(i) Avoid sf cliches as much as possible. Write like this might really be the future.
(ii) Set the earliest episode at a time when your current readers should be dead.
(iii) Do not just assume interstellar travel. That is one big assume. And a lot can/has to happen on Earth and in the Solar System first.
(iv) Imagine a resolution or at least an outcome of present conflicts, then imagine a later period, then link the two periods.
(v) Imagine technological consequences of future scientific paradigms.
(vi) Write stories that are independent of each other except for occasional background references.
(vii) Refer to some historical events that readers do not understand although they might learn more later. (We often refer to "the War," meaning the Second World War, but do not need to explain this to each other.)
(vii) Above all, be original which is beyond my scope.
1 comment:
Kaor, Paul!
(i) I am not so hostile to SF cliches as long as they are used creatively, as Anderson was able to do.
(ii) Agree, SF stories should be set long after current readers are dead.
(iii) Agree, FTL should not be too facilely assumed, unless a writer is able to handle it as cleverly as we see Anderson doing. Of course, a lot must have been happening in such a future history in both good and bad ways.
(iv) SF writers can imagine many different ways conflicts, real and fictional, can be resolved. These can range from the idyllic to dystopian nightmares. Or, more likely, a mix of the bad and good, with the final result being hopefully not too terribly bad.
(v) I agree.
(vi) I agree.
(vii) I agree. Readers who read A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS before THE REBEL WORLDS will not understand Chunderban Desai's mentioning of "McCormac's rebellion."
(viii) Amen!
Ad astra! Sean
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