What would you write about?

[Traitorfish]

Is hard science fiction possible? Wouldnt it need to be presenting some novel concept, not already covered in Physics? And if so wouldnt it be in effect a physics document?

Typically, science fiction deals with the human results of technology, rather than the technology itself. The vague categories of "hard" and "soft" tend to refer to the level of realism employed, rather than the nature of the story itself. Hard sci-fi is likely to invesitage the effects of a particular piece of technology or scientific concept, while soft scifi is more concerned with the broader social and cultural results. Soft sci-fi also tends to treat the "science" part as a setting, rather than a driving force, and so may examine themes which are not, in themselves, scientific.

 

[Kyriakos]

I always hated sci-fi, since i dont like futuristic settings. If anything i prefer to think of the past, late 19th century, early 20th century. Most of my stories have nothing in them that would dissallow them from being written in those eras.

Although when i was in early elementary school on the contrary i was very enthousiastic about futurism. I remember looking at an image in a book about some "room of the future". Everything looked very comfortable

 

[Winner]

Science fiction doesn't have to be set in the future

 

[Kyriakos]

I like some alternate history, as seen for example in Anime where in a 19th century setting they have advanced machines which have victorian elements. Don't know if that can be called sci-fi though, it is more fantasy i think

 

[Lillefix]

That's called Steampunk and is very much considered sci-fi.

 

[Kyriakos]

I mostly like the fantasy elements in it, along with the period setting. The technological aspects rather bore or alienate me

 

[Kyriakos]

How many of you have ever writen a story? And do have any parts of it you can post?
I am always interested in reading new literature

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

Soft science fiction. Hard science fiction sucks.

Why sci-fi? I love sci-fi.

I've completed one short story, but that was a year ago, and was about a guy getting god powers and abusing them, basically fantasy, although I think it had a few sci-fi elements.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

Oh, I've written plenty... I just haven't finished any.

There was one I worked on-and-off as a hobby for a few years, about a Russian special forces team based in Canada to combat an international terrorist organisation (and this was before DYOS). It was equal parts humour and geopolitics and contained a lot of inside jokes. It stalled when I couldn't figure out where to further carry the story.

I also started a space opera at about the same time concerning two warring empires. I doubt I could ever publish it, since I lifted concepts from Star Wars and Dune quite liberally. One element I liked was that two of the characters, the leader of empire A and a space station overlord of empire B were blood relatives who had not seen each other since childhood. Once again, it stalled after I lost inspiration.

I wrote a play once about public prejudice in regard to a phantom terror, but I grew dissatisfied with the script and abandoned it in fairly short order.

 

[Kyriakos]

It can take years of attempts so as to stabilise a style and thematology you like. I did not keep almost any of my work produced from when i was 17 all the way to when i was 26, and that was a ton of work

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Most of my finished fanfic is based on the TV series "The Crow: Stairway to Heaven." Something about that program just inspired me to keep writing - and I filled two binders and a couple of notebooks FULL of handwritten stories. There are even a few I'm considering good enough to post on fanfiction.net. One of them, however, isn't actually in prose form - it's a SEVEN-PAGE poem!

Most of my Star Trek is either unfinished satire or filksongs. I did write a basic Mary Sue many years ago, and thankfully I do not have the only existing copy (I gave it to a friend for her birthday - back in high school! For some reason, she liked it enough to keep it...)

I've got a few other stories, but they're on another computer. One of them was a humorous little story about cabbage...

 

[PlutonianEmpire]

I tried turning the whole "Plutonian Empire" thing into a story once, but I was severely lacking in creativity and stopped at page four.

 

[GoodGame]

Sci-Fi (for the masses and the scientifically literate). I don't think we've had a really great sci-fi author in awhile, and it'd be cool to write stuff that got people reading again.

 

[Zkribbler]

I tried turning the whole "Plutonian Empire" thing into a story once, but I was severely lacking in creativity and stopped at page four.

Here's a couple of good plot-creating touchstones to keep in mind:

(1) A story is a character trying to solve a problem. So give him/her/it a problem and watch your character try and solve it.

(2) What does wrong next? A wants B, so he must do C in order to reach B. But he can't do C because D gets in the way. And he can't resolve D because of E. When all else fails, have someone kick open the door and spray the room with machinegun fire. Figure out why later.

In one of my stories, one of my main characters actually commented on how boring the story was up until that point. So, in the next paragraph, they found a dead body.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think that it is better if a writer finds his own method on his own OF course one always will be influenced by other writers, particularly up to the point of forming precicely his own style and way of writing.

 

[Bill3000]

I have found out that I have absolutely zero creative talent and as a result am hopeless at fiction writing of any sort, even just coming up with a general plot, much less writing it out. At most I just literally copy whatever work I have previously read, watched, or played without adding much at all. This annoys me immensely, especially considering that I would like to be creative.

 

[Mise]

I have found out that I have absolutely zero creative talent and as a result am hopeless at fiction writing of any sort, even just coming up with a general plot, much less writing it out. At most I just literally copy whatever work I have previously read, watched, or played without adding much at all. This annoys me immensely, especially considering that I would like to be creative.

I wrote a short story once, was very proud of it (or more of the fact that I did it at all), until I realised that it was basically just an episode of the Simpsons.

Now, that in itself is a fairly funny little anecdote. Except for the fact that the anecdote itself was already used on South Park ("SIMPSONS DID IT!"). So not only was my story completely unoriginal, but the anecdote that retells that unoriginality was also completely unoriginal.

Anyway, you don't have to be artistic to be creative. Ever written a computer program or script because you couldn't find a premade one on the internet? Or solved a problem in a novel way? That's creativity. The guys at Google, Apple and Microsoft are hella creative, even though I'm sure they can't write novels to save their lives. People who work in business or industry, who make genuine efficiency savings by doing things in a way had never been done before, they're creative too. Just cos you can't think of a plot doesn't mean you lack imagination or creativity, just means you're not a writer.

At least that's what I tell myself...

 

[Kyriakos]

I agree that creativity is not limited to writing or other art. There is a quote by a mathematician, who had a student who became a writer. He said about him: "i always thought he didnt have enough imagination to be a mathematician"

I suspect that really great mathematicians, not the average ones, do need to have a great imagination. Great artists as well of course

 

[azzaman333]

I have found out that I have absolutely zero creative talent and as a result am hopeless at fiction writing of any sort, even just coming up with a general plot, much less writing it out. At most I just literally copy whatever work I have previously read, watched, or played without adding much at all. This annoys me immensely, especially considering that I would like to be creative.

Get out of my mind.

 

[Monsterzuma]

I'd write about a warrior-poet general type of guy a la Temujin and make him utter everything clever I've ever thought on matters of politics and war. He'd probably live around 6000 BC so I can let the imagination run wild unrestricted by issues of historical correctness. Or present ethical considerations for that matter.