While writing Finding Refuge, I revisited various science fiction worldbuilding techniques I’d learned from years of reading the genre, listening to writers, and of course practicing them myself. One of my most important goals is allowing the reader to be curious about what happens next. Worldbuilding can be a big part of that.
Many or most guides to writing science fiction hammer in the idea of “showing, not telling,” but no writing rule should be followed off a cliff. If you can make the “telling” interesting, that’s all that matters. In general, I’ve found dialogue is more interesting than exposition, especially if you’re invested in the characters who are speaking.
Dialogue is a perfect opportunity to slip in not only information about a science fictional concept, but also disinformation about it. Say one character is not convinced that aliens exist but they’re about to show up in Kansas; another character knows they’re coming, and they’re angry at humanity. Disinformation in dialogue can thus very easily add more tension and conflict. When a character is seeking out information, or asking questions, or arguing about something, you can increase the effect by stringing them along, releasing the information piece by piece. The reader will also want to find out the answers they’re seeking, and will keep reading until they have all the answers.
Look for opportunities for minor disagreements between characters to reveal vulnerabilities or needs/wants that you can exploit for the story’s purposes. Even something as small as an alien refusing human food because these aliens get their energy from photosynthesis can tell the reader something more about the aliens’ particular limitations. This is a good way to sneak in weaknesses that can generate plot, say when the plant alien is imprisoned and dying because there are no windows (don’t worry, my houseplants are all fine!).
Major disagreements are useful, too, to reveal plot-generating issues. If two of your characters disagree, whether politically or morally or in any other way, they can go out of their way to convince their opponent they’re right, or wrong. Which means you the writer can have them explore your thematic concerns such as colonialism, or gender identity, or fears of the potential climate apocalypse. In dialogue, it will be more interesting and relevant to the story than if you just laid it all out to begin with in a big expository lump. And you don’t have to stop with dialogue; the disagreements can lead to action, and propel the plot forward.
“Breaking something” is another good technique. If you want to describe how the amazing science fictional plant-watering device works, break it first, show the problems the broken thing causes, and then explain how it works while fixing it. This technique can also be applied to societies, relationships, or even the entire plot. For example, say the characters live on a space station. A piece of debris is headed their way, and will damage their ability to communicate with anyone outside of the space station. Something is going to get physically broken, which will expose societal issues. The plant-watering device will be damaged, and the plants will be angry. What will the people do about that? What happens next?
I hope you find some of these techniques useful in your own writing. And I hope you have fun spotting them in your reading, as well.
