I love scifi/fantasy! I usually stick to fics who remain in the real world though because its hard to create a whole new world and make it believable. 

I have a vampire fic and I drew all of my vampire dynamics from True Blood and Vampire Diaries. (Even the main character lol). Vampire Diaries is hands down my favorite TV show there is so much drama and so many crazy twists. 

I will say for those of you who want to try the Bodyguard. It's a very very very slow progressing story because not much of what's going to happen later own will make sense if you don't know the background. I already have a sequel outlined for it. But it'll be 55 chapters long. The later chapters are going to get better. So don't hurry and think you need to read it right away. lol 

Lmao, you have never lied Redone. 
It was just silly temptation but yes, I don't disagree, I am at my limit. Scratch that I'm over an average limit.

And yeah I agree about the more you read a genre the better you'll be writing that genre. One thing about that though is my favorite (number 1) Author of all time is V.C. Andrews and I don't mean her ghost books, I mean her orignals. But anyway her books always contain incest. In her story the main girl is always conceived by incest and partakes in incest even AFTER finding out. I noticed that after I got through a good two series from her. The only thing I dislike about it is the beginnings are so predictable, because they all contain the parents (either one or both) dying and the main girl being sent of to live with relatives she never knew of (often times they are filthy rich).

Other than that I find her as a good author. Very orginal, creative, and she's very good at describing things. I guess that's what I really love. 

I'm going to try out The Bodyguard too. Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow since it's Saturday. 

But who are your favorite authors? (Not on this site).

Honestly? I've always wanted to put one of my sci-fi fanfics down on this site but I'm scared it'll be disliked since I've never (and I mean never) branched off from Romance and Drama fanfics. In my years of FF none of my sci-fi fanfics have ever hit the internet. I've only ever come up with two of them, though.

But after reading this I was just tempted to post mine just to see what I could do, but then again fear strikes so I'm totally cool on it, lol. I might change my mind, but for now I think I'll just stick to my Drama and Romance. 

The picture with MJ smiling with the headphones: I just find that soooo cute. You're right it did catch my attention! 

Research helps; in my sci-fi thing the planet works just like earth does but of course you have the strict government (districts) and supernatural powers. Like you said its nice to have relateable things in there so I thought mixing the real world with some nonrealistic aspects would make a very good planet or dystopia. 

You could say that the Hunger Games, Divergent, and Match had a lot of inspiration for my sci-fi fanfic and then mix that with my own imagination and bam. 

But on here I haven't really got into any sci-fi stories... YET. The Bodyguard is calling my name, but I'm waiting until I have time to read it and not have to stop. 

Scratch that, I have gotten into Let Them All Materialize by Lenetta16... but that's pretty much it. 

I guess you have to have a passion for sci-fi to see yourself actually write one, huh? Maybe that's why I haven't. 

Sci-Fi is one of my fav genres to read,watch, learn about. One of my all time fav Authors is Octavia Butler. She's incredible at all the things you've listed above. Creating relatable worlds with enough reality that it would pull you in. 

I've tried my hand at sci-fi writing. I began to write a story called "The Boy Who Would Be King" about Michael being from another planet and he's brought to earth by a caretaker as a baby and is given to Katherine and Joseph to raise after his real patents are killed in an interstellar battle. After a while they return for him to fulfill his destiny. I wanted to have it published as a graphic novel which I was going to illustrate but I never finished the story:((( I changed his name to Peter but I would have illustrated him as Michael. (I should find it...lol). Everything in the story was real world until Michael starts to get beckoned by his extratersetrial caretaker.

I also did one I posted here called 'The Time' it starts off like a period piece but the events evolve into Scifi/real world. (You may have to read it to catch the drift lol). I employed a lot of what I learned from Octavia in my writing both "The Time" and "The Boy Who Would Be King" which as I said before encompasses most of your points. Outlining what I wanted to happen made it so much easier. 

The culture is mos def important. Tone and Langage is crucial( for me at least). The writer has to differentiate when dealing with outer worldly or supernatural beings we can't expect the to relate like we humans do. (Unless they where human at one point)

While the Thriller/Ghosts premise has a great storyline, I would love to see writers stretch their imagination beyond those two worlds. 

"Go easy on the cliches"A big YES!!! In any genre. It just makes the story seem corny unless it's purposeful and it's well placed in a comedy. 

Right now I enjoy "The BodyGuard" by HoneyToTheBee and AtMJsHouse was writing one called "The Darkone" but she hasn't Updated it in a while  :(((

Great post! Very thorough! Research! Your fav word!

More soon.