: First of all, if a fiction book's purpose is "to show what will happen to the world, if something changes," then that's going to be one booooring book. Take, for example, Gattica. You

First of all, if a fiction book's purpose is "to show what will happen to the world, if something changes," then that's going to be one booooring book. Take, for example, Gattica. You might say the book's purpose was to show the effect of widespread genetic engineering on society -- and you'd be wrong. The book's purpose was twofold: 1) to entertain, and 2) to show the triumph of the human spirit over technology. See Robert Heinlein's essay, "On the Writing of Speculative Fiction." (Summarized here.)

Second, to answer your question, start by reading a bunch of articles and books by futurists, whose entire job is to predict the future based on current trends and emerging technology. For example, this one, which I found by Googling "futurist." Or go to an online bookstore and search for "futurist" or "near-future." Since you're looking for NEAR-future, you won't have to read far into any book. Another good source for very solid near-future predictions is the beginning of every issue of Science, Nature, MIT's Technology Review, and a plethora of other journals and trade magazines. There the editor(s) will summarize the main articles in that issue and will often speculate on the importance of the articles' findings. You can find these online and at your local library. For example, search for "trade magazines", and follow the links. End-of-year and start-of-year issues are especially rich in predictions.

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: I beg to differ with you. For lack of a better all-inclusive word, I call all of that "writing." The actual setting-down of the words is just one part of writing. And even once that

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: Where could I get a sports fiction short story published? I've found Stymie magazine, but are there any other magazines devoted primarily to sports themed fiction writing? I think my story stands

@LarsenBagley300

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: Storyboard a Novel? Sometimes I'm a contrarian and like to think things through backward. What about thinking first of a movie and then writing a novel about it? Would it make sense to storyboard

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: What concrete steps do you take to write for a specific reading level? People throw around reading levels when it comes to writing: "5th grade level," "10th grade level," "college level," etc.

: First of all, if a fiction book's purpose is "to show what will happen to the world, if something changes," then that's going to be one booooring book. Take, for example, Gattica. You

More posts by @LarsenBagley300

: I beg to differ with you. For lack of a better all-inclusive word, I call all of that "writing." The actual setting-down of the words is just one part of writing. And even once that

: Where could I get a sports fiction short story published? I've found Stymie magazine, but are there any other magazines devoted primarily to sports themed fiction writing? I think my story stands

: Storyboard a Novel? Sometimes I'm a contrarian and like to think things through backward. What about thinking first of a movie and then writing a novel about it? Would it make sense to storyboard

: What concrete steps do you take to write for a specific reading level? People throw around reading levels when it comes to writing: "5th grade level," "10th grade level," "college level," etc.

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