Writing Relatable Scifi (part 5)

Once you’ve imagined how future tech might develop, you need to ask what the societal implications would be. How would the world change with the new technology, and how would people change? Those of us who grew up in the 1980’s look at society today and worry about younger generations. The anonymity of the internet, the unrestricted and unfiltered expression of thought, and instant accessibility to information has affected who we are and has changed how we interact with each other. With access to all this through personal smartphones, our children are much different than we were, and the way they see the world has been influenced and shaped in ways that will alter society when they become our leaders someday. Personal privacy has become an archaic concept, judgment by internet “netizens” has become a severe influence upon some, and misinformation is harder to parse from legitimate facts. All of this sounds like a dystopian scifi novel conceived by Orwell himself, but it is our reality. What might our future look like a few decades from now? You only need to look at our technological advancements today, imagine what the next probable step will be, and then theorize how we would react to it if it became commonplace. This kind of scifi is grounded in relatable material, and your audience is very likely to keep reading when they find something familiar stretched into new territory. Or, you could take a gamble and throw your readers into a world they have no way to relate to. It has worked for a few, but if that's your intent, it’s best to try later--after you’ve built an audience that trusts your writing.