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A couple of years ago I was invited to give a talk on Science Fiction to the Pinner Philosophy Group. I am grateful that they have given me permission to repeat part of the exercise here.

For the talk I decided to concentrate on the What If? aspect, to prove that SF could be a vehicle for any stream of ideas, and it could be used to discuss a variety of concepts (and philosophies) with an open mind. I was also careful to point out that goodSF follows the rules, ie you cannot have the cavalry coming to the rescue at the last minute. So whatever develops in the story is fairly and logically based on a What If? made reasonably clear during the story, with no surprising non-sequiturs cropping up, nor unexpected rabbits materialising out of previously unmentioned hats.

The PPG talk is normally in two parts with a social tea-break in the middle. So during the tea break I split the group into three arbitrary Ideas committees, each of which had a brief to complete an Ideas task, as detailed below.

Possible Main Plots

Possible Sub Plots

Possible Characters

After the tea break, I then asked each committee to tell us all what Ideas they had come up with. Then I gave them all the What If?, and we thrashed out on a flip chart a short story based on the Plot, Sub Plot and Characters they had suggested.

The What If?

We ran out of time, as one might expect with such a lively debate, but I was given enough very useful detail on the flip chart sheets such that later, once home again, I was able to boil it all down to 500 words in about an hour, and I chose the title from several they had suggested during the discussion. With a little more recent tidying-up into the pdf, it is shown here.

Genesis by Pinner Philosophy Group

I would be intrigued to hear if anyone else goes through this exercise and comes up with their own set of 500 words (plus or minus a few) for their own story. I think it is definitely best if the Ideas committees do not see the What If? before they define the plots etc. I’ll post the best ones I receive here, with appropriate credit to the authors.

For some excellent examples of the genre, I suggest it is worth reading ‘100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories’ and ‘17X Infinity’, if you can find them! Especially search out ‘A Loint of Paw’ by Isaac Asimov, which is in several anthologies including 100 GSFSSS