: Re: How to start doing research on scientific facts for my sci-fi? Tips and tricks I'm a fantasy writer and seldom exposing myself to sci-fi albeit both of them can be categorise as the same genre.

@Courtney562

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If you are straight up inventing technology, then the key is not trying to hammer out some sort of pseudoscientific explanation, but rather to think out the 2nd and third order effects of the technology so that they fit seamlessly into your world.

For example, anti-gravity. Sure, it allows for floating cities and such, but does it also replace stairs (with vertical tubes that shunt folks up and down), allow for bizarre inverted buildings that are larger on top than on the bottom, or things of that nature? You don't really need a deep scientific base for this, just some time thinking about how your technology would affect the world.

What technical reading COULD help you with is naming scientific phenomenon. Coming up with plausible sounding things like "Wesbowski FTL Engine", "Kellerman's Principle of Gravitronic Repulsion", or the like. Some choice scientific/engineering jargon can go a long way towards imbedding your technology into the minds of readers.

Quite frankly, Wikipedia probably goes as indepth as is necessary for most scientific things unless you want to really dive deep into research about a specific topic. But for things that don't actually exist today, I don't think there is much value added in trying to tie in existing technology as some sort of precursor for invented future tech. For example, I think it is highly unlikely that some type of mind reading cranial implant that replaced cell phones is going to be called the iSkull, utilize existing wireless protocol terminology, and be invented by Apple. You are better off creating the vocabulary around this device from scratch.

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