Fun Friday–What Writers Can Learn from Star Trek

In addition to geeking out when I discover that things like Monarchy—a documentary about the history of England/Britain through its succession of kings and queens—are available to watch online at Netflix, as well as over the sci-fi superstar guest stars on Chuck, y’all may have picked up that I’m a huge Star Trek fan. Not so much the original series, but pretty much everything since then. (See here, here, and here for a few examples, in case you didn’t know this about me.)

So when I followed a link on one of the Trek blogs I read and read this article, I knew I had to adapt it for writers.

What Writers Can Learn from Star Trek
Seek out new life and new civilizations.

If you aren’t seeking out new people, new cultures, new experiences, your writing is going to get stale and you’re going to eventually run out of new story ideas.

Non-interference is the prime directive.

Resist “author intrusion” into your story. Let your characters tell their own story.

Keep your phaser set on stun.

Especially at the end of each chapter. Stunning your readers with a great hook keeps them reading!

Humans are highly illogical.

Yes, they are. And characters are human. So illogical things should happen to them—and there shouldn’t always be easy, logical answers to every question.

Enemies are often invisible, like Klingons, they can be cloaked.

Hidden enemies make for great plot twists.

Infinite Diversity and Infinite Combinations (IDIC).

Don’t write about the same kinds of characters all the time. Diversify. Put totally different/opposite types of people together in combinations that add layers of conflict to your story.

When your logic fails, trust a hunch.

Not even Mr. Spock had a logical answer to every problem. When a story problem faces you, sometimes you aren’t going to be able to outline it away. Sometimes, you just have to go with your gut and try something totally illogical to solve the problem.

Insufficient data does not compute.

Do more research than you’ll ever use in your story. Readers can always tell when an author didn’t do her due diligence and doesn’t have a good background in the fact-based aspects of her fiction.

Even in our own world sometimes we are aliens.

It’s okay to be different from the non-writers out there. It’s even okay to be different from the other writers out there. The more unique you are, the more unique your experiences, the more unique your fiction will be.

And one I’m adding . . .
When the crew works together, the problem is always resolved.

When all the elements of your story work together, you’ll give your readers a satisfying ending

Live long and prosper!