Karen S. Wiesner: SURPRISES IN THE COURSE OF LEARNING TO WRITE A SCIENCE FICTION SERIES (5 of 15)

Of Research and Developmental Tool Requirements, Part 2:

Surprise #3: Developmental Tool Underwhelm

This is the fifth of fifteen posts dealing with surprising things I learned in the course of writing a science fiction series.

In the previous part, I talked about the overwhelming of amount of advance and in-the-process-of-outlining-each-book research I needed to do to write my science fiction series. Here in Part 2, we'll talk about the lack of available developmental tools I required for my project.

Figuring out how to begin the buildout of my unique galaxy and all who populated the various settings in Arrow of Time Chronicles was one of the biggest shocks I got in the process of trying to learn how to write in this genre. Despite the sheer number of books I bought and websites I scoured in my desperate search for the promised assistance, finding developmental tools to prompt areas I needed to focus on expanding were so scarce as to be nearly nonexistent. I could hardly believe how much trouble I had finding anything I could use. If you're a writer, you may feel the need to send me links and suggestions about just this, but I have a strong feeling anything suggested to me was actually something I located while I was working on my sci-fi series and none of it provided what I was really needed. I have three ideas about why that was the case:

            1) My series was simply too complicated that generalized help was useless or alternately, the specific help wasn't generalized enough to be what I needed,

            2) the resources I needed are so well-hidden it's a crime,

            or

            3) the development tools I needed simply don't exist!

Frustrated, I turned to videogame and Dungeons & Dragons guides. Of all the materials I bought or found on the internet, those items had the most helpful development tools. I took what I needed and could use from all these references, though quite honestly even those didn't have everything I needed and they simply weren't specific and/or generalized enough. 

Because I had no other choice, I came up with my own worksheets and tools for my world- and character-building for this series. These worksheets were a crucial help to me in fleshing out this series, and I feel they're just specific enough to be generalized (and vice versa). Basically, anyone could use them and modify them to what they need them for. My upcoming book Writing the Overarching Series (or How I Sent a Clumsy Girl into Outer Space) will include all of them. I had a binder with profiles for every single culture, planet, and main character with these worksheets expanded upon for easy reference. I also found pictures on the internet to help me visualize everything and thereby allow descriptions to form in the detail needed for writing the story and individual scenes.

In the back matter of every book in the series, I included simplified versions of the worksheets I filled out, which I included for all the cultures. Using that template, I was able to brief provide a snapshot of each of the alien races for readers who a) needed some refresher from one book to the next, b) required immediate explanations while reading, and/or 3) were simply fans of devouring back matter (as I am). We'll talk more about back matter in an upcoming article.

Next time, we'll talk about deliberately limiting story potential development in writing science fiction. And, yes, you read that right--deliberately limiting.

Happy writing!

Based on Writing the Overarching Series (or How I Sent a Clumsy Girl into Outer Space): 3D Fiction Fundamentals Collection by Karen S. Wiesner (release date TBA)

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/writing-reference-titles.html

http://www.writers-exchange.com/3d-fiction-fundamentals-series/

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 140 titles and 16 series, including the romantic science fiction series, ARROW OF TIME CHRONICLES

https://www.writers-exchange.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles/

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/arrow-of-time-chronicles.html

http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor