Sometimes science fiction is more like fantasy that happens to be set in the future. There’s technology that might as well be magic and far-off planets so isolated they have the same kind of medieval flavor as many fantasy novels. 

Then there’s hard science fiction, which is a kind of storytelling that’s all about science, logic, and accuracy. Some of the most famous authors of the genre—like Arthur C. Clarke, Robert A. Heinlein, and Kim Stanley Robinson—specialize in hard science fiction. 

Hard science fiction is likely appealing to writers whose personal interests span both the arts and the sciences. It’s an incredibly fun genre to write and read, and there are lots of ways to approach it, but given the scientific basis, there are also some special considerations.

Taking Things Seriously

Hard science fiction fans are very smart, often professional academics and scientists, and for many of them, bringing that expertise to their reading habits is all part of the fun. Just take even a minute or two to peruse social media and message boards about books like Andy Weir’s The Martian, and you’ll see how nitpicky they can be. 

If that kind of scrutiny excites your creativity, if it would make you feel honored for such highly educated people to pay that close attention to your work, then you’re in the right place. 

You don’t necessarily need to have any kind of degree in the sciences, but you should certainly have more than a passing interest in something like physics or astronomy. In addition to reading lots of other science fiction, you should also be reading a lot of nonfiction in your preferred field. Once you have a functional draft, you should also recruit beta readers purely for the science—have someone read for things like character development and realistic dialogue, and someone else check your math. 

Don’t Forget Your Audience

While you should be prepared for scholar-level scrutiny if you claim to be writing hard science fiction, readers shouldn’t need an advanced degree to understand and enjoy your writing. 

If you’re a hobbyist yourself, think back to when you were first exploring science writing. What kinds of materials reeled you in? What kinds of materials did you put down because they were inaccessible? Try to articulate the differences so you don’t make the mistake of alienating people who are earlier in their learning journey. 

If you’re an academic or some kind of professional scientist, you should try reading popular nonfiction. You likely know of some books in your field that are aimed toward the general public, but given your expertise you might not have read them. Pick up not just those titles related to your work but other ones on topics you are less familiar with. 

You don’t need to water things down in an attempt to lure readers who don’t like hard science fiction at all; not everyone likes every genre, and that’s OK. But you should work hard to make your work accessible to people who want to learn. 

Start with a Problem

You might think that the inherent focus on real, workable science would mean that your options are limited. We don’t have any real idea about how something like interstellar travel might work, how extensively we might be able to blend robotics with human bodies, or even how human bodies will evolve and change over millennia. If the genre demands scientific rigor, doesn’t that limit your ability to do anything interesting? 

As a writer, you can start with a specific scenario, one that doesn’t have to be fully realized with our current technological abilities. For example, say a satellite picks up images of what appears to be an alien shipwreck on Mercury. How do cameras on satellites work? Do we have means of sending radio waves to Mercury with a message? What are the qualities of the planet that would make it difficult for a more intensive investigation? 

Or you can work more from a logical perspective than a practical one. You can fudge the creation of something like interdimensional or interstellar travel. But from there, maybe your scientific exploration is more about what it would mean for the human race to have different groups living and evolving so far apart from each other. Would there come a point where we stop being the same species? What would that point be? How might those groups relate to each other when they come back together? In this case, you might delve into evolutionary biology as well as philosophy. 

Tell a Story

You can have such solid science that your novel could be published in a peer-reviewed academic journal, but if you aren’t telling a good story, even the most discerning of academic readers will put it down. The most enduring hard science fiction stories didn’t make the impact they did because of good math; they did so because the science served to create a more realistic world for the fictional characters to inhabit. Make your characters’ inner lives and conflicts more realistic than anything else in your setting, and your book won’t just be impressive—it will be inspiring. 

Chelsea Ennen is a writer living in Brooklyn with her husband and her dog. When not writing or reading, she is a fiber and textile artist who sews, knits, crochets, weaves, and spins.