I always loved reading stories that were inexplicable, or imaginative, or dark, or which speculated on worlds, beings, or technology, that could possibly, but didn’t exist. I’ve always loved folklore, and fairy tales, the possibility of dragons, of witches, of ghosts. So when I started writing at a very young age, these were the stories that I was naturally drawn to write—the fiction of possibility.

The speculative fiction genre seems to be constantly evolving, especially since the rise of BookTok. What about these changes excites (or worries) you?

It’s so interesting what you say about BookTok. I’m all for it if it promotes a better understanding and increases the readership of fiction outside the mainstream. Speculative literature, like realism, or crime writing, or any genre, needs to keep evolving to keep up with technological change, cultural change, folklore and regional beliefs, new voices. SF, like all literature, doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and writers in 2026 are going to incorporate the music we listen to, the technology we use, the films we watch, the global affairs that concern us, into the stories we write, just as writers in 1926 did—which, along with stylistic experimentation, keeps the genre alive. Change is good! 

Worldbuilding for speculative fiction seems incredibly daunting. How do you approach the process of mapping out new worlds and cultures?

To be honest, the idea that worldbuilding in speculative fiction is more daunting than in any other fiction, is somewhat of an exaggeration. In any story, you need to work very hard to create the world of the story on the page, whether that world is “real” – in which case you need to research and verify and explore, and then subjectify it—or imaginary. In the latter case, you need historical and geographical consistency, believability in terms of the rules of that world and the cultures and characters who occupy it, whether human or other. The most daunting aspect of creating imaginary worlds is to leave room for doubt, for unknowability, for change, for vulnerability, which makes many obsessive worldbuilders uneasy! I prefer to think of it as worldfinding, or simply setting. Because mapping out a real-world setting, whether it’s your own neighbourhood, or city, can be daunting too—the characters who move through that world are not you, and they find and lose themselves in it through their own subjective lenses, which you have to build from the ground up on the page. It’s all daunting!  

What kind of thinking does the skilful incorporation of magic, the supernatural, or futuristic technologies in speculative fiction involve?

To my thinking, writing the supernatural, the magical, the futuristic requires a slight shift in vocabulary. The language of this thought, which Ursula K LeGuin calls the “language of the night,” can be a useful tool for all writers—the controlled lexicon of the unconscious, of dreams and nightmare, of poetry and song, of fear, of love. Writers of speculative fiction either come to the craft with an innate knowledge of the language, or show a willingness to learn it—from reading widely for a start, and then thinking about the story they want to tell from the inside out, rather than vice versa. As I say, this way of thinking is useful for any writing, including that of speculative fiction.    

JS Breukelaar is the award-winning author of three novels and two collections, most recently, The Bridge and Collision: Stories, which was a Shirley Jackson and Aurealis Award finalist, and Ditmar Award winner, as well as numerous stories in acclaimed anthologies and several Years Bests. Her forth novel, Remedy is due out in 2024 from PS Publications.

Join JS Breukelaar for Writing Speculative Fiction, Saturday 12 September 2026, 10am-4pm at Writing NSW.