11 Ways to Write More Scientific Fiction: Lessons from Michael Crichton

It’s been said that readers will believe anything; it’s the author’s job to convince them.

Keeping readers absorbed in the fictional dream is challenging, but it seemed to be second nature for Michael Crichton, a science fiction and thriller author who most famously enabled his readers to believe that scientists could bring dinosaurs back to life in his blockbuster novel Jurassic Park. Few authors have blended fact with fiction more elegantly. Few authors have better embedded believable and/or accurate scientific information within an engrossing story. This article explores the tactics Crichton uses to craft realistic science fiction within one of his most popular novels, Sphere.

1. Craft characters to serve the plot.

The story’s protagonist, psychologist Dr. Norman Johnson, is brought to a Navy ship in the South Pacific to investigate a mysterious vessel, suspected of being a spaceship, found a thousand feet below the ocean’s surface. Norman specializes in anxiety disorders and was previously asked by the US government to write a report on how the public might react in the event of an alien invasion. “The most likely consequence of contact is absolute terror,” Norman wrote in his report....

2. Set up a conversation between an expert and a layperson.

In order to deliver technical information in simple terms, Crichton sets up conversations between experts and people who know little about the topics of conversation. For example, the story’s mathematician asks Norman if he knows about the Drake equation. As a psychologist, Norman likely wouldn’t know, but the narrator claims that he does. “It was one of the famous proposals in the literature on extraterrestrial life,” Norman thinks, but Crichton then magnanimously has Norman say, “Refresh me.” This prompts the mathematician to explain the equation as he might in introducing it to a naïve person, using simple terms as well as a demonstration. Crichton does this again later with Harry’s question, “You mean like the Davies Message?”...

3. Set up a conversation between two experts.

Crichton delivers a great deal of scientific information via dialogue between well-educated, scientifically inclined characters. Early in the book, the characters become convinced that the vessel on the ocean floor is extraterrestrial. Crichton provides information about a theory known as “the unique hypothesis.”...

4. Educate yourself, then teach it to your readers.

It’s practically a law of writing—especially when dealing with science—that if you don’t understand the material yourself, neither will the reader. When authors don’t understand their subject matter, it’s reflected in the writing. It’s obvious that Crichton goes to great lengths to understand his material. Crichton educated himself on these subjects and then teaches them to the reader through his writing....

5. Use real science to persuade readers.

Crichton’s use of specific facts from scientific literature gives his work credibility and authority, which helps the reader overcome their natural skepticism and keeps them engaged with the story. In Sphere, Crichton’s writing is dense with concrete technical information. For example, he describes a boat “laying a new fiber-optics cable” with a “carrying capacity of twenty thousand simultaneous telephonic transmissions,” and a “nuclear submarine with SY-2 misses.”...

6. Summarize difficult-to-understand material.

Crichton often delivers an easy-to-understand summary paragraph after hard-to-understand material. In Sphere, the narrator explains a series of studies Norman conducted to study anxiety within groups. After almost two pages of exposition, the narrator sums up what’s been said in lay terms: “If you were trapped in an elevator, it was better to be with a few relaxed, athletic people you knew, to keep the lights on, and to know someone was working to get you free.” This sentence communicates to the reader: Even though I used plain language to explain that complex scientific material, you may still be lost, so here it is in the most basic of terms....

7. Position information after a character introduction.

Crichton effectively delivers scientific information after a character introduction. For example, after Crichton introduces the mathematician, Harry Adams, he dives into theory about how humans might communicate with extraterrestrials. “Adams appeared even younger than his thirty years; he was clearly the youngest member of the group—and arguably the most important… Many theorists argued that communication with extraterrestrials would prove impossible, because human beings would have nothing in common with them.”...

8. Writing where you hang your hat.

Writers should write what they know, right? Crichton was a Harvard-trained medical doctor, so the science-based thriller was a natural genre for him. He was comfortable with the material, and his connection with the language of science gave his writing plausibility and authority....

9. Write about your passions and the reader will be fascinated.

Crichton clearly derived pleasure from building stories around high-concept premises that involved cutting-edge science. The reader is interested because Crichton is passionate. For example, in Sphere, three characters walk along the ocean floor, a thousand feet below the surface, and they come upon a sea snake. ...

10. Use the presentation format to deliver exposition.

Crichton delivers a lot of science via presentations. In all his books, scientists explain their field or a discovery through a lecture, speech, usually during a meeting or conference. The reader understands the presentation ritual and can thus tolerate the information dump....

11. Engage the head as well as the heart.

In addition to entertaining and educating, Crichton also stimulates self-reflection. He writes not just for the mind but also for the heart and spirit. At the end of Sphere, he writes with the insight of a psychologist about one’s capacity for self-delusion. “It was a psychological truism, this blindness about self. Did he [Norman] imagine that he was immune?” He continues, “And your ignorance about yourself was even greater than that. Self-awareness was the most difficult of all. Few people attained it. Or perhaps nobody attained it.”

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