Part 1: Research (Session 1-3)
The course began with an introduction to Sci-Fi, exploring its historical connections to social and political movements across the world. In the opening lecture participants learnt about the various histories and sub-genres of the Sci-Fi and how they interconnected. From Afrofuturism to Russian Cosmism, the variety of ways the future has been imagined by writers across the globe and through time was highlighted. Using the works of Ursula K. Le Guin and Octavia Butler, amongst others, the group explored how speculative fiction can be used as a productive tool to imagine other ways of being. The first session ended with a collaborative map-drawing exercise called “A Quiet Year” where players are asked to imagine a community of people rebuilding their homeland after a prolonged occupation.
In the second session, focus was given to the construction of believable imaginary worlds. In another presentation, Callum gave an overview of a variety of techniques used in science fiction worldbuilding, as well as many of the pitfalls. After some small writing tasks, the group undertook another collaborative task titled ‘backcasting’. Here the groups were presented with fictional scenarios 100 years in the future. Their task we to then create a plausible timeline from the present day to this given point. Working backwards and forwards along the timeline they had to come up with a logical series of events that might reach their goal. In the final research session the group examined what was involved in creating unique characters, as well as some of the stereotypes and archetypes that have traditionally been deployed.
Part 2: Story Development (Session 4-8)
In the second part of the workshop series, participants focused on developing their own ideas for a short science fiction story. These sessions consisted of many short writing exercises to spark concepts and to develop different writing techniques. Many exercises involved experimenting with futurity and exploring the use of past and future tenses in relation to fiction. Through one-to-one tuition and feedback each individual worked on completing a story of their own to be published in a group publication.
In addition to the main 8 week workshop Callum also hosted a number of other workshops with organizations across Palestine. The first was a two part workshop in collaboration with The Fiction Council, a youth club in East Jerusalem exploring the basics of Science Fiction.
Fiction Council Workshop
Hosh Jalsa, Fiction Council Jerusalem, 8, 14 february 2019
