The Summer of Sci-Fi

Wednesdays. Am I right?

As far as being a sci-fi movie fan, this summer has looked promising. We’ve had more science-fiction films come out this summer than any I can recently remember — Oblivion, After Earth, Elysium, Riddick, and so on. Sure, not all of them have been great, but it’s cool to see that Hollywood is interested in sci-fi again. 

A friend asked me last night if I was excited that science fiction was coming back into vogue, and I said of course I was.

Then he asked me if I thought one of my stories had a better chance of being picked up as a film now that Hollywood is making sci-fi again.

I really hadn’t considered it, but no. I really don’t think that. It’s not because I dislike my own work or wouldn’t want to see it on the big screen — I just try not to think that far ahead.

My pal and podcasting buddy Christopher Gronlund has talked before about chasing trends — how friends would tell him he should write vampire romance fiction, because that’s hot right now, and he could sell a billion books that way. His response has been that he’ll never chase a trend, and I agree with him.

It’s not that I necessarily don’t like what’s selling at the moment — sometimes I do. And if I have a really good idea for whatever’s trending, I’ll write it eventually. But for me, it’s more important to write what I want to write, when I want to write it. If sci-fi’s hot and I really would rather write a crime thriller, then I’m writing a crime thriller. If crime thrillers are hot and what I really want to write is a slow, meandering book about a guy eating a roll of crackers for 212 pages… Cracker Man it is.

I think that’s one of the beauties of being a writer — no one can really tell you what to write or when to write it. You’re free to do what you want, when you want.

So, what about you? What type of story would you like to see get out there, regardless of trends?