Introduction
Chapter 1: What is Science Fiction?
• ?The difference between science fiction and fantasy
• Why write science fiction?
• A genre or a setting?
• The science fiction landscape
• Exercise one
Chapter 2: Finding your story
• Finding the future in the present
• Everyday tools for collecting ideas
• What if? and the vast pool of story sources
• Close to home or far, far away
• Exercise two
Chapter 3: Creating characters
• But it's about people, right?
• Who is your hero, and why that guy?
• Sidekicks and buddies
• Family, factions, friction and foes
• Human characters
• Non-Human characters - how alien is alien?
• Thinking about viewpoint
• Exercise three
Chapter 4: Plotting
• Turning an idea into a story
• Brainstorming
• What are you trying to say?
• Establishing Theme
• Avoiding clichés
• Exercise four
Chapter 5: Building your world
• Deciding on setting
• Establishing rules
• Sketching the backdrop
• Drawing in the detail
• Exercise five
Chapter 6: ?Getting the Science Right Part 1
• Indistinguishable from magic
• When the science matters....
• ....and when it doesn't
• Right science and lazy science
• Doing the research
• Exercise six
Chapter 7: ?Getting the Science Right Part 2
• People and places
• About robots
• Travelling through space
• The physics of space
• Noise and explosions
• A word about time travel
• Exercise seven
Chapter 8: "George, you can type this shit, but you sure as hell can't say it.”
• The dialogue of the future
• The way people speak
• Make it make sense
• Formal speech and street slang
• Creating an alien language
• Dealing with exposition
• Making description work harder
• Exercise eight
Chapter 9: Start writing
• Mood and tone
• The opening scene
• The first 10 pages
• Don't bore the reader
• Don't baffle the reader
• Exercise nine
Chapter 10: Why stop at writing?
• The future is now
• Lo/No-budget science fiction
• Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing
• Shooting on digital
• Desktop CGI, Props and f/x
• Digital distribution
The Last Word
Genre Festivals
