How to Write Really Bad Science Fiction

Just over a year ago I posted a short essay here at Associated Content entitled "How to Write Bad Science Fiction." Since then, not only has the plausibility of the typical science fiction plot-storyline declined but the technical quality of science fiction writing itself has deteriorated to a point suggesting that a significant portion of recently published material was initially composed in crayon.

In light of the apparent success of my previous suggestions, I would now like to offer additional advice on how to write really bad science fiction.

Before proceeding, a few words of advice about your characters. In my previous essay, I gave the models for characters that every ready can identify with or fantasize about being. With slight modification, these are:

Hero: Self-sacrificing, politically correct, Caucasian male that, despite having the overall intellectual capability of a hamster, suddenly uses a plan that he devises (using both quantum physics and nuclear engineering) to neutralize whatever you chose to threaten to destroy the Earth.

Heroine: Environmentally conscious, vegetarian, Caucasian female with a brain size just above that found in the above-mentioned bipedal and quadripedal mammals. This character's major contribution to your book can be summarized in three words:" forty-two C."

With that aside, here is how to write really bad science Fiction.

1. First of all you must make use of symbolism, but only after having a responsible adult explain this concept to you.

Using Stephen King's The Stand as an example, what was the name of the villain? Flagg! And what does a flag symbolize? A nation, in this case the United States, with all its good and bad points (to be successful, you must emphasize all the bad points by making your bad guy as despicable as possible).

And who was Flagg's enemy? Mother Abigail, an elderly woman of color who symbolizes the "oppression" of women and minorities but has risen above it all to become the heroine that will lead her followers to one Promised Land or another. (In Hebrew, "Abigail" means "her Father's joy." Note the capped "F" in "Father").

Are you starting to get a grasp on symbolism now?

2. Although now not as popular as in the past, collisions between the Earth and some extraterrestrial object such as a comet or asteroid can still be revived as plot-lines in really bad science fiction.

If you decide to use this setup, your characters must discover the approaching dinosaur-killer while it is either distant to, or very close to, Earth.

In the former case, you hero and heroine will try to inform the world of its approaching doom but no one will listen, especially political types that are under the control of the multi-national corporations that are exploiting Third World countries for their resources and as a supply of cheap labor. At the last moment you hero and heroine, despite knowing absolutely nothing about orbital mechanics or nuclear weapons, will discover a "secret" orbiting super-weapon that they will redirect to intercept the approaching object and save the world. The final scene in your book should have the hero and heroine kissing passionately while walking along a footpath in an old growth forest after discussing the need for legislation to require increased CO₂ monitoring caused by burning the previously mentioned politicians and heads of multinational corporations at the stake.

If you use the latter scenario, be sure that the impending doom causes global panic. Include plenty of scenes in which the military is called into prevent looting in upscale neighborhoods while everywhere else is allowed to burn. Also, include plenty of Anglo-European descent (remember, symbolism) "bad guys' such as trigger-happy National Guardsmen or Military Police that indiscriminately open fire on the mobs that are trying to enter the underground citadels reserved for government and military bigwigs.

In either scenario, make sure to devote as many pages as possible to the destruction of some major city (or cities) due to the impact of fragments from the recently destroyed comet / asteroid / some other object. Disregard the fact that the total area of every major city on Earth, if taken together, would comprise only about 0.01% of the Earth's surface area and thus render the chances of any given location being hit to 1 in 10,000! Also remember that no one will give an obese rodents rectum about an impact that vaporizes Warrenton, Georgia or Pie Town, New Mexico. Have your fragments hit something big!

3. Although overused, a global, or at least national, pandemic/epidemic can make a decent plot-line for really bad science fiction.

Returning to our example, Stephen King made excellent use of this line in the first ¼ of The Stand to "set up" the remaining ¾ of the book. This plot-storyline has not been successfully employed since that time.

Should you use the "modern plague" plot-line, be sure to have your bacteria/virus /whatever violates every known principle of biology and epidemiology. You must also make sure that it can survive everything from a mother's "kiss and make it better" Band-Aid to being the guest of honor at ground zero of a neutron bomb.

In your book, what your virus/bacteria does to its victims is up to you. It can kill within 15 minutes, 15 hours, or not kill at all but rather make its victims into vampires, zombies, or even Democrats. Just make sure that, whatever it does, it does so as graphically as your writing talent can describe. Always remember that a few pages of gratuitous suffering and/or violence can go a long way toward saving a weak plot.

4. Sometimes incorporating other literary genres (again, find an adult to explain this one to you) into your bad manuscript can help you make the leap from bad science fiction writer to really bad science fiction writer.

A particularly useful genre is that of alternative history.

In alternative history you make use of real, although practically always dead, historical figures but change the result of one critical historical event and then exploit a world so radically different that only your really bad science fiction can explain it.

As an example, you could write about a world where Germany wins the Battle of Britain. As a consequence, Hitler can devote his entire military to the defeat of Stalin's Russia. You now have a world in which Germany controls all of Europe; there was no Cold War; Hitler listened to Werner Von Braun; Germany began launching satellites in 1949, with the Germans placing the first goose-steps on the Moon in 1962 and on Mars in 1996 with the latter event triggering some type of interplanetary war. No matter how outlandish you alternate future may be, you may be assured that there are readers who will adopt it as nothing less than a revealed truth.

5. Always be politically correct, or at least include main characters that are.

It is important to remember that, in order to transform your bad science fiction manuscript into a really bad science fiction manuscript, at least two of your characters must be politically correct! This is of such importance to the unsuitability of your manuscript for anything other than cat litter that I will state it again: at least two of your characters must be politically correct!

Use your characters' political correctness to their advantage. If they are politically correct they can be walking in a preserved natural habitat when they discover that only the leaves of a protected species of tree can cure the above-described virus or they could finally "visualize world peace" at an environmental sensitivity retreat and then emerge as leaders in the battle against whatever villains you have written into your already weak plot.

Another technique to improve the political correctness of your book is to simply plagiarize a few random pages from Marx, Schopenhauer, Foucault, Nietzsche, or some other barely comprehensible writer. Then change their words around just enough to make use of them in your characters' conversations. If done correctly, this heightens the chances that your book may be "discovered" by some obscure critic who will hail your book as a "modern classic" or something else. This will also dramatically improve your chances of having your really bad science fiction made into an equally bad science fiction movie.

In summary, there are probably as many ways to write really bad science fiction as there are really bad authors. My final advice is that you find your own "groove" or style. Keep working at it with the passion of a true believer and one day people will say: "This is so bad it must have been written by (your name here)!"