“How Do I Get My Science Fiction Stories Published?”

You may well ask… “Unless you follow the rules, you’re doomed to failure,” writes Hugo- and Nebula-award winning SF author, Robert J. Sawyer (in The Canadian Writer’s Guide, 2003). What Sawyer means is that there are certain qualities of science fiction in literature that you need to know and follow before you can seriously consider publishing your work in the field of science fiction.

Let’s start with a pretty good definition of science fiction by Richard Treitel: science fiction is fiction set in a world that differs from our everyday world in a way that importantly involves science or technology.
Sawyer lists several key things you should know and consider about good science fiction. I’ve added a few of my own:

• Science Fiction is the literature of change: usually something significant happens, is discovered or is revealed that is science-based and has profound effects on the world—See John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids, Greg Bear’s Darwin’s Children
• SF literature is about ideas: “what if” is a frequent premise that sets an often largely character-driven story toward resolving some deeper question about humanity, social behavior and evolution. “Good SF,” says Sawyer, “is usually about something and often something very profound, such as whether or not God exists”—see Sawyer’s Calculating God, for instance.
• SF is about something large: in keeping with “what ifs” and the deeper questions, science fiction— whether set on Earth, outer space or some other planet, dimension or universe—is usually multilayered and metaphorically portrays a large concept through a whole world. World-building (and setting too), when done well, not only follows good science (see point number 4) but also encompasses theme and provides plot-issues to convey your theme. In other words, the “world” you build is a main character. See Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed.
• Science Fiction and Fantasy are very different, antithetical genres, says Sawyer. SF stories are often created from a scientific premise; you can usually get there from here by following a premise based on some current scientific thought (albeit imaginatively). Fantasy is based not on science but on the fantastical (usually magic). It’s important to know what you’re writing.
• SF literature must portray science accurately. Most science fiction readers expect that you will have done your research on how that gizmo works or that you carried out a logical extrapolation of the theory of irrelativity when using it in your SF story.
• Science fiction literature is a pro-science genre, according to Sawyer. It rarely takes the anti-science stance (e.g., like Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park) .

Okay, now go out and write!

Recommended Reading:
Munteanu, Nina. 2009. “Alien Architecture: Building from Scenes to Worlds” In: The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!
Munteanu, Nina. 2009. “House or Home…Creating Memorable Settings” In: The Fiction Writer: Get Published, Write Now!
Sawyer, Robert J. 2003. “Breaking into the Science-Fiction Marketplace”. In: The Canadian Writer’s Guide. Official Handbook of the Canadian Authors Association, 13th Edition. 2003.

Nina Munteanu is an ecologist and internationally published author of novels, short stories and essays. She coaches writers and teaches writing at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. For more about Nina’s coaching & workshops visit www.ninamunteanu.me. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for more about her writing.