5 Sci-Fi Tropes to Avoid (Or Embrace) In Your Writing

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  • Опубликовано: 28 ноя 2024

Комментарии • 103

  • @promcheg
    @promcheg 3 года назад +20

    Limits of technology are spot on, with the words of Jack Campbell (paraphrased): It's not the abilities that make the story, but limitations, things you can't do, they force you to be creative.

  • @glenstone6325
    @glenstone6325 2 года назад +8

    I really enjoy your videos, Shaelin. Lots of useful information presented in an intelligent yet easily understood style. You not only express yourself well, but your passion for writing and its associated industry makes your presentations even more watchable.

  • @Skinniest_Kween
    @Skinniest_Kween 3 года назад +22

    Shaelin has been quite the busy bee this week.❤️

  • @Fromtheforgottengardens
    @Fromtheforgottengardens 3 года назад +10

    I am currently writing a Sci-Fi / romance. These tips are so helpful , thanks

  • @powercore2000
    @powercore2000 3 года назад +6

    I'm gonna these like the sci fi sets of vids, Personal bias, and good material for my stories!

  • @vampiricdust7068
    @vampiricdust7068 3 года назад +3

    Always one of my favorite people to listen to for advice on writing. You rock.

  • @glenn_r_frank_author
    @glenn_r_frank_author 3 года назад +11

    One sci-fi trope that Star Trek uses... and Battlestar Galactica... and a myriad of other older shows... is that the explanation of why all the alien races look basically human-like is that we are all related. The trope explanation is that we were seeded by an ancient race that spread human DNA around the universe. Of course there are some serious issues with this since we can trace DNA and biology back and know that we pretty much are related to all the creatures on Earth. We are not "aliens" among the other Earth creatures. If we were distant DNA relatives of another alien species you would also think that they and we would have taken different evolutionary paths over the millions and billions of years and would still be totally different when we met again.

    • @icedriver2207
      @icedriver2207 2 года назад +1

      Even with similar DNA creatures that have evolved can be radically different from each other. Look at birds like Ostriches and compare them to Humming Birds. to be birds they must have similar DNA but they are radically different in size, ability, and diet.

  • @rodholseth6354
    @rodholseth6354 3 года назад +2

    Arrival is one of my all time favorite science fiction. Just had to say that.

  • @powercore2000
    @powercore2000 3 года назад +49

    A sci fi trope that does get tiresome to me is the rogue ai, when a generic ai deviates from its programing and wants to kill humanity.
    It's tiresome because ususaly it's based an antiquated view of ai, and isn't representative of any of our modern understanding or implementation of it. A lot of stories handle so clumsily it can come off as technological fear mongering, rather than an ethical or technical exploration of the topic.

    • @steverobbins4872
      @steverobbins4872 3 года назад

      People don't understand the real danger of AI. It's not that some AI is suddenly going to try to take over the world. It's that AI will be used as a weapon by people against other people. We're already starting to see that in the form of social media that spreads misinformation.

    • @magentapurpleyap5566
      @magentapurpleyap5566 2 года назад

      Its kinda dumb, because its humanity's fault for programming it to go rogue.

    • @Golgari213
      @Golgari213 2 года назад +5

      I think the true meaning behind a rogue A.I is supposed to portray humanity's own downfall, like nuclear war, or overuse of our world's resources. Something we made is our own death, almost like Freinkinstien's monster.
      There are various ways one could explore a rogue A.I, and not just "kill humanuty".
      Cortana from Halo to me personally is the generic version of this, but they put a small twist in terms of HOW she went rogue. Alien technology did it to her, not humanity.
      The Movie Chappie delves into a robot that questions his own morality and life choices, being free will or the product of human intervention. Chappie may have not gone rogue, but it fits the theme if a robot doing something other than what it was designed to do.
      So many opportunities, and people go for the generic "antagonizing A.I"

  • @clintcarpentier2424
    @clintcarpentier2424 3 года назад +9

    About the humanoid alien trope. Even scientist have argued long an hard about this. Alien lifeforms are one thing, but sentience leading to the advancement to be "equals" to humanity, will require certain physiological characteristics, leading quite often to a humanoid shape.
    Homogeneous aliens. How big a book you wanna read? Do you read documentaries? Do you pick up books titled "The Complete History of Earth" and say "yeah baby, let's get this on!"
    I have three distinct human cultures in the series that I'm writing. I've completed one book 78k words. I think maybe 8k of it specifically deals with the cultures. 8k words, and it says nothing compared to what it actually entails.
    I remember listing to a radio interview with some Nigerian author, she was talking about always being asked about africa. Her point (which says a lot about our current race culture) is that she was raised rather well off in a country that happens to be part of africa; what she had to say about africa, would be akin to her reading American Psycho and thinking that's America.
    Ya, we get to see "alien homogeneity" because that's the portion that was advanced enough to meet with. If you - as a star ship captain - happened upon a planet where half the planet lived in slums, and the other half owned all the satellites, which one would you make contact with? Remember, it is a planet, and time is finite, and you don't even know your own damn planet.
    8k words... eight, with three zeros. All it says is, "you wanna know MOAR!!!" 8,000! That's like 2-3 chapters of nothing. I have a wikid pad bible that's something like 40k words, still says nothing other than "FFFFEEEEEED MEEEEEE!!!"

    • @devinreese1397
      @devinreese1397 3 месяца назад +2

      Ironically humanoid aliens like spock, were often widely objectionable and resisted when introduced. Non sci fi people routinely say the star trek aliens look weird. Though the human alien is likely a budget saver in hollywood, many of these stories have parallel dimension, parallel earth and the idea the galaxy was seeded in them. and other such things. The alternative was making them unrelatable or bug eyed monsters in the fifties, which didn't serve storytelling except for alien invasion and monster films.

  • @raphlvlogs271
    @raphlvlogs271 Год назад +9

    aliens cannot be too alien they can only be not alien enough

    • @Silkyfin_
      @Silkyfin_ 3 месяца назад

      Well said good sir

  • @RolandOnnaRiver
    @RolandOnnaRiver 3 месяца назад

    Great advice. One caveat to the "make your aliens alien" principle is if you're writing for a multimedia form like film or video games, or even if you just think there's a chance your work could be adapted to such someday if it becomes popular, you might want to think a little bit about what the production process would be before comitting to a design.
    Black squids floating in fog that speak using simple particle effects are a lot easier to design and implement than... say... 5-D fractal monsters that fold themselves into a tiny speck to hide, and fill the sky when paying close attention to 3D creatures, and speak by growing and dissolving their individual facial features.

  • @gosnooky
    @gosnooky 2 месяца назад +1

    Another Sci-Fi trope related to homogeneity are planets with ONE CLIMATE... I'm looking at you, Star Wars.

  • @akiko-sanmiwa2534
    @akiko-sanmiwa2534 3 года назад +6

    Thank you this is actually really cool and it taught me a lot, because I am trying to become an author even though I am only 10 years old in elementary school still but I cannot wait. It is just way too cool. I have a talent, but coupled with your advise I feel awesome. Please make more videos soon!

    • @katherineknott8860
      @katherineknott8860 3 года назад

      You are amazing! Looking forward to seeing you published in future.

    • @andycrosby5556
      @andycrosby5556 3 года назад

      Good luck, Akiko-San. I look forward to reading your stuff!

    • @akiko-sanmiwa2534
      @akiko-sanmiwa2534 3 года назад

      @@andycrosby5556 Thanks!

    • @author_artist_ajr
      @author_artist_ajr 2 года назад

      Me too! I’m a teenager and that is also my dream, I wish you the best of luck!

  • @darthnaylor
    @darthnaylor Год назад +1

    I think one of my favorite and least favorite tropes is what I'll call "found tech", or technology discovered before the discoverers could reasonably have developed it. It can be a fascinating window into how a massive shift in norms impacts a society if the idea is implemented well, or it can be an I win button that leaves readers unsatisfied

  • @marvinkirkland6387
    @marvinkirkland6387 3 года назад

    Thank you so much for making me smile. Your content was great and your enthusiasm is refreshing.

  • @brycesonflowers8758
    @brycesonflowers8758 3 года назад +3

    My favorite sci-fi trope is the possibility of redeeming a memory of the dreams you had during a seizure!

  • @manymusings
    @manymusings 3 года назад +1

    Regarding time travel....I think Diana Gabaldon did a fantastic job in her Outlander series but there weren't logistics involved.

  • @steverobbins4872
    @steverobbins4872 3 года назад +1

    Here's an idea I've been playing with. I'd appreciate constructive comments.
    1. It's a future where almost everyone is on the autism spectrum because of man-made chemicals in the environment that caused epigenetic changes. The effects of these changes skipped a generation, so by the time they were detected, the problem was global.
    2. Civilization is able to function because everyone has a Minder, which is a personal AI that resides in the glasses they wear. The Minder uses augmented reality to guide it's client through daily life by turning everything into a game. For example, when you get up and brush your teeth, you get points. Get dressed and eat breakfast and you get more points.
    3. The lead character is homicide detective Jim Watson. His Minder is the narrator, and refers to itself as "Holmes", but of coarse Watson doesn't get the joke. Watson is prone to action, like chasing people, fighting, etc. Holmes is more like "hey, let's think about this for a moment, Jim."
    4. When there is a murder, the human cops don't know what to do. The kind of 'crimes' they normally deal with are things like "that guy stole my pudding cup".
    There's a lot more, but this is already getting too long.

  • @thesocialistsarecoming8565
    @thesocialistsarecoming8565 3 года назад

    One of the better sci fi tropes: having aliens period.
    Ive seen a few series that put a new spin on this such as the lost fleet and it was surprisingly refreshing.

  • @amesd3338
    @amesd3338 3 года назад +1

    Welp first Trope in, and I already f up,,, here's my excuse tho:
    I don't have "aliens" per se in my scifi thriller... Bc they are actually humans who, instead of on Earth, evolutionized on a parallel version with more extreme weather and some other differences. So yeah they are rather similar to humans but have a lot more difference than just other ears or smth. Bc they are actually humans I'd take a pass on this one,,, but so you think I'm doing the trope??? Great video btw ✨
    Edit: yay at least I point at the culture thing! My alternate humans have lots of different cultures, religions, skin colors etc. Just like on Earth there are also disabled people and a LGBTQ community, although everything handled differently 😄

  • @Golgari213
    @Golgari213 2 года назад +2

    A big pet peeve of mine is when aliens have the sake culture as humanity. Similar to your first trope of them looking like humans.
    This fits into another trope, the infamous "cantina" trope from Star wars. I've seen it in a lot of stuff like Halo comics, Twilight Imperium: the Necropolis Empire, Battlestar: Galactica, Doctor Who, and even in the Movie Paul where it purposely nods to scifi tropes.
    To me, it's another form of info dumping, in the sense that you briefly write about or see different species.
    I don't really have an issue of the actual concept, but people get it wrong. Why are all the seats made for humanoids? Why are there ONLY liquid drinks? Are the toilets different? Shouldn't there be like 2000 different menus? Do the bar tenders know 2000 different languages? Do they all breathe oxygen?
    It's a cool visual for movies, but I believe for writing it's just too difficult and used way too often.

    • @Bunnyinthebasement
      @Bunnyinthebasement Год назад +4

      I know this is 10 months late, but to answer your questions, I would encourage you to stop first and put yourself in the shoes of the sci-fi business owner.
      First, when you open your restaurant, you’re probably going to have a business model.
      1) What foods and drinks am I going to serve?
      2) What type of customers am I going to attract?
      3) What am I going to do to attract my target customers?
      And so on and so forth.
      In the same manner that a Japanese person living in Japan who is planning to serve Japanese food to Japanese customers, a business owner in a sci-fi setting will, first and foremost, try to attract the local population. A Japanese business owner will likely not have menus in millions of languages - they’ll have menus first and foremost in Japanese and MAYBE English or another language if they want to attract tourists. (It is not unusual for local business owners to refuse service to foreigners - that doesn’t make it right, of course, but some business owners aren’t interested in dealing with a language barrier.) Similarly, a Japanese business owner selling Japanese food is not going to worry about serving Brazilian cuisine or Nigerian cuisine or French cuisine, etc, and the customers who show up to the restaurant are not going to expect French cuisine at a Japanese restaurant.
      So, say you’re a humanoid alien living on your home planet and want to serve your local cuisine to local customers - now you’re going to focus on getting local ingredients, getting furniture that local customers can use, having bathrooms that local customers can use, having menus printed in the common language(s) which your local customers can read. If you get a few customers of different species or different planets, great! You’re willing to accommodate them, but if a customer requires a specific sort of toilet, and they are only in town for a day or two, you’re not going to rip out your existing toilets and run up a huge plumbing bill when that customer isn’t going to be around long enough to use the facilities multiple times.
      Similarly, if you’re an alien who consumes non-liquid beverages, you’re going to look for places that serve what you like. If the local Star Wars cantina doesn’t have what you want, you look elsewhere, because it’s no skin off your nose (or whatever you have), and the cantina owner isn’t going to lose sleep over all the aliens who don’t like liquid beverages when there are plenty of aliens who like his wares.
      Hope that helps. Actually, it might be interesting to tell a story from the POV of an business owner…

    • @Golgari213
      @Golgari213 Год назад +2

      @Bunnyinthebasement aye well said!!!!

  • @icedriver2207
    @icedriver2207 2 года назад +2

    Least favorite tropes: Primitive weapons that always seem to be able to defeat technology. When high tech civilizations are forced to use primitive weapons and engage in melee combat. Star Wars did the first one and Star Trek did the second one alot.

  • @notaprob4rob970
    @notaprob4rob970 3 года назад +2

    I think clones of the main character or any important character are always really interesting. However, what's done with them is usually pretty predictable from what I've read so far (which truthfully isn't much)

  • @OopisDoopis
    @OopisDoopis Год назад

    One of my favorite examples of time travel used in sci fi is in the Transformers: More That Meets The Eye comics. I actually find it kind of hilarious.
    There is a character who wants to go back in time to stop the war from happening, and he does it using his own invention. So time travel wasn’t previously explored in the setting (at least not for the most part). And the scientist characters conclude that there can only be one timeline, so if he succeeds, their universe would be replaced. So the characters end up following him back in time and inevitably stop him. But!! Turns out there was a small switch on the time machine that kept parallel universes from being created?? And one of the characters accidentally flipped it??? So because of that, he accidentally created an entire multiverse. And then we end up focusing on a parallel timeline where the war and never started, and it kinda sucks. There’s a crazy fucked up dictatorship on cybertron now, but also? It’s kinda the better universe because the war did kill like, 80% of the universe.

  • @rachelthompson9324
    @rachelthompson9324 3 года назад +1

    Good stuff. In one of my novels I float the idea that humans are spread all over local space and they were seeded, all genetically related, but how, when and why homo was seeded into our spiral arm is a mystery. However, all theses humans are radically different due to environments and millions of years of evolution. In this book I also use very different alien forms of species not derived from humankind. If one's aliens are like earth people there must be a good reason for it.

  • @Slayerlord13
    @Slayerlord13 3 года назад +1

    Sci fi tropes I like? Well, I'm sure I have a better answer if I get to spend some time thinking but....
    Giant robots *are* very cool.

  • @davidschmidt5507
    @davidschmidt5507 3 года назад +2

    I think you'd like the writer Ken Liu

  • @timbuktu8069
    @timbuktu8069 11 месяцев назад +1

    I would avoid being alien just for the sake of being alien.
    The basis for that type of story is in the finding ways to communicate.
    Often there is the jump-scare at the end: "oh they want to enslave/eat us." sort of thing.
    Also your readers are human (generally) so if you are going to interact with aliens within the story then there does need to be some kind of similarities.

  • @Gaia_Gaistar
    @Gaia_Gaistar 3 года назад +2

    I have a soft spot for green and blue humanoid aliens and the like.

  • @abhishekbiswas2267
    @abhishekbiswas2267 3 года назад

    Please do a video on mistakes to avoid while outlining or plotting novel or fleshing out details of it..

  • @Majesticon
    @Majesticon Год назад +1

    The advantage to avoid some of these tropes that movies like ARRIVAL has is that the work is specifically about language. If your work isnt about any of the specific things youre talking about, it would be a lot to incorporate all 5 of these things into a work. Like, what makes good scifi is the themes being approached, so often it's not possible to cover every single aspect that you discuss here. It would just be tedious and distracting.

  • @matt1023
    @matt1023 3 года назад +1

    Do horror tropes next!

  • @DatsWhatXiSaid
    @DatsWhatXiSaid 3 года назад +1

    The Covenant from HALO are pretty cool. They are led by religious fanatics, but their empire consists of many lower tier races and this causes conflict.

  • @factualopinion4275
    @factualopinion4275 2 года назад +1

    Dang. The only aliens I'm interested in writing are the ones who look human cause that's my preference 😩

  • @invernessfan3017
    @invernessfan3017 2 года назад

    I like short stories. I love stories by Ursula K LeGuin, Stephen King, Joey Vimsante, Frank Herbert, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Philip K Dick, Bob Gale, George Lucas, William Shakespeare, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, George Orwell, Tim Schooch, and JK Rowling,

  • @keithcarey6312
    @keithcarey6312 3 года назад +1

    How about having a video fleshing out the time travel trope.

  • @johnathanhouston2893
    @johnathanhouston2893 Год назад

    If you write a scifi book movie or tv show about time travel you should have rule's like if your character travel's back in time he or she can't change the past but create a alternate timeline and if your character closes the time portal or connection to his or her future if they try to return to the alternate future they created by trying change the past

  • @writingerror404
    @writingerror404 6 месяцев назад

    I'd like to know, though, is there a way to make human aliens work? In the novel I'm writing the supposed aliens do look human, but it is as a result of acclimating to the appearances of unknown environments. Now I do have to note, they are from different alien species, but they have all evolved from a common race (like humans and monkeys), so is it possible to make a concept like that work?

  • @akazlev
    @akazlev 3 года назад +2

    Most disliked or silliest tropes:
    o Alien invaders thousands of years in advance of us who cross interstellar space only to be undone by a small band of plucky humans
    o Artificial gravity done badly, e.g. on a spaceship, "down" is always perpendicular to the direction of travel, and artificial gravity is always the last thing to fail when a ship is under attack (this is the equivalent to the aliens look like humans trope, it came about because on TV and movies it's inconvenient to suspend actors from wires, although Gravity (2013) was unusual in taking into account)
    o Every colonised planet has Earth-like gravity, atmosphere, climate, day and year cycle, etc
    o Everyone in the galaxy speaks the same language
    o An entire spaceship (especially an old spaceship at that) that can be maintained by a single engineer
    o okay this being a bit nit-picky, but matter transports in Star Trek (originally, Rodenberry didn't even have the budget for a mock up shuttle. This was a work around that later became part of the worldbuilding)
    Tropes I like: cyberpunk ambience, biopunk genetic engineering, used future, space habitats, asteroid mining, alien artifacts, freehaulers, space is very big and very lonely.. I could go on. Basically I'm putting all my favourite tropes in my scfi

  • @clawsidefilms7529
    @clawsidefilms7529 2 года назад +2

    I personally don’t like alien invasion stories why do aliens want to take earth? What is the point avatar (blue people) is a bit better in my opinion

  • @devinreese1397
    @devinreese1397 3 месяца назад

    Ironically humanoid aliens like spock, were often widely objectionable and resisted when introduced. Non sci fi people routinely say the star trek aliens look weird. Though the human alien is likely a budget saver in hollywood, many of these stories have parallel dimension, parallel earth and the idea the galaxy was seeded in them. and other such things. The alternative was making them unrelatable or bug eyed monsters in the fifties, which didn't serve storytelling except for alien invasion and monster films.

  • @glenn_r_frank_author
    @glenn_r_frank_author 3 года назад +1

    One difficulty that I have found in writing from the POV of an alien being... I want the reader to actually RELATE to them in some way but also still show them as very much NOT HUMAN... wondering if "fooling a reader" into assuming the beings that are the POV are human at first... let them get attached to the character before reveling that they are aliens... or if that is just too much of a reach. I mean in writing you can hide what they look like for a while... but is that a bad idea... the reader might feel like "I should have known how they looked at first! you just withheld it to "trick me" ?

    • @andreannelavoie660
      @andreannelavoie660 3 года назад +3

      I think you can make an alien compelling while showing that's it's definitely not human. Kind of like you make make an 'morally grey' or even 'unlikable' character compelling and interesting to read even if they are a bad person doing bad things. Of course it's more challenge and will depending on execution, but personally I thing that would be better than tricking the reader (Unless you are precisely going for that reveal and you do a good job at foreshadowing it).
      One way to make the alien relatable is to have just one trait that is similar to humans (e.g. caring for its young) to anchor the readers, while having the rest of its qualities very alien. Hope that helps!

  • @harryallen5392
    @harryallen5392 3 года назад

    Spackle from The Chaos Walking are anything but human; different appearance, method of communication, wildlife, weapons, sexes. Total blast

  • @pthomasgarcia
    @pthomasgarcia 3 года назад

    It’s a crutch, but I don’t mind humanoid aliens for certain genres of sci-fi. Agreed. Alien aliens are much more interesting, like the insectoid xenomorph from Alien. However, homogeneous alien cultures are the most blah trope ever. Rather than having tens of alien worlds and species, I’d rather write or read about one diverse world in greater depth. As for exploring alien ethics … that sounds really interesting.

  • @michaelday1990
    @michaelday1990 3 года назад +1

    With your points about aliens, you'd probably find the Orion's Arm Project interesting.

  • @Alteringrealitystudios
    @Alteringrealitystudios 3 года назад

    Anthropomorphic animals and insects are my aliens. Just for the fun of it. Omega Gene Saga comic. Is a trope of tropes. Just for laughs.

  • @funtimewitharysha4344
    @funtimewitharysha4344 3 года назад

    Iam 13 and i am writing a sci-fi book on parallel world. thanks for your advices it will going to help me.

  • @johnathanhouston2893
    @johnathanhouston2893 Год назад +1

    When you were talking about aliens in Star Trek franchise looking humanoid and Star Trek the next generation they explained it an ancient alien race existed long before the races in the Star Trek universe are by product's this ancient alien race that's why most of the aliens in the Star Trek universe are humanoid looking

  • @ThanhTriet600
    @ThanhTriet600 2 года назад

    I haven't seen Arrival. What is unique about aliens communicating visually?

    • @davidbgreensmith
      @davidbgreensmith Год назад +1

      It's best to watch it than have it explained. There is a sort of "twist" that makes you look at what you've seen in a completely different light. If it's explained it robs you of that moment.

    • @starklingspars8956
      @starklingspars8956 Год назад

      @@davidbgreensmith Cool. Might watch Arrival. I was looking for a sci fi to watch!

  • @isaacthewebcomiccreator9750
    @isaacthewebcomiccreator9750 2 года назад +1

    As a personal bias, I’d rather just use both humanoid aliens and non-humanoid aliens, not only because I love aliens, but also because it’s the safest and most creative thing to do. Example: Babylon 5 is known for using humanoid aliens like in Star Trek, but also has some pretty much non-humanoid aliens too.

  • @timmeyer9191
    @timmeyer9191 3 года назад

    One trope that I am not particularly fond of is switching time periods. An alien race comes to Earth on 2000 and you spend half the book following characters dealing with this arrival. Then, we skip 100 years into the future for the second half of the book. There should be 2 books in this situation and not 1, or it should be made clear to the reader that the second half of the book is a new story before the reader picks up the novel.
    Asimov's first Foundation book skipped time periods, but the first Foundation book is a collection of short stories. It is very obvious to the reader when one story ends and the other begins.

  • @guarddog318
    @guarddog318 2 года назад

    "Classic Sci-Fi"? Have you read Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Mars" series?
    How 'bout Larry Niven's "Ringworld" or "Protector" books?
    The fact is, the true "classics" are a helluva lot more diverse in their aliens than Star Trek ever was.

  • @johnathanhouston2893
    @johnathanhouston2893 Год назад

    There's examples of sci-fi shows that show that technology doesn't have all the answers like Babylon 5 they didn't have any transporters a force fields and replicators like Star Trek

  • @ricardonichols6109
    @ricardonichols6109 3 года назад

    I love time travel and superpowers

  • @blerdbabe
    @blerdbabe 3 года назад +3

    I think fandoms get too caught up in the mechanics. "Why do they all speak the same language" etc. Personally, I would rather read a story with a really good plot and some common tropes than one that defies all the tropes but is boring. Dunes may have some of the best world building, but the story was boring to me.

  • @LivingAlbumPhotos
    @LivingAlbumPhotos 3 года назад +1

    I have to say that almost all time travel tropes make me cringe. The only one that even makes sense, is if everything only ever happens one way once. The travels just enable the events to happen. Nothing ever changes, because it always happened. Think Harry Potter and the time twister. They had different POV, but the events didn't change. FYI Big fan.

    • @maidmil
      @maidmil 3 года назад

      The Netflix serie Dark works too, and everything changes in the end. But I get what you mean.

    • @DaveLH
      @DaveLH Год назад

      The problem I have with "Harry Potter"-type time travel is that, even though it avoids all the potential causality paradoxes, it also implies that everything is predestined and that there is no free will... Which I find disturbing in reality, and just dissatisfying in a work of fiction that's supposed to have tension, but can't if "the outcome is already decided."

  • @andeeharry
    @andeeharry 2 года назад

    In my world....Terrellium, everyone is a unique strange. They don't look like human at all. They are 10foot beings who weigh in 400bls, while looking like body builders with the strength of a giant. They are very long, very tall, very thin because of the high atmosphere and gravity. They do look rather strange, as many do look like monsters of some kind. And that's without them shapeshifting into a creature. Yeah, they are just weird, scaly hairy things with many limbs, claws, arms, pincers, many legs....big or small unusual things. Humanoids, Creatures, Beasts, they are so weird and unique. It is hard to describe it all. If it helps, they have exoskeleton and look like giant stick bugs that bleed blue blood. Well some of them anyway.

  • @milestrombley1466
    @milestrombley1466 3 года назад

    What if every earth-like planet in our universe is just an alternate Earth?

  • @Shabazza84
    @Shabazza84 3 года назад +1

    Is it just me, or does her hair get shorter and shorter month by month?
    I started at 2018 with long hair. XD
    Oh and if you want good aliens, look at the Mass Effect series.
    Yes, the "homogenous" thing is still kinda present, but at least they look very different and not everyone does and is the same thing.

  • @dwaugh2215
    @dwaugh2215 2 года назад

    I’m all for alien races to be less humanoid, ideas for my story to have some be related when they have stories of their ancestors once similar and make legends they could have evolved from humans or hominids species taken from aliens.
    Definitely need more aliens with unique diverse cultures and stuff than a single ine, getting bored with it already.

  • @samanthiweerasinghe6588
    @samanthiweerasinghe6588 3 года назад

    I have to write a sci fi flash fiction based on a scientific theory. I can't find any. Please if someone knows any scientific theories I can create a story idea, comment plz! I just need a theory

  • @pauligrossinoz
    @pauligrossinoz 3 года назад +1

    It also feels a bit lazy when planets are written as geographically and climatically homogenous.
    It's more believable and satisfying when the story at least hints at other planets that are intrinsically as complex and diverse as Earth.

    • @maxrutc09
      @maxrutc09 3 года назад +2

      Counter-intuitively, more climatically homogenous planets may be more scientifically accurate. Earth has a vast number of meteorological, geological and of course biological processes that make it more geographically varied than any planet in the solar system. Even Jupiter, despite its very complex weather systems, has probably less a range of processes than Earth. A fictional planet with a complex biosphere, however, I agree should be portrayed as climatically diverse - I doubt a single-biome planet could support the biodiversity for a sustainable ecology, unless it was only bacterial.

    • @pauligrossinoz
      @pauligrossinoz 3 года назад +1

      @@maxrutc09 - yeah ... it may well be a fact (that we can't yet verify) that the more varied the climate and geography of a planet, the greater the chance of evolving intelligent life there.
      After all, brains are the best weapons yet developed through evolution for dealing with such diversity.
      I think you're right in that there is very likely bacterial life all over the galaxy, but intelligent life is another matter entirely.
      I don't think intelligent life automatically evolves from bacterial life. What is likely needed for intelligence to evolve is constant pressure from the planet itself through constant change and diversity.

  • @blerdbabe
    @blerdbabe 3 года назад +1

    As for the aliens who are humans thing, I like a romantic subplot in my stories. When you get too creative with the aliens, it gets weird to me. Writers either end up with beastiality or the human getting it on with some insect like creature. Gross.

  • @RolandDenzel
    @RolandDenzel 3 года назад +1

    The Mote In God's Eye had some very interesting aliens. Asymmetrical and multiple castes, sexes, roles.

  • @phangkuanhoong7967
    @phangkuanhoong7967 3 года назад +1

    i gotta ask: why every time we talk about sci-fi, it just goes to space travel, time travel and aliens? i mean, there's a lot more than those, no?

  • @devinreese1397
    @devinreese1397 3 месяца назад

    Never give writing advice in a genre unless you are a Master of that genre. Also, Never give mostly examples of science fiction from Star Trek. Or Hollywood movies. Many of the cliche uses of things mentioned have been thought out before at length, but Hollywood nearly always dumbs down science fiction, and Star Trek is, by definition, a space opera, and is like a comic book with lasers and transporters and stuff, where all this is a given we'll simply conquer these areas.

  • @magentapurpleyap5566
    @magentapurpleyap5566 2 года назад

    Least favourite: Everything's design looking too busy. I get it, you're techy and futuristic and all, but its distracting to always pausing to see how one thing look. Can we please have Sci-Fi designs that are easier to glare at for once?

    • @bonchitogovindodas3333
      @bonchitogovindodas3333 2 года назад

      The funny thing is the current trend of designing is going simpler and simpler...

  • @sumayyahkhan8897
    @sumayyahkhan8897 3 года назад +2

    FIRST! YAY

  • @hellenicblonde6117
    @hellenicblonde6117 2 года назад +1

    One trope I particularly dislike is the matriarchal utopia.

  • @andycrosby5556
    @andycrosby5556 3 года назад

    In movies - I hate the space walk where a character gets deaded by a meteorite. Food dispensers are naff; chumminess in space also sets me on edge; cryosleep problems; fights in taverns and bars on rough planets; bounty hunters with psychological damage. Eak! - why do bother with sci-fi?

  • @whazee
    @whazee 3 года назад +2

    Not really a trope, but I really hate sci-fi names.
    Just because you're from an advanced human type society, doesn't mean anyone is really going to name their child "Garlbrestic-Jafar of the Praxian Hegemony" ugh...

  • @gazsot8334
    @gazsot8334 Год назад +1

    But a lot of aliens do look like humans :)

  • @scientious
    @scientious 10 месяцев назад

    "Arrival"? This is low grade advice. Basically, it's science fiction without any science.
    Limits of technology? So, aliens can be magically unique but don't make the technology too crazy?
    Goofy.