HOW IMMIGRANT AND SPECULATIVE STORIES SUCCEED: BUILDING BETTER HOMEWORLDS

Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn in from Everything Everywhere All At Once

As you might recall from our previous discussion, Homeworlds are extremely useful for stories where the writer intends to put their protagonist through some serious world changes. 

You need your protagonist to leap from one world to another?  Chances are, Homeworlds will be your right hand plan.  It ain’t for no reason that Homeworlds are almost deriguere in the epic modes of speculative fiction, as well as many immigrant stories: Dune,  Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, The Lord of the Rings, Interview with the Vampire, The Boys, The Stand, Middlesex, When I was Puerto Rican, Typical Americans, Family Installments, Our House In the Last World,  Superman.  The list goes on. 

(Nothing unites SF, fantasy, and immigrant writers quite like their genius with Homeworlds.)

We understand that not every story needs a big chunky Homeworld.  Some stories just go and others have inferential Homeworlds or build their Homeworlds metonymically – the actions of the other surviving humans in Butler’s Dawn, for example, generate a very disturbing look at the Homeworld lunacies that led to the destruction of the Earth.  But for stories that need them, here are three beams that have always proven particularly useful for constructing powerful Homeworlds.