What is the Sci-Fi genre?
Science fiction is a genre of fictional literature that is related to science and technology, usually taking place in the future. Sci-fi stories should incorporate semi-factual principles of science along with its fictitious theories or laws. If the tale is completely unrealistic, it becomes a piece of the fantasy genre.
How do you write Sci-Fi short stories?
1. Start by researching into current or past discoveries in science that may inspire you to come up with a new twist to an idea.
2. Read sci-fi stories! There are many sub-genres of sci-fi that you can explore (e.g. alternative history, super human etc.). Find one that you are interested in personally or one that you can relate to more easily.
3. Think of the message or moral of your story. You may want to write a suspenseful story and reveal your message in the end. Or perhaps you may simply want to leave your reader scratching their heads long after reading. Your call!
4. Make connections to the real world. While your futuristic setting may be totally out of the world, remember that you still need your readers to be able to connect in some way. You can achieve this through common "human" themes: bravery, injustice, tragedy etc.
5. Develop your own culture and environment. Especially if your world is drastically different to our own, you can use your creativity to come up with new social norms and even a new speaking habits. Consider the political, historical and social factors that may influence the life of your characters. Be descriptive with the sceneries of your setting.
6. Identify your conflict. This is also similar to what your theme may be. For example, your conflict may be humanity's constant struggle against time. One of your themes could then also be inflexible nature of time.
7. Choose a style and stick to it through the narration. Your point of view can be either in the first, second or third person. Decide the timing of your narration (past, present or future) and the voice of the narrator(s). Ask yourself: Is the narrator subjective or objective? Is he/she reliable?
8. Choose the structure your story. This is basically how you decide to tell your story. It can be in a linear form, through a cycle (hero's journey) or a non-linear form. Maintain good pacing by brainstorming a plot chart beforehand.
9. Begin writing! A common structure that can be seen in various types of stories is the monomyth, otherwise known as the Hero's Journey. A template of this pattern of narrative can be easily found online, but the method essentially involves a "Hero" or a protagonist of the sort who goes onto an adventure and returns or continues their journey with a new transformation, which then guides their improved character.
Before writing, always have a read at a few prominent works to get to know the genre better and also to stir your imagination before you pick up your own pen...
Extract 1: 2BR02B by Ray Bradbury
Everything was perfectly swell.
There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars.
All diseases were conquered. So was old age.
Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.
The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls.
One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day any more.
Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was one hundred and twenty-nine.
X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first.
Young Wehling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air, too. Chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls. The floor was paved with spattered dropcloths.
The room was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial to a man who had volunteered to die.
A sardonic old man, about two hundred years old, sat on a stepladder, painting a mural he did not like. Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age would have been guessed at thirty-five or so. Aging had touched him that much before the cure for aging was found.
Extract 2: Quotes from Dune by Frank Herbert
There has never been a truly selfless rebel, just hypocrites-- conscious hypocrites or unconscious hypocrites, it's all the same.
Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the universe is always one step beyond logic.
There is no escape---we pay for the violence of our ancestors.
Below is a list of recommended Sci-Fi short stories and novels:
Science fiction reading list:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (SS)
The Chronic Argonauts by H.G. Wells (SS)
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut (SS)
There Will Come Soft Rains by Ray Bradbury (SS)
The Pedestrian by Ray Bradbury (SS)
2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut (SS)
Nightfall by Isaac Asimov (SS)
Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers by Lawrence Watt-Evans (SS)
By His Bootstraps by Robert Heinlein (SS)
Dune by Frank Herbert (novel)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (novel)
Thanks for reading! Feel free to leave a suggestion for a possible future genre.
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