Creative Writing - Phase Nine

This will be short, but do you enjoy writing Science Fiction? Have you ever given any thought to it?

Here are some tips and tricks to help you either get started, give you some ideas for creating a sci-fi novel or short story.

Science fiction is just that, fiction about science. The science might be invented, and it might be of any stripe: political science, psychology and sociology, electronics, or the type with beakers and skeletons, but all sci-fi revolves around a central ‘what if’ question that addresses a deeper query.

It’s for this reason that many prominent sci-fi writers dislike the genre’s name, instead preferring ‘speculative fiction’. Sci-fi asks questions, it’s a fictive study of a central thesis. Philip K. Dick’s, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”, asks ‘what if androids were as emotionally complex as humans?’ This thesis is used to explore how we define emotion and memory, and how we understand what it means to be human.

The ancestral grandfather of science fiction is H. G. Wells with books like ‘The Time Machine’ and ‘The War of the Worlds’. Those books involved things that are very unlikely to happen or are impossible, but they are ways of exploring possibilities and human nature and the way people react to certain things.

The Star Wars movies, however, are not built on this kind of thesis. The story is of a Jedi knight on a quest to save a princess. The castle may be a star ship, the duels fought with laser swords, but the futuristic tech is never used as a lens through which to examine our own world. That’s not to say that fantasy can’t comment on the human condition, or that it isn’t a valid genre with a lot to offer, but it does it in a distinctly different way to sci-fi.

No matter how impressive, the aesthetic trappings of robots and aliens won’t make a fantasy story into science fiction.

Rule: 1 – Know your Thesis

With that in mind, the first golden rule of writing sci-fi is ‘know your thesis’. Do you just want to write about strange lands and weird characters? That’s fine, but it’s likely you’re writing fantasy in space. In H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, the protagonist encounters two races, the seemingly brutish, subterranean Morlocks and the beautiful but vapid Eloi. While many readings are possible, it’s undeniable that Wells uses the two races to comment on the politics of appearance, and even labor. The protagonist’s constantly shifting understanding of the two races’ relationship provides critique after critique of the modern world.

Wells’ ‘what if’, is ‘what if our evolution continued according to our current social behavior?’ His conclusion is best left to the reader but suffice it to say it’s not favorable.

And what’s the point of your world? What are you talking about? Try and take the ‘science’ of sci-fi as an approach rather than a topic. Use your world as a case study, almost an experiment, which will prove your point to the reader. Of course, stories are more than one thing, but keeping your thesis central has many benefits when writing sci-fi. Knowing the point of your fictional world will stop inconsistencies. In 1984, George Orwell provides detail after detail of the fascist state Oceania. Views on entertainment, dress, behavior, and literature are scattered throughout, giving the reader the impression of a totally consistent world.

Orwell can create this impression because he has a clear idea of the philosophy behind the society from the start: ‘What if a government tried to cement power by eliminating choice?’ The details that follow are all accepted by the reader because they all serve this idea.

Clarify your idea. What’s your question, and what’s the answer? You don’t have to spell them out to the reader, but you must to be able to spell them out to yourself. Write them down and stick them in your work space. Every time you’re looking for details on your world or characters think how they would act in a reality based on that question.

Rule: 2 – Do your Research

Once you’ve decided on your question, it’s time to look into the answer. Margaret Atwood has claimed of her novel The Handmaid’s Tale:

“There isn’t anything in the book not based on something that has already happened in history or in another country, or for which actual supporting documentation is not already available.”

Margaret Atwood—The Handmaid’s Tale

Based on the question ‘what if the ability to reproduce became rare?’, among a few others, Atwood describes a futuristic society where women capable of giving birth are property sold to the highest and most influential bidder. She uses knowledge of fundamentalist religious treatment of women, as well as the history of slavery and war, to craft a world which feels real because it is built on a real understanding of misogyny.

Whether your thesis is ‘what if we met aliens in the fifties?’ or ‘what if we all went deaf overnight?’, there will be real information you can research to learn how similar situations have gone in the past. What happened in our own past when new cultures met? What is it like gaining or losing a sense? Whether the occupying force is aliens or mutated plants, as in John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids, we have records of life under occupation.

Accounts of the best and worst in humanity are available in myriad forms.

It’s the details that sell sci-fi. They make the world seem real, validating your thesis by ensuring the story constantly rings true. The more research you can do into your selected area, the more ideas you’ll have. There are several types of lizard that disguise themselves as females to avoid alpha males and steal mates, types of birds that hide their eggs in other’s nests where they hatch and kill off the other chicks, and fish that pretend to be cave’s so prey will swim into their mouths. No matter how strange your aliens, monsters, or other beings, there are realistic details just waiting for you to find them.

Once you’ve got your thesis and you’re armed with real-life precedents it’s time to really be brave.

Rule: 3 – Don’t be afraid of the New

Sci-fi asks big questions and knows what it’s talking about. It’s maybe the bravest genre, not just keeping up with its audience or period but forecasting ahead to the future. That’s why it’s essential to ask what’s new about your story. Is it the world you’re crafting, your position in time, your own voice?

It’s true that every story has already been told, but every day there are new ways to examine the human condition. What does social media tell us about humanity, and what might it look like in the future? It’s a sad truth of sci-fi that the exaggeration of yesterday is the truth of today. Mary Shelley’s, Frankenstein (often described as the first sci-fi novel), explores the idea of creating unnatural life from a Victorian perspective and has many interesting and perceptive insights, but Kazuo Ishiguro’s, ‘Never Let Me Go’, is written from the perspective of a writer not just theorizing about cloning, but living in a world where it’s already been done.

What is new or unique about your questions? Even if it’s just a new way of presenting your theory to the audience that’s enough but identifying what you’re bringing to the discussion will help you place emphasis in the right places.

Appreciate your Audience

Sci-fi is often the first foray into new ideas. Even as you explore the possibility of real artificial-intelligence, there are vast libraries on the resulting moral quandaries, and writing on space travel predated actual attempts by centuries. A sci-fi audience is one with big expectations, and if you can understand what they expect and why it works, they’ll be the most engaged fans a writer could ask for.

Writing other worlds or societies can be incredibly tricky, especially when it comes to setting aside your own experiences and biases.

Now, when it comes to fantasy … most of the same rules apply in Sci-Fi to fantasy but with one huge change to factor in: any fantasy story that contains unrealistic settings, or magic, or often set in a medieval universe, and possibly involving mythical beings or supernatural forms as a primary element of the plot, theme, or setting.

With Sci-Fi we are talking about a different universe, a different form of alien or invasion, and in fantasy, dragons, magic, and the like. A good example is J.R.R. Tolkien’s – Lord of the Rings.

Next, we delve into another aspect of writing. Nonfiction, Autobiographies, Memoirs and Reviews. A few tips and ideas for the writer that may see a career there. After all, somebody must tell us the truth.

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Talking about science fiction, a film entitled “Threads”, originally done in 1984 on the BBC Television Network, depicted what would happen in the event of a Nuclear Attack.

The quiet lives in Sheffield, England, are threatened when the Soviet Union and United States go to war. After a nuclear attack destroys a NATO base 20 miles from Sheffield, the town falls into chaos. Its set up as a docu-drama, but I have always looked at it as science-fiction with flare.

It’s a little known if even remembered film, but has been given a new life on DVD and Blu-Ray, but, I am of opinion this is probably one of the better science fiction films to come along in my lifetime. It gives us a sense it is happening, in real time. When you take into account the filming and the way things were designed in 1984, the special effects far outweigh in some respects films of today.

After all, science fiction doesn’t have to be all about aliens destroying life as we know it, or looking for a new world to discover and fraught with suspense and danger.

A clip from Threads: https://youtu.be/MrHoMSRZOS4