Writing Aliens: Making the Unfamiliar Feel Believable
If you’ve ever stared at your screen wondering how to make your alien character feel like more than just a costume with extra limbs, you’re not alone.
Writing aliens is hard.
You’re tasked with imagining life that’s completely foreign, but you still have to make readers care about it and believe you. Worse, you have to walk a tightrope between too familiar (humans in space suits) and too bizarre (incomprehensible jelly blobs readers can’t connect with).
So how do you make the unfamiliar believable? Here’s what I’ve learned and (tried) to incorporate.
Start with What Makes Us Human
The best aliens aren’t just strange, they reflect us in unsettling ways. They make us rethink what it means to be intelligent, emotional, or even moral.
In Facility X, Radix appears humanoid on the surface, but everything about him is just slightly… off. His bioluminescent skin is barely visible. His gaze lingers too long. His speech patterns are clipped and eerily precise. But what unsettles people most isn't his biology, it’s that he’s unreadable, and humans fear what they can’t categorize.
Your alien doesn’t have to be relatable, but they should evoke something human: fear, awe, confusion, empathy.
Avoid the “One-Trait Species” Trap
Not all aliens from a planet should be aggressive warriors or peaceful tree-huggers. Real-life biology thrives on variation, so should alien culture.
If your alien society is a hive mind, great, but what happens when one doesn’t conform? If their species is pacifist, who enforces that peace, and at what cost?
The more contradictions an alien has within itself or its species, the more real it becomes.
Make Their Biology Serve Their Story
Don’t just add gills or extra eyes for flair. Let their physiology affect their culture, communication, or how they experience the world.
Ask questions like:
How do they perceive time? Light? Death?
What senses dominate their experience?
Do they communicate through sound, color, pheromones?
Even subtle biology can deepen the narrative.
Alien biology isn’t window dressing, it’s the lens through which they view reality.
Let the World React to Them
An alien doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Your world (and especially your humans) should respond emotionally, scientifically, and politically.
Are they feared? Worshipped? Weaponized?
How does their existence challenge human beliefs, institutions, or identity?
In Facility X, the facility isn’t just a lab, it’s a moral battleground. Each alien’s existence fractures the main character studying them.
Believability doesn’t just come from your alien. It comes from how others treat them.
Embrace the Mystery
Not everything needs to be explained. In fact, sometimes the best alien characters are the ones that aren’t fully understood by the reader or the characters around them.
If your alien can be summed up in a paragraph, it’s probably too simple. Let there be ambiguity. Let readers wonder.
Veyrac, the predatory alien in Facility X, isn't described in full. His motives aren’t clear. He doesn’t follow the rules the humans try to impose. And that’s what makes him terrifying; he feels like a force of nature, not a creature from a page.
We fear the unknown. Don’t be afraid to leave parts of your alien unknown.
My Final Thoughts
You don’t need to reinvent evolution or create a new language (though you can). What matters most is consistency, emotional truth, and making your alien feel real.
At the end of the day, readers don’t fall in love with the design of your alien. They fall in love with how they matter to the story, to the world, and to the characters we care about.
Leave your thoughts and other tips down below!
