World Building - The importance of analytics
This post is going to be the first of many dedicated to the actual nuts and bolts of science fiction writing - from my perspective. That's a big caveat, but a necessary one. My personal opinion is that writers, and by that I mean anyone who uses their brain in a creative way when putting ink to paper or finger to key or voice to microphone, shouldn't let anyone tell them what the 'right' way to write is. No one has a single, best method - everyone's brain works differently, so
the process is going to look different on an individual level. And frankly, that's something to celebrate. A multitude of approaches to a single challenge creates much better results than the ol' "do it this way or else" mentality.
Naturally, I have my preferred way of writing. Generally it involves long periods of waking dreams where my right brain is busy visualizing/living the story I want the reader to experience, while my left brain tries to record all the details within the clumsy limitations of our English language. Does it always work? Of course not - sometimes the muse is silent. Sometimes my brain doesn't have enough glucose to keep the vision going, so I end up without much accomplished and in need of a nap.
After my most productive sessions, I come out mentally exhausted - fuzzy and foggy and slow, simply because the world around me faded away for a couple of hours while my brain created a new one. And that process, artificially inducing sights and sounds, smells, tastes, emotions and so forth, burns a lot of sugar.
Anyway, the other day I was lucky enough to participate in an Innovation Fund Conference sponsored by my employer. The point of said conference is forward thinking - future proofing - the public sector to emerging trends, while meeting public expectations in a meaningful and cost effective way. In other words, implementing procedural and policy changes that positively affect our efficiency/effectiveness and the public's access to services and information.
So, what does this have to do with science fiction? A lot, it turns out. Forward thinking - predicting the future when no future facts exist, relies heavily on a creative process that combines analyzing data to figure out what people have done, are doing and are likely to do later, and then creatively interpreting (read: guessing/imagining) how we're going to meet those needs down the road.
Anyone who tells you their projections for the future contain no such creative interpretation is either a fool or a liar. Because when you're planning for the future, it's important to be aware of your own personal biases - no matter how good your number crunching is, how you see the results, how you frame them, depends on your frame of mind. That's why so many analyses rely on multiple perspectives - it's a way to balance out those naturally occurring biases.
The point of all this is pretty straightforward. My introduction to analytics has given me something of a revised tool set for creating deeply imagined worlds. I'm not saying anyone else has to approach this process the same way, but I urge you to give it a shot. Whether that means crunching statistics big data style or simply engaging in trend-lining or even just reading up on actual trends based on the projections of others, I leave to you. I will say I got a lot out of a simple round-table game where our group built a world based on a series of socioeconomic trends and then solved a problem for a particular demographic within that world.
Who would have thought - data analytics and public policy strategies actually help create better science fiction. In my opinion - feel free to disagree.
As always, thanks for reading.
the process is going to look different on an individual level. And frankly, that's something to celebrate. A multitude of approaches to a single challenge creates much better results than the ol' "do it this way or else" mentality.
Naturally, I have my preferred way of writing. Generally it involves long periods of waking dreams where my right brain is busy visualizing/living the story I want the reader to experience, while my left brain tries to record all the details within the clumsy limitations of our English language. Does it always work? Of course not - sometimes the muse is silent. Sometimes my brain doesn't have enough glucose to keep the vision going, so I end up without much accomplished and in need of a nap.
After my most productive sessions, I come out mentally exhausted - fuzzy and foggy and slow, simply because the world around me faded away for a couple of hours while my brain created a new one. And that process, artificially inducing sights and sounds, smells, tastes, emotions and so forth, burns a lot of sugar.
Anyway, the other day I was lucky enough to participate in an Innovation Fund Conference sponsored by my employer. The point of said conference is forward thinking - future proofing - the public sector to emerging trends, while meeting public expectations in a meaningful and cost effective way. In other words, implementing procedural and policy changes that positively affect our efficiency/effectiveness and the public's access to services and information.
So, what does this have to do with science fiction? A lot, it turns out. Forward thinking - predicting the future when no future facts exist, relies heavily on a creative process that combines analyzing data to figure out what people have done, are doing and are likely to do later, and then creatively interpreting (read: guessing/imagining) how we're going to meet those needs down the road.
Anyone who tells you their projections for the future contain no such creative interpretation is either a fool or a liar. Because when you're planning for the future, it's important to be aware of your own personal biases - no matter how good your number crunching is, how you see the results, how you frame them, depends on your frame of mind. That's why so many analyses rely on multiple perspectives - it's a way to balance out those naturally occurring biases.
The point of all this is pretty straightforward. My introduction to analytics has given me something of a revised tool set for creating deeply imagined worlds. I'm not saying anyone else has to approach this process the same way, but I urge you to give it a shot. Whether that means crunching statistics big data style or simply engaging in trend-lining or even just reading up on actual trends based on the projections of others, I leave to you. I will say I got a lot out of a simple round-table game where our group built a world based on a series of socioeconomic trends and then solved a problem for a particular demographic within that world.
Who would have thought - data analytics and public policy strategies actually help create better science fiction. In my opinion - feel free to disagree.
As always, thanks for reading.
Comments