HomeOn humanoid aliens
"Non-humans are always more interesting, because humans are boring!"I see this sort of statement often, and heartily disagree. Why?
There's a lot of humanity and how it deals with its world to be explored. As far as I'm concerened, to dismiss that part as "boring" because it doesn't involve alien species is the mark of a lazy writer and a lazy reader. I hate characters (and people!) being judged only by appearance, and as far as I'm concerned species is far too often a cheap extension of looks.
Yes, humans are stuck in a certain form. But on a cultural level, there are a hell of a lot more possibilities for them besides taking existing society and changing a few insignificant details - or worse, changing big ones for no reason beyond "I said so". Think how people of the time would react to and thus change their culture, don't manipulate the society to move them.
Notice that I said "people of the time" and not "you"? That's a fast way to make humanity boring. Don't impose your values or any other current ones on a setting if they don't fit. Think about what the people have been through and how that'd shape their values, and already you've got differences forming. (I'm looking at you, characters that suddenly start spouting 21st century morality in a medieval or futuristic setting - sexuality and the rights of women being two of the biggest guilty points.)
You don't have to intentionally throw cultural norms out the window when building from the ground up, either. That can smack of trying too hard, and sometimes a subtle difference between "us" and "them" can be quite telling. You could start with what appeared "normal" to most readers and strip it away, leaving them knowing what normal in your world was from your characters and how they looked at things - even more fun if the characters themselves disagree on what consititutes normal. After all, who can get any group now to entirely agree on that?
If your people could be replaced by Cybermen or Borg drones with Their Society's Beliefs in place of the assimilation thing, something isn't right. Cultures can be more homogenized, but that doesn't mean everyone's thought processes and views of their culture are the same!
Another way to make humanity boring? Everyone from faction or group X thinks like Y. This is an extension of the culture thing, really, but groups can be from multiple cultures. One of the worst ways this shows is in military organizations. You'll run into all sorts of moronic stereotypes, leading to armies where all the people are mindless drones, or all jerks, or all useless/incompetent/loyal/what have you. Oh, there'll be the one or two that are Different, but they're there to be Different, and they'll almost always then turn traitor or help the hero depending on if they're from the "good" side of the "bad" side.
Point that also drives me nuts: There are rarely entirely "good" and "bad" sides in war. Even in cases where the leader and the people in charge are complete bastards, remember that the soldiers and civilians who are fighting and dying may not all feel the same way. Even in conflicts where one side is clearly doing nasty things, the "good" side is going to do some nasty things of their own to win - the ends justify the means. Any sort of conflict (not just war) can and will change people in myriad different ways. It makes for all sorts of fun things to explore in how they think and react. Don't waste that having them all march to the same tune.
Relgion is another trap in the same vein. Damn, am I sick of religion being blatantly turned into conflict for the sake of it (or worse, for the sake of pointing out that Religion Is Bad and Always Wrong)...yes, extremists can and do touch things off and feed them, and there is indeed danger in blindly following anything. But could we have something other than "corrupt religion makes civilization Y all evil/crazy!!"? Please? If you must use that thread, at least do whatever religion has been turned into wrong by a group justice. Make it something that people could have originally cared about for proper reasons, give it real believers that would be disgusted with what it's been twisted into. Show mob mentality as a slide, not a switch to be flipped.
Now, did you see anything in this advice that couldn't be applied to aliens too?
That's the kicker: It's just as possible to make alien species boring. In fact, it's likely harder to work with them well, because as they're non-human people are expecting more differences from them to start. I have seen countless "omg alien" species and characters' potential wasted on by having them fall back on the same norms that ruin human characters. Their alienness ends up being a veneer over the same damn clichés, but people deny that's there because they don't look human.
I don't understand this. Cheese is cheese. Cheese can be fun. But denying what it is because of the shape it comes in? What makes an anthropomorphised animal or alien whatever so different from a human when you're telling a story about their feelings, their hopes, their dreams? To me, it's different ways of looking at the same base things, and just because one's closer to how we work doesn't somehow make it lesser or automatically lazy.
In the end? As I've said on LJ, I'd rather read a good story with an alien species that felt too human than a crappy story with one that was wonderful and different. What good is a great setup with no follow-through? As much as I like seeing what can be done building a world, it's the emotions and feelings of characters that draw me in. I can stand painful clichéd crap if the people (or whatevers) in it feel like people (or whatevers) and get a resolution to their story that fits them and does them justice.
This probably makes me look like I'm waffling, but I think we all have our pet cheesy worlds from our childhood or any other sentimental source...the ones where something grabs us and draws us in despite all the flaws. It's proof that what drives people is more complex than formula or predictions: more of what makes us interesting even if we're not shaped like dragons or werewolves or space hedgehogs.