Welcome to the Essentials of Writing Science Fiction

Pages and Platforms

And The Happily Ever After Club

Have you started a science-fiction story only to get stuck along the way?

Do you have a draft with problems you’re have trouble with diagnosing?

Have you researched – tried plotting – tried pantsing … and nothing has worked?

A Caveat: Tools, not Rules

Today you’ll learn how to: build, evaluate and improve your science fiction story using four tools:

- Marketing Category

- Essential Story Elements

- Story Types

- World Building

You will be able to:

- Evoke empathy for your characters

- create tension and excitement

- convey a thoughtful takeaway

- Meet reader expectations for your story type

Science Fiction isn’t a Story Type

“Science Fiction” defines the setting or environment where your story takes place

And it is a Marketing Category

Marketing Category

Science Fiction stories:

- Require readers to suspend some disbelief

- May have a cautionary premise referring to current times

- Involve predicted or speculatory technology

- May take place on earth, on other worlds or in space

- Are regarded as speculative or imaginary

- May veer from current scientific understanding

Science Fiction categories are important – they may greatly influence a reader’s decision to read your story

So: Know Your Category

BUT…

Science Fiction marketing categories can’t tell you how to construct your story … that’s what Story Type is for

Essential Story Elements

Another Caveat: This isn’t a one-draft process (sorry)

Zero Draft (Professional Draft)

- Has a protagonist pursuing a singular desire … which establishes clear stakes … and causes them to undergo a change as they pursue their desire

- Has a premise that’s reflected in every scene

- Is drive toward an emotion that your reader expects to feel

Desire – Stakes – Change – Premise - Emotion

When all these are clear … revisions can begin

Story Types

Choosing a Story Type is your most critical decision

Story Type determines

- Your protagonist’s motivation (wants and needs)

- What your protagonist has to gain or lose (stakes)

- How your protagonist will change

- What emotions you need to deliver to your reader

- The basic premise or message of your story

And those essential elements shape your story

Story Type isn’t

- Your marketing category or setting type (genre)

- For back cover blurbs

- For agents or readers

Story Type is:

- A deep structure

- A way to understand the kind of story you’re telling

- The key to your essential story elements

The Seven Story Types

- Action: teaches us the importance of individual heroism in the face of

danger

         - Plot driven and involve adventure, rescue, chase, quest or rebellion

         - The action protagonist is motivated by a desire to save lives and

restore safety

         - Action stakes involve life, safety, danger and death

         - Change arc: life and safety to danger and death

- The action reader wants to feel excitement and a sense of bravery in

the face of danger

Action’s essential premise: heroic action against villainous behavior leads to saving lives, whereas refusing to act heroically leads to loss of life and moral failure

- Crime: teaches us that social order and justice depend on clever people

   who outsmart chaotic wrongdoers

- Crime stories are plot-driven and involve solving a puzzle,

investigating a crime, or planning a heist

- The crime protagonist is motivated by the desire to solve a puzzle or

restore order

- Crime stakes involve justice and injustice

- Change arc: injustice and chaos to justice and order

- The crime reader wants to feel intrigue, or the safety of seeing

justice prevail

- Crime’s essential premise: Criminal activity results in chaos, whereas pursuit of justice restores social order

- Horror: stories remind us of the persistence of evil and show that only courage and eternal vigilance keep evil at bay

- Horror stories are plot-driven, with a monster intent on destruction

and a victim-protagonist

- The horror protagonist is motivated by a desire to stay alive and

avoid a fate worse than death

- Horror stakes involve life, escape and torment

- Horror stakes: life to death to torment to escape

- The horror reader wants to feel terror and image their bravery in

facing a monster

- Horror’s essential premise: vigilance by ordinary people can keep evil at bay, whereas cowardice allows the monster to win

- Love: stories allow us how to earn the intimacy, love and togetherness that help the human community thrive

- Love stories are both plot- and character-driven, and involve

relationships of intimacy, vulnerability and commitment

- The love protagonist is driven by a desire to win love or avoid

Vulnerability

- Love stakes involve rejection, vulnerability, and intimacy

- Change arc: disconnected to connected

- The love reader want to feel anticipation of intimacy and vulnerability

without risk

- Love’s essential premise:  A willingness to be vulnerable makes committed human connection possible, whereas an unwillingness to be vulnerable results in lack of connection

- Worldview: worldview stories show that the world is not a simple, black-and-white place, and teach us about accepting the nuance and complexity of other human beings and ourselves

- Worldview stories are character-driven, and involve naivete,

disillusionment and meaning

- The worldview protagonist is motivated by a desire for knowledge or

to avoid the truth

- The worldview stakes involve ignorance and beliefs vs knowledge and

wisdom

- Change arc: naïve to sophisticated, ignorant to knowing/wise

- The worldview reader wants to feel empathic satisfaction or pity, and

    enjoys feeling comparatively wise and mature

- Worldview’s essential premise: open-mindedness leads to wisdom, whereas avoiding the truth results in self0deception

- Validation: stories remind us that the ultimate definition of success is remaining true to honorable values

- Validation stories are character-driven, and involve the search for

success and esteem

- The validation protagonist is motivated by a desire to attain success

and honor

- Validation stakes involve success, compromise, failure and selling-

Out

- Change arc: failure to success

- The validation reader wants to feel admiration or pity, and enjoy a

sense or moral superiority

- Validation’s essential premise: ethical choices create true success, whereas unworthy goals lead to selling-out

- Redemption: stories remind us that our wrongs can be forgiven if we take altruist actions and sacrifice for the greater good

         - Redemption stories are character-driven, and involve forgiveness or

atonement

         - The redemption protagonist is motivated by guilt, shame, and a

desire for forgiveness

         - Redemption stakes involve selfishness, altruism and sacrifice

         - Change arc: guilt to atonement to forgiveness

         - The Redemption reader wants to feel satisfaction, pity or contempt,

and moral superiority

- Redemption’s essential premise: altruistic action results in forgiveness, whereas selfishness leads to moral failure

And There You Have Them: the Seven Story Types

         Innovate with story combinations

Plot-driven story types: Action – Crime – Horror – Love

Character-driven story types: Worldview – Validation – Redemption

Some SciFi Combinations

Love with Action: A Complicated Love Story Set in Space

Redemption with Horror: A Christmas Carol

Validation with Crime: Going Postal

Worldview with Love: The Nobodies

Action with Worldview: Parable of the Sower

So … to Recap

Each Story Type has It’s Own

-      Protagonist Motivation

-      Protagonist Stakes

-      Protagonist Change

-      Reader Emotion

-      Essential Premise

Understanding Them Helps You:

-      Meet the expectations of your intended reader

-      Write a consistent story with a clear beginning, middle, and end

-      Finish your story

But what about …

World Building

Three Main Questions to Consider about the World You’rs Building

1.   What obstacles and opportunities does your world present to the characters in the story

2.   What is your narrative voice and you point of view

3.   How much does your character need to know on order to keep reading

Obstacles and Opportunities

-      climate & geography

-      socioeconomic system

-      culture & history

-      state of science and technology

Narrative Device and POV

-      who’s telling the story

-      to whom

-      why

-      from what distance in time ans space

The Movie Mistake: what does your reader enjoy

Guidelines: Less is More: Describe a little, explain less, don’t interrupt action, & Select details that will pay off later