How To Create Alien Species In 3 Stages
It's Alien August on the Alien name generator—which means an entire month of supernatural goodness invading their website, and dozens of science-fiction authors enter their creature profiles to win the grand Alien August contest.
And - squeeze! - An autographed copy of my novel The Deep Link is part of their prize package! Isn't this awesome?
Of course, now is the right time to write a post about the creation of alien species.
I love all aliens—from little green men to big bionic killers (like the saliva-worthy Imarti in my novel)—so I've put together a guide to creating an alien species from scratch. I tried to stay brief (actually, I did) while still being broad, but there's a lot more to say on this delicious geekery that is creature creation, so bear with me.
breaks his fingers
Off to the lab!
There are at least as many ways to create aliens (or magical creatures) as there are authors. No two creative minds think alike.
We take very different approaches to creating characters, developing a plot, or choosing a setting for our stories.
And when it comes to creating new species (or putting our spin on already existing species), our perspectives differ even more.
Some come up with a uniquely alien character and work their way back to how their species is supposed to function and its history (and the world of origin).
Some take a special interest in an existing species of our world, or a known imaginary world, and make a significant change in it, then make their way from that in all directions.
Others fall in love with a celestial body and imagine the kinds of creatures that might have evolved in that environment.
Whatever approach you take, whether it is the top to bottom, massively small, or on the other hand, there are some big, important aspects that you need to consider to achieve one of the most important criteria of good speculative fiction. Requires: Internal stability.
Suspension of disbelief is the blood in the veins of our story, and when we introduce foreign bodies (*cough* aliens *cough*) to let it flow uninterrupted (ouch, sorry, it's the loudest in the history of all sentences).
A bad sentence would be, I'll sit in the corner for a minute), we should pay attention to the following.
1. The aliens’ role in your story
Writers argue about many things, most of the time, but on one thing we all agree: Story comes first. So before you set out to create your aliens, you must first understand what kind of aliens your story needs. What kind of aliens would push the plot forward, and have the biggest impact on readers?
Answer the following questions:
- Are the aliens good or evil? Neither? Somewhere in between?
- Do your aliens have to be intelligent, socially evolved, maybe even technological? Or are monstrous beasts enough to satisfy the story’s needs?
- Do you need your characters to communicate with the aliens? How can you make communication difficult? (Consider these Interspecies Information Exchange problems)
- What do the aliens in your story want? What are they after? What is your characters’ position about that?
The answers to these questions will largely determine the direction in which your species development will go, and how much you have to focus on specific things.
2. Big-picture species and world design
Worldbuilding is great fun. You can go all the way from writing sketches to generating huge amounts of material for your aliens, but if only a fraction of that material is really necessary to tell a riveting story, then all that wonderful worldbuilding work isn’t writing, is it? *narrows her eyes* It’s procrastination. Admit it. Delicious procrastination, but procrastination nonetheless. Trust me, I’m guilty of that as much as everyone, so I know. I know. Let’s keep to the essentials here.
To design your alien species and stick to the basics, develop brief, grand scale information about The Origin Of Your Alien Species and investigate the following things:
Biological peculiarities
– do they have tentacles, 10 limbs, are they humanoid, and if so just How many likenesses to Humans is Plausible?
Social life, and by extension Sexual life because no species is entirely created in a vat
Procreation and social structure are tightly related, and you can’t develop either properly without at least considering the other and its impact. Besides, it’s fun imagining how your aliens might do the rumpy-pumpy. You don’t even have to go very far to get inspired, as our very own earthly fauna has some rather ‘outlandish’ things to offer, as I’ve noted in Alien Sex – The Stranger, The Better.
Cultural diversity and values
– political structures, religions, sub-races, economy, all of these need at least a cursory glance (and a few sentences in your notes) just so nothing glaring slips by to be pointed at in a reader review later.
Psychology
– perhaps the most important aspect of your species—at least about your story—is the psychological aspect of the individuals in your species: their instincts and how they affect their thinking, their emotions and how they influence their decision, their propensity toward something or their aversion to another. All of this matters if it’s on a big scale, such as the human propensity toward comfort and satisfying immediate needs, even at the cost of the future of our entire species.
If your story ventures into the actual world of these aliens, instead of having them drop in on our world(s), you must also do some worldbuilding. How much will depend on how much of a role the setting plays in your story? I’d advise you to at least consider the following Top 5 Worldbuilding Must-Haves:
Basic infrastructure
– housing, transportation, industry, energy storage and distribution, food production and delivery, waste disposal, etc.
Diversity
– different countries/states/regions, ethnic variants, social roles, jobs, hierarchies, etc.
Completeness
– some things habitually get lost in worldbuilding, unless they’re specifically needed, and we ought to remember to at least give them a cursory glance, such as the legal systems, burial rituals, infant care systems, medical systems, recreational facilities, etc.
Consequence
– nothing in civilization is isolated, and every choice we make when we develop our alien world will have consequences for all other aspects of it. You don’t have to investigate all dependencies (that’s not even possible in our world, and we have tons of knowledge about it at our disposal), but at least think about the things which you’ll use in your story.
Immediacy
– every world has a history, and every history is propped up by a handful of major events which have influenced the evolution of the species. Which are they, for your alien world?
Go as deep as you need for your species and world to feel natural, logical, and real.
If you’re pressed for time or aren’t such a big fan of extensive, exhaustive (and exhausting) worldbuilding (in which case #highfive because neither am I, but don’t tell anyone or I’ll have a lynch mob of sci-fi nerds hunting me down) you can just run through these 13 Worldbuilding Questions and you’ll be just fine.
3. Pick your alien character(s) wisely
While it may be incredibly tempting to pick the top of the crop and make your specific alien characters have all (or the very best) characteristics of your species, remember: the story comes first. And no one likes a predictable story, so choose wisely.
Your alien characters must fulfill the same criteria as your human characters, if not more (probably more). Hence, they must:
- be interesting and unique, not stereotypical and two-dimensional;
- have problems of their own, personal, specific problems that only pertain to them as a person, not their species as a whole (too generic);
- have goals and interests of their own, which should ideally clash with everyone else’s, even their fellow aliens;
- have a character arc of their own, the size of which should be determined by their importance to the story. The more important the alien character, and the more screen time they get, the bigger their character arc.