A Little Creative Fun

Sometimes I feel less inspired than I would like.  For the last few days, I've had plenty of ideas that I'd love to put on paper, but nothing seems to be coming out right.  Perhaps I'm being too hard on myself.  Isn't that a common problem with writers?  We stress out about the words to the point where they flow like treacle.  It isn't always easy to snap ourselves out of it, either.

When I sat down to write this post, I wasn't feeling any more confident.  I wanted to say something profound about life and writing and the stories that we use to examine our shared humanity.  That sounds like a lot of pressure, so it shouldn't be surprising that doing this to myself did not help my creative output in the slightest.

Then I gave myself permission to have a little bit of fun with this.  Why not?  We all need a little fun and laughter from time to time, and when you're a writer, getting playful with words can also help unblock the pathways responsible for creative output.  Sounds like a win-win scenario, right?

That's why I wrote a little Mad Lib style story to share with you.  It was so much fun to write something silly, and all of you can have a good time filling in the blanks to create something uniquely amusing.  I've always enjoyed writing stories like this, and I'll highly recommend it to anyone who's feeling the creative strain.

Before going on to the story, write a list of these 12 things.  Feel free to be as zany with your responses as you want!

Texture

Beverage

Symptom of illness

Annoying song title

City

Country

Verb

Noun

Emotion

Job title

Color

Shape

Do you have your list ready?  Okay.  Going in order, insert each response into the blanks to create your very own story.  Have fun!

Launch Day

The day of the launch was not going _______.  In fact, an accurate description of events would include a few crude words.  One of the astronauts had too much ______ and was experiencing the fallout from that.  Dealing with ______ on launch day wasn’t exactly ideal.

Then there was the issue with the lead engineer Stan.  Some wires got mixed up, and now the spacecraft’s navigation system played _______ on repeat.  Without a proper navigation system in place, the ship could easily end up in _______ rather than in orbit.

No one had been able to reach Stan, either.  His answering machine said that he’d gone to _______ to _______.  It wouldn’t have been a problem if they had more time.  Delaying a mission was commonplace enough.  Except they had to launch today to save Earth from destruction via _______.

Sarah was determined, however, not to feel ______ about it.  She had a job to do.  She hadn’t been appointed ______ for nothing!  It was only a few wires, right?  How complicated could that be?

She looked up at the enormous _______ ________ of a spacecraft and steeled her nerves.  She had a job to do.  Today she could end up being a hero.  Or she could doom humanity to extinction.  No pressure.

*     *     *

How did your version of the story turn out?  How do you think it ends for our hero, and for humanity as whole?

Asking Questions and Generating Ideas

Writers want to tell an interesting and engaging story.  This isn’t an easy task, either.  We’re each one out of thousands of story-tellers, and it seems every possible idea has been done in some form or another.  This can make writing our own stories seem daunting.  Even futile.  I should know, because I’ve struggled with this insecurity before.

Speculative fiction gives us the advantage of opening up the possibilities.  The universe is vast.  There are so many things to see and do that humans have yet to discover, and this is an exciting fact.  This doesn’t mean, however, that the story ideas always come easily.  They frequently don’t.  There are, however, plenty of ways to defeat writers block.  I’ve used these methods myself.

Next time you’re watching a film, ask yourself questions. 

How could things have happened differently?  What if a character missed their flight and couldn’t make it to the important meeting?  What if the protagonist saw through the antagonist’s lies and decided to try to beat them at their own game.  Asking these kinds of questions regarding stories you love help get you thinking like a writer.  Plus, the urge you may occasionally feel to yell at the screen when a character does something stupid can be harnessed for good use.  That’s a great thing, if you ask me.

You can also ask friends to give you tidbits of plot.  Ask one friend for a character or two.  Ask another for a setting.  Ask a third to give you an inciting incident to kick the story into motion.  Ask someone else for another incident to send events into a new and interesting direction.  Use these things to create a story idea.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about.

Character #1: Female, age 35, doctor

Character #2: Male, age 20, mechanic

Setting: spaceship, passenger liner, carrying 20,000 people, currently in orbit around Earth

Inciting Incident: A bizarre space anomaly is spotted, and it’s heading straight for Earth.

From this setup, questions naturally arise.  How should they respond to seeing the anomaly?  What is it?  What will happen if it reaches Earth?  Will the world be destroyed, or will it be changed in some strange way?  Should the spaceship stay and try to help if things go awry?  Should they flee to protect the 20,000 people onboard?  The story could go in so many different directions.  What role will our main characters play in all this?  They won’t be the ones making the final decision about whether the ship stays or goes, but they’ll certainly have plenty to do when trouble strikes.

The idea may ultimately be terrible.  It might also be brilliant.  In either case, it’ll get your brain thinking creatively, and that’s the most important part of all this.

Science Fiction, Science Future

- by Sylvia Ney

One of my favorite stops this summer was at the Reuben H. Fleet museum in San Diego, California. I took my daughters to the traveling exhibit "Science Fiction, Science Future".

We spent the day learning about what has led to our current understanding of science, what humans are currently working to develop, and being teased with challenges for the future. Gallery stops included:

- understanding what we know of sound and light
- move this object with your mind challenge
- become invisible
- design your own cyborg
- interact with robots
- and more than I can write about in one post!

Here are just a few of our explorations:

A section honoring the history of science fiction development - its authors, artists, and innovators. Rare books from the Department of Special Collections & University Archives (SCUA), artwork from comic book publisher IDW, and even displays from the Star Trek franchise were available for perusal - including a very special challenge (see pics below).

Created by the renowned Scitech Discovery Centre in Perth, Australia this exhibit is a visually compelling way to share a deeper understanding of how science fiction concepts of today are becoming a reality: including holograms.

Visitors are completely immersed in possibilities for medical technology, communication, and even transportation. This exhibit includes many innovations, inventions, and challenges -  a taste of anything a science lover could be looking for, especially when sharing the concepts with family and friends.

Thanks to this trip, my daughters truly enjoyed a glimpse at the possibilities for themselves and their future. I can't wait to see how they will contribute.

How will you contribute to our science fiction, science future? Will you or someone you know want to compete in the tricorder challenge listed in the above picture?

Trends in Science Fiction

Since the time when science fiction appeared on the scene in the late 1800’s, it has helped those who read it look at the world in a different way.  Science fiction understandably speculated about what the future might look like thanks to science and advancing technologies.  Yet, like every other genre you can think of, it has gone through many trends.

The history of science fiction is often divided into eras.  Though stories of various kinds were published during each of these eras, there is a definite trend in the kinds of stories published during each era.  The pulp era of the 1920’s and 30’s was characterized by cheaply produced magazines that could provide affordable entertainment for working class people.  They featured heroes who had bold adventures on other planets.  The heroes were often dashing and charming and the kind of person people wished they could be.

During the late 1930’s and 1940’s, wartime shortages brought on the decline of the pulp magazines, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction began.  This golden age featured hard sci-fi (sci-fi that features science in a prominent and accurate way).

Later on in the 1960’s and 70’s, the New Wave came as a response to the social issues of the time.  The focus moved from hard to soft science fiction.  Soft sci-fi is less focused on the technology and more focused on the people and how they respond to the world in which they live.  This era also saw a lot of experimentation with writing styles.

Cyberpunk rose to popularity in the 1980’s as the computer became more accessible to everyday people.  The stories took place on Earth and featured people who interacted heavily with technology.  Sometimes the characters plugged in and escaped the dystopian world around them through the more appealing world the technology offered.  Other times the characters interacted with cyborgs that made people question what it means to be human.

The trends we see in various genres don’t spring up in a vacuum.  All of these eras arose in response to the world the authors of these stories lived in.  Writers look at their own world and use their writing to respond to it.  They may also read stories from fellow authors and draw inspiration for their own work.

One of the biggest trends today in science fiction is YA dystopian.  There has been plenty of dystopian fiction over the years, but most of it today seems to be post-apocalyptic.  It features protagonists that have to contend with tyrannical governments that were established after some major disaster destroyed much of the world and killed a majority of humanity.  The cause of the apocalypse is typically environmental in nature, and what remained of humanity had to fight for what little resources were left.  Why is this such a prominent theme today?

The future of our planet is a big concern for many people.  Is global warming a valid concern, and if so, what are the consequences?  Can our growing population be sustained without catastrophe?  People also worry about overbearing governments monitoring their every move, which is a common concern in the world we live in today.  These post-apocalyptic scenarios look at the social impact of living in a world that looks drastically different than the one we live in today, and we get to root for protagonists who are fighting against governments that abuse the people they rule.  We like see people like us triumph against all odds.

One question that often comes up with trends is this: does the market become too saturated with similar stories?  Do readers get sick of reading the same themes over and over again?  If you’re a writer, should you write a story that fits within the prevailing trend of the time, or should you try to write something else?  Does a story that falls outside of what is currently considered popular even have a chance?

There are no easy answers to these questions.  Some readers will reach a point of burn out, while others will continue to scoop up all the books they can because they love what these kinds of stories have to offer.  As a writer, I know we can’t please everyone with what we have to offer.  That’s just not possible.  If you have the inspiration to write a story and you’re passionate about it, but you fear that the market has too many stories with similar themes, I’d recommend you try writing it anyway.  Try to give it a twist or look at events from an angle that you haven’t seen yet.  Create the strongest characters you can.  If you give the story everything you have, you have a shot at finding readers for your work.

If your story is something that doesn’t fit within the current trend at all, I’d also recommend giving it a chance.  The most important thing is to tell a compelling story.

Remember, stories that fit within the current trend do so because they are compelling to a lot of people, but someone also had to start writing many of those stories before the trend existed.  Someone had to start that trend in the first place.  That’s why I try not to worry too much about whether a story idea seems trendy or not.  If the idea speaks to me, I try to make it happen.