skill fable is the lit of big estimation — so coming up with an amazing story idea often feels like the self-aggrandising stumbling block in the way of your dreams of authorship . Unfortunately , most of us ca n’t justhave Robert A. Heinlein get off us $ 100 and a couple dozen smart as a whip idea . So what do you do ?
https://gizmodo.com/what-if-you-could-get-robert-a-heinlein-to-send-you-st-5947945
The trick is not just to number up with a bang-up idea , but a bully idea that lives in your brain and leave to lineament and situations that inspire you . So here are 10 moderately decorous ways to yield your own awful story idea .
And it really is honest that idea are dime a dozen in science fabrication . Take the idea of “ first inter-group communication with an alien race . ” There are a million potential variations of that idea alone : They come to us . We go to them . They ’re super - advanced . They ’re not using anything we ’d recognise as engineering science . They pass using only color . They believe emoticon are our language , and all the other stuff is just punctuation . They ’re jumbo . They ’re lilliputian . They ’re infest . They ’re well - intentioned , but troublesome . And so on .
The hard part is finding an idea that sticks in your principal and starts to grow uncanny angles and curvature . In a sense , it ’s not about chance a good idea — so much as finding a salutary idea for you , in person . So here are some peak , that may or may not be helpful :
Like , why have n’t we heard from other intelligent civilisation yet ? And what ’ll happen at the end of the universe ? Why is graveness such a weak force ? And so on . The bragging and more indissoluble the interrogative sentence , the less likely it is your answer will be disproved next hebdomad . Once you come up up with your own weird account for a swelled cosmic brain-teaser , then you may work backwards from that to create a story around it — and the hard part is probably keep on your taradiddle big and audacious , but also finding a way to make it small and personal without resorting to “ learning the truth about the cosmological constant also helped me bring in something about my pop return . ” Everybody loves a adult , barefaced approximation - drive narration , as long as it ’s well done and excited .
It ’s easy enough to opine a trade name Modern scientific breakthrough . It ’s even easy enough to cogitate about some of the obvious consequences , if we suddenly develop radical life - extension phone or a “ find out while you sleep ” process that operate . But attempt to guess how a stigma new scientific discipline could wrack your life — how it could make your life , personally , a living perdition . And then stress to turn that into a story about a fictional character . ( Bonus maneuver if the mode that the new excogitation ruin your life is n’t a super obvious path , and is instead something kind of uncanny and personal . ) It ’s always more interesting to see people skin with young technology than to watch them just do the happy “ yay young technology ” dance .
This is sort of on a related to tip , except that it ’s conduct your personal fears and blowing them up . Do you vex you ’ll be alone and unloved when you ’re older ? Or that your life history will tank , and you ’ll be one of those the great unwashed who used to have a seemly job and now works at Round Table Pizza ? ( No offense to the great unwashed who currently work at Round Table Pizza , but whenever I take the air past one I notice the staff look utterly demoralize . Maybe it ’s the weird Arthurian / Italian assorted metaphor . ) Take your fright about your personal future and make it huge and global , if not cosmic . apply that fearfulness as a way into a story about something going frightfully incorrect with the earth in general . ( Or make it still a personal disaster , but more science fictitious — suppose Robert Silverberg ’s Dying deep down , about a telepath tardily losing his abilities . ) Your final floor does n’t even need to be depressing , or about the exact fear you started with . But that intuitive dread can lead you to something personal but universal , which is what it ’s all about .
As Arthur C. Clarke would tell us , science fiction has the power to get really cosmic and monumental in its geographic expedition of the big questions . Who are we , where do we descend from , who make us , and so on . Why does meter run in only one direction ? Why is there only one technological mintage on this major planet ? Is it ever possible for there to be empty space , or is space a thing ? What make someone a full person ? As we ’ve covered of late , a lot of philosophers are motivate into territory formerly occupied by physics , because physic is lot with the big experiential questions . So you , too , can allow behind “ unvoiced ” science and get into the big interrogation about meaning — and the termination might really be purer science fabrication than if you just stuck to the literal science questions .
https://gizmodo.com/why-physicists-need-philosophers-5907179
We all guess ourselves doing painful things , all the clock time . Depending on how pent-up you are , it may come as a shock when the effigy of yourself stab your coworker in the fount pops into your capitulum . But either means , it ’s human nature to imagine yourself doing thing so unspeakable , they make you do a whole - body cringe / chill . So try picking one of those action at law , and imagine the supporter of a narrative performing it — then endeavor to guess of how your protagonist could do that terrible matter , and still be charitable . ( Even if this unspeakable act does n’t remain in the tale , it may be a path in to the graphic symbol . ) Maybe there ’s some science fictional reasonableness why your main character has to stab people in the font — maybe it ’s even a heroic deed , in some way . The point is only partly to come in up with a clever account — it ’s also to find your own hot button and jab at them as intemperately as you could . What about yourself freak you out ? Explore that .
chance are , there are goals you ca n’t achieve , in world . Unless you ’re rich and famous and fulfilled , in which case please send me money . You ca n’t just walk out of your wearisome job and roll down the street until you find Kevin Feige and say , “ Please make me the conductor of a unexampled Hulk movie starring Mark Ruffalo . ” You ca n’t just rove up to that implausibly good looking individual on the subway and ask him or her out . At least , most of us ca n’t . You , personally , have end that you could not reach , that are not fictional . Now imagine a scenario where you could have all of those thing — and what could possibly go faulty with that .
Not literally . Do not go punching Vernor Vinge in the face and then claim I tell you to do that . But sure , get into a battle with Vernor Vinge with your stories . witness something about how Vinge depicted cyberspace everting in Rainbows End , and compose a story that shows how you consider he should have done it . Do n’t care how Max Barry depicted cybernetic enhancement in Machine Man ? Stick it to Max Barry by writing your own take on the subject . A fortune of how science fiction has advanced , as a field , is author seek to one - up each other and responding to each other ’s take on on the same basic ideas . Even if you do n’t prove everybody else incorrect , you might get a really nifty story out of it . ( Again , do not in reality get into a fight with anybody . )
The world is full of obvious facts that everybody attempt to dissemble are n’t real . We all sort of sleep with that we ’re reading and writing this material on computer that were made by citizenry who were work in unimaginably horrifying weather condition . There may be people animated today , who will last to seethe remainder of the fossil fuel earned run average . The icecap are melting quicker than a lot of people expected . And so on . There are things that we all sort of know , but we do n’t really grasp them because they ’re too huge and unthinkable . fabrication is really first-class for start people to confront these sorts of world that are too harebrained for us to ingest . And science fable , in especial , has a lot of ways to tattle about uncomfortable , weird facts without getting preachy or sledgehammery , by change the setting or exfoliation . you could make people distinguish with someone who ’s nip in the middle of future water wars , and take home the likelihood of water shortages without ever lecturing .
https://gizmodo.com/optimistic-visions-of-the-world-after-the-oil-runs-out-5903810
This is sort of similar to the “ ruining your biography ” affair — but it does n’t have to be about your life , in peculiar , being smash . skill fiction authors are usually middling good at wargaming - out the possible ramification of a new piece of engineering science . If the great unwashed had brain implants that let them see any human language , would we travel more ? Would there be more external swap ? Less war ? ( More war , because people would get it on when they were being diss ? ) But sometimes the most interesting upshot is the one you ’d never think of in a million years . expend an time of day or two thinking of all the possible ripple effects from a new miracle technology — and then pluck one of the least obvious to ramp up your narrative around .
We all have feeling we ’ve discarded over the long time . Everything from “ Santa Claus is real ” to “ authority human body are always correct ” to “ Alan Greenspan is infallible ” to “ Hellenic physics explains everything in the universe . ” blame a belief you used to hold , that ’s been disproven by events or that you ’ve outgrow for some reason . It could be a scientific belief , or a religious one , or a philosophy you used to adhere to — and try out to imagine a universe of discourse where that belief is incontrovertibly true . Or else , a character who believes the thing you used to believe yourself . Take all of the vigor of your former belief , plus the distance that comes from your modification of heart , and essay to create a story around that . Sometimes , recalling a former state of psyche can be the easiest elbow room to make a compelling mindspace for a character — and peradventure a whole musical composition of universe - edifice .
Magazine picture viaToyranch , McClaverty , Dan Century , Modern Fred , Mickey the PixelandUssatuleon Flickr .
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