How to Write a Science Fiction Story in 7 Easy Steps

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Science fiction stories are easily done badly. UFOs can be seen dangling from strings, characters blurt out stiff, mechanical lines, and the action can turn upon the thinnest of plot points. You’ve seen them – you may even have a poster of Robot Jox (1990) stuffed somewhere in your old college hamper. But a good science fiction story can recast your assumptions about the way you live, about our purpose, and make you reconsider your own faith. Human rights issues can be placed in a new light, rendering them more accessible outside the parameters of the ‘real’ world. Sci-fi stories can also be inspiring. Consider Michio Kaku, an acclaimed inventor of the ‘theory of everything’ known as string theory. Kaku is a life-long sci-fi lover who credits the genre for his inspiration. A good science fiction story can change your life. It can give you everything, like Kaku, or nothing but a cramp.

What’s the difference between the good and the bad? The Imagine Science Film Festival kicked off with an illuminating panel by leading scientists, filmmakers, and screenwriters who specialize in understanding the role of science in fiction. The panel was moderated by National Public Radio host Ira Flatow at the futuristic office of the New York Academy of Sciences. Ari Handel, neuroscientist and screenwriter of The Fountain (2006), Darcy Kelley, neuroscience professor at Columbia, Sidney Perkowitz, a physics professor and film buff, and screenwriter Billy Shebar all joined in an impassioned discussion about “Science in Fiction”. The panel was as much concerned about the valid depiction of scientists as it was about the quality of the entertainment.

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Flatow steered the four experts – between silly puns – into educating us about science’s role in film. But the lessons learned are easily attributable beyond film into fiction in general. Read below on how to write a sci-fi story in seven easy steps.** In no particular order:

1. Respect the geek. Scientists often fall into strict stereotypes: villains or ineffectual dreamers. However, a convincing story needs to capture the allure of ideas for scientists: the excitement of a successful experiment and the despair of failed years of research. Spending time in a lab has merit. Try to cut around the wooden stereotype of the bespectacled geek. If you make a little effort, you can inspire the next generation of scientists.

2. Jargon is not important. Pepper the story with a few semi-authentic words if possible, but don’t worry about getting the nomenclature right. The more esoteric the scientific pursuit, the less likely the audience will care. Only a few people will notice if you make a mistake and they are not likely the core audience.

3. What if? A good storyline in a science fiction story can be created through the same basic inquiry that is used in a lab. Science involves knowing what questions to ask. Ask yourself about a fundamental assumption. For example: What if water does not make boats float? Then go ahead and try to think about how you would disprove that assumption. Or, if you really want to go gaga, consider that assumption false already and proceed from there. (In this world, boats only float on fire.) Voilà!

4. Avoid a la-bore-atory. A lab scene is not just a lab scene – that would be boring. For the audience to care, think about the relationships between the lab technicians, their superiors, the suppliers of the chemicals. How do they interact? What tensions are there? Many of them may have worked together for years and seen no results. Others may have met success from their teens. Check out Watson’s Double Helix (1968) for a real-life story about how laboratory and academic relationships can change the course of history.

5. Ideas can be dangerous! If the film is really brainy and is merely about competing ideas, then emphasize that tension. Show the ideas fighting it out with a few metaphors or personalities. Show what would happen if one idea was right and the other wrong. Biopics, while extremely rare, can become good stories by identifying internal tensions within the scientist. Consider A Beautiful Mind (2001), which delved into the internal conflict of a schizophrenic genius. Or tensions within families. How about a film of Kenneth Brower’s prize-winning double biography The Starship and the Canoe (1983)? An overbearing astrophysicist father and a rebellious son who lived in a treehouse and helped invent the modern kayak? What more do you need? Anyone?

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6. Avoid lecturing. Sometimes a story is set in a very different universe, where giant lizards live underground and hold the populace in fear. Be extremely careful about dumping all that information in a lazy way. Don’t have the character say: “Well, because of the giant proto-lizards that live underground, as you know, we must avoid going out on the streets after dusk.” The person already lives there. No one would say that. Think McDonald’s. No one would ever say that they’re going down to the ‘restaurant where food is rapidly prepared in a gaudy, red and yellow environment with grade D beef.’ They would say they’re going to McD’s. We live in a branded world full of symbols and metaphors. Aliens might too.

7. Keep up with the times. Current events often make for the best science fiction sellers. They can also enhance a debate and stimulate dialogue about controversial issues. A film like The Day After Tomorrow (2004) can get minds thinking about climate change as much as An Inconvenient Truth (2006). Read the newspaper, think a little extreme, and presto-change-o, a science fiction story is born.

Bonus Step! Avoid violence. Science is arguably neutral. Then why are there so many explosions in science fiction stories? Why do people have to get vaporized, lasered, disintegrated? Science has an awesome destructive power but there’s a lot more to it. Consider a film like the original The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951). It was compelling and non-violent, but relevant. How about a legacy for kids – and, hell, our fellow adults – that does not explode?

–Deji Olukotun

**Steps 1-5, 7, and the Bonus Step emerged from the panel discussion. However, Step 6 is my own. If you would like specific credits, just e-mail me at olukotun at gmail dot com.

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