My take on what to avoid writing Space Opera.
This was from a 4 year old question on Quora, but my answer hasn’t changed.
Not much. Pretty much anything goes, but…
The main things to avoid are ignorance of space, spaceships, and tech according to how far in the future you are writing.
In other words, avoid making a fool of yourself by writing about something you know nothing about. “But they’re all dead” is something you don’t want your readers saying out loud in chapter 3, simply because you didn’t do your research.
If you are writing within the next hundred years, you must understand now physics and relativity. Getting these wrong is the kiss of death for readers.
Beyond 100 years, pretty much anything goes, as long as the development of it sounds feasible to readers. So avoid just creating tech with no basis in anything.
Space Opera is relatively forgiving, where Military and Hard Sci-Fi demands accuracy and fully explained tech.
The other thing to avoid in Space Opera is plot driven narrative, where the characters are just there to move the plot along. Military Sci-Fi tends to be like this, but Space Opera has the ‘opera’ part to it, and this is character development and interaction.
Don’t sacrifice the ‘opera’ to the plot, or it won’t be Space Opera.
I recommend watching as much Trek as you can (all of the series, and all the movies), and things like Blakes7, Andromeda, Babylon 5, The Expanse, and anything else space you can come across. Seriously binge watch everything.
Trek gets a lot wrong, but it makes an attempt to explain the tech, using real characters living their lives. Just the episodes with shuttles gives you an understanding of the design of them, and how and why your characters are dead, or not, if they get holed.
The Expanse gets the dynamics of physics driven space travel pretty right. Babylon 5 also did this pretty well but differently.
Whatever you intend to write, find whats been written and made about it already, and learn the lessons, both good and bad, from them, before you start writing.
And at least for book 1, make sure someone who understands what you’re writing gets to read it before you publish, because sure as hell they’ll tell you something is really wrong, and better them than in a review. And when they do, don’t get angry, just fix it.
Classic case for me was an author who asked me to read their book (and I’ve not done it since), and I made that “But they’re all dead!” comment. The author took it really badly, and ignored my suggestions to fix it. And all it needed was some decent understanding and description of shuttle design, so explosive decompression wasn’t fatal instead if being very fatal as written. And Trek Deep Space Nine provided exactly what was needed. Alas, the author hadn’t watched any Trek.
So, park your ego, and avoid stupid mistakes through lack of research.
Avoid using things directly from well known SO. For example, if you use ‘Frak’ on the first page, I know you’re writing BSG fan fiction. The same with using Belter talk from The Expanse, which I saw recently in one book, which means Expanse fan fiction. Make your own, and avoid just copying what’s been successful.
Also avoid specific and narrow definitions of Space Opera. If it’s set in space, and it has the drama of interpersonal interactions, it’s Space Opera. It is not strictly necessary for the plot to be save the universe.
An example of this is Nathan Lowell’s Solar Clipper universe. It’s excellent Space Opera, without any galactic consequences at all, while still being compelling reading. He writes Life in Space, not save the universe. It might be boring to military readers, but it’s still Space Opera.