Note: This is the second part of a series. If you have not read Worldbuilding Basics - Introduction and Resources yet, I recommend you do so before reading this post. And so, you choose to write science fiction. Where technology thrives both as a threat and a tool. Science fiction, as a part of speculative fiction, has an infinite array of possibilities. As you make this decision, you enter a brightly lit room and let your eyes adjust for just a few seconds. You can probably see the color of the walls and the lighting of the place. It is mostly empty and ready for you to work with it. Personally, this genre is my favorite to both write and read. However, when I started my first science fiction piece, I quickly noticed I had no idea how to transfer the world I had created on my head to the page. I had the Pinterest boards and the spreadsheets with my character’s needs and wants, but I realized there were so many things about my technology, and sci-fi in general, that I did not understand. During this post, I will start with the elements of the genre, and then explain a couple of the things I wish I had known when I started. Handling Change Ironically enough, change makes up the columns of the room, the base of your new world. Isaac Asimov, author and editor of about 500 books, most of them s.f., describes science fiction as “the branch of literature that deals with human responses to changes in the level of science and technology” (Asimov, 1978). Keep in mind, change can be for the better or the worse. Sometimes, characters will create a revolutionary innovation, such as Baltimore Gun Club creating a Columbiad space gun in Jules Verne’s From the Earth to the Moon. In turn, other characters learn to work with a technology that already exists, but has somehow altered humanity, like Emiko Sato working with the NeuroLink in Marie Lu’s Warcross. There is a third approach to change, and it presents a much wider perspective, a whole new galaxy, perhaps. Think Dune or Star Wars. They base most elements of their worlds out of our reality (or possible reality), but take technologies to a whole new, much more developed, level. In our reality, change is mostly cumulative and slow. In science fiction, writers are given the opportunity to go for a long jump and change the course of humanity in just a few years, months, or hours. The role of technology A recent addition to the list of character conflicts in fiction is “person vs technology”. Nevertheless, your characters do not always need to fight 4-meter tall robots. You can also have technology work as a tool character must use to solve other types of interpersonal conflicts. If change was the columns, technology is the furniture. Taking advantage of time In science fiction, time will shape the kinds of technology you can work with. Frankenstein, by Mary Shelly takes place during the eighteen century, which was the author’s present. It includes references to books and lab implements of the time, and it also contrasts the Age of Enlightenment with Romanticism. If you want your novel to settle during the past, background research will be fundamental. In this case, make sure you understand the major scientific movements and arguments rather than every single invention of the era. A similar process might guide you through a sci-fi novel set in the present. Who knows? Maybe you will end up predicting a groundbreaking tech piece. When choosing the future, however, things can get trickier (or more fun). Progress is not linear, which means there is a variety of aspects that might have impacted technology. However, if there is a major change, ask yourself what its cause was. A war? A pandemic? A global climatic emergency? Depart from there and then work out the details. If there is no major change, but there are different sets of technology to understand, think about their purpose in this new timeline. This process can also be useful if you want to take the challenge of creating a new galaxy. An example of taking both past/present and future is H.G Wells “The Time Machine”. The scientist starts his journey in Victorian London, again with references to science of the era, but travels to the year 802,701, where conflicts and human ambition have changed the world entirely. Understand, don’t memorize Remember that first sci-fi book I tried to write? I was so focused on making my world as accurate as possible that I ended up downloading PDFs on aerospace engineering. Needless to say, it was hard to understand, and even harder to write my ideas down clearly. Just as in fantasy, having one general idea will be more practical for you and your readers than tackling a hundred things you do not fully comprehend. Now you have the structure of the room, and maybe a couple of futuristic-looking pieces of furniture complete with blue LED lights. At the end of the room stands another choice. The first is a crystal rounded door that reads “soft SFF”. The second is a metal square one that says “hard SFF”. What will you choose? Keep your eye out for the next part of the worldbuilding series to know how this decision will shape your story. Paula Argudois a young planster with too much passion and too little time on a day. She has been telling stories for as long as she can remember, whether they are thoroughly researched flash fiction pieces or improvised bedtime stories.
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