Sci-Fi Script Writing Advice From A Hollywood Screenwriter
Sci-Fi Writing Is Fun, Even Exciting, But Not Always Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy
Let’s see what’s out there…. Jean-Luc Picard
Sci-fi writing isn’t always easy, although from my experience and professional perspective, it sure can be a whole lot of fun to tackle. After writing episodes for the hit TV shows Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, I became well versed in science fiction story construction. Going sci-fi pro fulfilled a fond dream of mine since I’d read science fiction and thoroughly enjoyed the same watching movies and on TV for many years
Since I was always a big sci-fi fan, the effortless part of my journey was knowing my subject well and loving the material. As a writer, however, the story/script construction can be just as arduous a haul as crafting a romantic comedy or concocting a straight up drama. Story is story. There are no shortcuts. Your replica Harry Potter wand won’t help much. You must setup a good yarn and resolve it.
Settle back, relax away the day’s tension and order up a fruity, fizzy drink or Earl Grey Tea from your rowdy replicator, while you ease into this exploration of screenwriting. I’ll save you time and maybe pain with advice and tips which would have helped me back when I first tried my hand at sci-fi writing.
World Building
All these worlds are yours. Except Europa. Attempt no landing there. Use them together. Use them in peace - Arthur C. Clarke, 2010: The Year We Make Contact
Legendary Arthur C. Clarke made his global fame as a scientist, author, inventor and all around visionary. Most of us know his work from director Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, based on Clarke’s and Kubrick’s novel - although Kubrick never received an official credit, he worked on the book alongside Clarke. Any complicated fictional universe requires the careful construction of a world or even many worlds. Writers and fans call it world building, and in sci-fi and fantasy, it’s pretty much standard operating procedure.
Honestly, there’s no real recipe for world baking success. Dismiss ideas on mixing 2 tablespoons of alien weirdness with a cup of future fun to blend well. What’s always worked for me is simply an honest approach to and building a society or history that makes sense and would be somewhere you’d like to live or at least visit. Of course, if it was a truly raw dystopian vision, you may want to experience it from a safe distance.
Using a future or alien society as framework for a sociological exploration or theme is the underpinning of it all. Take The Time Machine by HG Wells, used as basis for the great George Pal film classic. The Eloi and the Morlocks are two very different societies - sharing space on the same world, albeit one underground, the other living on the surface. The Eloi represent the innocent, even naive segment of a society - or one which has fallen into a sedentary, stagnant cycle of mere existence. They don’t do much except lie around and wait for the Morlocks to take them away. While the Morlocks symbolize an industrial nightmare gone out of control. They live and work ceaselessly in the dark - their bodies and eyes now forever mutated and malformed.
In Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek vast world building, the Vulcans and the Romulans were once of the same race. Eons of vast separation on two planets so that independent development and evolution rendered Vulcans rational, calm and beneficent, while Romulans operate as highly emotional, predatory conquerors. Roddenberry and his writers used these archetypes to model Trek episodes dealing with all sorts of social issues with philosophical questions. World building is a focused process. Build your world with the kind of details you want to highlight.
Alien Cultures
Similar to World Building, though a lot more leeway can be had here, especially to make it fun for you and your audience.
In author Frank Herbert’s Dune, the Freeman of the desert planet ingest a substance called spice or Melange. This gives them incredible sensory abilities and psychic connections with the world around them and far beyond. They become precognitive and can see the future and communicate with creatures to enhance their awesome abilities, lives and complex culture.
Herbert made their eyes turn blue from ingesting the powerful narcotic like substance, but he could have made it any old color, I suppose. Or none. These little details can be fun for all and serve to bring realism to a story/character, but aren’t truly essential.
Vulcans eat a dish called Plomeek soup. It’s not a necessary bit of trivia, however, it colors Vulcan culture and makes things more real for fans. Spock reveals Vulcans can’t or won’t lie. However, on more than one occasion, the Enterprises’ Science Officer stretches the truth into deception to fit whatever mission he’s fulfilling. Flesh out your aliens with human like foibles to celebrate how real they can seem to your audience. You’ll make them more relatable and better support for your plots
Alien Tongues
Universal Translator, anyone? Yep, Star Trek does it fun and easy by simply having a super computer program driven hardware translate any alien language in mere seconds. Will it ever become that easy when there’s a real alien contact between our two worlds?
There are any number of tricky ways to secure yourself a new language, or for our purposes, an alien tongue borne of another planet in another solar system, or even another far flung galaxy. Here’s where your sense of childlike wonder and playtime come into practical service.
My trick for creating a few new, alien phrases is simply to blend two words into one new sci-fi sounding one. Take mother and father - blend well, and you can come up with MoFath or MotFa. Take other words and simply drop a letter or two and you have the name of a new alien race or world. Tablet becomes Tabet or blanket becomes blaket. It’s certainly not creating Klingon - which as become an actual language of sorts, spoken in our real world - but it certainly works for many in a pinch.
Using real foreign words and massaging them with the drop a letter or blend two words is also effective. Take a Spanish, French, Japanese or German word and go crazy creating new alien races, foods or abilities.
Science As Foundation
Science is as science does - or, more importantly and accurately, what we do with science and how we apply our knowledge and research. Bottom line: Science is as close to the truth as we’re likely to ever get. When you are creating new worlds and characters, you’ll definitely need your own truth.
If you’re not a science minded person, if you’ve got no scientific degree to your name, no real worries. There are tons of serious science outlets out there to help you out in your sci-fi creation. Like everything else today, there’s an app for that!
Scientific American remains one of my favorite science resources for inspiration and check up on my science fiction musings. Just a basic Wikipedia can assist you in making your characters more scientifically accurate as they navigate the broad, epic adventures you place them in to survive through and conquer. Remember, Thomas Dolby was blinded by science and you can and should be as well.
Becoming a dedicated sci-fi writer is a remarkable journey of discovery. It is an enjoyable, creative process and one which can, as it did in my case, contribute to a full fledged writing career. It’s not exactly easy, but if you love the subject and engage in practicing regularly, you’ll eventually find yourself sharing the same fantastic space as aliens, cosmic entities or perhaps even time travelling to some dark, thrilling era to save the entire universe. Just remember to bring along your fully charged ray gun, a helpful companion droid for necessary comic relief and a proper way to get back to your own timeline or dimension just in time for an intergalactically inspired dinner.