Idea versus theme

Ideas are highly-prized in SF.  But there's a danger that a writer might run away with the shiny new tech and not work through the theme of the story. 

Re-reading the many how to write SF books I've found in my book reorganisation, I'm struck by how many writers make the point that originality is in short supply.  And how many are urging me to write what I care about.  I'm heartened by this emphasis to produce stories about things that matter to me.  And at this stage in my life I've worked out what matters to me.

SF is often about the effects of change on people, triggered by that magic phrase 'what if?'  What if we are all linked into our info systems with cyborg enhancements and someone destroys the network?  How will people respond?  Will there be mass suicides as people can't stand the withdrawal of their  information drug?  Will there be a resurgence of Luddite Originals, urging humans to reclaim their natural bodies?  And how could a totalitarian state keep control if its information lines were destroyed? There's material for at least half a dozen novels in those questions alone.

It's not the idea that's important.  Ultimately it's how the idea is worked out in the theme of the book.  And the best way to 'fill the well' with ideas for that is to take a look at what happens on Earth.  Natural history programmes will give you many ideas for using themes where the landscape dictates the action.  Science programmes will keep you up to date on new discoveries, and perhaps trigger an idea based on a radical combining of new theories.  And anthropology and cultural studies will also throw up information you can use or adapt to change your basic idea into a theme that will run.

I used to be concerned that my ideas were never original enough, but the one thing I've learned about reading and writing SF over thirty years is that very little is genuinely original.  It's a re-working of an old idea with a new theme.  And that's where the originality comes, in the storytelling, not the idea.