Let’s face the facts – the vast majority of people have never been to space, and most of us never will. So writing any story set in space is automatically going to be an act of imagination, and leaving behind the familiar comforts of earth can be a challenge for a writer. Even if you are gazing into your crystal ball and setting up a future version of earth, there are many scientific, societal and political things that will still hold true, which gives you some grounding in reality. A trip into the vast unknown of space is a different test for a writer altogether, and one that requires careful forethought before ‘launching’ into. So today we’ll be exploring some of the key things you might want to consider.
Amazing or everyday?
Classic science-fiction predicted all manner of things for 2017, including easy space travel for passengers and civilisations established on planets other than Earth. What does remain an important consideration for an author is whether people heading into space is something incredible – whether it is more in line with the SF of the ‘Age of Wonder’ – or if travelling through space has become something simply everyday. Naturally, that will play a big part in the reactions of your characters – in real life most astronauts have spoken of the deep sense of wonder they felt in travelling so far from their home planet. One of the stories I love in terms of its depiction of space as an everyday nuisance is Philip K Dick’s Sales Pitch, in which the protagonist travels to and from work through the traffic of the space lanes and is bombarded by advertising while he’s there. If space is everyday in your setting and to your characters, then how does that play into the story? Do they go to some new part of space, or is the mundanity of the stars somehow intrinsic to the plot?