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Too many restrictions on sci-fi. help?



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Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:23 am
the doctor says...



I've read a few science fiction novels, but I'm mostly sticking to reading fantasy. I'm trying to write sci-fi but I have no idea how to write it.

What is science fiction? Could you give me some clean easy examples of some storylines?

I know you shouldn't reference Earth in Science fiction, unless you really have to. My story plot line is about a girl who gets taken from Earth to a different world because she serves a better purpose there. I'm just wondering how this would work, because then I'd have to reference Earth, and I'm wondering about science fiction IF...

You can make up stuff like, "Travelling to a different galaxy on a space ship"
I know those exist

I just feel these are too falsifiable and unrealistic. I mean come on, a space ship that can travel the speed of light?

I feel like I have so many restrictions, that it's restricting me to write.
  





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Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:34 pm
Kale says...



I know you shouldn't reference Earth in Science fiction, unless you really have to.

No idea where you got that idea from. Some of the best sci-fi out there takes place on Earth or heavily references it. Take Babylon 5, for instance. Aside from being an excellently written show with plot points showing up in later seasons that can be traced to the first season, it deals with issues familiar to all of us (such as racism and racial tensions) and can be very thought-provoking.

The basic premise is that Earth has become space-faring, first colonizing Mars and making contact with various other well-established interstellar governments. Not all these contacts go well, however, and at the start of the show, Earth is just beginning to recover from the Earth-Mimbari War which almost lead to the annihilation of the human race. Through the course of the show, it's revealed that the trigger for the war was a cultural misunderstanding, and that in order to prevent such a disaster from occurring again, the Babylon Project was conceived.

The Babylon Project consisted of building a space station which would provide all species that wished to a place to live and interact with other species, with the goal of the project to provide a forum for peaceful coexistence. However, there are various factions within each government that oppose peace for various reasons, and so the first four Babylon stations all met with disaster. Babylon 5 is the latest (and implied last) attempt at succeeding.

Babylon 5 has a lot of the sci-fi staples like faster-than-light travel, fancy ships, aliens, and so forth, but they're just a part of the setting. An integral part of the setting, but still just part of the setting. The main foci of the series are the story, the characters, and the themes explored through them. And that is perfectly fine.

Sci-fi need not contain a lot of science. The origins of sci-fi can be traced to writers thinking about what the future could be like, or what the consequences of our current social state would be, and sharing that vision, either to encourage or to warn against it. Since then, sci-fi has branched out into so many different purposes: plain entertainment, whistle-blowing, to share a vision, etc. As a result, there are equally as many foci for the stories, such as certain aspects of science, characters, the message to be conveyed, etc.

My main point is that you seem to be limiting yourself by what you think sci-fi should be. About the only real guideline to writing sci-fi is that it does not refute the scientific knowledge of its time. Take H.G. Wells, for instance. He is a classic writer of sci-fi, yet there are many things unscientific about the science in his stories. However, at the time he wrote those stories, the story-science was consistent with what was known then, and so it was not implausible. And that is why The War of the Worlds and his other sci-fi writings are still considered sci-fi.

I suggest you branch out and read more work in the sci-fi genre. Starting with the classic writers like H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, and Isaac Asimov is a good place to begin if you haven't already. I particularly recommend The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. You may be surprised at how many sci-fi stories have very little or nothing to do with space travel and in fact take place on Earth.
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Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:37 pm
Sureal says...



What makes you think you can't mention Earth?
I wrote the above just for you.
  





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Sat Oct 16, 2010 4:53 pm
Rosendorn says...



The straight-up definition of sci-fi I use is: "Anything with plausible changes in society that happen through political or technological advances/steps backwards." (As you can see, it need not happen in the future. But that is the usual way it happens)

Within that framework, there's not all that much restriction. The only difference from fantasy is the lack of magic, and even that is debatable if you can come up with a good enough pseudoscientific explanation for why it is in existence. There is also the steampunk genre, which mixes fantasy and sci-fi.

To give another example of sci fi: Dr. Who. It's in modern times, on Earth, but because of aliens and technology twists, it's sci-fi.
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Tue Nov 02, 2010 1:04 am
MadameX says...



I don't know where you got that thing about Earth, but it's absolutely untrue. That said, the general rules for sci-fi are this: SF can take place in the future or even the past (think steampunk or Kenneth Oppel) but it can have no magic, just technology. For example, your character could fly, but it has to be the result of an invention/genetic engineering/evolution, not magic spells.

It's going to be tough to write a sf story if you don't like things like FTL travel. Not impossible--just difficult.

My advice to you is to go to the SF/Fantasy section of your library and look under "best" "year" or "dozois" (the editor of Year's Best SF). This is where the thick anthologies of recent SF stories are kept. You don't have to read it all--just pick out a couple stories that sound cool to get a feel for the genre.
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