: Re: Writing a Novel Set In The Future So, I have this idea of writing a novel set in the future. Not the far future but a few decades away from today. Could you please give me an advice for

@LarsenBagley300

Vote Up Vote Down

I would say that this setting isn't unheard of and is easy for readers to forgive. The problem will be that technology doesn't always advance at the rate you expect it to.. the common complaint is "Where's my flying car/jet pack/hover board!" The flip side of this is also true: Some tech seen in future adaptations is outdated by the time the year given in the work is reached. For example, the original Star Trek Series posited in 1967(?) that flip-phone style communicators would be available to the military in the 2267... in real life the flip phone was available to the public in the late 1990s. By the time of Picard, both the communication system and the tricorders were miniturized in about 100 years time... in real life, not only was Bluetooth and smaller Cellphones a thing by the mid 2000s, but Kirk's flip phone style was obsolete, in favor of touch screen (only available to large consol computers in Piccard era) and had similar functions to the Tricorder and was smaller than that!

Tech advances cannot be predicted... but this is built into the equation. I would look at the tech that is bleeding edge cool... the stuff that science says is on the edge of being real and factor that in with more efficient designs than the modern one (look at first gen iPhone and the... tent now... iteration and note even physical differences).

I would also ask if the tech has changed the society or if the society was changed for other reasons... how much does the tech featured factor into the design of society. The more the story revolves around the technology, the more the setting could look futuristic. The less the change is in societal thinking, the less you need to depend on the tech.

Having a story in the future is not a bad thing and shouldn't be avoided. If you're good on your research, you might get praised for calling how the future works. Your praise for new common tech will be just as likely as your mocking for not producing a rocket pogo stick in the correct time period... the point of these stories is to explore the implications of technology and humanity.

(0)

Login to post a comment!