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writing:start [2025/12/01 16:34] – JacobCoffinWriteswriting:start [2026/02/18 02:56] (current) – JacobCoffinWrites
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 Writing aspirational fiction is hard. If you're trying to write a better world, you need to build actual, workable, solutions into your setting and that requires so much knowledge to do well. Descriptions in a single solarpunk scene on a pedestrianized city street could involve a mix of civil engineering, history, cultural knowledge, plant knowledge, city planning, accessibility outreach, mass transit vehicle design/infrastructure, and more. A whole story might add in permaculture practices, modern airship design and operation, phytoremediation, or all kinds of other stuff! Compare that to cyberpunk where there's both a sort of cultural familiarity to lean on, and a pass on bad ideas because you're writing in a dystopian setting, and the differences are pretty clear. Writing aspirational fiction is hard. If you're trying to write a better world, you need to build actual, workable, solutions into your setting and that requires so much knowledge to do well. Descriptions in a single solarpunk scene on a pedestrianized city street could involve a mix of civil engineering, history, cultural knowledge, plant knowledge, city planning, accessibility outreach, mass transit vehicle design/infrastructure, and more. A whole story might add in permaculture practices, modern airship design and operation, phytoremediation, or all kinds of other stuff! Compare that to cyberpunk where there's both a sort of cultural familiarity to lean on, and a pass on bad ideas because you're writing in a dystopian setting, and the differences are pretty clear.
  
-It's a lot for any one writer to try and take on. Luckily we don't have to work alone. Any future worth building is going to be pretty collaborative and consensus-driven, so it makes sense to build our depictions of it the same way. +It's a lot for any one writer to try and take on. Luckily we don't have to work alone. Any future worth building is going to be pretty collaborative and consensus-driven, so it makes sense to build our depictions of it the same way.
  
 ==== Writing Research ==== ==== Writing Research ====
  
-Writers often need a level of detail that's hard to find in publications - news articles and pop science stuff tends to be too broad and lacking in specific detail (or incorrect) while industry publications tend to go in-depth on a narrow slice of a topic, assuming the reader has the baseline knowledge to put it into context. Our goal here is to start a culture of packaging up and sharing writer-level research to make writing solarpunk easier. If you've recently researched something for your own projects, or you're just someone who's passionate about a solarpunk subject and wants to see it represented correctly in fiction, this wiki is intended to provide a centralized place where you can share it! +Writers often need a level of detail that's hard to find in publications - news articles and pop science stuff tends to be too broad and lacking in specific detail (or incorrect) while industry publications tend to go in-depth on a narrow slice of a topic, assuming the reader has the baseline knowledge to put it into context. Our goal here is to start a culture of packaging up and sharing writer-level research to make writing solarpunk easier. If you've recently researched something for your own projects, or you're just someone who's passionate about a solarpunk subject and wants to see it represented correctly in fiction, this wiki is intended to provide a centralized place where you can share it!
  
 If you have something you'd like to add, message the mods or post in the /c/writing community! If you have something you'd like to add, message the mods or post in the /c/writing community!
  
 === Library Economics === === Library Economics ===
 +
 +[[repairability_in_solarpunk|Rethinking How We Make Things - Long-Lasting Stuff for a Library Economy]]
 +
 == Salvage == == Salvage ==
  
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 ]] ]]
  
-[[deconstruction|Deconstruction - salvaging entire buildings]]+[[deconstruction|Deconstruction and House Shifting - salvaging entire buildings]]
  
 === Changing Transportation === === Changing Transportation ===
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 [[ropeways|Ropeways]] [[ropeways|Ropeways]]
 +
 +[[personal_vehicles|Personal Vehicles for Solarpunk Settings]]
  
 === Solarpunk Cities === === Solarpunk Cities ===
  
 [[how_cities_might_change|The Big List of Things to Include in Solarpunk Cities]] [[how_cities_might_change|The Big List of Things to Include in Solarpunk Cities]]
 +
 +[[building_materials|Solarpunk Building Materials]]
  
 [[reducing_light_pollution|Reducing light pollution]] [[reducing_light_pollution|Reducing light pollution]]
  
-=== Rural Areas in the Solarpunk Transition ===+=== Changing in the Solarpunk Transition === 
 + 
 +[[exurbs_in_the_solarpunk_transition|Exurbs/Bedroom Communities in the Solarpunk Transition]]
  
 === Winter Solarpunk === === Winter Solarpunk ===
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 === Environmental Restoration === === Environmental Restoration ===
  
-[[beaver_dam_analogs|Beaver Dam Analogs]]+[[beaver_dam_analogs|Beaver Dam Analogs - Turning Rivers Back Into Wetlands]] 
 + 
 +[[rough_mounding|Rough Mounding - rebuilding habitats in drastically disturbed sites]]
  
 === Cool Technology === === Cool Technology ===
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 [[solar_concentrators|Solar Concentrators]] [[solar_concentrators|Solar Concentrators]]
  
-=== Miscellaneous === +[[solarpunk_networks|Meshnets and other Solarpunk Communication Networks]] 
 + 
 +=== Miscellaneous ===
  
 [[solarpunk_in_fantasy_settings|Low Tech Solarpunk Ideas for a Fantasy Setting]] [[solarpunk_in_fantasy_settings|Low Tech Solarpunk Ideas for a Fantasy Setting]]
 +
 +