The Backfire Moment
Alright, so I saw folks on Spacebattles buzzing about these beginner tricks for awesome sci-fi writing. Tons of advice flying around. Honestly? It felt like everyone was yelling the same things. Stuff like “build your world!” or “deep characters matter!” Duh. But useful? Nah. My eyes glazed over real quick. Needed something simpler, something I could actually do without drowning.
Grabbing One Ugly Duckling
Forced myself to dig deeper. Scrolled past the popular stuff, hunting for the oddball tip, the one getting ignored. Found it. Buried deep. Some random user said: “Just write the spark, then run. Cut everything else, especially at the start.” Basically: Your first 500 words? Only two things exist. Character + One Big Problem. Nothing more. World details? Politics? Tech specs? Forget them. Like, seriously forget them. Just put one person, or one thing, directly into the fire. See what happens next. That became my test subject.
Throwing Myself into the Mess
Decided to play dumb. Opened a new doc. Blank screen syndrome hit, yeah? Instead of planning, I typed: Sergeant Vex’s boots melted. That’s it. No setting. No backstory. Why? How? Didn’t care. Her boots were melting. Immediate problem. Started writing what she did. Panic? Yeah. Desperation? Sure. Sweaty palms scrabbling at molten plastisteel. Nothing else existed. Didn’t let myself describe the planet, the ship, even her full uniform. Just melting boots -> her reaction -> what she tried next -> how that failed miserably. Pure survival instinct. Kept it raw.
- Cut every word that tried to sneak in background info.
- Ignored the itch to describe the cool, smoky sky above her.
- When a thought like “maybe her suit should spark?” popped up, I slammed the door. Only the boot crisis mattered.
Push Through The Awkwardness
Felt stupid at first. Like writing with one hand tied. Sentences stayed short and choppy. Vex basically yelled, scrambled, failed, yelled louder. Bare bones. But kept going for like 300 words straight. Focused purely on now. What’s happening this second? How is she responding right now? The weird thing? Once I pushed past feeling like an idiot, it got… intense? Focusing purely on her instant reactions, the physical sensations (heat stinging her face, the sickly sweet smell of melting gear), the immediate scramble to fix it – somehow it pulled me in deeper. Felt more urgent than my usual flowery rambling start.
The “Oh!” Moment (Not What I Expected)
Read it back later. Was it polished? Heck no. It was rough, ugly even. But the core feeling? That immediate panic? It punched. Hard. Because I hadn’t gotten distracted building the world around it. Reader feedback hit the nail: they didn’t need the setting explained; the problem forced them to imagine it right away. The burning boots were the world. Leaving all that other stuff blank? Made them fill it in, weirdly involving them more. That simple “problem-first” kickstart generated more tension and reader engagement in 300 words than my usual careful world-building intro chapters. Learned the hard way: sometimes starting small and ugly lets the big stuff breathe later. Didn’t find the magic trick I expected. Found something better: how little you actually need to grab someone by the throat.
