Continuing my look into science fiction for the month of May, the next part of the subject is characters in the genre.

Like any sort of character writing, the author must have a firm grasp of the environment each figure would have been in, as well as individual personality traits. Less nature vs nurture, rather considering how nature and nurture coincide to create the complexities of a person.

Is a character naturally plucky, or is their optimism a coping mechanism for living under a dystopian government? Do these experiences challenge this positivity, or give them a reason to hold on to hope?

Other important questions are how people are typically raised, which philosophies are predominant in the society, and how people with certain natural dispositions react to all this.

If the society is rigid and militaristic, someone who is naturally expressive and iconoclastic would have a very tough time (and depending on the strictness, in mortal danger), prompting a push for change. In communal and laidback areas, someone who is competitive and craves structure would be an oddball, and may go on a space-adventure to achieve that.

Relatability is another factor, one that sci-fi has its own complications with. Characters in modern-era stories are more relatable to us, because a reader from that time understands the general mentality and external factors they are going through . Works from other time periods, however, have less a generation gap, and more of a generation canyon, due to significant changes in the world.

Science fiction is temporal change on steroids, and in some cases, crystal meth. A generation Mariana trench. These characters will typically have experiences, slang, responsibilities, and culture vastly different from the current day. Part of the fun of speculative fiction is figuring many of this out, and expanding one’s worldview; however, part of the responsibility is understanding the fictional universe enough to reflect it in its characters, while presenting it in a way that readers can process and enjoy.

Especially in television or film, it is critical to have the characters relay most of the world-building. Books can get away with disembodied narration doing some of the explaining, but only so much can be said in text scrolling up the screen before a movie itself has to take over.

Thus, it depends on whether a character was separated from many of the sci-fi elements, or at least does not have the full history. Having some characters learn alongside the audience makes it more manageable.

Luke Skywalker in Star Wars was raised around the spacecraft and blasters, but his uncle avoided telling him about the Force, so he receives the information on it as the audience does. Neo from The Matrix is thrown into the high-tech future, and gets the same run-down we do. Bobby from Pendragon has lived his life in only one of ten dimensional territories, and learns about all nine others as he visits them.

And in all these cases, the characters use their prior experiences to deal with the challenges in the story. Luke piloting his speeder and bullseye-ing womp rats as a farm boy is relevant in the final battle of A New Hope. Neo being a hacker helps his understanding of the Matrix’s simulation. Bobby’s uncle taking him for skydiving, scuba diving, and other activities helps him out as the books progress.

Of course, all of this could be thrown out the window by having people in this futuristic world act and talk just like people in our time. Which is fine, as long as it fits the tone. It works well in satires like Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, because it shows how the weaknesses of people and societies carry over across the universe.

As with all writing, every factor has an interconnected relationship with the others, while still being its own piece to remove and examine.

And in a genre as up past the clouds as sci-fi, having realistic and tangible characters grounds the reader. Critics say that there is no need for realism in sci-fi because of spaceships and laser swords, but this idea forgets about suspension of disbelief.

Suspending disbelief is like a crane suspending a girder off the ground. The cable needs to be firmly attached to something solid, otherwise it will never pick it up; and there must be enough weight to prevent the girder from pulling the crane down with it.

Characters provide that counterbalance, allowing us to suspend our disbelief and enjoy the science fiction. And knowing how to engineer that crane will help build a strong, structured story.

Who are some of your favorite sci-fi characters? What makes them likable, and how does this enrich the genre?

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