Science fiction is possibly one of the most flexible eBook trends in fiction. With sci-fi eBooks, you can quite literally create any kind of character and any kind of universe you want. Your imagination is your only barrier. Science fiction has been popular since the days of Isaac Asimov and beyond, but it has recently enjoyed a resurgence with the reboot of
Star Trek, that we feel will grow even bigger with the next round of
Star Wars films coming to theaters. Film genres do impact the popularity of book genres, so it's worth noting the connection.
Science fiction can be difficult to write well, perhaps because it is so open to becoming whatever your imagination creates. The best sci-fi writers ground their stories in scientific fact. They do not disobey the laws of physics, even as they bend them. And often they use the genre of science fiction in much the same way Gene Roddenberry did with
Star Trek: to address today's social issues in a non-threatening environment.
"The ancestor of science fiction is H. G. Wells with books like The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. Those books involved things that are very unlikely to happen or are actually impossible, but they are ways of exploring possibilities and human nature and the way people react to certain things."
– Margaret Atwood
To Write Great Sci-Fi, Read Great Sci-Fi
To write great science fiction, begin reading good science fiction. At a minimum, consider these as a place to start:
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Writing Good Science Fiction
Once you've read some of the greats, try researching the latest scientific and technological breakthroughs. Use your imagination to extrapolate where those breakthroughs might lead us. Envision a future in which the current breakthroughs and experimental sciences are taken for granted. Where would we go next? What would be the next step, or next 20 steps?
As with all genres, create characters and a plot that are interesting and well-developed. But because you may be creating other worlds, languages, and cultures, you may need to spend more time in the planning and plotting phases. It's worth it. If you develop a language that has no consistent rules or a culture that simply doesn't make sense, it will tear your story apart.
Jeffrey A. Carver offers an in-depth, free science fiction writing course online. Visit
writesf.com.
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Science fiction is possibly one of the most flexible eBook trends in fiction. With sci-fi eBooks, you can quite literally create any kind of character and any kind of universe you want. Your imagination is your only barrier. Science fiction has been popular since the days of Isaac Asimov and beyond, but it has recently enjoyed a resurgence with the reboot of Star Trek, that we feel will grow even bigger with the next round of Star Wars films coming to theaters. Film genres do impact the popularity of book genres, so it's worth noting the connection.
Science fiction can be difficult to write well, perhaps because it is so open to becoming whatever your imagination creates. The best sci-fi writers ground their stories in scientific fact. They do not disobey the laws of physics, even as they bend them. And often they use the genre of science fiction in much the same way Gene Roddenberry did with Star Trek: to address today's social issues in a non-threatening environment.
