A lot of people are talking about solarpunk (you guys are awesome!), but quite often the conversations in these spaces feel like Solarpunk the Movement or Solarpunk the Aesthetic. Do we want to live in the worlds you create? So, so bad. In this lifetime, the science is emerging and the path is visible. How do we make it happen??
For writers like Sheryl, a sci-fi literary genre has to go beyond ideals and have three attributes: a reason, a timeline, and an inherent conflict. The genre has to be a living, breathing construct. The genre has to explore concepts that are the essence of why we choose to write solarpunk.
In What is Solarpunk, sci-fi author ARK Watson wrote, “…in Donor, humanity is at harmony with the earth but at war with their moral natures.”
In other words, the world is perfect, but people still suck. Here are the basic tenets:
REASON TO EXIST
Why does this genre exist, and what function does the genre serve in a story? For us, solarpunk isn’t just a genre (like mystery), it’s a setting that brings texture to the story. Solarpunk is a living, breathing character that pushes and pulls its own weight through goal, motivation, and conflict (GMC). For example, living or visiting downside (on-planet) is only allowed with a permit. Earth is forbidden fruit. Almost everyone lives in cities in the sky. Catastrophic events occur in the story and are a result of these limitations. For example, a city being up in the sky and experiencing sabotage at the same time as a solar flare? What could go wrong?
TIMELINE
How did we get here? What events line up to give us this world, this setting, this character? What are the consequences of those events on a global scale in politics, economics, social constructs, medical advances, industry, and technology, to name a few? In solarpunk every attribute has consequences even down to individuals. For example, in one short story, Frequency, the force shields necessary to live in the sky can cause adverse health reactions in some people. Imagine being forced to live within a shield’s proximity anyway. How would you cope? What drugs would you take and what would be the side effects?
CONFLICT
For this writer, solarpunk is man versus man or man vs. society. Expanding on these conflicts begs the question–if the world is perfect, resources are abundant, demographics/populations are “controlled” (a problem in itself), what will the powerful among us control and limit? (Yeah, they have always existed and will always find their way.) In Death in a Perfect World, the wealthy can afford the best of two resources: longevity (life) and death (the fetish’izing of death), while also limiting their availability.
In the timeline listed above, each of those event points make note of a huge shift that brings consequences for all that perfection and imperfection.
Please consider subscribing to the newsletter if you’re interested in the timeline listed above, world building, short stories, freebies, the latest news, and other stuff.
