Science Fiction Story Beats

According to John Truby's The Anatomy of Genres, the science fiction story genre is for stories about the relationship between the human social order, its technology, and the environment around us. They are for stories about the crossroads between science and story; they say that science is a story.

The life statement of a Science Fiction story is always something like:

"Society, the individual, the technology at their disposal, and their environment must all be in harmony or face dire consequences."

Examples of stories that employ the Science Fiction genre's beats:

• Wall-E

• Starcraft

• Going Postal

• Avatar

• Farenheit 451

• Ender's Game

• Helldivers

• Hunger Games

• Mass Effect

• Star Wars: Andor

• A Face Like Glass

Spoiler warning for all of the above. Do not click the dropdowns for the beats' examples if you wish to avoid spoilers.

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Science Fiction Story Recipe

Always read the ingredients before cooking any recipe. The best way to describe these ingredients is with their name, a brief description, and up to two examples. (see examples by clicking the dropdown arrows).

To write a Science Fiction genre story, you will need:

Story World Science Fiction takes this beat further than anyone else. The world defines more of a Sci-Fi story than any other genre. For this beat, you will need: 1. A universe far too wide for our main cast to explore all of it in the story, with a clearly defined spatial arena (such as a specific planet or sequence of planets). 2. Rules for traveling vast distances (FTL drives, warps, etc.) 3. Fulcrum technologies that shape what in other genres would be called the "magic system". Often this and no. 2 are examples of each other. 4. At least one society or culture shaped by the story world, with fractals such as class and race. 5. Turning point decisions that will decide how this universe looks for a long time, possibly forever after.

• Example 1: In Terry Pratchet's Going Postal, the city of Ankh-Morpork is just one city in a vast world which the main character, Moist von Lipwig, cannot leave. Rapid travel over vast distances isn't possible for people, but it is for ideas, which shrinks the world quite a lot already. This is thanks to the Semaphore towers, the Clacks. The city of Ankh-Morpork is an incredibly detailed society filled with fractals as broad as the dwarves to as esoteric as the pin collectors. Moist is given a job at a turning point in the city's history, between corporate power and the public good.

• Example 2: Mass Effect takes place throughout the Milky Way Galaxy, so it has a very broad spatial arena. Travel over vast distances is accomplished using mass relays. They are among the fulcrum technologies, which also include things like biotic abilities. The galaxy is made up of several races co-existing with one another, from the turians to the asari to the krogan to the humans, each with factions inside it. Mass Effect is about dozens upon dozens of turning point decisions, from the fate of individual races like the rachni to the fate of the galaxy in the face of the Reaper threat.

Weakness-Need: Unevolved The protagonist of a Sci-Fi story must have a flaw they need to overcome in order to solve the story's plot and restore balance between the environment, world, themselves, and technology. Like in myth, there is often a quest for immortality of some form, but this immortality is usually granted in the form of the lasting consequences of the decisions the main characters make.

• Example 1: Jake Sully from Avatar needs to learn to put the natural world of Pandora and its inhabitants over his own human body and his own race's corporate desires for the world.

• Example 2: Guy Montag needs to learn to think for himself and protect knowledge, rather than destroy it. He gains immortality by remembering a book that no longer exists and becoming part of a human library.

Minor Characters As in any good worldbuilding, the minor characters serve to personify the aspects of Sci-Fi worldbuilding. Often one character personifies multiple aspects, such as a fractal of society and an aspect of the technology.

• Example 1: In Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, Matt Horner represents the level-headed, but idealistic fractal of Raynor's Raiders. He also represents the Hyperion, the ship that gets the protagonists through space and out of crises.

• Example 2: In The Hunger Games, each of the tributes Katniss faces from the other districts serves to personify their district to the audience.

Desire In any story, the protagonist's desire line shapes the events we follow. In Science Fiction, the desire of the protagonist puts them in contact (and conflict) with the technology, society, and environment, in a way that eventually forces them to change and forever alters the society around them.

• Example 1: Neverfell wants to escape the oppressive underworld city of Caverna, a land defined by using its magical and technological resources to exploit the surface world above and the dredge society below. In order to escape, she will have to befriend or outsmart every segment of society and learn how the technology and magic works to some extent.

• Example 2: Andor wants to find his sister (and later, just to be left alone). Both of these objectives put him at odds with a totalitarian galactic empire, which will do whatever it takes to enslave and exploit the galaxy into submission, no matter who he is or how insignificant he may be.

Opponent: Authorities In Science Fiction, the world and technology within it are so developed that all opposition eventually comes back to a central authority or domineering faction. This opponent already has terrifying command of the technology and society of the story, and the individual and the environment are most often the next targets.

• Example 1: Auto from Wall-E wields complete control over the Axiom, the ship on which all remaining humans are drifting in space. He seeks to destroy the last evidence of life on Earth, and subdue the captain and any robots that oppose him, "for their own good".

• Example 2: Reacher Gilt and the Grand Trunk Semaphore Company have a crushing grip on the technology, funds, and employees of the Clacks centered in Ankh-Morpork. They will not tolerate competition in their industry, especially from a state department like the Post Office.

Plan The protagonist's desire line must be shaped into a plan that bypasses or commandeers the barriers of society, technology, and environment. This plan can be simple or complex (more often complex), but it must never be executed without a whole lot of snags and complications.

• Example 1: In order to save the Koprulu Sector from the zerg threat, Jim Raynor must acquire all the pieces of a strange artifact that can (hopefully) defeat the swarm and free their leader, Sarah Kerrigan, from their influence.

• Example 2: To protect Earth from another invasion of the buggers, Ender and his fellow battleschool students must undergo substantial simulated training to lead pilots into war.

Plot: Subworlds Science Fiction often involves a lot of travel within the spatial arena, so that the grand scope and theme of the story has space to exist. Different minor characters, society fractals, and fulcrum technologies, as well as turning point decisions get their own planets (or other subsections of the universe).

• Example 1: Andor's various characters (especially Andor himself) travel to and operate from multiple different worlds that all serve to highlight a different part of the Star Wars galaxy under the Galactic Empire. The death camp of Narkina 5 shows the horrific conditions and the bravery of those stuck at the bottom of the ladder, while Coruscant shows the decadent viper pit of characters that dominate the galaxy.

• Example 2: Jake Sully exists in two main subworlds: the human mercenary camp where he is a wheelchair-bound but respected contributor to their corporate venture, and his avatar body where he is fully able but a humble newcomer to Na'vi society.

Reveal In order for the protagonist to solve the complicated problem posed by the imbalance of society, environment, and technology, there needs to be a big reveal. This reveal gives them the knowledge they need to make the right decision and solve the plot.

• Example 1: When Captain McCrea learns of the plant specimen from Earth, and further learns that Auto intends to keep humanity away from Earth no matter the evidence that Earth can be saved, he learns what he has to do and becomes an instrumental part of the plot.

• Example 2: When Shepherd learns Saren's true goal - to bring back the Reapers - he now knows what Saren's next move will be and is able to act more proactively to stop Saren in the climax from destroying the Citadel and crippling the galaxy.

Battle The final battle of a Sci-Fi story represents a vortex of all the different story threads, all orbiting around the turning point decisions of this story's universe. Sometimes this battle is not combat, but rather an extremely delicate situation that needs expert an defuse.

• Example 1: Moist von Lipwig's final battle with Reacher Gilt and the Grand Trunk involves a race, where the two businesses try to get a message a huge distance before the other one does. Moist wins by cheating, and not getting caught, the only way to defeat an opponent like the Grand Trunk.

• Example 2: The final battle of A Face Like Glass involves a coordinated effort from Neverfell, the Dredges, her aristocrat allies, and all her other friends from every fractal of Caverna society to topple the hierarchy and escape to the surface.

Self-Revelation: Public and Cosmic Science Fiction is about creating a new universal order via the turning point decisions in the story. There must be a beat where this choice is made, and the consequences are witnessed.

• Example 1: Ender's Game is about a main character who was tricked into this decision without realizing he was making it. This is a great twist on the beat, because of all the uncomfortable questions in begs of Ender and the reader, and whether their opinions of the new universe they've helped create really matter.

• Example 2: The final sacrifice of characters like Luthen Rael underscores the theme of Andor: those who fight to create a better world are rarely remembered, rarely survive, and are often hated. But they do it anyway.

Notes

Science Fiction lends itself very well to dystopian stories, along with Fantasy. This is one of the reasons these two genres overlap so often and are hard for most to distinguish.

Science Fiction worlds tend to be stronger if they bear a resemblace to our world, more so than other genres. The similarities can be used to familiarize or unnerve the audience.