I write xenofiction in order to explore imaginary cultures and fantastical settings. Xenofiction about aliens is, as I have described a few times in the past, a blank canvas. I’m interested in creating environmental and biological conditions that perhaps could only exist in my mind, and then seeing what results downstream.
In a way, speculative fiction is literary alchemy. We’re mad scientists in a lab, tweaking the dials to see what happens.
As a writer of xenofiction, when criticism comes up, I find that it usually falls into two contradictory camps:
- This isn’t alien enough. The character laughed! Aliens don’t laugh!
- This is too alien and weird for me. I can’t handle all the strange names. I can’t relate to these characters!*
I think such criticism is inevitable. Fantasy and science fiction can automatically make some readers turn away because they simply can’t (or don’t want to) make the necessary suspension of disbelief. With xenofiction, we are asking readers to take another step beyond that, and that can be a difficult step indeed.
Creating balance in xenofiction stories
An imaginary alien character is a character first, but their alien characteristics are entirely at the discretion of the author. This means the author has a balancing act on their hands.
If a work becomes too alien and incomprehensible, it may become inscrutable to readers. If it becomes too human-like, its speculative elements may feel superficial.
What qualifies as extreme is, of course, subjective and depends enormously on the audience.
I could argue that deliberately creating an incomprehensible starfish alien should be the ultimate goal of xenofiction. But then again, a good book wants to be read. And if it wants to be read, it has to court an audience.
Having written several speculative stories for other publications alongside my xenofiction novels, one suggestion I have for writers interested in very strange characters is to try some of these concepts in short fiction first. Sometimes an extremely high-concept character works beautifully across a few thousand words, while it becomes obvious that sustaining the same approach across an entire novel would be considerably harder.
At the other extreme, imagine a science-fiction story where the aliens complain about homework, rush home to watch television, and struggle with their parents’ divorce. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of those things, but eventually a question arises: are the speculative elements actually doing anything for the story?
If removing the alien setting leaves the story fundamentally unchanged, there may be an argument that those elements are little more than window dressing.
Your voice as an author matters
I prefer not to prescribe the do’s and don’ts of writing xenofiction. Instead, I’d like to demonstrate how much presentation can change our perception of alienness by writing the same basic scene in three different ways.
The scene comes from an upcoming story featuring Commander Qwatajawa, one of the protagonists of my Z-Verse series, and her superior officer, Omiqar Ithiziropa.
Ithiziropa, like most Rej-Jir, possesses psychic abilities. In his case, he claims to have the extraordinary ability to influence insects. Qwatajawa isn’t keen on insects, but she listens intently to what Ithiziropa has to say while a giant bug crawls merrily all over her commanding officer.
Version 1: The middle ground
Qwatajawa climbed up the stone steps to see Ithiziropa standing amidst ferns. The humidity was causing the leaves to secrete a sticky, fragrant sap that was presently dripping down and collecting into glistening puddles on the damp soil.
“Ah, there you are, Commander,” Ithiziropa said, turning to regard her. He looked in better spirits than Qwatajawa had seen him of late, and that was undoubtedly due to the creature crawling all over his hand.
It was a wump moth, as large as Ithiziropa’s fist, with vibrantly patterned wings as delicate as lace and an iridescent shell. As Qwatajawa approached, it buzzed as if in warning, and she stopped in her tracks.
Ithiziropa’s mandibles splayed briefly in amusement. “I see you are still remarkably skittish about the moths, despite living near a colony.”
Qwatajawa inclined her head, seeing no reason to argue. Her red eyes remained fixed on the insect.
“The joy of discovering an interesting bug. The horror of discovering that it flies,” Ithiziropa joked, turning his hand slightly as the moth found a perch on his fingertips.
“I understand that wump moths can release poisonous spores,” Qwatajawa said.
He laughed. “They are not poisonous to Rej-Jir. At most, they would make you sneeze. And this little one would not do such a thing in my presence. She loves me. All insects do.”
This is closest to the register I normally use for the Z-Verse. The characters are plainly non-human, and details such as mandibles, psychic abilities and gigantic moths are allowed to exist without extensive explanation. At the same time, their conversation is warm, relatable and full of the camaraderie that exists between Qwatajawa and the rest of her squad.
Now let’s push the scene toward either extreme.
Version 2: Human familiarity
Qwatajawa approached slowly, her heart already sinking in her chest. Ithiziropa was messing around with his bug collection again, and one of the giant moths was crawling all over his hand.
“Hey, Qwatajawa,” Ithiziropa said, giving her a wave with his free hand. “Check it out. It’s a wump moth. Ever seen one of those before?”
She’d seen them before, all right, but in a nature magazine. Never in person. In Qwatajawa’s opinion, bugs were not supposed to get any larger than a coin.
“Um, aren’t those things poisonous?” Qwatajawa asked, trying to maintain some dignity even as her skin began to crawl. The bug made an angry buzzing noise.
“Sure, but not to us,” he replied. “You could get an allergic reaction, I guess. Stop fidgeting. You’re making her upset.”
“Sorry.”
“You don’t like bugs, do you? That’s a shame. I love ’em.”
Here we have essentially the same interaction, but written in a far more relaxed and familiar voice. That extends to the characters themselves, who now speak casually.
By assimilating the Rej-Jir into this register, I’ve effectively erased the more elevated style I normally associate with them. The speculative elements are still present (the Rej-Jir themselves, the moth, the setting) but the way those things are presented changes how alien the scene feels.
Nothing about the anatomy has become more human. The prose has.
Version 3: Alien distance
Ithiziropa waited amidst the ferns. His pheromones carried on the wind and stung the back of her throat, mingling with the pungent sap.
He did not address her, but continued tending to the insect in his hand.
Qwatajawa came to a stop and stood at attention. She was not permitted to speak before a superior had done so.
The sight of the moth made her uncomfortable. The complicated patterns on its wings created the illusion of a face, staring out with unblinking eyes. Staring was a threat display to Rej-Jir.
She had the sudden urge to crush the moth in her hands, though Ithiziropa would surely punish her for killing his pet.
Ithiziropa’s mandibles splayed, and he sucked in a rattling breath.
She knew that he could pick up her pheromones just as she had detected his. He could perceive the faint outlines of her thoughts.
Speech meant little in the face of such truth, carried on the wind.
Here I have pushed not only the prose but the speculative assumptions themselves further toward alienness. Dialogue has been replaced by pheromonal cues and psychic awareness. Social hierarchy is more rigid. Even the image on the moth’s wings acquires a different meaning because staring itself functions as a threat display.
Compared with the original passage, this version is colder, faintly animalistic and considerably less companionable.
Yet the major beats remain recognisable.
Qwatajawa approaches Ithiziropa. She is uncomfortable with the insect. Ithiziropa understands her discomfort. And he dominates the interaction, partly because he is her superior and partly because he is perfectly at ease with something that disturbs her.
The scene has not become unrecognisable. What has changed is the distance between the reader and the characters.
So how alien should an alien be?
Reflecting on my own work, I try to create a balance where I maintain fidelity to my characters and their cultures while leaving room for warmth, humour and dialogue. Dialogue in particular is often the scaffolding on which I build my scenes.
I could intensify the sense of alienness further. I could make every interaction depend upon unfamiliar senses, strange biological impulses, and cultural assumptions that require careful interpretation from the reader. In truth, I don’t think I would enjoy writing that way.
Writing demands considerable mental effort, often more than people realise. Much like an athlete pacing themselves, I try to work at a level where I’m not constantly struggling against either the material or my own process. At its best, writing should feel less like ice skating uphill and more like being carried down a waterfall.
That matters because xenofiction is not, for me, an exercise in proving how strange I can make something.
I want my aliens to feel as though they could only have emerged from their own bodies, histories, environments, and cultures. But I also want them to laugh, argue, fall in love, make terrible decisions, tell jokes and be total nuisances. I want to understand them well enough that I can enjoy spending hundreds of thousands of words in their company.
So how alien should an alien be? The answer to that question is: they should be as alien as the story needs them to be.
The important question is not whether a character has passed some imaginary threshold of sufficient strangeness. It is whether the speculative elements have meaning: whether they shape the character, the world, and the story being told.
For me, that is where the balancing act ends. Alienness is a tool, not a destination. I want enough strangeness to open a door into another world, but enough familiarity that somebody still wants to walk through it.
