Saturday, October 13, 2012

Why girls don't "get" SF

Here's the plot of a story. A near-future civilization perfects genetic engineering. Soon, everyone is smart, good-looking and perfectly socialised. Only a small, feral underclass preserves the unreconstructed genes of "wild humans". Then disaster strikes and we need psychopathic killers with little imagination and no manners. The hour of the chav has arrived.

To turn this from a scenario into a story we need characters - well-imagined people with hopes and fears and personalities. The better we do this, the more the technological plot elements fade away: how could they compete with real human relationships?

If you're a girl.