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Putting Science in Story Telling

by Roger Bourke White Jr., copyright May 2014

(Power Point for this)

Introduction

On May 14th, 2014 I had the opportunity to talk at the Wasatch Institute of Technology "Hour of Code" held at the Adobe Systems campus in Lehi, UT. I talked about "Putting Science in Storytelling" to students of all ages interested in STEM subjects.

What this is about

This presentation is about how to put science into your stories. It is about how to make your stories more interesting by thinking about the neat ramifications of good science. The alternative is to tell very familiar stories with familiar but terrible science in them. Clearly many people don't mind this kind of story, but I do.

We will start by looking at some of these terrible science examples. Then I will talk about how to think about neat science stuff in ways that let you come up with good story ideas that have good science in them.

Then we will do some exercises to let you put these tips into action. So, while I'm talking, I want you to be thinking about a neat invention or science idea that you want to put in a story. And... I want you to think of a neat monster you want to put into a story. Think about those, and when I get finished explaining how to think about them, you'll get to try these tips I'm giving you out on your inventions and monsters.

OK, let's talk about getting it wrong.

Getting the science wrong

o Case A: Your character is flying in a space ship going between Earth and Mars. The space ship engine stops. The captain looks scared and says, "The engine stopped. We are going to fall into the Sun!"

What's wrong with this? The space ship is acting like an airplane, not a space ship. A space ship without power will orbit forever, or close to it, not slow down and crash into the sun.

o Case B: Your character is a contestant playing Jeopardy, but he's playing from the Moon over a video link.

What's wrong with this? The distance and the speed of light. The player on the Moon will have a four second handicap compared to players in the studio on Earth.

o Case C: Your character is on the Enterprise. Sulu announces, "We can go Warp 8 now."

What's wrong with this? Warp Speed is faster-than-light travel. This is something totally imaginary at this point. But it is being treated like airplane travel -- push the accelerator harder and you go faster.

And in the monster category.

o "I've been in this cave for ten thousand years."

What's wrong with this? "...Really? ...Why?" "Get a life!"

These are examples of doing the science wrong. Now let's talk about how to do it right.

How to think about neat inventions: expected use and surprise uses

Science is neat, but what is really neat is what can be made from understanding science well. It is how science changes how we live that's really important. So when you're putting good science in a story, you are talking about how it changes how the characters of the story live. Keep that in mind, deeply in mind. The characters and their lives are there to show off the changes science makes.

With this goal in mind, let's take a moment to think about what kind of people in real life have to deal directly with this same issue? What kind of people have to say, "That's neat... now... what can you do with it?"

Right! Inventors! My sci-fi story writing was blessed when I spent years learning how to do this when I worked in Marketing at Novell in the 1980's. This when Novell, and the world, were learning what could be done with PC-based computer networking -- something that had never existed before.

Here is what I learned there: When something is invented, the first use of it -- the one that will get money behind it so it gets made -- is to replace an existing product, in a way that does what the old product does faster, better and cheaper.

Let's think of some examples from the real world of that happening. [do an exercise]

Then, some time after the invention is being made, someone will say, "Hey! You know what else you can do with that..." This is what I call the surprise use of an invention. This is usually the really neat one, this is the one that gets the invention into the history books... and will make your science describing really neat.

These surprise uses are much trickier to think of before the invention happens. But it's a skill you can learn and master, and when you do your science fiction writing will get... Wow!

Let's think of some examples of surprises uses now.

(My examples:)

o disposing of bubble gum (under tables)

o cars instead of horses and carriages (drive-in movies)

To give you an idea of how widely this concept can be applied, let's think of human's strong language skill as an invention. (See my book Evolution and Thought)

How to prepare to do this kind of thinking

The way to prepare to do this kind of thinking is to know lots of stuff about lots of stuff. Learn science. Learn about how we can best explain what is happening in the real world. Learn history. Learn well-taught history and read good history books that are about science and technology being applied. Read about how people's lives were changed by the changing technology they embraced. Beware of history that's mostly about promoting a particular political idea or a writer's editorial opinion about something. These are propaganda in one of its various forms. They will teach you very little about important things that happened in the real world... other than what the producer of this show thinks is important.

Giving your monsters motivations

Very much related to understanding your inventions is understanding your monsters. Think about why they are doing what they are doing? Think about how else they could be spending their time, energy and attention. When you understand those about your monster, then the monster will be acting sensibly, and it will be both more interesting and more dangerous.

Keep in mind point of view: What is this monster thinking about? What is important to this monster? As an example of what I'm talking about think of how a cow living on a dairy farm sees a human? What is the human doing? Who is the master in that situation? Put this kind of change of viewpoint in your story and it will come out quite differently!

Exersize: Evil Emperor of the Galaxy -- what does it take to have one? (in essence, impossible, the galaxy is too big)

 

Exercises:

o Describe a neat invention for your story. Tell us the expected use and a surprise use. Most important: How is it going to change how the characters in the story live?

o Tell us about a monster for your story. Tell us why it is there, what it wants to do, and a surprise outcome from those.

 

Conclusion

The heart of putting good science into a story is thinking about, "What difference is this going to make to how the characters live?" Coming up with answers to that will shape the story. It will move it into places that are surprising when compared to familiar story telling techniques.

This is the exciting part of putting good science into stories. And, if you like what I have presented here, look into my Tales of Technofiction books.

--The End--

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