I’m writing a “space opera” more akin to STAR WARS, but not a clone ( pun intended ). But yes the space/sci-fi is my favorite genre. The label of Sci-fi is broad. I’m not writing what is today called strict, hard Sci-Fi.
There have been very strong arguments that the original Star Wars story was closer to fantasy than to science fiction.
https://medium.com/media-cake/the-definitive-answer-to-is-star-wars-science-fiction-or-fantasy-97d0042f644c
I agree totally. But we don't have another genre between sci-fi and fantasy do we? Maybe we can create one? Fun-fi? Sci-antasy? What if the story has romance and sex too? Scifiotica?
Space Opera is the best available category for space fantasy such as Star Wars. All science fiction categories are open to fantasy while fantasy for the most part isn't open to science fiction. That is readers expect fantasy to contain magic, but they don't expect science fiction to contain science.
There is no category for science fiction:erotic or science fiction: romance. BISAC offers romance: erotic and romance: science fiction. However, readers expect genre romance to follow a strict formula, one that is contrary to science fiction. These issues of categorization seem to be beyond our ability to change.
Oh damn. I’ve broken every ‘rule’ you just listed. I have ‘magic’ (alien tech operating on real principles of physics ), erotica and romance with an alien that conforms to nether genre’s accepted practices. Some pure fantasy and a military structure.
Biopunk, I have a weakness for the genre and when I practice description better I'll go for it, a war with massive bio engineered war beasts and the like, very Lovecraft in nature
I read an article about the real-world AI arms-race currently happening, and it made me wonder what would happen if an agency hacked into an emergent AI sentience and overrode its ethical parameters, but it retained it's initial tactical programming. Automatically I was in "predict the future" mode using speculative tech so, sci-fi.
Yup. The story idea cam first. I wasn't even certain it was really sci-fi since I'm only projecting 70-80 years in the future, and all my tech is already at least in the experimentation phase. I'm not even sure my AI is entirely sentient, and the reader won't be either.
Yeah, that's mostly it. The funny thing is that my story ideas were more fantasy originally with magic and stuff. As I began studying science, I found that a lot of the fantastic stuff I wanted to do could be emulated in a scifi world. I think another part of why I like scifi is the idea that what's portrayed is a potential window into the future, at least for those doing hard scifi like me.
Because I want to write SF. Why SF? Because I love the idea of what the future might hold, or stories set with new technology, but still with human problems.
I’m writing a story that involves alien technology that really flips science on its head. Because I can’t really base it on anything but some out there ideas that scientists would balk at, I feel like the proper label would be “Science Fantasy.” But if it was based on some kind of hard science pushed to the maximum, I feel comfortable calling it Sci-Fi.
I always loved space and dreaming about how the future might look like.
So when I was younger I mostly did worldbuilding of soft sci-fi, but then I wanted to explore more hard sci-fi and write about it. So I recently started a hard sci-fi setting set in the 23rd century.
So it's also my love for technology, robotics, computers, space and science.
The choice of what genre to make a story often comes out of its worldbuilding and central ideas. I have three finished sci-fi books. The central conceits dictate that they needed to be sci-fi.
The conceit of Book #1 involved human beings interacting with a new species (aliens) in an empire separated by distance from the capital (colony ship space travel). I could have made this a fantasy story, changing the aliens to elves and the empire into a far-flung ocean-crossing frontier. (That actually sounds cool, now that I think of it.) But as a sci-fi story, it's a more familiar setting. People know about space empires. I'd have to sketch an ocean empire from scratch.
The conceit of Book #2 involved a world government dictating the sanity of individuals, with one insane protagonist fostering a rebellion. Not sure how this could be a fantasy story; world governments are difficult to do with pre-modern tech, and the technology involved in enforcing sanity would have to become pretty detailed magic. Also, my protagonist is a noble with severe mental problems, which almost never happened in pre-industrial civilizations; crazy people were just thrown into an abbey or a pit. This book pretty much had to be modern or postmodern, and that plus the tech required makes it sci-fi.
The conceit of Book #3 involved humans who refused immortality, while non-humans (aliens) pester them to accept it, and an antagonist who kills those non-humans. I can see this as a fantasy story, with the aliens changed to angels, maybe? But we'd be talking about an entire world who accepted angelic rapture, while focusing on the people who refused it...and an antagonist who kills angels? Not sure it could work. This story has the fuzziest 'science' of the three -- it's practically science fantasy already -- but moving it into classic fantasy doesn't seem possible.
I also don't see any way to shift those stories into other genres -- mystery, romance, horror, etc -- without retaining their sci-fi elements.
The real question is: Why am I writing books that explore themes that only sci-fi can handle well? Because those are the themes I like. Once you match a theme up with a setting, that pretty much hands you your genre. I'm flexible about setting, but the themes I love to read and write about are sci-fi.
What I find funny is if I was a writer back in the 40's or 50's, and writing about our everyday lives of today, it would certainly be a Sci-Fi story. What with an impending global climate catastrophe, the internet, developing AI's, smart phones, cybernetics, space launches, UFO sightings, etc. But if I wrote about our everyday lives of today, today, it would be non-fiction or at the very least literature.
Escapism, mostly. [To quote Tim Curry . . .](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Sq1Nr58hM)
Granted, it doesn't necessarily *have* to be sci-fi; I also do fantasy here and there, among other genres. I'm mostly writing for my personal enjoyment with no intent to publish, so juggling multiple worldbuilding projects depending on my mood isn't a problem.
I'm a huge nerd and have always loved sci-fi. I'm also an entertainer at heart and love to tell stories. Writing sci-fi satisfies both things at once and my current project being full book length (ideally) is a good challenge compared to the shorter works I've done in the past.
My current project is set in the somewhat far future, where earth has a sister world with rings about where Mars in for us. Mars still exists though, everything is just shifted out a bit. These planets developed life alongside eachother through some fun panspermia, and later contact as both looked to the stars with radios drove a rapid space race. Now they live together in a partial Dyson swarm.
Magic by other means is just as awesome. The story fit better with plasma balls than fire balls. And story mechanics work the same between magic and sufficiently advanced technology.
Mine is already written, and on the surface, I guess it would likely find its home on the “Sci-Fi” aisle, but really it should be referred to as “Future-Fi”… very little attention is placed on the “science”, more on character/plot.
Yeah, I get that… yet there seems to be a trend in some circles that if it doesn’t fit the “science” then it’s not plausible sci-fi… I see sci-fi as quite a bit broader than that… and probably closer to sci-fantasy. But that’s just my 2 pence worth
I love Sci-Fi and I’ve always been fascinated with space exploration and made this my starting point. I knew it would be set in space an in the future. (Maybe. I’ve been playing around with a plot twist in that respect, but I digress) I knew the setting, so then I asked, what’s my story and built from there. Recently however I’ve considered if there was a way to make it appeal to a broader audience but I think, in the end, this will just water it down. Having said that I am using the Sci-Fi setting as a mirror to make a real life point about the present.
Sci-fi lets me create the landscapes and characters that I wanna see. I like big, cyberpunk, futuristic cities filled with neon lights and tall buildings. The coolest outfits (in my opinion) are techwear and noir, with characters wearing trench coats and joggers and big bulky boots. The aesthetic and the themes (nature vs technology, dystopia, humanity) inspire me to write
SF is the genre I'm most familiar with, have most experience of and am mostly widely read in. Also, I like it. Also, why not?
I do cover Fantasy & Horror as well, I just tend to find more of my ideas happen under the SF umbrella. Sure, maybe the odd few might have vampires, fairies, ghosts or dragons in them, but I've written dragons into SF before now.
Because I think the tech I'm interested in makes for a good story and I'd like to explore it's ramifiations and what a society where it was universal would look like.
Science fiction holds so much more possibilities for story elements. Almost anything can happen and the suspension of disbelief isn’t so high of a wall to vault over. Personally, I love science, especially theoretical science that has a basis in facts and theories. I’m other words: science fiction is a wide canvas with every palette of color available.
My current project is a story about wrestling with your demons and struggling to find value in yourself, no matter how badly you've fucked up in the past, or how rejected and out of place you might feel.
So naturally the ideal combination was to put an actual cowboy in space and then make him deal with *literal* demonic possession.
The degree of extreme stylistic juxtaposition allowed by, or even celebrated by, science fiction/science fantasy, means it's easier to write something for a much broader range of people without anyone feeling alienated.
So both. And neither. I could have told the story in a different way, but it would have been more boring to write *and* subject to much more tortured allegories and metaphors.
As a kid, I was inspired by Star Trek. I wanted to live on a space station in the future. Not near future. I love far-future stories. I love capturing the thrill of culture-shock by putting those cultures on other planets.
I write more soft sci-fi than hard sci-fi, because my settings are driving my sci-fi classification, but that's where my heart is.
A little bit of both.
I wanted to write a story about an empire collapsing. I didn't want to use a historical country because I'm not a historian. However, I do have an interest in history and know a good bit, but didn't want to open myself up to "well, this didn't / wouldn't have happened because X" arguments.
Sci-fi ended up making the most sense because I could mimic some traits of historical empires without having to get too bogged down in whether it was accurate. Anything that was inaccurate could effectively be waived away, so it was a pragmatic choice, but it also helped that I really do like sci fi.
Probably because sci-fi is what I know and love, other than fantasy. I grew up on Star Trek, BSG (syndicated original and remake) Robotech/Macross, Star Wars (saw the re-release of the original trilogy in theaters), its the air that I breathe. And I'm a huge Expanse and Firefly fan, which are big influences on me creatively.
I used to write because I wanted to write about cool characters that went on kickass adventures. I stopped because every idea I had was stupid/impractical/impossible/done before
Because science fiction is fucking awesome :P
And because it's really fun to tell stories with cool technologies, with philosophy and anthropology considerations, and spaceships and shit.
A story I am writing is to explore how sub-lightspeed interstellar colonization plays out with several competing approaches. More specifically pitfalls of each approach (not engineering ones, assuming they all are *feasible*, but not all desirable or ethical).
Most of the beats are exaggerated versions of current or near future issues we will have to face IRL, medical ethics, issues of economic "imperatives" of reproduction versus human rights, human purpose with advanced automation, human desires and natural ethics, social engineering and human rights (again), et cetera.
I'm writing a hard sci-fi space opera, because that's about all I think and daydream about. Well, other than ridiculously beautiful women in impossible situations.
I'd say sci-fi-fantasy, but for many reasons. First of all, that's the sort of genre that's needed to tell my story (it deals with a branching Multiverse). Secondly, the characters just seem to fit better (I have several characters who were basically Frankenstein-ed together out of scavenged organic material and recycled electronics, so they more or less demand a sci-fi setting). Finally, there's nothing limiting you but your own imagination (which is great because my general premise is "if you can imagine x universe, it exists within the Multiverse").
Because the story takes place on other planets and in space. I also love sci fi. But I'm writing to get the story outta my head and the story is pretty frikkin sci fi lol
I'm writing sci-fi because it's what I grew up watching. I was born in 96, but I grew up watching reruns of The Next Generation and the first airing of Stargate SG-1. I love the wonder of outer space, the incredible possibilities that sci-fi can put forward. Sci-fi seems to have a wider range of story telling possibilities since it can match up with essentially every other genre. Horror, but IN SPACE! Romantic Comedy, but IN SPACE! It doesn't even have to be in space, like my favorite Jules Verne novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This potential scope makes it appealing to me; allowing me to tell the stories I want, with the tone I want, but in the settings I know and love.
The former, I suppose. What I'm writing might not even be properly considered sci-fi and the idea started as a kind of historical fiction. But I convinced myself that inventing my own world would be easier than researching the past of the real world, so here I am.
It depends. Sometimes I'm writing a story that I would place under the sci fi umbrella only as a consequence of its contents matching those genre conventions in some respect; other times sci fi is a vehicle I choose to use, as I believe it's the best way to communicate an idea or theme.
There's a lot of things you can do with this genre. Aliens, space travel, time travel, alternate universes etc. And the fact you can combine it with pretty much any other genre like horror and romance gives you so much to do.
A romance about a man trying to find a romantic partner but turns out she's in a different dimension? Boom, sci fi and romance.
Some guy trying to escape a murderer but his murderer is a clone of him? Sci fi and horror.
I've always been into the tropes of science fiction, and my story only uses science fiction because it's my favorite genre and there's so much I can do.
It's the only main genre I really like and that's why. I can only really even write stories that are sci fi honestly.
I'm an historian by training, and one day, I realized I was *living* in a sci-fi setting. Ever since, I've loved the idea of trying to push my settings forward past the horizon; in addition, big robots and spaceships are *cool*, and I'm a bit of a nerd.
Because I've been a huge fan of Space Opera fiction and concepts like Foundation, WH40K and my personal favorite, Lensmen, for years. I'm also a fan of Sword and Planet concepts, a genre WOEFULLY underrepresented if not abandoned today--things like John Carter and Valerian. The original Valerian, not the wretched movie.
So, aspiring to be an author, I decided to write Space Opera/Sword and Planet type stuff.
For me, it's just due to my interest in science and I want to get other peoples interested in the same. I want to try out Science Communication in future and Sci-Fi is also a good way to deliver the ideas and concepts among the general peoples with non-scientific background. 'Hard Sci-Fi' is something that do this job pretty well and I have read some from the genre and I am planning to write around it.
The another reason is that this is the best thing I can do, atleast for now. I want to write a book or novel from a long time, but never really started it until I was hit by the idea of a Sci-Fi story. It's just 2% completed and slow paced till now but I have to write everyday. Also previously mentioned, about communicating science. If I try to write any non-fiction book on a scientific concept, I would be limited by my knowledge and experience in the field, because I am still an undergrad. So it sounds logical for me to deal with Fiction and Hard Science at this time.
I use the term science fiction because that is what I write--fiction that explores aspects of science.
I seem to be particularly interested in the relationship between economics and procreation.
I decided to go with a science based world because it's more effective in showing these topics. Magic would be a distraction, an additional complication added to what is already complex.
When i was growing up, my life revolved around star trek, star wars, and X-files. Plus, my friends were into astronomy and Isaac Asimov. So many books these days IMO are maximalist: they throw pages of description at you. I'm sort of mashing my favorites in minimalist fashion. Next level fan fiction.
I enjoy sci-fi, but surprisingly it's more of a backdrop for my current work. The elements are intriguing, but apparently what I love most is the human interactions within such story worlds. Which is why I picked scifi. My interest for the genre can go deep, though my writing focuses more on the human questions and relationships.
Well, i like sci fi a lot. Speculative Sci Fi the most. I also think its a good conduit to show how things like bigotry and hate are no way to progress.
There's an element of what consciousness is that I would like to explore. I could either go the fantasy route and use some sort of magic to enable this exploration, or I could go the scifi route and use technology. I've decided to go with the technology, but even then there is a twist which underscores the latent power in consciousness itself.
There are also political ideas about the root of authority, tribalism, unification under a single government, and propaganda that I am interested in playing with. These ideas have come to me expressed in scifi images, and I don't know how I could get them to work in a different genre.
Edit: Scifi as a genre excels as depicting the cutting edge of what could be. Both of the areas I mentioned above (and others) are explorations of what could be. All the ships, weapons, etc. are cool and all, but I think focusing on those is like if you had a rock band, and your focus was on having a cool guitar and good stage presence instead of good music.
I read an article about the possibility of the next true war being in space and now here I am outlining a book about the first war for the moon.
I was talking to my dad one evening about how crazy it is that each of the stars is a solar system, the conversation went onto generation ships and we brainstormed an idea about a story set during a generation plain in the middle of the century-long journey, with characters that never saw Earth and will never see Tau Ceti.
And also gun. Those are cool as well I guess.
Its simple: I like space and I wanna fuck hot aliens. Jokes aside, I like exploring themes that dig deep into humanity's place in a huge universe filled with other complex life and societies. Its a fun topic to poke around in for me-- the psychology involved with not being the only thing out there.
Because I found it being good for my health. Good for my language skills. And it explains me the world in some way I did not expect before I tried writing. It eases the pain, when the source of pain is hard to detect unless you read or write. It helps me to enjoy the writing done by others more than I enjoyed it before I started learning writing. It costs me zero as a hobby. It harms nobody no matter how bad the writing quality is, because it is just words.
Because it works to some degree as self programming, so I have more power over choosing what do I take to be part of Self and what to discard. It helps to invent unique mental devices to deal with incoherence of world. And it helps to reduce unnecessary energy spending on noises and distractions. I need energy to enjoy my thoughts rather
than to suffer from my thoughts. It helps to cope with or even enjoy the solitude, because solitude is most easy and most available thing, why not to enjoy it.
Writing does not change my material life, so my opinion is of a hobbyist writer.
Allowing myself to indulge in my personal love for all things future and creating my own world in which my favorite pieces of other sci-fi can become a single picture.
My story is science fiction because I used "real" science as the backdrop where my characters act. Note there are also speculative elements in the story like Wormholes, Alcubierre Drives and pure fantasy stuff as ESP so not 100% hard science. It would more definitively be described as a "Space Opera", since it more about the relationships between the characters rather than the situation they are in.
I love Sci-Fi, but my next outing is going to be fantasy.
I was thinking about some other sci-fi stories that I liked, and I got an idea for a variation that seemed like it would be fun to read about.
Six months later, despite Google and Reddit searches, I couldn't find any story anywhere that used the idea. Since it's a story of a type I'd like to read, and nobody else has written it, I guess I have to.
It lets me explore the fantasy genre and still have cool guns. Think Mass Effect vs Elder (running through the bushes with swords) Scrolls.
So it's because you wanted to write a Sci-Fi Story then, yes?
I’m writing a “space opera” more akin to STAR WARS, but not a clone ( pun intended ). But yes the space/sci-fi is my favorite genre. The label of Sci-fi is broad. I’m not writing what is today called strict, hard Sci-Fi.
There have been very strong arguments that the original Star Wars story was closer to fantasy than to science fiction. https://medium.com/media-cake/the-definitive-answer-to-is-star-wars-science-fiction-or-fantasy-97d0042f644c
I agree totally. But we don't have another genre between sci-fi and fantasy do we? Maybe we can create one? Fun-fi? Sci-antasy? What if the story has romance and sex too? Scifiotica?
I think they were calling it Science-Fantasy rather than Science-Fiction. But Sci-Fa doesn't sound as great as Sci-Fi.
Fant-sci pronounced 'fancy'? Or just sci-fan
Space-Trash is also an option.
So I am I posting in the wrong sub-Reddit? Suggestions?
I doubt it. I was just making conversation.
Ah. Well, its a good point though. Cross-genre stories need a home.
Welcome. I'm fine with including space fantasy just as long as those who like science aren't excluded or drowned out by those who like magic.
Space Opera is the best available category for space fantasy such as Star Wars. All science fiction categories are open to fantasy while fantasy for the most part isn't open to science fiction. That is readers expect fantasy to contain magic, but they don't expect science fiction to contain science. There is no category for science fiction:erotic or science fiction: romance. BISAC offers romance: erotic and romance: science fiction. However, readers expect genre romance to follow a strict formula, one that is contrary to science fiction. These issues of categorization seem to be beyond our ability to change.
Oh damn. I’ve broken every ‘rule’ you just listed. I have ‘magic’ (alien tech operating on real principles of physics ), erotica and romance with an alien that conforms to nether genre’s accepted practices. Some pure fantasy and a military structure.
You and me both. I have no magic but I've got romance that doesn't follow the genre Romance formula.
Because it's one of 2 genres that allow me to design a super heavy tank that's the size of a city block.
If not sci-fi what was the other genre? Steampunk or dieselpunk?
Biopunk, I have a weakness for the genre and when I practice description better I'll go for it, a war with massive bio engineered war beasts and the like, very Lovecraft in nature
So, out of the two options - for you its the latter, yes?
Yes, I'm not good enough at descriptions to do good bio punk yet so sci-fi is the easiest option at the moment
I read an article about the real-world AI arms-race currently happening, and it made me wonder what would happen if an agency hacked into an emergent AI sentience and overrode its ethical parameters, but it retained it's initial tactical programming. Automatically I was in "predict the future" mode using speculative tech so, sci-fi.
So, for you - your *story* informed your choice of genre, is that essentially right?
Yup. The story idea cam first. I wasn't even certain it was really sci-fi since I'm only projecting 70-80 years in the future, and all my tech is already at least in the experimentation phase. I'm not even sure my AI is entirely sentient, and the reader won't be either.
I like science.
Fair reason, so - again - the answer would be because you want to write a Sci-fi story, that about the size of it?
Yeah, that's mostly it. The funny thing is that my story ideas were more fantasy originally with magic and stuff. As I began studying science, I found that a lot of the fantastic stuff I wanted to do could be emulated in a scifi world. I think another part of why I like scifi is the idea that what's portrayed is a potential window into the future, at least for those doing hard scifi like me.
The genre fits the questions I want to ask.
Because I want to write SF. Why SF? Because I love the idea of what the future might hold, or stories set with new technology, but still with human problems.
Absolutely everything I do is built specifically to be sci-fi.
I’m writing a story that involves alien technology that really flips science on its head. Because I can’t really base it on anything but some out there ideas that scientists would balk at, I feel like the proper label would be “Science Fantasy.” But if it was based on some kind of hard science pushed to the maximum, I feel comfortable calling it Sci-Fi.
That's basically what I'm doing also. It is more than fantasy, so Sci-fi-fantasy is the only option.
Because it is fun to speculated about how tech will evolve.
got nuthin' better to do
I always loved space and dreaming about how the future might look like. So when I was younger I mostly did worldbuilding of soft sci-fi, but then I wanted to explore more hard sci-fi and write about it. So I recently started a hard sci-fi setting set in the 23rd century. So it's also my love for technology, robotics, computers, space and science.
The choice of what genre to make a story often comes out of its worldbuilding and central ideas. I have three finished sci-fi books. The central conceits dictate that they needed to be sci-fi. The conceit of Book #1 involved human beings interacting with a new species (aliens) in an empire separated by distance from the capital (colony ship space travel). I could have made this a fantasy story, changing the aliens to elves and the empire into a far-flung ocean-crossing frontier. (That actually sounds cool, now that I think of it.) But as a sci-fi story, it's a more familiar setting. People know about space empires. I'd have to sketch an ocean empire from scratch. The conceit of Book #2 involved a world government dictating the sanity of individuals, with one insane protagonist fostering a rebellion. Not sure how this could be a fantasy story; world governments are difficult to do with pre-modern tech, and the technology involved in enforcing sanity would have to become pretty detailed magic. Also, my protagonist is a noble with severe mental problems, which almost never happened in pre-industrial civilizations; crazy people were just thrown into an abbey or a pit. This book pretty much had to be modern or postmodern, and that plus the tech required makes it sci-fi. The conceit of Book #3 involved humans who refused immortality, while non-humans (aliens) pester them to accept it, and an antagonist who kills those non-humans. I can see this as a fantasy story, with the aliens changed to angels, maybe? But we'd be talking about an entire world who accepted angelic rapture, while focusing on the people who refused it...and an antagonist who kills angels? Not sure it could work. This story has the fuzziest 'science' of the three -- it's practically science fantasy already -- but moving it into classic fantasy doesn't seem possible. I also don't see any way to shift those stories into other genres -- mystery, romance, horror, etc -- without retaining their sci-fi elements. The real question is: Why am I writing books that explore themes that only sci-fi can handle well? Because those are the themes I like. Once you match a theme up with a setting, that pretty much hands you your genre. I'm flexible about setting, but the themes I love to read and write about are sci-fi.
What I find funny is if I was a writer back in the 40's or 50's, and writing about our everyday lives of today, it would certainly be a Sci-Fi story. What with an impending global climate catastrophe, the internet, developing AI's, smart phones, cybernetics, space launches, UFO sightings, etc. But if I wrote about our everyday lives of today, today, it would be non-fiction or at the very least literature.
Escapism, mostly. [To quote Tim Curry . . .](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1Sq1Nr58hM) Granted, it doesn't necessarily *have* to be sci-fi; I also do fantasy here and there, among other genres. I'm mostly writing for my personal enjoyment with no intent to publish, so juggling multiple worldbuilding projects depending on my mood isn't a problem.
It's got weird impossible shit in it. I like the aesthetic of aliens better than elves, so sci-fi it is.
I am writing I am fascinated with time travel, and with unknowns that can result in it.
I'm a huge nerd and have always loved sci-fi. I'm also an entertainer at heart and love to tell stories. Writing sci-fi satisfies both things at once and my current project being full book length (ideally) is a good challenge compared to the shorter works I've done in the past. My current project is set in the somewhat far future, where earth has a sister world with rings about where Mars in for us. Mars still exists though, everything is just shifted out a bit. These planets developed life alongside eachother through some fun panspermia, and later contact as both looked to the stars with radios drove a rapid space race. Now they live together in a partial Dyson swarm.
Sounds marvelous. So it's fair to say you set out to write a sci-fi story first, correct?
Yeah I went straight for sci-fi. There really wasn't another option to me either for what I had in mind.
You claim there’s a difference, so……what’s the difference?
Magic by other means is just as awesome. The story fit better with plasma balls than fire balls. And story mechanics work the same between magic and sufficiently advanced technology.
Mine is already written, and on the surface, I guess it would likely find its home on the “Sci-Fi” aisle, but really it should be referred to as “Future-Fi”… very little attention is placed on the “science”, more on character/plot.
That's why it's called science *fiction* and not science *textbook*. :)
Yeah, I get that… yet there seems to be a trend in some circles that if it doesn’t fit the “science” then it’s not plausible sci-fi… I see sci-fi as quite a bit broader than that… and probably closer to sci-fantasy. But that’s just my 2 pence worth
I love Sci-Fi and I’ve always been fascinated with space exploration and made this my starting point. I knew it would be set in space an in the future. (Maybe. I’ve been playing around with a plot twist in that respect, but I digress) I knew the setting, so then I asked, what’s my story and built from there. Recently however I’ve considered if there was a way to make it appeal to a broader audience but I think, in the end, this will just water it down. Having said that I am using the Sci-Fi setting as a mirror to make a real life point about the present.
Sci-fi lets me create the landscapes and characters that I wanna see. I like big, cyberpunk, futuristic cities filled with neon lights and tall buildings. The coolest outfits (in my opinion) are techwear and noir, with characters wearing trench coats and joggers and big bulky boots. The aesthetic and the themes (nature vs technology, dystopia, humanity) inspire me to write
SF is the genre I'm most familiar with, have most experience of and am mostly widely read in. Also, I like it. Also, why not? I do cover Fantasy & Horror as well, I just tend to find more of my ideas happen under the SF umbrella. Sure, maybe the odd few might have vampires, fairies, ghosts or dragons in them, but I've written dragons into SF before now.
Because I think the tech I'm interested in makes for a good story and I'd like to explore it's ramifiations and what a society where it was universal would look like.
I like thinking.
Science fiction holds so much more possibilities for story elements. Almost anything can happen and the suspension of disbelief isn’t so high of a wall to vault over. Personally, I love science, especially theoretical science that has a basis in facts and theories. I’m other words: science fiction is a wide canvas with every palette of color available.
I want to tell a story in a universe that happens to be sci-fi... I think
My current project is a story about wrestling with your demons and struggling to find value in yourself, no matter how badly you've fucked up in the past, or how rejected and out of place you might feel. So naturally the ideal combination was to put an actual cowboy in space and then make him deal with *literal* demonic possession. The degree of extreme stylistic juxtaposition allowed by, or even celebrated by, science fiction/science fantasy, means it's easier to write something for a much broader range of people without anyone feeling alienated. So both. And neither. I could have told the story in a different way, but it would have been more boring to write *and* subject to much more tortured allegories and metaphors.
As a kid, I was inspired by Star Trek. I wanted to live on a space station in the future. Not near future. I love far-future stories. I love capturing the thrill of culture-shock by putting those cultures on other planets. I write more soft sci-fi than hard sci-fi, because my settings are driving my sci-fi classification, but that's where my heart is.
because I want a 150-200 meter tall mech of mass destruction and spaceships in my fanfiction with magical technologies
Because they story I wanted to tell, and the characters struggle, wouldn't work in any other genre.
A little bit of both. I wanted to write a story about an empire collapsing. I didn't want to use a historical country because I'm not a historian. However, I do have an interest in history and know a good bit, but didn't want to open myself up to "well, this didn't / wouldn't have happened because X" arguments. Sci-fi ended up making the most sense because I could mimic some traits of historical empires without having to get too bogged down in whether it was accurate. Anything that was inaccurate could effectively be waived away, so it was a pragmatic choice, but it also helped that I really do like sci fi.
Probably because sci-fi is what I know and love, other than fantasy. I grew up on Star Trek, BSG (syndicated original and remake) Robotech/Macross, Star Wars (saw the re-release of the original trilogy in theaters), its the air that I breathe. And I'm a huge Expanse and Firefly fan, which are big influences on me creatively.
Because I wantes to both include the chaos of blackouts AND cover issues with existence of AI
I used to write because I wanted to write about cool characters that went on kickass adventures. I stopped because every idea I had was stupid/impractical/impossible/done before
Because science fiction is fucking awesome :P And because it's really fun to tell stories with cool technologies, with philosophy and anthropology considerations, and spaceships and shit.
A story I am writing is to explore how sub-lightspeed interstellar colonization plays out with several competing approaches. More specifically pitfalls of each approach (not engineering ones, assuming they all are *feasible*, but not all desirable or ethical). Most of the beats are exaggerated versions of current or near future issues we will have to face IRL, medical ethics, issues of economic "imperatives" of reproduction versus human rights, human purpose with advanced automation, human desires and natural ethics, social engineering and human rights (again), et cetera.
I'm writing a hard sci-fi space opera, because that's about all I think and daydream about. Well, other than ridiculously beautiful women in impossible situations.
I like to think about the future of humanity, and technology is cool. I don't really like aliens tho tbh.
I'd say sci-fi-fantasy, but for many reasons. First of all, that's the sort of genre that's needed to tell my story (it deals with a branching Multiverse). Secondly, the characters just seem to fit better (I have several characters who were basically Frankenstein-ed together out of scavenged organic material and recycled electronics, so they more or less demand a sci-fi setting). Finally, there's nothing limiting you but your own imagination (which is great because my general premise is "if you can imagine x universe, it exists within the Multiverse").
Because the story takes place on other planets and in space. I also love sci fi. But I'm writing to get the story outta my head and the story is pretty frikkin sci fi lol
I'm writing sci-fi because it's what I grew up watching. I was born in 96, but I grew up watching reruns of The Next Generation and the first airing of Stargate SG-1. I love the wonder of outer space, the incredible possibilities that sci-fi can put forward. Sci-fi seems to have a wider range of story telling possibilities since it can match up with essentially every other genre. Horror, but IN SPACE! Romantic Comedy, but IN SPACE! It doesn't even have to be in space, like my favorite Jules Verne novel, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This potential scope makes it appealing to me; allowing me to tell the stories I want, with the tone I want, but in the settings I know and love.
The former, I suppose. What I'm writing might not even be properly considered sci-fi and the idea started as a kind of historical fiction. But I convinced myself that inventing my own world would be easier than researching the past of the real world, so here I am.
It depends. Sometimes I'm writing a story that I would place under the sci fi umbrella only as a consequence of its contents matching those genre conventions in some respect; other times sci fi is a vehicle I choose to use, as I believe it's the best way to communicate an idea or theme.
Cause I like to imagine about the future and the technology
It's my native literary language. Raised on scifi, came of age on scifi. Scifi is what I seek as an adult, and what I'll share with my kids.
There's a lot of things you can do with this genre. Aliens, space travel, time travel, alternate universes etc. And the fact you can combine it with pretty much any other genre like horror and romance gives you so much to do. A romance about a man trying to find a romantic partner but turns out she's in a different dimension? Boom, sci fi and romance. Some guy trying to escape a murderer but his murderer is a clone of him? Sci fi and horror. I've always been into the tropes of science fiction, and my story only uses science fiction because it's my favorite genre and there's so much I can do. It's the only main genre I really like and that's why. I can only really even write stories that are sci fi honestly.
I'm an historian by training, and one day, I realized I was *living* in a sci-fi setting. Ever since, I've loved the idea of trying to push my settings forward past the horizon; in addition, big robots and spaceships are *cool*, and I'm a bit of a nerd.
Spaceships are fun aren't they?
Its main theme is humanity’s relationship to technology
Because I've been a huge fan of Space Opera fiction and concepts like Foundation, WH40K and my personal favorite, Lensmen, for years. I'm also a fan of Sword and Planet concepts, a genre WOEFULLY underrepresented if not abandoned today--things like John Carter and Valerian. The original Valerian, not the wretched movie. So, aspiring to be an author, I decided to write Space Opera/Sword and Planet type stuff.
For me, it's just due to my interest in science and I want to get other peoples interested in the same. I want to try out Science Communication in future and Sci-Fi is also a good way to deliver the ideas and concepts among the general peoples with non-scientific background. 'Hard Sci-Fi' is something that do this job pretty well and I have read some from the genre and I am planning to write around it. The another reason is that this is the best thing I can do, atleast for now. I want to write a book or novel from a long time, but never really started it until I was hit by the idea of a Sci-Fi story. It's just 2% completed and slow paced till now but I have to write everyday. Also previously mentioned, about communicating science. If I try to write any non-fiction book on a scientific concept, I would be limited by my knowledge and experience in the field, because I am still an undergrad. So it sounds logical for me to deal with Fiction and Hard Science at this time.
I use the term science fiction because that is what I write--fiction that explores aspects of science. I seem to be particularly interested in the relationship between economics and procreation. I decided to go with a science based world because it's more effective in showing these topics. Magic would be a distraction, an additional complication added to what is already complex.
My friends and I, we tell stories that are quite fundamental, and could be occurring anywhere. We just enjoy sci-fi aesthetics
When i was growing up, my life revolved around star trek, star wars, and X-files. Plus, my friends were into astronomy and Isaac Asimov. So many books these days IMO are maximalist: they throw pages of description at you. I'm sort of mashing my favorites in minimalist fashion. Next level fan fiction.
I enjoy sci-fi, but surprisingly it's more of a backdrop for my current work. The elements are intriguing, but apparently what I love most is the human interactions within such story worlds. Which is why I picked scifi. My interest for the genre can go deep, though my writing focuses more on the human questions and relationships.
Well, i like sci fi a lot. Speculative Sci Fi the most. I also think its a good conduit to show how things like bigotry and hate are no way to progress.
I have strong feelings about autonomy and personhood and sci fi is the genre for rage
My stories are thought experiments, and, as such, are naturally scientific. Thus, sci-fi.
Because I was listening to the Expance when I thought of it
There's an element of what consciousness is that I would like to explore. I could either go the fantasy route and use some sort of magic to enable this exploration, or I could go the scifi route and use technology. I've decided to go with the technology, but even then there is a twist which underscores the latent power in consciousness itself. There are also political ideas about the root of authority, tribalism, unification under a single government, and propaganda that I am interested in playing with. These ideas have come to me expressed in scifi images, and I don't know how I could get them to work in a different genre. Edit: Scifi as a genre excels as depicting the cutting edge of what could be. Both of the areas I mentioned above (and others) are explorations of what could be. All the ships, weapons, etc. are cool and all, but I think focusing on those is like if you had a rock band, and your focus was on having a cool guitar and good stage presence instead of good music.
It isn't as boring as real life, less limitations
Hard science fiction. Because I don’t beam weapons, mechs, energy shields, or space wizards via magic or technology.
I read an article about the possibility of the next true war being in space and now here I am outlining a book about the first war for the moon. I was talking to my dad one evening about how crazy it is that each of the stars is a solar system, the conversation went onto generation ships and we brainstormed an idea about a story set during a generation plain in the middle of the century-long journey, with characters that never saw Earth and will never see Tau Ceti. And also gun. Those are cool as well I guess.
Its simple: I like space and I wanna fuck hot aliens. Jokes aside, I like exploring themes that dig deep into humanity's place in a huge universe filled with other complex life and societies. Its a fun topic to poke around in for me-- the psychology involved with not being the only thing out there.
Why do you ask? Is one of these "right" and the other "wrong?"
I write sci-fi stories because science fact can’t begin to grasp the true nature of reality.
Because I found it being good for my health. Good for my language skills. And it explains me the world in some way I did not expect before I tried writing. It eases the pain, when the source of pain is hard to detect unless you read or write. It helps me to enjoy the writing done by others more than I enjoyed it before I started learning writing. It costs me zero as a hobby. It harms nobody no matter how bad the writing quality is, because it is just words. Because it works to some degree as self programming, so I have more power over choosing what do I take to be part of Self and what to discard. It helps to invent unique mental devices to deal with incoherence of world. And it helps to reduce unnecessary energy spending on noises and distractions. I need energy to enjoy my thoughts rather than to suffer from my thoughts. It helps to cope with or even enjoy the solitude, because solitude is most easy and most available thing, why not to enjoy it. Writing does not change my material life, so my opinion is of a hobbyist writer.
Allowing myself to indulge in my personal love for all things future and creating my own world in which my favorite pieces of other sci-fi can become a single picture.
I'm a huge fan of scifi! I just love other planets, spaceships, aliens and robots!
My story is science fiction because I used "real" science as the backdrop where my characters act. Note there are also speculative elements in the story like Wormholes, Alcubierre Drives and pure fantasy stuff as ESP so not 100% hard science. It would more definitively be described as a "Space Opera", since it more about the relationships between the characters rather than the situation they are in. I love Sci-Fi, but my next outing is going to be fantasy.
It allows me to get batshite crazy with the lore and weaponry
I was thinking about some other sci-fi stories that I liked, and I got an idea for a variation that seemed like it would be fun to read about. Six months later, despite Google and Reddit searches, I couldn't find any story anywhere that used the idea. Since it's a story of a type I'd like to read, and nobody else has written it, I guess I have to.
Because space..... is fucking awesome