I'm wondering if anyone would ever read this. The time is a few hundred years into the future. A sixteen-year-old girl lives with a small population of other aliens inside the moon. Their bodies are adapted to the range of temperatures on the moon, and they don't need oxygen to live. They can also walk without gravity. They look exactly like humans. Americans from Earth have come to the moon to build a small colony. Among them is the seventeen-year-old boy of two scientists. The girl sees him while she and some other aliens observe the progress of the colony. One night while spying on him by herself he spots her. (By night I mean he is sleeping.) He promises to keep the alien's existence a secret. They sneak away to see each other and fall in love. On one occasion, they are discovered by a friend of the girl's and a scientist from the colony. They struggle to keep their relationship a secret, but fail. The girl's people call her a traitor, and the boy's parents threaten to send him back to Earth. The boy admits to the girl he has a girlfriend back home, and she is forced into a marriage with the alien leader's son. Her fiancee dies of a disease from the humans and the aliens declare war on them. The girl is faced with loyalty to her people, and the boy she still lives. Would you read this at all?
Erm..I might? But I don't really judge a book like that. I usually I judge it by how the blurb is written/title/front cover. And it also depends how you write it. Even if people won't, I say still write it
Okay, thanks for the feedback. This is still in the works and I might make it less romance-y than it sounds.
A story concept means nothing. I can tell you now, it has all been done before. What matters is how you write it, the characterization, the flow, the imagery, all of it. There's no benefit in asking what other people think of the concept! They'll either say,"Sounds great," or, "it sounds like a ripoff of..." If the idea stirs you, write it. Then ask people what they think of the final story. After they tell you what they don't like about it, revise it, usually several times, until you're happy with it or until you throw up your hands and say the hell with it. Please read What is Plot Creation and Development?
If you write this and do not have any astronomy background (one class in college does not count), please PLEASE contact an astronomer and ask questions. You will make mistakes that you would not even think of. It will show. People will get annoyed. Yes, I am a Ph.D. astronomer.
This right here is a huge problem for me. If their bodies are adapted completely differently to a climate and universe place that's nothing like Earth, they're not going to look like us. Species differentiation (is this the right word?) is the case for a reason, especially in space. In fact, I find it unrealistic when fictional aliens are humanoid, even.
Do you think I'd be okay with just A-level physics, maths, chem and geology? I might need help further down the line with my sci-fi novel but really it's more adventure than tech. Does that make a difference? Can I come to you if I need a bit of technical help?
An alien species in my book look human but I have a very good and plausible explanation for that. The huge majority of the other species that I introduce later on will not be though.
Sure, you can ask me questions. I'm actually part of The Science and Entertainment Exchange run by the National Academy of Sciences (USA) that tries to bring scientists and writers/directors/producers together to make the science in writing and on screen more realistic. It really depends on how you write/describe things, but the problem is that you can make mistakes without even realizing you're making them. For a contrived example, you may be talking about walking around on the surface of an asteroid. Seems perfectly reasonable. Except that the gravity on an asteroid is so tiny that you'd probably have to almost crawl ... push off too hard and you launch yourself into space. Re-reading your first post, you say, "Their bodies are adapted to the range of temperatures on the moon, and they don't need oxygen to live." Okay, not needing oxygen is fine, there are plenty of other ways to metabolize chemicals for energy. But do you know what the range of temperature is on the moon? We're talking around -150°C to +100°C. So well below freezing water and it gets above boiling water. It would be very difficult to conceive of a biology that could adapt to this naturally or even a way it could do it. Granted, it could just be part of the fiction of your story: "They've adapted. Period," and not going into how it was done and the reader just has to accept it. On the other hand, trying to think of a plausible scientific way this could be done could result in your story taking an interesting path that you would never have before thought of. Maybe they're excellent genetic engineers and have figured out a way to produce a natural chemical antifreeze that keeps their blood(?) liquid at those temperatures, or maybe they have two circulatory systems that work in tandem, one using liquid methane when it's too cold for water. Or it could just be technological. Or they go into hibernation around lunar noon and midnight. Maybe they live below the surface around the skin depth level (where the temperature does not change nearly as much). You just want to be careful to avoid the "Red Matter" of the latest Star Trek movie. Scientists everywhere groaned when we came up with this imaginary "red matter" that somehow produces a black hole. Or the "supernova that threatened the galaxy" which makes no sense because supernovae will only affect a VERY local region of space on the scale of a few light years in diameter (the galaxy is 100,000 light-years across).
I don't consider humanoid aliens to be very unrealistic, but that they would look similar to us or identical is unrealistic, unless they have modified themselves to move around without being detected.
I have a question about this. If the story concept means nothing, then how would you write someting without coming up with a concept first? In additon, is asking you this question a story idea?
From my own perspective it's acceptable to make mistakes in your science fiction depending on the tone of the book. Most people will accept fantastical devices and events that don't have much to back it up. Most popular sci fi works that way. Ideally you write as factually as you can whenever it makes sense. Personally, the 'walking without gravity' and 'not needing oxygen' lines of your concept stood out to me and did distract me. If you can back it those up in the story with some sort of logic that might be fine. People that understand science well might groan, but others wouldn't necessarily care as long as the rest of the story was well written and entertaining. I'd recommend you steer clear of the things you don't understand whenever possible or get assistance. There are subjects I will either research or simply not touch on. It can make sense of none of the characters involved understand what's going on either.
Why are you asking this question? Are you afraid you might invest all your time and energy into something that no one will want to read? What other people have said is true: it depends on how you write it. Even if you write a bad premise really well, people will still read it (p.s. this is a good premise in my opinion). If you can't write it well, then re-write, re-write, re-write until it's good.
No. As long as you work with an average understanding of the topics the people who would be and are not a significant portion [numerically] of the sci-fi cumminty. What this person is saying is that all sci-fi should be what is call 'hard sci-fi', it's a [very] niech subgenra of sci-fi in which scientific accuracy is prized above all else. Attempting to write with this level of 'acuacy' will date your stories by irrevocably tying them to your current [incomplete] understanding of the universe. Despite what I said above I'm going to say no, and heres why: Firstly Sci-Fi fans tend to know more in certain obscure corners of the indicated fields than is common [Note that a very little research should be able to fill that gap]; secondly and more important it's not what you do know that's important, it's how much you can get away with not knowing [Look at the Martian tales of Edgar Rice Burroughs which are sometimes not even internal consultant on matters of science and are still beloved classics that have stood the test of time] Basically what I'm saying is that no class or textbook covers the esoteric range of knowledge a sci-fi writer needs, but it's also not hard to learn. Very true, and I contend it applies to the science as well.
The concept is nothing and everything at the same time....... You have to have a concept to begin with, and to build your story from...... However, even if your concept isn’t the most original sounding, it doesn’t mean that you can't build a unique story around it. I was worried about my story having a generic concept as well, but I realize now that judging a story by its concept is like judging people by stereotypes.
If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times: If the story speaks to you, write it. After it's done and polished, find a market for it.
