Out of all the science fiction subgenres that exist, cyberpunk has got to be one of the most interesting to me, especially now. But how do you define cyberpunk, and, even more importantly, how do you write it?
Read below to find out everything you need to know about the subgenre and how to get started!
What Is Cyberpunk?
Technically, you might call cyberpunk science fiction. However, the subgenre contains its own characteristics that make it unique. Often, it also falls under the “dystopia” category since society and tech usually act in corrupt or morally unjustifiable ways. To get you started, major parts of cyberpunk include:
1) Lots of (usually corrupted and/or highly advanced) technology. Most of the time, this includes artificial intelligence.
2) Lower classes affected by corruption. Usually, the main protagonist and the characters around them suffer under the regime or do something desperate to escape it. It gets kind of noir here but with technology.
3) Social themes. Like soft science fiction, cyberpunk focuses more on how corruption, injustice, and more affect people and technology. It places less emphasis on how the technology might work in real life like hard sci-fi might.
A Brief History
For the most part, Cyberpunk as a subgenre first started in the ’60s and ’70s. Multiple authors commented on topics such as the drug culture of the time while focusing on how advancing technology could affect society. Most of the time, they viewed technology in a negative, dystopian light, focusing on the lower social classes I mentioned.
Also, while plenty of notable science fiction authors wrote using these themes, including Philip K. Dick and Roger Zelazny, it wasn’t until 1984, when William Gibson’s Neuromancer was published, that the subgenre started standing on its own two feet. Instead of “science fiction with noir and dystopia vibes,” it gained the term cyberpunk. Today, books and movies like Blade Runner, The Matrix, and more are well-known to audiences.
How Do You Write It?
When creating a new world like a cyberpunk one, you need to navigate the complexities of worldbuilding and narrative while exploring the story’s emotion and the major social themes. Like all other science fiction, establish and maintain the following:
1) The worldbuilding. Unlike our world, cyberpunk sometimes contains strange technology and situations. (However, our reality now coexists with things like virtual reality and holograms). When you craft your world, separate it from ours with new, cool ideas, but tie your themes and issues to our world too.
2) How the technology works. Like creating a magic system in fantasy, you need to set rules for how your tech works and stick with it. Create a society that depends on the tech, but make sure it all makes sense. If readers don’t understand what makes the technology so bad, they won’t understand what the characters fight against! Speaking of…
3) The characters. Lastly, make sure your characters exhibit emotional depth. Often, your major themes shine through them. For example, say you want one theme to be “corruption.” How do the characters survive in a corrupt world, and how do they react? (Additionally, how do your worldbuilding and tech reflect your corruption theme?).
How do you do all that and make a believable cyberpunk world? Read the following tips!
1) First, focus on how your society treats its characters. What do the lower classes do to survive, and where do they live? What caused the corruption, tension, or just overall distrust in your society? Basically, how is the story set in a dystopia, and how is that dystopia based on the tech?
2) Second, figure out how the technology caused (or will cause) that tension or distrust, kickstarting the plot. For example, the Philip K. Dick book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (the basis for the Blade Runner movie more or less) created a society where androids appear so similarly to humans that the protagonist Deckard, finds the odds against him when six androids travel from Mars to Earth. The story establishes how that technology works in the story, but it also builds the tension by having those androids act as antagonists to Deckard.
3) Get creative! The first two tips help set up your world as “cyberpunk,” but you need to have fun too! Create some cool ideas for your society and what the technology looks like. Most importantly, have fun.
Want to explore some other subgenres? Check out my dark fantasy post here.
Some Examples
Because of cyberpunk’s characteristics, a lot of books that fall under “sci-fi” fall into this subgenre too! Some might even be familiar.
Neuromancer – William Gibson
Blade Runner – Philip K. Dick
Ready Player One – Ernest Cline
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
Altered Carbon – Richard K. Morgan
Infomocracy – Malka Ann Older
Before you go, do you have any other cyberpunk books that you have read and recommend? Let me know in the comments below! Happy reading and writing!
#cyberpunk #scifi #reading #books
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