Roger Floyd's Website

  • The Logic of Other Worlds

    As I was watching on television a few days ago one of the first three Star Wars films to be made (they’re now numbered 4, 5, and 6) I kind of became aware of just how much the film*—although ostensibly taking place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away—was using so many…

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  • Writing; Also Reading

    In the almost twenty years since I started writing fiction, I’ve noticed a change in the way I read that same genre.  I started my career as a scientist many, many years ago, and the only thing I wrote for a large part of my life were scientific papers.  The only thing I read with any frequency was…

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  • Ideas

    A few days ago I watched the second half of a movie from 1974, called “The White Dawn,” about three whalers, two Caucasian and one African American (played by Warren Oates, Timothy Bottoms, and Louis Gossett, Jr.) who get trapped in the Arctic, and have to rely on the local Eskimos to survive.  The movie takes place…

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  • Beyond Creativity

    What is it we are actually doing by being creative?  That is, by making up a story such as a novel or a short story, or by producing a scientific paper that adds to the sum of human knowledge about some aspect of humanity, what is it that lies below the surface of this creativity? …

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  • Teaching Writing

    I’ve noticed on Facebook recently some postings from at least one (possibly more) famous author(s) that are essentially advertisements for writing programs that purport to help the person who responds to the ad learn to write novels like the famous author.  Some even say “I’ll teach you to write like me.”  I’m a little concerned…

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  • Import

    I’m going to stick my neck out here and try and define a characteristic of fiction that is, at least to me, new.  I’ve written a few short stories as well as three novels, but when I finished a short story of about 4600 words a few weeks back, and read through it several times,…

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  • Haven’t You Got Something Better To Do?

    I’m a writer.  I specialize in writing fiction, especially science-fiction novels, but I’ve written several short stories, mostly with a sci-fi bent, if not outright.  But fiction by definition is a story about something that is not real.  Fiction generally uses made-up characters and plot lines, though real people can appear in a fictitious work.  Even…

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