How so you guys feel about writing future timelines?

For me I like writing stories in the future but fir some reason I feel it's easier to write about the near future than the far future.

What do you guys prefer and how do you see the world 29 years from now and how do you see it in the 32nd century?

MaeZe said:

My story is set in the future but the reason I didn't go too far forward in time is because it's hard to predict the technology more than a century or two into the future. Consider living in 1918 and trying to imagine a future with the Internet, 3D printers, WiFi, computers in every house, DNA ... Take that to 2118 and think about all the tech one would need to be creative about.

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I guess I can agree. Maybe in 100 years time, we would see all the high tech stuff that we see in movies like Blade Runner, Edge of Tomorrow, I Robot or any cyberpunk world stuff? For example Blade Runner was set in 2019. It's 2018 now and I doubt we'll see any of that stuff in a years time but Bade Runner 2 takes place in 2049 which is still unlikely that technology will even exist by then. Now maybe 100 years time, it would be believable to create all the high tech stuff we see in futuristic movies that were set in the 2010's 2020's 2030's.

I think if my story was set 100 or 200 years from now it would probably be a bit exaggerated if I visioned the world where humans live on other planets, with alien neighbors fighting with high tech gadgets, lasers and such with an unrecognizable world. It just seems too far fetched. Maybe that would be better for a world set in like 3000AD?

mafiaking1936
It's certainly easier to plausibly predict near future settings and events since you can just look at present trends and extend that out. Even if you end up being wrong it's certainly believable at least. It can get discouraging when you look at for example 60s Star Trek and how laughably off they were just to today, so people can be scared away from trying to guess what centuries from now will be like. One route authors like Herbert and Asimov took was to go so far into the future they're essentially writing space fantasy where it's pretty much just magic. That lets you ficus on the story without having to explain technology too much. The bigger challenge of course is predicting how people will change.

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True, which is why I don't think I can write a story set 100 something years from now cause it might feel just too unrealistic and not believable. Back in the 60's they probably thought that the world in 2018 would be like Star Trek and that obviously didn't happen lol and I doubt even within 100 years it would be like that. Perhaps 100 years would be like Blade Runner technology? Well jumping very far into the future could make it easier to come up with whatever you want but creating how humans would interact or if humans would still even exist is another challenge imo.

For me, I'd want to create a world that is closer to today but only more highly advanced, maybe a setting in 2080 or 2090 would be more believable than 2150 or 2200?

Harlequin
it's not about what we like - we're a random selection of other writers from all over the board.

near future is fine. people read it as much as any other.

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But how do you accomplish this without being over the top ridiculous? I still want the world to be believable without seeming like everyone lives in space with laser blasters where humans may not even speak in an actual language dialect? :/

Dave.C.Robinson
Personally, I prefer working with the far future to the near future. I've lived through enough totally unpredictable changes in my lifetime that I have an easier time extrapolating a completely different future than any near-future trends.

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This is where it gets confusing. I can envision a world set 200 years from now where all the imaginations are possible but it's sometimes too difficult when going too far off the grid where plausibility still should count and turing the world into super tech magic land just seems way off, even 200 years. Perhaps 75 years from now would be an easier time to work with between mixed with a near and far future believable presentation?