Writing Relatable Scifi (part 3)

Don’t alienate your audience. If you’re a science fiction writer and you are debuting your work, you’re asking a lot from your potential audience. You are asking people who have never heard of you to sit down and spend time reading your work, and in these busy times, that is actually asking a lot. However impressive and extensive your world building, it is important to present your story at the beginning in a way that reaches out to your audience in a relatable way. One key to science fiction is that it is grounded in something from the real world—something relatable—even if it takes place in the far future. If you do not present some relatable aspects of your story at the beginning, it is likely that your audience will feel lost. As an example, fans of the award-winning scifi novelist, William Gibson, are familiar with his work and when they pick up one of his novels, they know what they are about to dive into. However, I have repeatedly seen readers new to Gibson give up on his work at the very beginning, and these people are avid, intelligent readers. Although I love William Gibson’s style of plunging you into his vision of the future without explanation, it can be a bit shocking for the uninitiated, despite his Hugo and Nebula award credentials. Yet Gibson’s approach works if you stay with it, because his world does become relatable if you just give it a little time.