How to Avoid Sci Fi Clichés When Writing A Story

I always wondered what a scientist’s personality and lifestyle was really like.  After reading the enlightening information below in the quoted paragraphs, I can admit I was slightly prejudiced in my ideas.  Never using a scientist as a character in any of my stories, I now feel comfortable creating Maxwell, a neuropsychologist, researching and experimenting the neurobiology that makes men and women on the moon different in how they communicate.  He finds it hard to keep his data in tact as it floats away constantly in the free flowing atmosphere of his laboratory. 

In accordance with the ideas in the quoted paragraph 1, I will have Maxwell sticking only to his research and refusing to cooperate with Hugh, the neurobiologist, in taking blood samples from the men and women in the experiment, in order to create a super man and woman who NEVER HAVE ANY COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS. 

Trouble is brewing on the horizon though at Maxwell’s home, because his wife, Glennie, feels he cares more about his research people than their marriage. She is thinking about selling Hugh the secrets to Maxwell’s research so the super man and woman can be designed.  I am avoiding cliché characters and themes as suggested in paragraph 2 of the quoted material.  I never steal anyone’s story or character models.

Meanwhile Maxwell is struggling with all the paperwork, bureaucracy, and red tape being handed down by Boris, the manager of the moon lab.  Boris is jealous of all these scientists getting recognition for their brilliant experiments and research, as he is just a paper pusher.  Secretly, Boris always wanted to be a scientist because he thought it was a very glamorous job and the scientists always got the pretty girl in college.  So now we have fulfilled the quoted information in paragraph 3’s treatise on scientist’s non-dramatic lives and how Maxwell is just a normal man struggling with his job and relationship.

Heading to the climax of the story, Maxwell realizes how he has been ignoring his wife because he sees a parallel in the relationship between Experiment 42, Mr. Raz and Mrs. Raz when Mrs. Raz complains Mr. Raz only is interested in his work as a sportscaster for the moon’s baseball team and never romances her anymore.  A light goes off in Maxwell’s head and he rushes home to Glennie with moonflowers.  He’s just in time.  Glennie is walking out the door with all his secret research.  The couple kisses and Glennie let’s go of the paperwork as it floats away into the atmosphere of the moon.  Boris is out for a smoke and reaches up to grab the papers.  They are now his.  He can go present the research data at the next MAN AND WOMAN ON THE MOON conference.

No writer’s block here.  I opened my mind up to write a character and a story following the precepts listed below in the 6 tips.

“A scientist is not the same thing as an engineer. A scientist can think up theories. An engineer will determine if it can be built. Don’t have your physicist character building a contraption from scratch based on a particle theory that they just came up with. Advanced electrical engineering is not normally within the training of your typical physicist.

Take inspiration from other writers, but don’t steal their ideas. That might not be technically plagiarism, but after a while of one idea, it gets cliché. Avoid it.

Many science fiction writers think that their main character has to be a scientific super-person. That’s not true. Normal people are okay, too.

Don’t stray too far from science fact. There is a limit to what you can convince people to believe.

Real science is not at all dramatic. It involves a lot of paperwork, networking, bureaucracy, and red tape. And most scientists go home at the end of the day to families or single lives involving hobbies, love lives, friends, bills, a mortgage, and all the other things that everyone deals with. Most scientists are not dashing adventurers like Reed Richards or Bernard Quatermass. Also, avoid the clichéd depiction or the reclusive creepy obsessed weirdo or the extreme nerd. Scientists have passion for their topics.

When you get writer’s block, don’t give up on the story. Give it some time. If you give up, you’ll regret it later.

If your main character (or even a supporting character) is a scientist, make sure you don’t just make him/her a go to guy for all things science. Science in multidisciplinary. This means that a biologist may know nothing about robots, or vice versa. State the scientific field that he specializes in and limit his expertise to that field. He may know something about some other fields but you shouldn’t have a quantum physicist trying to give advice about poisonous alien plants. If you must make your science-officer a “jack of all trades”, then make sure to also make him “but master of none”.”

Just make sure while writing a Sci Fi you do a little research and make sure you use the write terminology. Be creative with your characters and write with an open mind. Don’t be afraid to invent new things, a langue perhaps. It’s Sci Fi, who’s going to know?”

Unfortunately I did no research for my story but I certainly felt creative and I always have an open mind as is recommended in the last quoted paragraph.  Maybe I can write Sci Fi after all.  Aren’t us writers supposed to be able to tell a story no matter what the genre dictates?  I know many Maxwells here on earth.  Scientist or not, moon or earth, man’s plight and solution is always the same.  LOVE CONQUORS ALL.