Science+Fiction

Genre Definition: A genre that associates itself with the future, advanced technology, time and space, advanced mutation, something(s) non-existent, and/or other futuristic material.

Important Terms and Strategies
Setting:


 * Parallel universes
 * Planets in science fiction
 * Hyperspace
 * Slipstream
 * Cosmology
 * Creation of the Universe
 * The future
 * History
 * Alternate history
 * Historical cycles: history repeating itself (either on long or short scales)
 * Scientific prediction of the future
 * Secret history
 * Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic
 * Biopunk
 * Dying Earth science fiction
 * Military science fiction
 * Mundane SF
 * Steampunk
 * Time travel
 * Space colonization
 * Space opera
 * Spy-fi
 * Superheroes

Plot- The events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, or by coincidence. One is generally interested in how well this pattern of events accomplishes some artistic or emotional effect.

Character Development Point of View Dialogue- It needs to be simple but effective. Conflict Climax

Examples -Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury -War of the Worlds, H.G. Wells -Star Wars, Jude Watson

Bibliography and Links -http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/science_fiction/warofworlds.html

-Various definitions of the genre of Science Fiction http://www.answers.com/topic/science-fiction

-List of some of the most popular Science Fiction novels http://www.listsofbests.com/list/5830-top-100-sci-fi-books-of-all-time

-http://www.neabigread.org/books/fahrenheit451/

-One of the greatest contributors to the genre of Science Fiction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._G._Wells

-Plots in Science Fiction http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/fiction/2004/11/plot_in_science.html -Plot Generator http://www.warpcoresf.co.uk/scifiplot.php

**Useful Writing Exercises: Take 5-10 minutes on each exercise, and you should have a setting, characters, and basic story outline when you are finished**
-The setting or tale generally takes place in near or distant future, on Earth, or another location that real scientists have theorized may exist. -Pick ten people you know and write a one-sentence description for each of them. __Create an Alien:__ Write several types of adjectives on small pieces of paper. Toss them in a shoebox and then randomly pull out a string of descriptions. Another method would be to pick an environment, like a Martian desert, and design an alien based on how they'd survive within it. If your goal is to create an alien for a dark fiction setting, you could try creating a cute alien first and then twisting it into something predatory. After you have your creation in hand, you can then explore several different options to flesh out your alien. You could determine how they reproduce, if there are any other types of aliens within that species, what type of pets they might have or food they might eat, etc. __Predict the End of the World:__ What type of an event would change the world forever? When and where would this event occur? How would the event start? By attempting to predict the end of the world, your imagination can travel in some interesting directions and naturally explore the causes and effects of the event you're predicting. Once you have the event figured out, your mind will attempt put the pieces together to logically create the before, during and after of a post-apocalyptic sequence that you could create a setting around. __Design an Invention:__ In many areas of science fiction, you'll often find interesting inventions that end up tying back into the plot in some fashion. Some of these "inventions" are organically-based, like a bio-organic ship or weapon. Others might employ nanotechnology, like a "living" spy mechanism that exists in your bloodstream, or an energy field, like a fish tank that is contained by an invisible force field. If you're stuck, you could base your design off of your favorite current device and figure out how to render it obsolete. An e-reader, for example, is primarily a substitution for a book. What sorts of inventions would you design that currently don't exist in modern technology? After you've created an invention, it can lead to a good brainstorming session about where, when and how it might be used in your setting. __Ask yourself "What if?":__ Remember, this is fiction. Play off your main scientific topic, but you can get a little crazy with it. For example, science can't really successfully clone humans yet, but what if it could? __Decide what your main conflict will be:__ Man vs. Technology, Man vs. Man, etc. Aliens are probably the most popular enemy for science fiction books (and technology the most popular weapon against them), but don't be afraid to step out of the box. __Know the difference between science fiction and fantasy:__ Science fiction is more about about scientific occurrences that could happen in this world. Fantasy is about events that are impossible to happen in this world. __Make sure you know what all of your characters want:__ Characters are driven by a goal, or want, and this should form the foundation of their behaviors. For instance, a character who wants to travel to a new existence may actually want to win the love and admiration of a fellow being, and the story plot will be driven by this double want. __Your characters need to solve a problem:__ The characters solve the dilemma through using actual scientific data. An example of a problem would be; Should humans tamper with nature?

History
As a means of understanding the world through speculation and storytelling, science fiction has antecedents back to mythology, though precursors to science fiction as literature can be seen in Lucian's True History in the 2nd century, some of the Arabian Nights tales, The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter in the 10th century, Ibn al-Nafis' Theologus Autodidactus in the 13th century, and Jules Verne's A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in the 19th century. A product of the budding Age of Reason and the development of modern science itself, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels was one of the first true science fantasy works, together with Voltaire's Micromégas and Johannes Kepler's Somnium (1620–1630). The latter work is considered the first science fiction story by Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. It depicts a journey to the Moon and how the Earth's motion is seen from there. Another example is Ludvig Holberg's novel Nicolai Klimii iter subterraneum, 1741. (Translated to Danish by Hans Hagerup in 1742 as Niels Klims underjordiske Rejse.) (Eng. Niels Klim's Underground Travels.) Brian Aldiss has argued that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) was the first work of science fiction.

Following the 18th century development of the novel as a literary form, in the early 19th century, Mary Shelley's books Frankenstein and The Last Man helped define the form of the science fiction novel; later Edgar Allan Poe wrote a story about a flight to the moon. More examples appeared throughout the 19th century. Then with the dawn of new technologies such as electricity, the telegraph, and new forms of powered transportation, writers like Jules Verne and H. G. Wells created a body of work that became popular across broad cross-sections of society. Wells' The War of the Worlds describes an invasion of late Victorian England by Martians using tripod fighting machines equipped with advanced weaponry. It is a seminal depiction of an alien invasion of Earth.

In the late 19th century, the term "scientific romance" was used in Britain to describe much of this fiction. This produced additional offshoots, such as the 1884 novella Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott Abbott. The term would continue to be used into the early 20th century for writers such as Olaf Stapledon. In the early 20th century, pulp magazines helped develop a new generation of mainly American SF writers, influenced by Hugo Gernsback, the founder of Amazing Stories magazine. In 1912 Edgar Rice Burroughs published A Princess of Mars, the first of his three-decade-long series of Barsoom novels, situated on Mars and featuring John Carter as the hero. The 1928 publication of Philip Nolan's original Buck Rogers story, Armageddon 2419, in Amazing Stories was a landmark event. This story led to comic strips featuring Buck Rogers (1929), Brick Bradford (1933), and Flash Gordon (1934). The comic strips and derivative movie serials greatly popularized science fiction. In the late 1930s, John W. Campbell became editor of Astounding Science Fiction, and a critical mass of new writers emerged in New York City in a group called the Futurians, including Isaac Asimov, Damon Knight, Donald A. Wollheim, Frederik Pohl, James Blish, Judith Merril, and others. Other important writers during this period included E.E. (Doc) Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, Olaf Stapledon, A. E. van Vogt and Stanisław Lem. Campbell's tenure at Astounding is considered to be the beginning of the Golden Age of science fiction, characterized by hard SF stories celebrating scientific achievement and progress. This lasted until postwar technological advances, new magazines like Galaxy under Pohl as editor, and a new generation of writers began writing stories outside the Campbell mode.

In the 1950s, the Beat generation included speculative writers like William S. Burroughs. In the 1960s and early 1970s, writers like Frank Herbert, Samuel R. Delany, Roger Zelazny, and Harlan Ellison explored new trends, ideas, and writing styles, while a group of writers, mainly in Britain, became known as the New Wave for their embrace of a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, and a highbrow and self-consciously "literary" or artistic sensibility. In the 1970s, writers like Larry Niven and Poul Anderson began to redefine hard SF. Ursula K. Le Guin and others pioneered soft science fiction.

In the 1980s, cyberpunk authors like William Gibson turned away from the optimism and support for progress of traditional science fiction. The Star Wars franchise helped spark a new interest in space opera, focusing more on story and character than on scientific accuracy. C. J. Cherryh's detailed explorations of alien life and complex scientific challenges influenced a generation of writers. Emerging themes in the 1990s included environmental issues, the implications of the global Internet and the expanding information universe, questions about biotechnology and nanotechnology, as well as a post-Cold War interest in post-scarcity societies; Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age comprehensively explores these themes. Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan novels brought the character-driven story back into prominence. The television series Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) began a torrent of new SF shows, including three further Star Trek spin-off shows and Babylon 5. Concern about the rapid pace of technological change crystallized around the concept of the technological singularity, popularized by Vernor Vinge's novel Marooned in Realtime and then taken up by other authors.

[|From the Wikipedia page about Science Fiction.]