What Will the Future Look Like?

    Although not a requirement, most science fiction takes place in the future. As a sci-fi writer, a large portion of what I do is based around my envisioning of the future. My novel takes place in the year 2324.

    So why 2324? The year is a very important part of defining how the future will look. If you start too close to the current year you'll end up with situations like George Orwell's 1984, a dystopian social science fiction novel who's time is already long past. I wouldn't want to write a book that can easily be disproved in a few decades. A couple hundred years in the future sets a good time frame; there's a lot of time for technology and our pioneering of the universe to grow but it's not long enough that everything will change. We'll still have Earth and some semblance of modern technology. 

    After that's been established we decide the mood. In the same time frame a dystopian future will look completely different from a utopian one. In my case I chose a realistic and slightly optimistic future where the massive over population is weighed against planet saving green technology. People live in cities dwarfing our present ones. Some of the smarter cities adapted trees and plants into the outer walls of their architecture but other are forced to have parks in domes to protect from the pollution. 

    Lastly we decide how interaction with aliens shaped the future but that's a topic for another time. Here's some description from my novel: 

    "Every coast was coated in grey as elevated cities expanded over the water. Even on the light side large patches of cities, visible from space, flickered orange. From pole to pole they sprouted. The Earth, a tapestry torn and patched time and again, by someone who could not find the original fabric.

    Green technology couldn’t keep up with the pollution rate but had saved the planet from certain extinction. Artificial atmospheric cooling coils, air filters and recycling plants strained without end to combat the demands of the twenty seven billion human population. Some cities were designed to incorporate plants into their structures, ledges on the exterior walls. Others weren’t. The remaining natural wildlife habitats had been set aside or constructed on elevated platforms and artificial islands. A world constantly devouring and recycling itself. 

[...]

    His glasses showed a few dozen spacescrapers protruding through the clouds. Each were roughly twice as tall as skyscrapers and several times as wide; like redwoods in a diverse forest. As they descended to skyscraper altitude the haze thinned.

    The city below was aglow with billions of neon lights which reflected off the clouds like a cave ceiling. Orange, yellow and red from the streets and hover lanes and blue by ads. Pollution ran rampant and citizens required air philters when traveling the streets. Renewable energy was widespread yet not enough alone to feed the ravenous civilization.

    Requisite transparent pipes formed bridges and highways between buildings, pumped with the filtered interior air. An initiative to incorporate live trees and plants into the outer frames of buildings had eventually failed due to pollution levels leaving cliffs of dead trees in places. Now nature was confined to domed parks with artificial sunlight.

    Everywhere three dimensional billboards advertised every manner of product and establishment a person could possibly find of interest. Everything from food to cellular implant apps. Stacked lanes of hovering cars clogged the streets far below in a blended din of engines and chatter."