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About Frank G Davis
Why I Write Science Fiction
I started reading science fiction books when I was in the seventh grade. That was shortly after the dinosaurs became extinct!
I wrote my first science fiction short story in response to an assignment in my high school English class. My teacher gave me an F for my efforts. He said I must have plagiarized the story from a magazine, it was too good to be written by a kid in high school. I was not happy and told him to give me a topic and I would write him a story in front of him to prove I could write a good story.
So I spent an hour handwriting a story in front of him and the head of the English department. Both seemed to be surprised at what I wrote, but they gave me an A+ on my original story and moved me to honors English.
I write what is called “Hard Science Fiction.”
Robert A. Heinlein was a very famous author from many years ago who coined the phrase. It is used to describe what technology might truly be available in the distant future.
The creators of Star Trek did a great deal of research about what technology could plausibly exist two hundred years from now. They interviewed scientists and engineers who worked for NASA and contractors who built rocket boosters and satellites. They interviewed planners who were designing habitats for our moon, Mars and distant planets. They talked with astronomers who lay out maps of the stars of our universe and what type of stars were needed to support life as we know it.
To me, if it isn’t plausible it’s not good science fiction. It might be great fantasy entertainment, but I want to write about things that might really happen in a near, as well as a distant, future.
To do that, I do a lot of research before I begin writing.
Once I have created my universe, the next thing is to populate it with real human beings and some not so human beings as well. My stories are character driven. I want my readers to identify with the people who populate generation starships and live on Proxima-b. I want them to find the people diverse and interesting and even surprising. I want them to like the heroes and heroines and fear or hate the villains.
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