ve always tended to write characters who are a little bit older than me (increasingly difficult as I age—does this mean writing a lot of stories set in the afterlife?), and I tend to write characters who struggle a little more in their situation than I do. I also sometimes write thought experiments attempting to answer the question what would I do, how would I feel, if this difficult thing happened to me?
At my age, I do think about a lot of the things Peter and Isaac have to face in their own lives. I love my multiple computers and use them all the time, but every time there is a major software update or a new, innovative piece of software comes along, I have to decide whether it’s really worth my time to learn it. That decision is no longer automatic. I’m also not a fan of cell phones. I have one, but I don’t like to use it. Part of that may be the small screen size and the small virtual keyboard, but I’m also unhappy with the harm it’s done to human manners and face-to-face interactivity. I think we all have technologies we love and technologies we really don’t care for.
I’ve always believed that part of a writer’s function was to give a kind of testament as to what we’ve seen and what we’ve felt, including what we imagined, during our time on the planet.
AE: What is your history with Analog?
SRT: This is my third story to appear in Analog. The first, 2019’s “Captain Zack and the Data Raiders,” is about the issue of governmental attempts to suppress scientific information and the dangers of doxing. Last year’s “Prime Purpose” is another story about aging and artificial intelligence. It also suggests that there may be more things we can do with technology to ease the difficulties and indignities of aging. Older people are often an overlooked resource. It’s an aspect of life many people would like to ignore or wish away. We can do much better.
AE: Who or what are your greatest influences and inspirations?
SRT: My general approach to fiction has been inspired by writers like Ramsey Campbell, M.R. James, and Robert Aickman. Everything I know about tone and mood and description I learned from reading those writers. International fantasists like Kafka, Italo Calvino, and Dino Buzzati have also left their mark. Among science fiction writers, humanists like Connie Willis, John Kessel, and James Patrick Kelly have deeply affected my approach to the genre.
AE: Are there any themes that you find yourself returning to throughout your writing? If yes, what and why?
SRT: I think all writers have their obsessions. Mine largely have to do with building a family and raising children, and yes, more recently, aging. I’ve always believed that part of a writer’s function was to give a kind of testament as to what we’ve seen and what we’ve felt, including what we imagined, during our time on the planet. Those familial relationships are my lens on that subject. I’ve also had an overarching concern with empathy, how to acquire it, and why it seems to be in such short supply these days. For me, both writing and reading fiction are important acts of empathy. It’s one of the ways we learn empathy, and how we reinforce it.
AE: What is your process?
SRT: It has evolved over the decades. In the beginning I tried to do what all those “How To” books advised: I wrote character sketches, I speculated on what my characters would do outside the specific situation of the story. I wrote detailed outlines. I always knew both the beginning and end of the story before I started writing it.
That process was a struggle for me. I found it uninspiring, boring. The first thing I ditched were the character sketches—I didn’t see much point in writing a lot of material not directly applicable to the story at hand. In fact, I felt the sketches distracted from discovering characters suitable for the story I was trying to tell. Instead, I started writing the story based on the themes and ideas I wished to convey, and some of what I wrote sounded like dialogue, and some of it sounded like thoughts, and that’s how I created a path to my narrator. As for plot, I discovered that the areas of the story in which I had no idea what was going to happen were the most fun to write, so my plot outlines became quite spare. Question marks abounded.
Preconceived endings were the last elements to go. I still write them now and then, but generally I believe you can’t know what ending your story needs until you’ve taken a journey with your characters (and those characters are also something you discover along the way). It can be a frightening way to work, and sometimes the carcasses of unfinished stories accumulate on my hard drive, but I also find it to be a deeply satisfying way to write.
My process currently is barely controlled chaos working its way toward order. I put everything into the working file—research, random thoughts, a mind dump of everything I know about the theme. Sometimes I even include information from the submission call or invitation letter (if there is one). At some point I print it all out. I edit, cut, rearrange, and build a new file more or less creating a narrative order which makes sense to me. Each story goes through numerous drafts. I love to edit. I love to cut.
AE: What are you reading right now?
SRT: Currently in my reading queue are The Haunting of Hill House and Hell House (regular re-reads), The Collected Stories of M.R. James (also a re-read), Joe Hill’s King Sorrow, Light by M. John Harrison, This’ll Make Things a Little Easier: Stories by Attila Veres, Ministry of the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson, The Deluge by Stephen Markley, and The Last Days of the Dinosaurs by Riley Black.
AE: Do you have any advice for up-and-coming writers?
SRT: My major advice for people who want to write short stories is take about a year reading at least a thousand of them. Pay attention to how the writers began the story and how they ended it. What’s the relationship between the two? Maybe write down some of your favorites. Why are they your favorites? What about the middle of the story? What was the writer’s strategy? How did the writer build emotion throughout the story? Do that and I think you’ll have a good, basic education in short story technique.
AE: How can our readers follow you and your writing? (IE: Social media handles, website URL…)
SRT: My website is www.stevetem.com. BlueSky: @stevetem.bsky.social. Facebook: steve.tem
Steve Rasnic Tem’s writing career spans over 45 years, including more than 500 published short stories, 17 collections, 8 novels, misc. poetry and plays. His collaborative novella with his late wife Melanie, The Man On The Ceiling, won the World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and International Horror Guild awards in 2001. He has also won the Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, and British Fantasy Awards for his solo work, including Blood Kin, winner of 2014’s Bram Stoker for novel. Recent collections include Figures Unseen and Thanatrauma (Valancourt), Everyday Horrors and Queneau’s Alphabet (Macabre). Forthcoming is The World Under from Lethe Press. He has a writing handbook available, written with his late wife Melanie—Yours To Tell: Dialogues on the Art & Practice of Writing. In 2024 he received the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Astounding Analog Companion 