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This article is for those of you with basic writing skills, but unfamiliar with the far reaches of the science fiction genre.
Science Fiction Samples
Writing Your Own Science Fiction
- 1Find a general topic; this applies to any book. To write science fiction, you need to know a little about science fact, so search for your topic in modern science books, articles and magazines, or talk to a scientifically-inclined person. Write down anything interesting until you find the right topic for you.
- 2Ask yourself "What if?" Remember, this is fiction. Play off your main scientific topic, but you can get a little crazy with it. For example, science can't really successfully clone humans yet, but what if it could?
- 3Decide what your main conflict will be: Man vs. Technology, Man vs. Man, etc. Aliens are probably the most popular enemy for science fiction books (and technology the most popular weapon against them), but don't be afraid to step out of the box.
- 4Decide your setting and time period. Most science fiction happens in the near future and involves more than just planet earth, but there are lots of different types of science so don't feel bound to this scenario. Remember to stay within the limits of the time period you choose--if you choose only five years into the future, for example, we probably haven't developed flying cars yet.
- 5Choose your characters, then write your basic outline. If you're not an outline person, then go ahead and dive into the first chapter or prologue. Good luck!
- 6Know the difference between science fiction and fantasy. Science fiction is more about about scientific occurrences that could happen in this world, or aliens and amazing inventions. Fantasy is about events that are impossible to happen in this world, and usually has magic and creatures like elves or ogres.
- 7Know the structure of a story. Stories have a structure with an initial incident, or starting struggle, that escalates into a "dark moment" in which all seems lost for the main character, and then turns into a climax followed by a resolution.
- 8Make sure you know what all of your characters want. Characters are driven by a goal, or want, and this should form the foundation of their behaviors. For instance, a character who wants to travel to a new existence may actually want to win the love and admiration of a fellow being, and the story plot will be driven by this double want.
- You can combine several different ideas to base your book around; you don't have to stick to just one.
- Don't be afraid to write about something that would probably never happen. Science is the basis, but it is also fiction, so you can stray from the facts a bit. The bigger deal is to make your characters believable.
- Your audience will usually accept one major violation of real-life science. Choose it carefully, and use it to explain all the other fantastic events and technologies in your book. You might even get away with tweaking the laws of physics a bit; the trick there is to create a significant difference, but to do so in a way that current technology wouldn't spot.
- Don't feel like you absolutely have to put it in the physical world we know. A lot of sci-fi has been successful within made-up worlds.
- Read a lot of sci-fi before you begin, just to get a feel for it. Some good role models for beginners are Madeline L'Engle, Michael Crichton, Garth Nix, Robin Cook, Philip Pullman, Margaret Peterson Haddix, and James Patterson. (Note: Some of these authors write in other genres as well as science fiction). For more experienced readers, Frank Herbert, Eoin Colfer, Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, Orson Scott Card, Steven Baxter and Robert A. Heinlein are suggested.
- When you describe your world, make sure your worlds are written clearly and try to make it easy for the reader to imagine that world in their head.
- Don't be afraid to write a parody of the genre. What many people consider the best sci-fi book of all time, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is actually a parody.
- Many science fiction writers think that their main character has to be a scientific super-person. That's not true. Normal people are okay, too.
- A scientist is not the same thing as an engineer. A scientist can think up theories. An engineer will determine if it can be built. Don't have your physicist character building a contraption from scratch based on a particle theory that they just came up with. Advanced electrical engineering is not normally within the training of your typical physicist.
- If your main character (or even a supporting character) is a scientist, make sure you don't just make him/her a go to guy for all things science. Science in multidisciplinary. This means that a biologist may know nothing about robots, or vice versa. State the scientific field that he specialises in and limit his expertise to that field. He may know something about some other fields but you shouldn't have a quantum physicist trying to give advice about poisonous alien plants. If you must make your science-officer a "jack of all trades", then make sure to also make him "but master of none".
- Don't stray too far from science fact. There is a limit to what you can convince people to believe.
- When you get writer's block, don't give up on the story. Give it some time. If you give up, you'll regret it later.
- Real science is not at all dramatic. It involves a lot of paperwork, networking, bureaucracy, and red tape. And most scientists go home at the end of the day to families or single lives involving hobbies, love lives, friends, bills, a mortgage, and all the other things that everyone deals with. Most scientists are not dashing adventurers like Reed Richards or Bernard Quatermass. Also, avoid the cliched depiction or the reclusive creepy obsessed weirdo or the extreme nerd. Scientists have passion for their topics.
- Take inspiration from other writers, but don't steal their ideas. That might not be technically plagiarism, but after a while of one idea, it gets cliche. Avoid it.
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