History SoYouWantTo / WriteAScienceFictionStory

And that's just to start with. For other inspiring examples, check out works that have won the UsefulNotes/HugoAward, UsefulNotes/NebulaAward and UsefulNotes/SeiunAward, the three most prestigious (roughly in that order) accolades that a science-fiction work can win. You may also want to read ''The Craft of Writing Science Fiction that Sells'' by Creator/BenBova, who had a demonstrated ability to do just that.

And that's just to start with. For other inspiring examples, check out works that have won the UsefulNotes/HugoAward, UsefulNotes/NebulaAward and UsefulNotes/SeiunAward, the three most prestigious (roughly in that order) accolades that a science-fiction work can win.

There are two decisions you need to make: what your central characters' technology level is ''and'' what your ''average'' technology level is. This is especially important since your main characters will probably live at a different tech level than the average. The characters of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' live on a CoolSpaceship, but we don't spend nearly as much time on the average citizen of TheFederation. What's it like if you're just a person living on Earth, or Vulcan, or Betazed? When you're just living in your house, do you have easy access to a transporter? To holodecks? To replicators? To CasualInterstellarTravel? To photon torpedoes? And if you're going to write a story about multiple cultures (Space Opera, Space Western, Transhuman, etc), you'll need to specify the technology level of ''those'' cultures too. Going back to ''Halo'', we have not only the tech level the UNSC lives at (rifles that fire bullets) and the tech level that the [=SPARTAN-II=] PlayerCharacter and his friends live at: there's also the ''enemy'', a consortium of aliens called "The Covenant" who are united by their worship of the Forerunners, the franchise's {{Precursors}}. They also have access to a bunch of Forerunner-based technology, which are incredibly powerful despite the fact that the Covenant don't quite understand how their own inferior knockoffs actually work. So they ''too'' have personal DeflectorShields (two kinds!--the ones on the Elites and Brutes, and then the big oval forearm shields of the Jackals), {{Invisibility Cloak}}s, {{Plasma Cannon}}s and {{Energy Weapon}}s, {{Laser Blade}}s and more. (A ''lot'' more: it's canon that naval engagements between the Covenant and the UNSC are almost always {{Curb Stomp Battle}}s in the Covenant's favor, because their ships are just that much better.)

Let's say you have a SubspaceAnsible, allowing faster-than-light communication. According to Einstein, ain't ''nothing'' moves faster than light--this is an immutable law of physics. So the existence of a SubspaceAnsible automatically lowers your story's position on the Mohs Scale, because you are violating the laws of physics. However, we then get into the question of how the ansible ''works''. What (plot) device ''are'' you using to violate the laws of physics? Well, if you invent some {{Technobabble}} about localized artificial wormholes and such that let you pass physical objects through--say, electromagnetic radiation--you go even lower on the scale, in addition to DiggingYourselfDeeper in terms of explaining how ''those'' are created. But if you do some research, you can find out about [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement quantum entanglement]], a subatomic form of TwinTelepathy that may allow genuine FTL communication to exist in the future. This boosts you up the scale a little bit because at least you have a semi-scientific leg to stand on.

But then let's say your characters invent a new gadget that lets them send massive energy pulses through the ansible, to the point that you can cause the receiving ansible to explode and kill the person operating it. Ansibles are now weapons. How are you going to explain ''that''? At current time, there is no known way of sending energy down a quantum-entanglement link (indeed, there is no known way of ''manipulating'' the entangled particles without de-entangling them, thus limiting the [[ScienceMarchesOn currently understood]] applications of the phenomenon), and if your characters do this, you'll get dinged on the Mohs Scale. Conversely, that localized-artificial-wormholes crap suddenly looks much more plausible, since--while said phenomenon is not necessarily scientifically valid--you already established that physical objects can be transmitted through the ansible. The ability to supercharge one like a bomb no longer looks like an AssPull; indeed, it's consistent with the (artificial) laws you created earlier, and thus your Mohs rating goes up.

Note, though, that there's a lot of research to be done. If possible, stick to current conventions and ideas. For instance, most atomic elements have names that end in "-ium" (potassium, einsteinium, californium; "aluminum" is a weird corner-case, especially since it is known as "aluminium" in every other country besides America). Adding on a completely different suffix ("alamantarite"?) would raise protest from most RealLife scientists, and thus probably would in your fictional universe too. (Unless you have a JustSoStory to justify it; and, of course, you are allowed to craft one.) Another example is species names. In most science-fiction, species names are capitalized as though they are proper titles: Klingons from ''Franchise/StarTrek'', Daleks from ''Series/DoctorWho'', Wookiees from ''Franchise/StarWars'', Cylons in ''Franchise/BattlestarGalactica'', Minbari in ''Series/BabylonFive'', etc. This is '''not''' how species names are handled terrestrially; when you are referring to your pet Dog, you don't-- [[SelfDemonstratingArticle see??]] Nor do we talk about Oak Trees or Salmon or Blue-Footed Boobies. All of these things are ''lowercase'', the same way "human" is. And yet the "capitalized species name" trope is so ingrained in most viewers that they will react with confusion if they see lowercase ones. Even though, according to modern scientific practice, they all should have been lowercase from the start.[[note]]This is because, starting from Creator/JRRTolkien and spreading out to science-fiction from there, "races" have actually been the equivalents of ''ethnicities'', not species; "RubberForeheadAliens" don't just, as the Laconic trope puts it, "look like humans with prosthetic makeup," they '''''are''''' humans with prosthetic makeup. People attempting to craft StarfishAliens should probably take note.[[/note]]

There is a huge variety in the props you can use, given the (again) wide variety of settings. ''Franchise/StarTrek'', set in the 23rd century, has omnipresent [[EnergyWeapon Frickin' Laser Beams]], {{Teleportation}}, DeflectorShields on their {{Cool Spaceship}}s, TranslatorMicrobes, {{Antimatter}}, and more; ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', set in the 26th, holds that KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter and arms its {{Space Marine}}s with gunpowder-based weapons. Of course, it also has a PlayerCharacter with PoweredArmor containing a fusion reactor, an onboard ArtificialIntelligence and ''personal'' DeflectorShields, which are all things ''Star Trek'' has never (canonically) exhibited, so you could have all sorts of FanWank about which franchise has an edge in advanced technology.

There are two decisions you need to make: what your central characters' technology level is ''and'' what your ''average'' technology level is. This is especially important since your main characters will probably live at a higher tech level than the world at large. The characters of ''Franchise/StarTrek'' live on a CoolSpaceship, but we don't spend nearly as much time on the average rank-and-file of TheFederation. What's it like if you're just a normal citizen living on Earth, or Vulcan, or Betazed? When you're just living in your house, do you have easy access to a transporter? To holodecks? To replicators? To CasualInterstellarTravel? To photon torpedoes? And if you're going to write a story about multiple cultures (Space Opera, Space Western, Transhuman, etc), you'll need to specify the technology level of ''those'' cultures too. Going back to ''Halo'', we have not only the tech level the UNSC lives at (rifles that fire bullets) and the tech level that the [=SPARTAN-II=] PlayerCharacter and his friends live at: there's also the ''enemy'', a consortium of aliens called "The Covenant" who are united by their worship of the Forerunners, the franchise's {{Precursors}}. They also have access to a bunch of Forerunner-based ''technology'', which are incredibly powerful despite the fact that the Covenant don't quite understand how even their own inferior knockoffs actually work. So they ''too'' have personal DeflectorShields (two kinds!--the ones on the Elites and Brutes, and then the big oval forearm shields of the Jackals), {{Invisibility Cloak}}s, Plasma and {{Energy Weapon}}s, {{Laser Blade}}s and more. (A ''lot'' more: it's canon that naval engagements are almost always {{Curb Stomp Battle}}s in the Covenant's favor, because their Forerunner-influenced ships are GameBreaker powerful.)

''{{Literature/Dune}}'' is ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' of science-fiction. It's written in luxuriant prose, has the kind of explosive BackStory Tolkien indulged in, and for a bonus was the TropeCodifier for working {{Green Aesop}}s into the genre. It completely changed the public conception of what science-fiction was capable of.

Note, though, that there's a lot of research to be done. If possible, stick to current conventions and ideas. For instance, most atomic elements have names that end in "-ium" (potassium, einsteinium, californium; "aluminum" is a weird corner-case, especially since it is known as "aluminium" in every other country besides America). Adding on a completely different suffix ("alamantarite"?) would raise protest from most RealLife scientists, and thus probably would in your fictional universe too. (Unless you have a JustSoStory to justify it; and, of course, you are allowed to craft one.) Another example is species names. In most science-fiction (and fantasy too!), species names are capitalized as though they are proper titles: Klingons from ''Franchise/StarTrek'', Daleks from ''Series/DoctorWho'', Wookiees from ''Franchise/StarWars'', Cylons in ''Franchise/BattlestarGalactica'', Minbari in ''Series/BabylonFive'', etc. This is '''not''' how species names are handled terrestrially; when you are referring to your pet Dog, you don't-- [[SelfDemonstratingArticle see??]] Nor do we talk about Oak Trees or Salmon or Blue-Footed Boobies. All of these things are ''lowercase'', the same way "human" is. And yet the "capitalized species name" trope is so ingrained in most viewers that they will react with confusion if they see lowercase ones. Even though, according to modern scientific practice, they all should have been lowercase from the start.

* '''Superhuman''': this genre concerns the emergence of the {{Transhuman}} and what that means for the rest of us {{muggles}}. AllOfTheOtherReindeer is the most NecessaryWeasel here, since said transhuman will probably experience prejudice and feel annoyed by it.

Most science-fiction ''these'' days involves pieces of all three, though the latter two are by far the most predominant. In fact, the two of them together--what the technology is/was, and how it is/was used--have given rise to a whole mess of subgenres within the science-fiction proper. Wiki/TheOtherWiki has the following list (though with a "Citation Needed" tag, so feel free to add or elaborate as you desire):

''Film/Plan9FromOuterSpace'' is a good place to start, as is ''Film/{{Armageddon}}'' and just about anything else Creator/MichaelBay has ever done. Bay fails at CharacterDevelopment ''and'' at subtlety.

Creator/IsaacAsimov published an article in 1953 entitled "Social Science Fiction." In it, he posited that all SF falls into one of three categories, obligingly catalogued on Wiki/ThisVeryWiki as AsimovsThreeKindsOfScienceFiction:

First, you need science. Seems self-explanatory, but it's much, ''much'' trickier than you think. Science in fiction can range from [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness hard to soft]], from accurately researched and plausible (like basing your spaceship off real-world NASA rockets) to {{Technobabble}} and {{Applied Phlebotinum}} to [[HandWave Hand-Waved]] plot devices. Most audiences only have a very basic grasp of scientific principles (if even that much), but there is such a thing as WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief. The key is to make the rules of your fictional world ''consistent'', whether it's based on {{Real Life}} or your own imagination.

Finally, you should address the MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness, a (tongue-in-cheek) assessment of scientific accuracy. One of the defining aspects of science-fiction is that ''it contains Phlebotinum''--some sort of new gadget that does stuff which was formerly impossible. The Mohs Scale asks, "What rules govern your Phlebotinum, and are you sticking to InternalConsistency regarding those rules?" Scientific validity is nice too, but is often glossed over because of just how much research is necessary to achieve it; plus, ScienceMarchesOn, meaning that even if your story is accurate ''today'', someone might prove it wrong tomorrow. Fortunately, the Mohs Scale doesn't ding you for that.

And the antidote for preachiness is, well, non-preachiness. You should ask the hard questions: How could this be abused? Where could things go OffTheRails? We ''can'' do this, but ''should'' we? But you don't have to ''answer'' them. Let various characters react in various ways, and don't pass judgment. Make sure BothSidesHaveAPoint, and let both sides ''live'' with their points. Once again, the X-Men--specifically, ''Film/XMenTheLastStand''--provides an instructive demonstration. One of its plot points is that someone has come up with a "cure" for mutancy, a permanent PowerNullifier that turns you back into a {{muggle}}. Most mutants reject it, but one--Rogue, played by Anna Paquin--decides to go for it. Her personality in a nutshell is, "IJustWantToBeLoved," but her mutant power is a PowerParasite / TouchOfDeath combo, ''and'' she has permanent PowerIncontinence. As a result, she CantHaveSexEver, or even ''touch'' people for longer than about five seconds. So she decides to {{depower}} herself, despite the protests of other characters, and for the remainder of the trilogy (all five minutes of it remaining, by that point) she has to live with it. And, most importantly, the movie doesn't try to hang AnAesop on it by saying, "She was right," or "She was wrong." The movie just shows her doing it and lets ''the audience'' decide that for themselves. It is, in other words, possible to be thought-provoking without being {{anvilicious}}, and that's the angle you should aim for.

The antidote for excessive gadgetry is CharacterDevelopment. A swiss-army gadget might be cool in its own right, but it's much more memorable when wielded by an in interesting character. Additionally, if you start messing around with the character, you'll start losing focus on the gadget--partially because the character's probably more interesting, and partially because the character can do things the gadget itself used to do ("I need this RayGun to be able to speak French! How do I realistically... Oh, right, ''Bob'' can speak it!"). If Franchise/JamesBond didn't have a personality, he wouldn't be famous for all the marvellous toys Q Branch provides him. In fact, he wouldn't be famous at all. In X-Men's case, it's more about the powers, and there are characters who definitely demonstrate this. Cyclops is one example: he's TheHero, an upstanding boyscout who can level mountains with laser beams shot from his eyes... and has always been the bottom of the heap in terms of popularity, because he's just not that compelling. In comparison, you have someone like Gambit, whose power is comparatively stupid--he ''throws exploding playing cards'', for chrissakes--but comes with a cool-enough personality that he's going to be played by Channing Tatum. It is, in other words, possible for a story to have gadgets but still be about people, and that's the angle you should aim for.

Physics. ''Actual'' physics, preferably, as opposed to things like SpaceIsAnOcean or FasterThanLightTravel (another thing that is, at the moment, believed physically impossible). Of course, viewers might not have any idea what consists of realistic physics; you can also run into RealityIsUnrealistic if you ''do'' go for realism. (There's a tale, possibly apocryphal, about someone who went to a test screening of ''Film/{{Apollo 13}}'' and left the theatre scoffing, "I don't like the tacked-on happy ending. If this had really happened, there's no way the astronauts would've made it home.")

''Literature/{{Dune}}'' is ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' of science-fiction. It's written in luxuriant prose, has the kind of explosive BackStory Tolkien indulged in, and for a bonus was the TropeCodifier for working {{Green Aesop}}s into the genre. It completely changed the public conception of what science-fiction was capable of.

For television, check out ''Franchise/StarTrek'', a {{Long Runner}} that has a great deal of quality work behind them (though, as with everything, some not-so-quality as well). The show operates from a position that SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped, though as a consequence it has built up a reputation for being {{Anvilicious}} (see ''[[Recap/StarTrekS3E15LetThatBeYourLastBattlefield Let That Be Your Last Battlefield]]'' for an example). It also took place in a WorldHalfFull and was known for taking for granted several social advances that still haven't come to pass yet (specifically, the idea that people of different races can work together without anyone making derogatory comments).

# '''Social''' SF is when RealityEnsues and MisappliedPhlebotinum rears its ugly head. The new technology is widespread, the beautiful daughter is safe and sound... but what's going to happen to the world now that we can have tiny cameras everywhere? What if we were to take photos of people in compromising positions and use them against that person? What if we were to imprison a man within TheMasquerade and [[Film/TheTrumanShow broadcast his bumbling misadventures for our own entertainment]]? How are we going to solve the new problems created ''by'' the new technology? Adventure-SF is about how it can be used, but Social-SF is about how it ''should'' be used.

Note, though, that there's a lot of research to be done. If possible, stick to current conventions and ideas. For instance, most atomic elements have names that end in "-ium" (potassium, einsteinium, californium; "aluminum" is a weird corner-case, especially since it is known as "aluminium" in every other country besides America). Adding on a completely different suffix ("alamantarite"?) would raise protest from most RealWorld scientists, and thus probably would in your fictional universe too. (Unless you have a JustSoStory to justify it; and, of course, you are allowed to craft one.) Another example is species names. In most science-fiction (and fantasy too!), species names are capitalized as though they are proper titles: Klingons from ''Franchise/StarTrek'', Daleks from ''Series/DoctorWho'', Wookiees from ''Franchise/StarWars'', Cylons in ''Franchise/BattlestarGalactica'', Minbari in ''Series/BabylonFive'', etc. This is '''not''' how species names are handled terrestrially; when you are referring to your pet Dog, you don't-- [[SelfDemonstratingArticle see??]] Nor do we talk about Oak Trees or Salmon or Blue-Footed Boobies. All of these things are ''lowercase'', the same way "human" is. And yet the "capitalized species name" trope is so ingrained in most viewers that they will react with confusion if they see lowercase ones. Even though, according to modern scientific practice, they all should have been lowercase from the start.

Second, you need to address which scientific issue is at the root of your story. Most people think of outer space and aliens when they hear science fiction, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Some stories are about {{Time Travel}}, others are about {{Genetic Engineering}}, and still others are about how {{AI Is A Crapshoot}}. The first arguable work of science fiction was Mary Shelley's ''Literature/{{Frankenstein}}'', which is about the ethics and trauma of {{Creating Life}}. Once you've got a grasp on what kind of science you're dealing with, you can work out the kind of story you'd like to tell based on that premise.

Whenever possible, use MinovskyPhysics. The trope namer is ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'', a RealRobot genre that makes use of HumongousMecha. Now, HumongousMecha are AwesomeButImpractical in real life--so impractical that they'll probably never exist. So how do you write a ''realistic'' series involving them? Simple: MinovskyPhysics, which are a set of new physical conditions or rules that justify the story you want to make. As an example, Frank Herbert wanted ''Franchise/{{Dune}}'' to have [[ArchaicWeaponForAnAdvancedAge Archaic Weapons For An Advanced Age]]; he wanted his characters to have {{Sword Fight}}s, even though the story takes place in something like 23,000 AD, and [[TruthInTelevision swords have been obsolete ever since guns became practical in the 1500s]], meaning there was no intelligent reason for edged weapons to be used, in earnest, during military maneuvers. Herbert's MinovskyPhysics were personal DeflectorShields--pretty scientifically accurate ones too. If you're going to wear a personal shield that keeps everything out to the subatomic level, well... how're you gonna ''breathe''? The thing's blocking all oxygen circulation. So deflector shields in the "Duniverse" stop things that are only going above a certain velocity, like bullets or collimated photons (IE FrickinLaserBeams); slow stuff--say, oxygen molecules, or carbon dioxide--can get through. That ''also'' means that the best way to kill someone while his shield is up? Is to BackStab him, slowly. Boom: justification for using swords. "Because I Want To Write The Story That Way" is never a sufficient reason. Back-engineer the physics and science of the story to make your desires seem, not only clever, but inevitable.

There is a huge variety in the props you can use, given the (again) wide variety of settings. ''Franchise/StarTrek'', set in the 23rd century, has omnipresent FrickinLaserBeams, {{Teleportation}}, DeflectorShields on their {{Cool Spaceship}}s, TranslatorMicrobes, {{Antimatter}}, and more; ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', set in the 26th, holds that KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter and arms its {{Space Marine}}s with gunpowder-based weapons. Of course, it also has a PlayerCharacter with PoweredArmor containing a fusion reactor, an onboard ArtificialIntelligence and ''personal'' DeflectorShields, which are all things ''Star Trek'' has never (canonically) exhibited, so you could have all sorts of FanWank about which franchise has an edge in advanced technology.

* '''Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic''': fiction set AfterTheEnd. The ApocalypseHow can vary--disease, war, ecological disaster, astronomic impact, zombie plague--{{transhuman}}s run amok--but this brand of fiction typically involves itself with {{Action Survivor}}s struggling to rebuild, or at least survive, as everything comes crashing down around their ears.
* '''SpaceOpera''': drama, or even melodrama, on a galactic scale. It typically takes place in a well-developed and well-populated universe (though the presence of aliens, [[RubberForeheadAliens Rubber Forehead]] or [[StarfishAliens Starfish]], is optional) and at least one interstellar nation, against which is pitted an opponent who can match it blow for blow. Originally a derogatory name (a {{snowclone}} of SoapOpera), it has lost its pejorative connotations--''Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack'' was something of a turning point for it.

* '''TimeTravel''': typically, this involves someone going into the past and screwing things up somehow, creating an AlternateHistory, or at least having a wonderland adventure exploring the world of yesterday. It can be difficult to write well due to logical paradoxes resulting, as well as the fact that--according to Creator/AlbertEinstein at least--time travel is physically impossible.

There is a huge variety in the props you can use, given the (again) wide variety of settings. ''Franchise/StarTrek'', set in the 23rd century, has omnipresent FrickinLaserBeams, TeleportersAndTransporters, DeflectorShields on their {{Cool Spaceship}}s, TranslatorMicrobes, {{Antimatter}}, and more; ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'', set in the 26th, holds that KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter and arms its {{Space Marine}}s with gunpowder-based weapons. Of course, it also has a PlayerCharacter with PoweredArmor containing a fusion reactor, an onboard ArtificialIntelligence and ''personal'' DeflectorShields, which are all things ''Star Trek'' has never (canonically) exhibited, so you could have all sorts of FanWank about which franchise has an edge in advanced technology.

''Literature/{{Dune}}'' is the ''Literature/LordOfTheRings'' of science-fiction. It's written in luxuriant prose, has the kind of explosive BackStory Tolkien indulged in, and for a bonus was the TropeCodifier for working {{Green Aesop}}s into the genre. It completely changed the public conception of what science-fiction was capable of.

Creator/IsaacAsimov published an article in 1953 entitled "Social Science Fiction." In it, he posited that all SF falls into one of three categories, obligingly catalogued on ThisVeryWiki as AsimovsThreeKindsOfScienceFiction: