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The galaxy teems with deadly aliens from ever replicating kill bots to insidious SUV sized
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We need you to join the elite few writers willing to put their very niche slice of the
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So don your power armor as we write about humanity’s heroic exploits as they journey
through the stars.
Service guarantees citizenship!
Would you like to know more?
Welcome to space boot camp fellow writers.
It’s up to Terrible Writing Advice to help turn aspiring military science fiction authors
into hardened veterans willing to use any cliché without thought.
So remember, the enemy is gate is down and the only good bug is a dead bug.
Now where should we start with our military scifi work?
Now one of the distinctive features of military sci-fi is its perspective is usually grounded
with the soldier on the front lines rather than that of a civilian.
This allows for the story to take a humanistic approach and dive deep into the horrors of
war as well as explore the development of a nuanced and interesting protagonist caught
in the fires of conflict and carnage.
So it’s only natural that we shove the main character on the back burner and focus on
power armor instead.
My power armor is so cool that it renders my story completely immune to even the most
biting critiques from the audience.
Oh, I guess it protects the characters as well.
My power armor is so amazing that it can generate new abilities on the fly with zero drawbacks.
Having power armor with consistent limitations and an easy to understand ruleset that the
audience can follow along with would add annoying constraints to my creativity.
I need my power armor to constantly generate “get out of trouble free” cards for my
characters.
Never mind that real military equipment fails all the time and often spends more time in
maintenance than it does in use, but hey who needs a high tension scene where the main
characters are forced to think fast after all of their gear fails?
Or capture the desperation of a situation as the characters must march off to battle
in worn gear on the edge of breaking.
Nah.
I’m too busy going overboard will all of the military tech to notice those story opportunities.
Be sure to describe every weapon and piece of machinery in an excruciatingly long info
dump.
I could introduce this tech through field training mixed with characterization, or have
two characters argue over which battlemech is the best, but I think just blaring out
all of this tech jargon, full auto, will work best.
Oh look, it’s my favorite tech info dumb, long winded explanations about how faster
than light travel works.
Don’t you worry faster than light drive info-dumps.
I’m saving you for the hard sci-fi video.
Now that we have pulled the Terrible Writing Advice classic move of front loaded exposition,
it’s time to move on to the least important part of military sci-fi, the characters.
It a writer really wants to save on effort, then just rip off all of the characters from
the film Aliens and make them hyper-competent at the cost of their distinctive personalities.
Nothing gets the audience invested quite like a whole squad of people who all talk and act
the exact same.
We must distinguish our selves from the enemy hive mind after all with its army of identical
clones.
These characters would normally be part of a ridged chain of command.
It most real militaries, chain of command is everything!
Modern militaries tend to be heavily structured, requiring precision and discipline for even
the most minor acts of daily routine.
That sounds annoying so I’m just going to ignore it, just like my characters.
I’m sure the audience will buy these are full space marines and not poorly disciplined
conscripts or sit com characters.
Also be sure to have the protagonist promoted super fast, skipping several ranks in their
climb to the top.
Is there a wartime need for a lot of officers to justify such rapid advancement?
I don’t know.
That would require me to actually do some worldbuilding on the state of the war and
I’m far too busy promoting my self-insert… um I mean main character for being awesome.
Now that my protagonist has went from private to 5 star general in two days, I’m sure
they’ll keep letting him go on missions to the front lines.
Using the chain of command as a way to generate conflict isn’t worth all of the actual reading
I would have to do in order to understand how it all works!
Never mind that for a lot of soldiers, they fight the chain command more than their enemy.
Since we are not going to fight with chain of command, then who will our brave space
troopers face on the battlefield?
Well whoever it is, make sure they are a stand in for COMMUNISM!
That won’t be dated.
We could also have them fight space fundamentalists if we want to go with a post 9/11 feel.
I guess since science fiction tends to represent the fears and anxieties of the time in which
it’s written so I suppose the next generation of military scifi antagonists will probably
be social media users and cancel culture.
Whatever a writer goes with, just be sure to ignore the weight and consequence of snuffing
out another sapient being.
Treat killing no differently than shooting a video game enemy.
This goes doubly so when the main antagonists are humans.
I mean why would military fiction explore the ethics and morality of organized violence
as well as the personal costs and psychological toll soldiers must pay who endure these high
stress decisions?
No.
We need to save that space for something far more exciting like my political soapbox.
That’s right.
Everyone who disagrees with the author’s perspective should be portrayed as a straw-man
in the story’s lengthy political rants.
Use scifi to explore competing ideologies?
Since when has science fiction done that?
No time for that because I have to portray all civilians as weak, peace loving hippies
who don’t have what it takes to make the real hard decisions.
They don’t know what we are fighting for!
The only way to stop the evil hive mind from forcing all humans think the same is to have
everyone think the same as the author!
I can always go to the other extreme with an anti-war message that will in no way be
undermined by all of the cool weapons and high octane action drunk on power fantasy.
Just be careful that these conflicts don’t play out in a natural way that informs the
audience on both the perspectives of the characters, and culture of the setting.
One would think that with all of this political rambling that at least a writer could flesh
out the actual politics of the war itself, at least so the writer has an understanding
of what’s going on the background even if it never comes up directly in the story.
But when has war had anything to do with politics?
Could these long political and philosophical discourses be done between characters instead,
capturing the banter that fills the long, malevolent boredom between combat missions?
Could they at least be made really funny?
Well no on both counts.
I would rather the story be a messy vehicle for my contradictory personal philosophy rather
than chronicle the far more interesting space war or explore the personal growth of the
protagonist from soldier to officer.
Next thing you know, people will be wanting my soldiers to use actual tactics in combat
or think in 3D during space battles.
Small unit tactics?
Organized fire teams?
Flexible tactical doctrine to deal with a variety of planet surfaces?
Bah!
My characters don’t need tactics.
That’s what they have power armor for.
All of my soldiers fight alone as individuals.
Is this to contrast their heroic individualism against the sinister collective nature of
the enemy?
Well no, mostly it’s just power fantasy.
Who cares about capturing the anticipation, stress, chaos, and confusion of combat?
Nor does an author need to have the space marines work as a team and show the bonds
forged in combat between soldiers.
I want to remove all adversity from combat because its not like heroism can be found
in the face of adversity.
The greatest adversity in military science fiction isn’t the political soap-boxing,
the evil hive minds, or the lack of believable tactics.
No.
It’s small niche market share.
But hey, that’s okay.
Military science fiction is all about sacrifice, not for money, but for honor, courage, and
country.
It’s about the high calling of putting one’s life on the line to protect humanity.
To stand up for what’s right!
To be a hero!…
Besides, so long as the protagonist is still young we can always rebrand to Yong Adult.
MPERIAL TROOPER: All we have to do is to ship this bomb to our rivals at the federation
and send the sponsor back to the Emperor.
We just shot all those rebels.
We got this.
IMPERIAL TROOPER 2: Perfect!
3 to 5 business days later
GENERAL: What’s this?
Ha!
Those Imperial idiots have sent me this video’s sponsor, Skillshare!
SOLDIER: That’s good news, General.
GENERAL: Finally.
Now we can make up our budget shortfall and take the fight to the enemy!
At long last I’ll get my money’s worth out of that giant robot.
No more bowing to those penny pinching bureaucrats in the Federation Senate who wouldn’t know
a real war if it shot their conscientious objector in the face!
GENERAL: Hello?
CEO: Hey.
My money sense tells me the Federation Defense Forces just got a budget boost.
GENERAL: Yes, we just captured this video’s sponsor, Skillshare, through a daring and
clever raid on Imperial facilities and-
CEO: They shipped it to wrong address again, didn’t they?
GENERAL: Well we are not giving it to you regardless.
Megacorp isn’t getting a single penny from us!
Not after that kill bot you sold us killed all of my men when we turned it on and I still
don’t know where that xenomorph’s wandered off to.
CEO: Megacorp is not liable for any damages incurred by our products.
GENERAL: Whatever.
We are going to access Skillshare’s online learning communities, and thousands of online
classes in writing, technology, productivity, and more with a premium membership.
And with the sponsorship money, we’ll finally be able to fund a full campaign.
CEO: Well someone should have taken Skillshare’s class on Bookkeeping for Freelancers: How
to Handle Your Fiances because sponsorship money isn’t going to cut it.
GENERAL: What?
CEO: Yeah.
TWA fans can go to skl.sh/twa17 or click on the link in the description below to get two
months of Skillshare for free with a subscription being only $10 a month after that.
But even if they do it isn’t going to be enough to make up the Federation’s plummeting
defense spending.
Not unless you want to be burning down blue cat people world trees with generic brand
napalm.
GENERAL: Son of a war protester!
This whole Sponsorship War is nothing but a let down!
I swear every time we almost have a real fight, something stupid comes along and war crime
blocks the whole thing!
Everyone is fighting on twitter or over branding.
Just once I would like a real stand up fight, not a bunch of humanities major pencil pushers
arguing over budget!
KNIGHT COMMANDER: You must stop taking sponsorships.
GENERAL: Oh great.
Now the beatnik knights are here.