By Monday, I would like the students to be able to explain the basic idea for their story. They should be able to tell me the basic plot, the conflict that needs to be resolved, and the future technology that is being used in the story.For my story, I have a future setting where, instead of burying people, the bodies are digitized and sent either to be stored on a server or to somewhere else where they are undigitized and buried. In my story, the bodies start arriving with areas missing. This is due to how files are sent on the Internet now, in small packets that are reassembled when they arrive at the receiving computer. I have ideas for the conflict. Someone could be stealing the packets mid-stream. Maybe some packets are getting lost. Maybe they are getting misdirected.
Here are four writing prompts.
Science Fiction Writing Prompt: Sucked into a computer
Set-up:
You have been physically sucked into your computer. Not only can you see everything being done on your computer, you are also able to leave your computer and travel through the Internet and view what others are doing on their computers.
How to start:
Start by listing all of the good and bad things we do on computers.
What would you see people doing?
Think about the computers that you would want to visit. What are your reasons for going to these?
Exploring the reality behind the idea:
Based on research, what you have read, or what you have experienced, what would you expect to see?
(Hacking, monitoring, tracking, controlling remote computers, viruses. If you know how computers work, that will add realism to your piece.)
Brain storm a setting and story-line:
This story is pure science fiction. We cannot physically enter the network and move around, but in this story we can. How?
What is the setting? Where? When?
Who are the characters?
Most importantly, what is the conflict that needs to be resolved?
Purpose for writing- social commentary:
This piece will be a mirror for us to examine what we do on our computers today. Do we need to worry about where our habits will lead us to in the future? Is there something we need to change before it is too late? Does something need to be invented that shows up in your story?
Deeper themes:
Should our computer use be monitored and controlled?
Who determines what is morally good or morally wrong?
Science Fiction Writing Prompt: Portable communications devices and use in future
Set-up:
Watch the MSNBC clip that explains how use of electronic communication devices is up in children. The report asks if we should be concerned about how much time children spend communicating. It gives statistics that seem to say that too much use impacts children negatively.
You are a kid who uses these things. What do you think? If the use has gone up so dramatically in five years, what will it be like in twenty-five? Write a story that includes the use of communication devices in the future.
How to start:
Start by listing all of the good and bad things about Facebook, Twitter, texting, cell phone usage, and IMing. How do you and your friends use these things? What have you observed about other people using these?
From morning until sleep, jot down every way that you use your devices to communicate. (Or describe how you know others use theirs.)
Now envision how we will be constantly in touch with each other in the future. If the MSNBC report is right, children will use these things even more!
Exploring the reality behind the idea:
What is the latest technology we have for communicating? How many people use Facebook and Twitter? Find statistics about time spent on electronic devices.
Brain storm a setting and story-line:
Think about how we communicate now. Think about how natural it is for you, but to adults and older generations, what you do now is so strange. Well, 25 years from now, what your kids will do will be normal to them but strange to you. What will they be doing? (I wrote notes when I was in school. How old fashioned!)
What is the setting? Where? When?
Who are the characters?
Most importantly, what is the conflict that needs to be resolved?
Purpose for writing- social commentary:
This piece will be a mirror for us to examine what we do on our computers today. Do we need to worry about where our habits will lead us to in the future? Is there something we need to change before it is too late? Do you want to show us that we have nothing to worry about?
Deeper themes:
Being in touch with others is a basic human need. Do these devices make us more or less human?
Science Fiction Writing Prompt: Imagine the city of the future
Set-up:
Find a picture on the Internet of someone’s vision of how we will be living in the future. Stare at it! Imagine living there. Now think about the city and how it functions, how it is constructed. How is this city different from what we have now. Why is it designed like it is? What problems do we have today that you imagine they have solved in the future?
How to start:
Stare at the picture and describe all the things you see happening in the picture. Where do the people live and work? How do they relax? How does the city function on a mechanical level? Really examine the structures. Then compare each thing you see to what we have today.
You will have to imagine a lot of other things. What about schools and sports?
Exploring the reality behind the idea:
Explore cities that are over crowded, like Hong Kong. Explore large sky scrapers and futuristic buildings that being built now.
Brain storm a setting and story-line:
The setting for your story will be the city in your picture, so the story can be about anything. However, you will want to make the image of the city vivid in the reader’s mind. You will want to use lots of sensory details. (The picture will not accompany your written piece. Create the scene in our minds. That’s what writer’s do.)
What is the setting? Where? When?
Who are the characters?
Most importantly, what is the conflict that needs to be resolved?
Purpose for writing- social commentary:
Do we need to worry about where our habits will lead us to in the future? Is there something we need to change before it is too late? Does something need to be invented that shows up in your story?
Deeper themes:
Nothing stays the same.
Hope for the future.
Science Fiction Writing Prompt: “Think different”
Set-up:
Imagine something we don’t have today that you hope we will have in the future.
How to start:
Put on your thinking cap! Don’t be limited by your imagination. However, this is science fiction, so don’t have magic pixie horses and stuff. Thing science and technology creating something that will help mankind.
Exploring the reality behind the idea:
After you have though about your idea, do some research. Is there something like it today? Is someone working on a solution now?
Brain storm a setting and story-line:
What is the setting? Where? When?
Who are the characters?
Most importantly, what is the conflict that needs to be resolved?
Purpose for writing- social commentary:
Deeper themes:
Science Fiction Writing Prompt:
Set-up:
How to start:
Exploring the reality behind the idea:
Brain storm a setting and story-line:
What is the setting? Where? When?
Who are the characters?
Most importantly, what is the conflict that needs to be resolved?
Purpose for writing- social commentary:
Deeper themes:
