Men From Mars Coming For Earth’s Women
Sure, but hasn’t that story been told before?
I have been reading a lot of pulpy short stories from the forties & fifties and, blatant sexism aside, and the birth of the modern tropes (which were just old tropes with scary spacemen wanting to steal women). It is a interesting playground to dabble in.
But THE TROPES, Jay, I hear you say. We need to stretch the boundaries and inclusiveness beyond tropes. I wholeheartedly agree (and I think you can serve the trope, too), but ask yourself this.
How many new and exciting ways can you tell the same story? That’s what I have learned from reading the serials and one offs of the pulps of yesteryear.
Those forebears to our forebears, to even your forebears had to tell the same story. It sold books and it was all about moving pulp. Many of the writers I loved (I know, read a book from this century, Boomer) cut their teeth in these books. I don’t know how much they were paid but it wasn’t enough.
But I always find myself amazed at the work. The efficient story telling going is something. Now, yes, I do read books from this century. I just am as influenced by these early writers of our genre, such as it is today.
The aliens are always coming, the world is always going to be destroyed and fifties style women are somehow a part of it all. Take that and turn it just slightly left or right a few degrees.
Don’t be afraid it might be the same story, it’s not the story you would write. Pick a trope and start there.
Remain Lost 