Last week I was struggling to find something to read. Not a
mean feat on the basis I own over two hundred books and have a kindle which
gives me access to practically every book ever written. After many hours of
perusing I finally settled on a collection of Philip K. Dick novels that had
been bought as a birthday gift some years ago. I had read 'Do Androids Dream of
Electric Sheep?' some years ago and really enjoyed it. That was before I had
started to write and I hadn't realised how brilliant it really was.
This time I started 'The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch'
a book which I had never even heard of before. Within the first two pages I was
hooked.
Barney Mayerson wakes up, next to a beautiful woman, with
no idea how he got there. He doesn't know where he is or even if he is still in
the United States. As he gets up he realises that he is still on earth, as the
gravity is familiar. The mysterious woman goes for a shower and Barney puts on
the coffee machine.
We have been told almost nothing in this scene but we know
many things. There is still a United States and apartments that include showers
and coffee machines. Therefore we know the setting is familiar, however the
fact that we are told he recognises the gravity shows us that there must be
some kind of space travel so we are not exactly in the world we recognise. This
is Philip K. Dick so it should be sci-fi but even if you didn't know the name
you have been shown it in the first page without talk of strange science and
aliens.
This is a wonderful example of showing not telling and yet
Philip K. Dick was not mentioned once during my recent creative writing course.
Is there anyone else out there who does this as well?
Do writing courses deliberating shy away from examples from
genres that aren't considered literary?
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