One of the things I enjoy most while setting up a new story is the world building. It can be a long process, and sometimes it’s more a series of discoveries that I make as I’m writing the story itself, rather than something I outline and follow from the beginning. I’ve been from one extreme to the next…entirely making it up as I go along, to building a world and knowing the details down to the temperate zones and weather patterns (alongside the systems of magic). Even making up maps for continents and such can suck me in for hours on end.
Aside from creating some place for my imagination to romp around, is there a use for conjuring up imaginary planets?
Science says there is.
Basically, scientists were discovering worlds that were so far outside what they were expecting that they just decided to start making up classifications that hadn’t been discovered yet, but could (within the laws of physics as we know them) potentially exist. This way, when we do actually discover (visit/explore/conquer/ravage) these planets sometime in the future, we’ll already have a system worked out on how to label and categorize them.
Now that’s thinking ahead. Some examples? How about planets made of mostly carbon monoxide, helium, or carbon? How about pure water and ice planets? It all sounds like something you see on the viewscreen of the Starship Enterprise, I know. But in our big universe, a lot of things seem possible.
Question for the day: Imagine a weird planet, something totally unlike what people would consider a “normal” heavenly body, and figure out what kind of stories might happen on it. For instance, I remember seeing a novel set on a planet that wasn’t round, but something like a polyhedron, with icy mountains along each straight border that walled kingdoms and cultures off from each other. I can’t remember the name of this novel (if you recognize it, I’d love to know), but I do remember being captivated by the idea and thinking how unique it sounded. Maybe that’s another way to make your story stick out–don’t just make up a new system of magic, stick your entire world way out there on the spectrum of scientific possibility.
I see that smile.
I can remember reading one terrific pulp sf story that featured life forms based on fire (and it worked too!), as well as a “Body-snatchers” effort where the aliens stole bodies by transmitting their own spirits through photographs – if you looked at their pic *zap* you were gone.
There’s a great deal of old sf which we’d probably laugh at now, but I wonder sometimes if our increasing knowledge of science doesn’t in some way restrict our inventiveness in fiction rather than increase it.
By the way, that’s assuming you want your fiction to adhere to generally-accepted scientific principles… 🙂
I guess it doesn’t have to. I enjoy reading and working with stories where the world is totally possible, but for the added magical systems within it, or a magical system that, in ways, works like a science in itself. I tend to write more in the fantasy realms than science fiction, partially because it lets me suspend my belief more often and make up the rules as I go (to an extent).
I’m lost… (I should stop while I’m ahead, huh?)
I found your blog while out surfing for a standard Planet Classification System for writing SciFi.
The IAU has a star classification system, but only classifies planets as either “rocky” or “jovian”, yet these terms do not denote any size or mass of the planet. You can say both Earth and Mercury are rocky, but that still doesn’t tell me which one is larger and which one is smaller, does it?
I have been racking my brain trying to learn if the Star Trek Classification System is standard in all SciFi or copyrighted to Paramount. Obviously, the IAUs star classification system is public domain, but what does a SciFi writer do when he/she needs to describe a planet.
I mean, if their story does not include Earth or the Sol System then, in my opinion, words like Terran, Earth-like, and terrestrial cannot be used.
Any thoughts or links would be helpful.
Hey AEDS, interesting question. The first thing that pops to mind if I were trying to figure out a way to classify planets in a story I’m writing: Make up my own system to work with. If it’s your universe, then you are going to know it and define it better than anyone. What terms do you want to use? Will humans be involved? If so, you could play with the “modern” classification system, just mutate it somewhat so it seems like it has evolved along with society and language.
The article I linked to in this post listed some basic ways to describe various planets, such as in this image: http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn12685/dn12685-2_600.jpg
Here are a few other links I’ve hunted up. I haven’t sorted through them all, so I’m not sure how useful or not they’ll be for what you need, but they might be worth a look.
http://www.experiencefestival.com/planet
http://july.fixedreference.org/en/20040724/wikipedia/Planet
http://www.alcyone.com/max/links/sf.html
http://arcbuilder.home.bresnan.net/PCL01Index.html
Hope this helps!
Thank you so much Josh.
This has really been helpful. The task I have challenged myself with is becoming increasingly easier to tackle with input like yours.