Essay Rough Draft: "The Elements of A Good Science Fiction"

Science fiction is a type of writing that must involve a huge range of imagination. It can be about almost anything! Including romance, war, comedy, drama, or even a mystery, such as the blockbuster movie ET. If you were to take any form of literature, add in some type of technological or scientific breakthrough, tell about it's positive and negative consequences, you would have your sci-fi. While everything may seem so realistic, you have to make sure that it is still also a fictional story. Many science fiction plots include both a balance of what we know and what we do not know yet, which is what makes a sci-fi so interesting. Not only do we get to learn more about the upcoming future but also about what may or may not be happening during the present. A good science fiction is able to portray a story that contains real-life situations, but also questions that remain unanswered. Science fiction stories can lead to many new discoveries in the future that can possibly change our lives.

A story with some element of possibility in it is always a plus. It should contain something that’s so outrageously strange that it is easy to laugh to, but something that could actually happen. Science fiction must bring to mind a sense of wonder. In my experience, that is what draws and leers me into the genre. It shouldn’t have overly complex plotlines because the story can end up being confusing and hard to follow through. Something that can also make a sci-fi interesting is inclusion of new technological breakthroughs. Having this specific element can broaden the amount of discoveries that can come up in the future. These new discoveries can lead to many advantages for us humans such as a cure for cancer, which is a scenario found in the movie “I Am Legend”. If the sci-fi story includes something about a new type of technology that can come up in the near future, we can benefit from it not only in the future, but also now, in the present. We can benefit from it by broadening our imagination so that we, too, may come up with new things. How cool would it be to travel in space? Communicate with aliens in outer space? Time travel? All of these are fun to think about. They may not be real just yet, but with our wide imaginations, we can make them happen. Good sci-fi provides the forum in which we can open up our imaginations so we can develop new discoveries to help us in doing these things.

All this talk about sci-fi makes me feel that technology is always and will forever be good. But now that I think about some of the movies falling in this genre, I have come to realize that technology can sometimes be a bad thing. One form of literature that portrays how technology is bad is the story “There Will Come Soft Rains.” In the story, the beginning talks about how technology is somewhat good because it helps us wake up in the morning (talking alarm clocks) and even make breakfast. But there is a turning point where technology is suddenly bad because it basically kills us all. The type of technology used is a nuclear bomb. The minds of us humans are getting brighter and brighter each day. It is possible for us to build greater more destructive nuclear bombs in the upcoming future. These bombs can lead to the death of our human race. Now, this type of science fiction gives out a message to us. This is another element that can make up a good sci-fi. The message “There Will Come Soft Rains” is portraying is that technology can be very harmful to man. These types of messages can change the views that people have toward sci-fi stories, which is what makes the story good.

Another type of science fiction that explains how technology is bad is the movie entitled “Wall-E”. This movie exemplifies what the point of living was. Living is a time for us to experience the world and what is in it. We all fall into our bad habits and routines, consciously or unconsciously to avoid “living”, the part of life where you have to actually get up off your seat and do work, that is. That's why we tend to develop a habit where we base our lives on technology so that we don’t have to deal with all of these “chores”. We should not depend on only technology on everything we do, but we should do some physical activities to get through the day so that we do not end up as living bums. This message can also change the way the audiences think about technology. Let’s put it this way. A sci-fi that is somewhat like a puzzle and has some type of turning point will most likely be an interesting story.

Stories that make you want to know more even though you have read the entire book already is definitely a good science fiction. Not only does this case refer to books, but it can also refer to movies. In the movie “X-men: The Last Stand” A fictional character named Magneto loses his powers. But towards the ending, it shows him moving a chess piece without his fingers touching it, meaning that his powers will soon return. Sci-fi that ends with a “cliffhanger” always makes the audience want for more. Those stories that end with “Happily ever after…” do not really grasp their interest.

To me, science fiction is somewhat like a base for the future of our society. The things, scientific and technological breakthroughs, which come up in sci-fi stories, movies, etc. can evolve into real things that we may or may not use later in the future. Looking at the messages and signs that these movies and stories are telling us, technology will probably be bigger than it is right now in the present time. Who knows? Technology can solve some of the issues we are having today, like diseases, or it can do the total opposite, like increasing diseases. But that’s the future, which we cannot foretell at the time. The way I see it, sci-fi is used to tell a story about our society today and in the future. If we change the way that we live today, it is possible we will most likely change the future, also.