What do you need to know to write a space opera?
July 20, 2024 6:10 AM Subscribe
And where do you go to find it out?
Off and on, for many years, I've occasionally considered (and always quickly rejected) the idea of writing far future science fiction -- deep space exploration, alien worlds, etc. Although I like sf, I'm really not that kind of writer; I tend to be grounded, and favor genres like horror and mystery. But I'd like to leave my comfort zone, and I have ideas that would work best, I think, in a far future sf context.
Here's the thing, though. I don't think I'm a full-on science dumbass -- over a decade later, I still remember my horror and outrage over the BSG wherein Starbuck used her coat to patch a hole in her spaceship -- but I also know I am not anything like knowledgeable enough to write about interstellar travel and its potential pitfalls in a worldly-wise way. I'm not totally interested in hard science fiction for its own sake -- I see sf as the context for the ideas I would like to explore, ideas that I don't think are accessible in any other genre -- but I also don't want to write fantasy in Star Trek drag. I want the science to at least be plausible. I don't want to embarrass myself or take the reader out of the story.
Are there good resources for stuff like this? I'm sure scientists have written books about the possibilities of deep space travel, alien life, etc., but I'm not sure where to start. Thank you!
Off and on, for many years, I've occasionally considered (and always quickly rejected) the idea of writing far future science fiction -- deep space exploration, alien worlds, etc. Although I like sf, I'm really not that kind of writer; I tend to be grounded, and favor genres like horror and mystery. But I'd like to leave my comfort zone, and I have ideas that would work best, I think, in a far future sf context.
Here's the thing, though. I don't think I'm a full-on science dumbass -- over a decade later, I still remember my horror and outrage over the BSG wherein Starbuck used her coat to patch a hole in her spaceship -- but I also know I am not anything like knowledgeable enough to write about interstellar travel and its potential pitfalls in a worldly-wise way. I'm not totally interested in hard science fiction for its own sake -- I see sf as the context for the ideas I would like to explore, ideas that I don't think are accessible in any other genre -- but I also don't want to write fantasy in Star Trek drag. I want the science to at least be plausible. I don't want to embarrass myself or take the reader out of the story.
Are there good resources for stuff like this? I'm sure scientists have written books about the possibilities of deep space travel, alien life, etc., but I'm not sure where to start. Thank you!
Best answer: That parsec is a unit of distance and not time.
I think the key is that a space opera is far more about the giant struggle than the hyper specific details. I don't think sciencey stuff maters at all in this context. Unless you desire to write technical fiction the space part is just window dressing. In other words a deep sigh looking out a porthole across the vast emptiness of space doesn't depend on details of the porthole or who constructed it etc.
posted by chasles at 6:39 AM on July 20 [4 favorites]
I think the key is that a space opera is far more about the giant struggle than the hyper specific details. I don't think sciencey stuff maters at all in this context. Unless you desire to write technical fiction the space part is just window dressing. In other words a deep sigh looking out a porthole across the vast emptiness of space doesn't depend on details of the porthole or who constructed it etc.
posted by chasles at 6:39 AM on July 20 [4 favorites]
Best answer: The real science would tell you that space is extremely large and extremely empty and getting anywhere and doing anything, even just communication, takes forever, which means you’re going to want to either ignore that or make up fake science so people can go places and do stuff in hours or days instead of generations.
posted by aubilenon at 6:41 AM on July 20 [11 favorites]
posted by aubilenon at 6:41 AM on July 20 [11 favorites]
Best answer: Bookstores are full of pop-sci books about space travel and similar subjects. Start by opening Amazon and looking up astronomy and space science, then extraterrestrial/alien life. You’ll need to use the filters to drill down to science books to winnow through the fiction and the non-science-based books. Authors to start with: Phil Plait, Michio Kaku, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Seth Shostak, Kevin Hand.
A friend of mine is a space opera author married to an astrophysicist and they talk out scenarios even though if you read the books you’d be hard put to notice the space science. You can search online by asking here or looking for relevant forums and subreddits for scientists who’d be willing to talk you through scenarios, though I wouldn’t go to them and say “Teach me astrophysics,” I’d read a lot first and start planning the story, then take specific questions to them.
And yes, you should read a lot of other fiction in your genre.
posted by telophase at 6:43 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]
A friend of mine is a space opera author married to an astrophysicist and they talk out scenarios even though if you read the books you’d be hard put to notice the space science. You can search online by asking here or looking for relevant forums and subreddits for scientists who’d be willing to talk you through scenarios, though I wouldn’t go to them and say “Teach me astrophysics,” I’d read a lot first and start planning the story, then take specific questions to them.
And yes, you should read a lot of other fiction in your genre.
posted by telophase at 6:43 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]
Best answer: In my opinion as a sci-fi fan, the main thing is to make your world internally consistent, not "scientifically accurate." (On preview, what Chasles said).
Star Trek has FTL travel and artificial gravity and transporters, but all three were not created because they have any relationship to "science," but because they enable telling the stories the creators wanted to tell (FTL/Warp, which allowed them/us to map from "ocean journey between countries" to "space journey between planets") and because they kept the filming budgets reasonable (gravity/transporters). Late in TNG, the writers came up with a watsonian retcon for "why do all the aliens look like humans with weird foreheads" (reality: budget), but the series holds together because everyone always understood the aliens were always metaphors forforeigners The Other anyway.
Like, "The Expanse" is a great series of books and people love to talk about how scientifically accurate it is, and to some extent, that's true. The creators decided to create a world with two major differences from our own: A very efficient fusion drive that allows for economical, reasonably fast journeys between places in the solar system (remapping space travel to be more like ocean travel, again), and another thing that's a huge spoiler, but also has consistent behavior. But I don't really like The Expanse for the science (tho it's nice), I like The Expanse for the characters and the story and the questions they ask about how humanity copes with itself.
posted by Alterscape at 6:43 AM on July 20 [2 favorites]
Star Trek has FTL travel and artificial gravity and transporters, but all three were not created because they have any relationship to "science," but because they enable telling the stories the creators wanted to tell (FTL/Warp, which allowed them/us to map from "ocean journey between countries" to "space journey between planets") and because they kept the filming budgets reasonable (gravity/transporters). Late in TNG, the writers came up with a watsonian retcon for "why do all the aliens look like humans with weird foreheads" (reality: budget), but the series holds together because everyone always understood the aliens were always metaphors for
Like, "The Expanse" is a great series of books and people love to talk about how scientifically accurate it is, and to some extent, that's true. The creators decided to create a world with two major differences from our own: A very efficient fusion drive that allows for economical, reasonably fast journeys between places in the solar system (remapping space travel to be more like ocean travel, again), and another thing that's a huge spoiler, but also has consistent behavior. But I don't really like The Expanse for the science (tho it's nice), I like The Expanse for the characters and the story and the questions they ask about how humanity copes with itself.
posted by Alterscape at 6:43 AM on July 20 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: I like The Expanse for the characters and the story and the questions they ask about how humanity copes with itself.
And this is really how I look at the genre myself; if I wanted a science treatise, I wouldn't read a novel. I've certainly read hard sf where the science of, say, terraforming is much more important to the author than their characters, and that's fine for readers to whom terraforming is just inherently super interesting, people less so. I read novels for story and character.
But I've also read sf where I'm like, "Dude, I've got an English degree, not a science degree, and even I know this is bullshit." That's basically what I'm trying to not do, lol.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:49 AM on July 20 [3 favorites]
And this is really how I look at the genre myself; if I wanted a science treatise, I wouldn't read a novel. I've certainly read hard sf where the science of, say, terraforming is much more important to the author than their characters, and that's fine for readers to whom terraforming is just inherently super interesting, people less so. I read novels for story and character.
But I've also read sf where I'm like, "Dude, I've got an English degree, not a science degree, and even I know this is bullshit." That's basically what I'm trying to not do, lol.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:49 AM on July 20 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I do believe I've just seen shots fired at Kim Stanley Robinson.
Figure out what needs to be true for the story you want to tell to work, then work backwards from there to figure out which rules you need to bend/break, and how to construct some world-building to justify it.
I think "read a lot of books in the genre" is great advice. You're not trying to convince science experts (they know it's all stretching reality anyhow). You're trying to convince your readers, and they mostly want to believe.
I do believe internal consistency is important. If you assert your world works a certain way, it should consistently work that way, not only when it is convenient to the plot. You and your readers should be able to understand the rules, and able to reason about the problems the rules create for your characters. If something surprising saves the day, it should be a character moment, and not tech handwavium (you have to put checkov's gun on the mantle first).
posted by Alterscape at 7:15 AM on July 20 [6 favorites]
Figure out what needs to be true for the story you want to tell to work, then work backwards from there to figure out which rules you need to bend/break, and how to construct some world-building to justify it.
I think "read a lot of books in the genre" is great advice. You're not trying to convince science experts (they know it's all stretching reality anyhow). You're trying to convince your readers, and they mostly want to believe.
I do believe internal consistency is important. If you assert your world works a certain way, it should consistently work that way, not only when it is convenient to the plot. You and your readers should be able to understand the rules, and able to reason about the problems the rules create for your characters. If something surprising saves the day, it should be a character moment, and not tech handwavium (you have to put checkov's gun on the mantle first).
posted by Alterscape at 7:15 AM on July 20 [6 favorites]
which means you’re going to want to either ignore that or make up fake science so people can go places and do stuff in hours or days instead of generations
In my circle of SF-appreciating friends, the general consensus is that good SF is allowed one plot hole so big that you could drive a massive truck through it without touching the sides.
The One Truck-Sized Plot Hole most commonly employed, and therefore the most familiar and least likely to pull an audience out of its willing suspension of disbelief, involves hand-waving away almost all of actual physics. Partly this is because most people, let alone most space opera readers, never had any shits to give about actual physics in the first place but mostly it's because actual physics would make anything even vaguely resembling a galactic empire completely unfeasible and where's the fun in that?
If you aspire to "hard" SF, all you really need to avoid is having your spaceships manoeuvre like they were actually aircraft and you're golden. Double points for aliens that don't look like people with prosthetic foreheads on their real heads even though everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads.
posted by flabdablet at 7:30 AM on July 20 [6 favorites]
In my circle of SF-appreciating friends, the general consensus is that good SF is allowed one plot hole so big that you could drive a massive truck through it without touching the sides.
The One Truck-Sized Plot Hole most commonly employed, and therefore the most familiar and least likely to pull an audience out of its willing suspension of disbelief, involves hand-waving away almost all of actual physics. Partly this is because most people, let alone most space opera readers, never had any shits to give about actual physics in the first place but mostly it's because actual physics would make anything even vaguely resembling a galactic empire completely unfeasible and where's the fun in that?
If you aspire to "hard" SF, all you really need to avoid is having your spaceships manoeuvre like they were actually aircraft and you're golden. Double points for aliens that don't look like people with prosthetic foreheads on their real heads even though everybody wants prosthetic foreheads on their real heads.
posted by flabdablet at 7:30 AM on July 20 [6 favorites]
Another framing of consistency : after you’ve picked your big handwavium, sketch out for yourself what is still a scarce resource in this universe and then stick to it.
Sometimes scarcity shifts and then all the economics and politics and social assumptions that allocated the old limiting resource shift, with huge amounts of contention and contingency at every level. You could read Braudel’s big Civ and Cap, or even books on the whole evolutionary history of life on Earth, though space opera tends to be more like Braudel.
posted by clew at 7:57 AM on July 20 [2 favorites]
Sometimes scarcity shifts and then all the economics and politics and social assumptions that allocated the old limiting resource shift, with huge amounts of contention and contingency at every level. You could read Braudel’s big Civ and Cap, or even books on the whole evolutionary history of life on Earth, though space opera tends to be more like Braudel.
posted by clew at 7:57 AM on July 20 [2 favorites]
N.K. Jemisin's Worldbuilding 101 (Aug. 2, 2015): I did a recent talk for the Writers’ Digest Online Workshop and Annual Conference on worldbuilding, in which I basically explained how I do what I do, and led participants through an exercise in creating their own world. I’d hoped to actually do the exercise in realtime, using some poster paper and audience participation, but alas, ran out of time. There’s a good example in the Powerpoint, though. Note that if this doesn’t make sense in places, remember that it was meant to be shown alongside me talking and filling in conceptual gaps. But hopefully you can figure it out. PDF file
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:04 AM on July 20 [14 favorites]
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:04 AM on July 20 [14 favorites]
The creators decided to create a world with two major differences from our own
I do believe internal consistency is important
A lot of the SF in worlds where FTL travel is possible reads kind of like magic to begin with, so our world+a bit of magic (consistent, systematic, treated like science or technology) is also an option.
posted by trig at 8:50 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]
I do believe internal consistency is important
A lot of the SF in worlds where FTL travel is possible reads kind of like magic to begin with, so our world+a bit of magic (consistent, systematic, treated like science or technology) is also an option.
posted by trig at 8:50 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]
Best answer: On the diamond-hard SF front, the online resource is Winchell Chung’s Atomic Rockets. It delves—deeply—into what physics allows and does not allow, with a lot of citations from SF stories both well-known and obscure.
It leans toward military SF (when you’re throwing around gigajoules of energy, military applications are going to come to the forefront) and is definitely very nerdy, but a lot of the advice does come down to “think through the implications of your tech, whether it’s actually feasible or not”. If your interstellar engine fuel is super dangerous, you probably have governments that very firmly regulates access to it (cf Star Trek). If ships can drop out of warp above a planet and rain hell on a planet without warning, that is going to imply a few very specific types of not-fun civilization. Be warned that the site can be a TV Tropes-in-the-aughts level time suck.
But as other folks have noted, you should read a bunch of space opera (definitely give Banks’s Culture novels a shot; Tschikovsky’s recent Shattered Earth trilogy is a fun recent read—neither give a damn about general relativity or quantum physics) to get an idea of how it works. Readers won’t really care how the FTL drive works beyond “very well unless it’s a plot point, thank you.” Don’t bother trying to explain any tech more than you have to.
posted by thecaddy at 9:08 AM on July 20 [3 favorites]
It leans toward military SF (when you’re throwing around gigajoules of energy, military applications are going to come to the forefront) and is definitely very nerdy, but a lot of the advice does come down to “think through the implications of your tech, whether it’s actually feasible or not”. If your interstellar engine fuel is super dangerous, you probably have governments that very firmly regulates access to it (cf Star Trek). If ships can drop out of warp above a planet and rain hell on a planet without warning, that is going to imply a few very specific types of not-fun civilization. Be warned that the site can be a TV Tropes-in-the-aughts level time suck.
But as other folks have noted, you should read a bunch of space opera (definitely give Banks’s Culture novels a shot; Tschikovsky’s recent Shattered Earth trilogy is a fun recent read—neither give a damn about general relativity or quantum physics) to get an idea of how it works. Readers won’t really care how the FTL drive works beyond “very well unless it’s a plot point, thank you.” Don’t bother trying to explain any tech more than you have to.
posted by thecaddy at 9:08 AM on July 20 [3 favorites]
As a science fiction writer, you're allowed a "gimme" -- what flabdablet called a "plot hole" above, though I disagree that's the correct term. The gimme is often explained by handwavium, unobtainium, or isn't explained at all, it's merely assumed. In space opera it usually involves breaking physics, notably faster than light travel and artificial gravity, but it all depends on the story you're trying to tell.
The point is, that assuming FTL travel, artificial gravity, etc. is a common science fiction trope, and you can use it assuming your audience will get it and ignore the "how" in favor of enjoying the characters and world of your story. A layman's knowledge of physics and biology is probably enough to get you through at least a first draft. Dream up a world, populate it with people human and/or alien, and give them a problem to solve.
Beyond that, read space opera, see the wide variety of fiction that makes up the sub-genre.
Good luck, and have fun!
posted by lhauser at 9:43 AM on July 20 [2 favorites]
The point is, that assuming FTL travel, artificial gravity, etc. is a common science fiction trope, and you can use it assuming your audience will get it and ignore the "how" in favor of enjoying the characters and world of your story. A layman's knowledge of physics and biology is probably enough to get you through at least a first draft. Dream up a world, populate it with people human and/or alien, and give them a problem to solve.
Beyond that, read space opera, see the wide variety of fiction that makes up the sub-genre.
Good luck, and have fun!
posted by lhauser at 9:43 AM on July 20 [2 favorites]
It can also be helpful to have friends who are more science savvy be beta readers. Maybe offer to take them out for dinner/drinks to say thank you and discuss feedback.
But everyone's different about what things will take them out of the story. I believe mefi's own jscalzi refers to this as a "flying snowman moment," when a reader encounters a thing that finally breaks the suspension of disbelief. I recently read a book set in the cloud tops of Jupiter, and while I could accept a fictitious atmosphere that was breathable with a mask and of a non-lethal temperature and pressure, having the gravity be roughly Earth-normal instead of the 2.5g it would actually be aggravated me. *shrug*
posted by indexy at 11:42 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]
But everyone's different about what things will take them out of the story. I believe mefi's own jscalzi refers to this as a "flying snowman moment," when a reader encounters a thing that finally breaks the suspension of disbelief. I recently read a book set in the cloud tops of Jupiter, and while I could accept a fictitious atmosphere that was breathable with a mask and of a non-lethal temperature and pressure, having the gravity be roughly Earth-normal instead of the 2.5g it would actually be aggravated me. *shrug*
posted by indexy at 11:42 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]
In general, I've seen the big, broad strokes difference between science fiction and fantasy described as (and this isn't every book, but it's enough):
In Fantasy, you'll usually have something like a whole system of magic which should allow for lots and lots of influences/changes in how things work, but somehow most people are still just living in a mediaeval-feudal universe. Vast changes, and yet everything is kind of static.
In Science Fiction, you usually take a world like ours, imagine a technology we don't have yet (or multiple technologies), then explore all the flow on effects from that technology - the ways that that will make everything, day to day life, politics etc *different*.
Small changes can cause ripple effects making things more and more different.
So in a fantasy novel, often there are magical users who can cast spells that will allow instantaneous communication, or psychics etc. But most people don't have their lives effected by this.
In sci fi, you can take the same 'magic feature' and without explaining any more about how it works, the story would usually be about how it is used - even if it was a psychic power, cities would probably set up the equivalent of telegram services, and communication would be revolutionised.
If you want to write sci fi soap operas, you could either stick with genre conventions as to technology available, and write stories within generic, space travel societies. Or, each time you think about a new technology, spend ages talking with a bunch of people about what the flow on effects would be.
If you have teleporters, would people live a long way from where they actually work etc? Would they live in lovely suburbs maintained by robot gardeners, but stop actually going outside there, because why would they, when they can teleport to somewhere 'better'? How much space around you does a teleporter move, can it teleport you without your clothes? Could you use it for decontamination?
If someone was poisoned, could the teleporter be programmed to teleport a person but *not* the person inside them, or is it an all or nothing scenario?
posted by Elysum at 4:29 PM on July 20 [1 favorite]
In Fantasy, you'll usually have something like a whole system of magic which should allow for lots and lots of influences/changes in how things work, but somehow most people are still just living in a mediaeval-feudal universe. Vast changes, and yet everything is kind of static.
In Science Fiction, you usually take a world like ours, imagine a technology we don't have yet (or multiple technologies), then explore all the flow on effects from that technology - the ways that that will make everything, day to day life, politics etc *different*.
Small changes can cause ripple effects making things more and more different.
So in a fantasy novel, often there are magical users who can cast spells that will allow instantaneous communication, or psychics etc. But most people don't have their lives effected by this.
In sci fi, you can take the same 'magic feature' and without explaining any more about how it works, the story would usually be about how it is used - even if it was a psychic power, cities would probably set up the equivalent of telegram services, and communication would be revolutionised.
If you want to write sci fi soap operas, you could either stick with genre conventions as to technology available, and write stories within generic, space travel societies. Or, each time you think about a new technology, spend ages talking with a bunch of people about what the flow on effects would be.
If you have teleporters, would people live a long way from where they actually work etc? Would they live in lovely suburbs maintained by robot gardeners, but stop actually going outside there, because why would they, when they can teleport to somewhere 'better'? How much space around you does a teleporter move, can it teleport you without your clothes? Could you use it for decontamination?
If someone was poisoned, could the teleporter be programmed to teleport a person but *not* the person inside them, or is it an all or nothing scenario?
posted by Elysum at 4:29 PM on July 20 [1 favorite]
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There are no resources in the sense you mean. You just have to read the classics and see what's been done by others.
posted by zadcat at 6:25 AM on July 20 [6 favorites]