Hardest Fantasy Themes to Write

[StillStunned]

That sounds like the computer on the Heart of Gold, trying to make Arthur Dent some tea.

Actually, current GenAI seems to be scarily like the Talkie Toaster from Red Dwarf:

 

[RetroFan]

Obv more SciFi than Fantasy, but when the ‘good’ citizens of AH set me the challenge of writing a tentacle porn story, I decided my tentacle monster would be an alien. I then spent quite some time trying to come up with a quasi-scientific rationale for his telepathic, telekinetic, shape-shifting powers. I think it kinda hung together in the end.

I had to create aliens for my sci-fi Halloween story 'Cindy's Close Encounter' a few years back. I thought I did quite a job envisaging them and bringing them to life, where they live, how their life cycle (egg - larvae - pupae - adult) works, and their personalities - they are mostly obsessed with catching humans to feed to their larvae, and have no concept of fun and enjoyment, fiction completely baffling them. However, weeks after the story had been published I realized what my creations inadvertently looked like - the Yip Yip aliens from Sesame Street.

 

[Djmac1031]

I had to create aliens for my sci-fi Halloween story 'Cindy's Close Encounter' a few years back. I thought I did quite a job envisaging them and bringing them to life, where they live, how their life cycle (egg - larvae - pupae - adult) works, and their personalities - they are mostly obsessed with catching humans to feed to their larvae, and have no concept of fun and enjoyment, fiction completely baffling them. However, weeks after the story had been published I realized what my creations inadvertently looked like - the Yip Yip aliens from Sesame Street.

At least you made your aliens look like SOMETHING.

My aliens in The White Room were just discorporated invisible energy beings.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I think AI is going to be the next big Sci-Fi Mt Fuji. Either AI will be ubiquitous in a Sci-Fi future or you will have to have explain it's absence.

It depends. Sci-fi trends always change depending on the era. Space travel, aliens, time travel, AI, robots, cybernetics, biological enhancements, zombies, nuclear energy or some form of unstable energy, man-made diseases, teleportation, post-apocalypse... But Mt. Fuji to me are the way authors explored these themes, and the ones that could be considered as such would be Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. The thing about sci-fi is that, unlike fantasy, the majority of authors aren't stunlocked into doing the same thing as these two, yet they sometimes find themselves going over the Mt. Fuji of their specific subgenre within sci-fi. Orwell was the Mt. Fuji of dystopian fiction for a long time before Veronica Roth released Divergent, and then everybody wanted to do the exact same thing. William Gibson could be considered the Mt. Fuji of cyberpunk had it not been because people are hyperfocusing in the cool gadgets and evil corporations instead of the noir roots the genre comes from, and I mostly blame the Cyberpunk RPG for that. As for things with spaceships, expect people trying to do Star Trek or Star Wars.

re: AI though, the original Ghost in the Shell movie did pretty alright discussing AI as a living organism. The franchise as a whole does a good job discussing the relationship of humanity with technology though, and it doesn't limit itself to AI, but even metaphysical concepts like the human soul. Mass Effect did explain the "absence" of AI in its world: AIs are illegal. I put the word on quotes because AI is what the entire story is about, and it even breaches into cosmic horror territory... which is something that acknowledges the Lovecraftian influence, but manages to avert it anyway without sacrificing the cosmic horror elements.

I haven't finished reading Larry Niven's Ringworld, but to the point in which I reached I don't recall AI being even mentioned, let alone discussed. I could be wrong though. It's been a while. I also don't remember AI in Cryptonomicon, but then again, if Diamond Age taught me anything is that Neal Stephenson LOVES to write about AI. In one of the sci-fi stories that I abandoned I also never planned to have AI on it, and my first Cyberpunk work I never used AI... I read that draft a while back this year, and it still doesn't need AI.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

It depends. Sci-fi trends always change depending on the era. Space travel, aliens, time travel, AI, robots, cybernetics, biological enhancements, zombies, nuclear energy or some form of unstable energy, man-made diseases, teleportation, post-apocalypse... But Mt. Fuji to me are the way authors explored these themes, and the ones that could be considered as such would be Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov. The thing about sci-fi is that, unlike fantasy, the majority of authors aren't stunlocked into doing the same thing as these two, yet they sometimes find themselves going over the Mt. Fuji of their specific subgenre within sci-fi. Orwell was the Mt. Fuji of dystopian fiction for a long time before Veronica Roth released Divergent, and then everybody wanted to do the exact same thing. William Gibson could be considered the Mt. Fuji of cyberpunk had it not been because people are hyperfocusing in the cool gadgets and evil corporations instead of the noir roots the genre comes from, and I mostly blame the Cyberpunk RPG for that. As for things with spaceships, expect people trying to do Star Trek or Star Wars.

re: AI though, the original Ghost in the Shell movie did pretty alright discussing AI as a living organism. The franchise as a whole does a good job discussing the relationship of humanity with technology though, and it doesn't limit itself to AI, but even metaphysical concepts like the human soul. Mass Effect did explain the "absence" of AI in its world: AIs are illegal. I put the word on quotes because AI is what the entire story is about, and it even breaches into cosmic horror territory... which is something that acknowledges the Lovecraftian influence, but manages to avert it anyway without sacrificing the cosmic horror elements.

I haven't finished reading Larry Niven's Ringworld, but to the point in which I reached I don't recall AI being even mentioned, let alone discussed. I could be wrong though. It's been a while. I also don't remember AI in Cryptonomicon, but then again, if Diamond Age taught me anything is that Neal Stephenson LOVES to write about AI. In one of the sci-fi stories that I abandoned I also never planned to have AI on it, and my first Cyberpunk work I never used AI... I read that draft a while back this year, and it still doesn't need AI.

I think perhaps we are using the Mt Fuji metaphor differently. To me the heart of it is that in Japanese Art either Mt Fuji is present in the work, or conspicuous by it's absence.
In the context of AI in Sci-Fi for the next decade or so I think either it will very much involve AI or the absence will be very conspicuous and have to be explained in some way or other. Other wise it becomes, "why didn't they have AI..."
I have a Sci-Fi work in progress, and I have a brief bit of dialogue explaining why AI wouldn't work for the mission our characters are embarked on. I utilized a variation in Asimov's 3 laws, an AI system can't protect itself, because doing so would risk sentient life.
Niven didn't even really mention computers much in Ringworld. If they had an AI system they wouldn't have needed the Protectors sticking around.

But I wholeheartedly agree about it changing, AI is just the current flavor of the day. 20 years from now (possibly less) it will be something else.

 

[TheRedChamber]

That Pratchett quote in full...

‘Tolkien appears in the fantasy universe in the same way that Mount Fuji appeared in old Japanese prints. Sometimes small, in the distance, and sometimes big and close-to, and sometimes not there at all, and that’s because the artist is standing on Mount Fuji.’

 

[MrHereWriting]

I think AI is going to be the next big Sci-Fi Mt Fuji. Either AI will be ubiquitous in a Sci-Fi future or you will have to have explain it's absence.

Never explain the absence of something that's not in your world unless that's part of the story, such as some great catastrophe wiping out technology or the Father of AI was murdered before he was able to complete his work, but if AI was never invented, then there's no reason to explain why it was never invented.

 

[Duleigh]

Hardest though I would say is a time-loop story

I LOVE writing sci-fi and fantasy, but I never wrote a time-loop story because I personally find them annoying. How hard could it be? You only do the hard work once - set up the situation, introduce the characters and let it go - repeating the same thing over and over with slight changes with each iteration until you come to the finish. The anime RE:Zero does that and I eventually quit watching. It just bored me to tears. I've never seen Groundhog Day all the way through for the same reason, it annoys and bores me.

Fantasy and sci-fi world building - setting stories in other worlds or on other planets - is very hard

I LOVE doing this part. I wrote a fanfic and loved the story I used but I couldn't sell it. So, I stripped the other authors universe out of my story and built my own universe and came up with Gods Save the Queen Book 1. I LOVED building that universe! The novel has 5 appendixes and a map of the continent. I can't wait to get back to Book 2 but I've got several other things to write ATM

One subject I've never tackled is time travel

You know you've put that bug in my ear now... The plot bunnies are starting to fill the room

Look for a story called "My Hot Grandma"

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Never explain the absence of something that's not in your world unless that's part of the story, such as some great catastrophe wiping out technology or the Father of AI was murdered before he was able to complete his work, but if AI was never invented, then there's no reason to explain why it was never invented.

We'll have to disagree on that point. If you are writing sci-fi that is extrapolating from the present, as almost all of it is, then having existing technology missing requires an explanation.
The complete absence of computers in Dune wouldn't have made any sense if Herbert hadn't included the Butlerian Jihad to explain it.

 

[MrHereWriting]

We'll have to disagree on that point. If you are writing sci-fi that is extrapolating from the present, as almost all of it is, then having existing technology missing requires an explanation.
The complete absence of computers in Dune wouldn't have made any sense if Herbert hadn't included the Butlerian Jihad to explain it.

And what did I say?

Never explain the absence of something that's not in your world unless that's part of the story, such as some great catastrophe wiping out technology or the Father of AI was murdered before he was able to complete his work, but if AI was never invented, then there's no reason to explain why it was never invented.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Minnican Fairies (the smallest of all fairies) getting fucked by Giants. It's not a pretty sight.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I do not like time-loops.

I had an idea years ago about a guy who when sleep, basically woke up to an alternate reality where he met a woman. And somehow he meets her in real life.

I don't think magic and scifi is all that hard to write. The most successful magic stories have limitations of some kind. I don't think it takes tons of world building either. I have two scifi stories on here that only show what's needed to show for the people living in the moment and taking you with them. Some shows and movies don't really do that, it just puts you in it and might explain some things, but won't hold your hand. I'd say Cowboy Bebop is a good example

 

[Statius]

What was that Sandra Bullock movie with Keanu Reeves? About some cottage? Kinda a time loop story, right? Don't remember much about it

 

[SimonDoom]

What was that Sandra Bullock movie with Keanu Reeves? About some cottage? Kinda a time loop story, right? Don't remember much about it

The Lake House. Not a time loop but time displacement. They corresponded through a mailbox while living two years apart.