by
Cerece Rennie Murphy
To me, the best science fiction is always grounded in what
we know or what we think we know. The
closer the science fiction world resembles the world outside my door, the bigger
the trip my imagination goes on because it challenges me to see all the things
I experience and take for granted everyday a little differently.
In my daily life, I don’t look for Yoda
though he literally was my first love, but now that I’ve seen Looper, I’m on
alert with every weird-looking kid I see.
That’s the beauty of contemporary science fiction.
For the Order of the Seers trilogy, I tried to create that
same sense of “Wait...am I seeing what I think I’m seeing or is it somehow
different now.” The series rests on a
fairly basic premise – there are a group of people who can see the future and
they are enslaved for that ability. The
challenge for me in developing this story was to give a credible answer to the
question of how and why. This is where
my research on genetics and paranormal behaviour kicked in, helping to give me
some “real world” anchors on which to build the overall mission, purpose and
dilemma of the story.
I also wanted to
have a somewhat realistic limit to their powers for two reasons. First, I wanted readers to put themselves in
the position of the Seers and for that I needed to use more familiar
abilities. For example, humans do not
have the physical prerequisites for unassisted flight, but we have all
experienced some level of precognition (déjà vu, dreams that come true,
etc). Second, the fact that Seers are
fully human is critical to the story line and my ultimate goal/mission which
was to inspire each reader to question the limits of his or her own potential.
So what are the takeaways from this post for research and
science fiction? Well, a lot depends on the needs and goals of the story you
are telling, but here are some questions/principles that I have found helpful
in guiding me to write the best science fiction thriller that I can.
1)
What is your goal with the setting? Are you trying to “WOW” readers with a newly
imagined world or make them suspicious of the everyday? If it is the former, I would recommend not
limiting yourself by any research at first.
Let your imagination run away with you for awhile. Outline the sci-fi premises and then identify
what anchors you might need to help your reader understand the world you are
creating. James Cameron never really explained
how the floating mountains of Pandora work, but we did understand that bones
reinforced with carbon fiber made the Na’Vi hard to kill. If your goal is the latter,
then I think you start out by identifying the concepts/conventional wisdom or
paradigms you which to challenge. Make
sure you spell them out, so that you know exactly where you need to fill in the
logic between what is known and what you are proposing.
