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Imagination.

© David A Simpson.

Years ago writers and authors would at some point in their work illustrate the main features, beautiful and detailed artwork was included to take the reader deeper into the fantasy world they were creating. Look for any old editions of H.G.Wells and the Time Machine will not only be described but illustrated, space rockets and landing craft appeared in his other works. Jules Verne and the Nautilus, his vision of the future was drawn to create the monster armour plated nuclear submarine.

Today's writers have the benefit of television and cinema to display a wonderful selection of spacecraft and alien worlds. The alien creatures come alive with the art of the make up artist and the images are stored in the subconscious of the reader waiting to be activated in some way by the next book they read.

It would be difficult to teach a correct way of describing an alien world or spaceship but you can always test your ability to conjure up an image by asking for advise from friends. Write a short description of an alien landscape or spacecraft and ask several friends or fellow writers to read the text and then sketch, draw or describe what the text brings to their mind. We are not looking for amazing artwork or an in depth analysis, just the outline of the image you described. I guarantee the results will be incredibly different. The image you had will be seen totally different in the minds of others. The film industry will have planted the seeds of subliminal fantasy and your work will encourage and form a whole new world of images in the readers of your work.

The Science Fiction writer today can encourage and develop more extreme scenarios because the reader has been stimulated visually by other medias and the imagination is waiting for the outline to be personally formed by your ideas. Try to find the key points from talking with people interested in your topic and incorporate them in your work. Look at the film industry and it's portrayal of Science Fiction in the past and how it uses the subject now, the detail today is magnificent and only needs new ideas and scenarios to move further into the imagination of the people who enjoy the theme so much. I will give an example of the difference of the individual. I asked for the image created from the following text. "Slowly, silently the smooth round shape materialized from the sea of stars, its shimmering black metallic hulk reflecting the stars and planets around, making it almost invisible, its size almost matching a small planet's moon as it glided slowly by".

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