MASTERCLASS
The essentials of writing science fiction
Presented by the Developmental Editors of Pages & Platforms:
Anne Hawley and Rachelle Ramirez
Are you stuck in the process of finishing your science fiction story? Have you completed a draft but can’t quite figure out how to fix problems in it? Or even how to define the problems you sense? Or are you otherwise feeling stuck somewhere along the path to a finished Science Fiction manuscript?
We know the feeling. That’s why we’ve developed the concepts in this masterclass to help you get unstuck.
In this masterclass, you’ll learn how to build, evaluate, and improve your Science Fiction Story using four tools:
Marketing Category and Setting—also known as genre
Essential Story Elements
Story Types
Worldbuilding
By the end of this masterclass, you’ll have a much clearer idea of how to:
Evoke empathy for your characters.
Create tension and excitement with the kinds of obstacles and opportunities specific to your kind of story.
Provide emotional satisfaction for your reader.
Convey a thoughtful takeaway.
Choose a point of view and narrative device for your story.
Determine the important story elements of a Science Fiction story.
Determine how much information to share with the reader so they’ll keep reading.
Understand and discuss the kind of story you’re telling.
Meet the reader’s overall expectations for your Story Type, so that they’ll be happy to recommend your book and eager to read the next thing you write.
Because writing a Science Fiction story requires making a number of critical decisions about your story, we’ll also help you:
Learn the essential elements of your type of Science Fiction story and how to write the story that’s in your heart to tell.
Gain a set of tools to bring a Science Fiction story idea or zero-draft up to the level of a Professional Draft for your Story Type.
Create a protagonist with a singular, clear desire (motivation).
Establish your story stakes, something the protagonist wants to gain and something they fear losing that is specific to your story.
Ensure the protagonist pursues their desire and experiences your Story Type specific pressure and conflict which causes them to change.
Define a straightforward story premise that is reflected in every scene. (We provide several archetypal premise statements you can use as a basis for a premise more specific and personal to your story.)
Identify and drive toward the emotion the reader of your story expects to feel.
Include the specific characters, situations, and moments your reader expects to find.
Discover whether your Science Fiction story needs to be primarily plot or character driven.
Take a deep look at the Science Fiction genre and better understand the kind of story you’re telling.
Review over 30 Science Fiction story examples you can use to study for their use of essential elements, point of view, tone, word count, characterization, setting, description, backstory, and blurbs.
Take a deep dive into Science Fiction worldbuilding.
Join Anne & Rachelle for The Essentials of Writing science fiction Class and finally get your story unstuck.
Rachelle Ramirez is a certified developmental editor who helps fiction and nonfiction writers structure and finish their projects. She is a co-creator of the Story Path course and numerous writing masterclasses. She is a co-host of The Happily Ever Author Club and author of the forthcoming book, The ADHD Writer: From Frustrated to Focused to Finished.
Anne Hawley is a certified developmental editor of literary, historical, and fantasy fiction, and is the author of Restraint, a novel of forbidden love in Regency England. She was the producer and writer of the popular Story Grid Roundtable Podcast, and currently teaches and develops writing courses at Pages&Platforms LLC.
Not sure yet if The Essentials of Writing science fiction masterClass is for you?
Consider this question:
What kind of story are you writing?
Usually, when we ask Science Fiction writers that question, they’ll mention one of the many subgenres of Science Fiction such as YA, Speculative Fiction, Dystopian, Alternate History, or Supernatural.
Those answers aren’t wrong, but they’re marketing categories and setting types often grouped as genres to help publishers direct readers’ attention to books they hope to sell.
Unfortunately, those categories are less valuable to you as a writer, especially while you’re still writing and structuring your professional draft.
While marketing categories and settings types are important, they can’t tell you:
How to construct your story.
How to meet ANY of the requirements of a professional working draft.
What your protagonist wants and needs—the desire that drives them.
What the protagonist has to gain or lose—what’s at stake for them based on the inherent stakes of your Story Type.
How the protagonist in your story will change under pressure from the antagonist.
Whether you’re articulating the premise or message of your story.
What kinds of emotions your intended readers hope to experience.
Clues to the types of characters, situations, and specific moments your kind of story should have to satisfy your reader.
All those elements? Those are what Story Types guide you toward in Science Fiction.
In this masterclass, you’ll learn the Seven Story Types, each one necessary to tell and differentiate from the others. After all, you don’t want to promise your reader the kind of story they’ve been searching for and then deliver a different type of story. That’s a fast track to upsetting your reader and getting a one-star review.
By focusing on Story Type rather than marketing categories or setting types, you will:
Delineate a clear beginning, middle, and end—that is, a clear act structure—for your story.
Understand the general beats or situations your story needs to hit.
Meet reader expectations and spot clear opportunities to subvert those expectations to create surprise.
Define the basic desires (want and need) that drive your protagonist.
Construct your protagonist’s character arc by broadly defining what your protagonist has to gain and lose.
Clarify which scenes, settings, and moments belong and which need to be cut or changed.
Declutter your zero draft—or slot in scenes, characters, and moments you might have missed.
Break free from trying to fit the story you want to tell into a marketing category that isn’t right for it.
Know what emotional experience the reader of your Science Fiction Story Type expects (whether they know it consciously or not) and write towards that emotion—and that reader—with confidence.
Define what pressures or conflicts you need to apply to your protagonist to make them change.
Finish your professional draft.
Marketing Categories and Setting Types also can’t help you answer the three main questions a Science Fiction author needs to consider regarding the world where their story is set. They won’t help you determine:
Which obstacles and opportunities your protagonist will confront.
Your narrative device or point of view.
How much information to share with the reader so they’ll keep reading.