Science in sci-fi

I think as long as you are consistent w/in your story, you're good. Pick rules of how your technology work and stick with it, like you would with magic. You want it to sound feasible, even if we know it isn't possible. I happened to see an episode of the Justice League cartoon the other day where Super Man was believed dead. He was really beamed to the future. There he met Vandall Savage, an immortal, and the last guy on earth. He had built a time machine, but hadn't used it becuase he had existed in any time he wanted to travel back to. SuperMan could use it,though, and could go back to just after he was beamed out. To me, even though I know in my head that time travel machines aren't possible, this was internally correct and feasible in the story, yet it wasn't explained how the machine worked....(I mean, once Super Man can fly, how technical are we gonna get?) I don't think you need schematics of the machine, no electrician or scientist or engineer is going to examine your story for its technical accuracy. IT just needs to sound real and be internally consistent. In Star Trek, they call it techno-babble. Good luck with your story. Hope that helps.

There's a general acceptance among readers of Science Fiction that what you're talking about probably isn't scientifically pure, or at least not scientifically pure for this day and age. But if you sound intelligent about it, and remain consistent throughout, it's accepted as fact in the world or future you've created.

You also don't have to explain how something works in technical detail. Just name it, explain by showing what it does, and leave off the part about how nanoparticles are passed through a superconductor at an ever increasing rate of degenerative half life.

If you do try to explain, you'd best know what you're saying, or the Geek's l'getcha.

I'm not sure about this, but I believe Analog still wants the science to be on the realistic side, while other publications, such as Asimov's will give the writer more leaward.

I've never submitted to either and only read Analog, so I could be wrong.

ditto on everyone else-- just be consistant. And of course, pay attention to your audience. People who are looking to read hard SF, like the kind they print in Analog, are looking for a different kind of story than people who are looking for something like Star Trek or Star Wars.

Just treat it the same way you'd treat magic in a fantasy world-- it has to make sense, it has to have limits, etc. That's kind of what screwed Star Trek up. They weren't internally consistant and they made their tech so powerful that they just got to a point where, as the song goes, "The Klingons and the Romulans pose no threat to us/'Cause if we find we're in a bind we just make some **** up..."

Innkeeper said:

Take a look at Star Trek - warp engines, shields, phasers, medical scanners, healing rays, transporters ... none of these devices exist in today's world but they're consistently used in Star Trek.

Star Wars is another example - hyperdrive, robots, Death Stars ...

As sassandgroove said, as long as your story is internally consistent, there really shouldn't be a problem.

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Yes, but neither of these is considered science fiction. They're both fantasy, and you won't see either in actual science fiction mags. Both are laughed at by real science fiction editors and writers.

In science fiction, you can use future technology, but it had better be possible technology that doesn't violate what we know.

flux capacitor

maestrowork said:

I'm writing a sci-fi short story, my first in a while.

Question: How scientific and factual must I be? Where is the line between "science" and "fantasy"? For example, if the story is about technologies that haven't been invented yet, or are just theories, do you need to follow these theories/hypothesis, or could you speculate? For example, take "time travel." Nobody has ever time-traveled before, and many people have written time travel stories that is light on science and heavy on "what might happen?" (Back to the Future comes to mind). So how serious do you need to be (relativity, etc.) or could you use "flux capacitor" without worries?

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You can and should speculate, but unless your speculation is well-grounded in current theory, it ain't gonna work. The thing is, you shouldn't invent funny names in an attempt to explain something you don't know anything about. If you want to write a story about time travel, just write a story about time travel. Call your time machine a time machine, and don't attempt to explain how it works unless you know enough about quantum physics to be realistic.

There's a term for using a word such as "flux capacitor" in SF. Danged if I can remember what it is. "Handwavium," maybe? But it's not a good thing.

While it's far from complete, here's an article from the SFWA website on some of the things you shouldn't do in an SF story. http://www.sfwa.org/writing/turkeycity.html

I'd only add that if you have a new science to explore, a new device to invent in your story, then that's the place where the research and detail goes. Otherwise, it's of no more interest to the characters than TVs and cars are to us.

While this might be an opinion, my thought is that the science is window dressing or props for the story. It shouldn't matter whether the props are fully functional blaster pistols, or wooden mock-ups painted black with sights and knobs added for effect. As long as they work in the story and make a general technoloical sense.

Even if the plot hinges on some scientific discovery, you don't need an actual breakthrough in quantum mechanics to write it - just the supposition of discovery, and characters who seem to know what they are talking about.

Like they have said, pick a theory and be consistent. I once read a book that used the theory of racial memories for time travel. There was this drug you could take which would allow you go back in the memories of your ancestors. But then towards the end they bust continuity by having a guy in his dad's head well after conception. I liked the book up to that point and then it was ruined for me by the inconcistency.

imo, science fiction isn't necessarily defined by technology or the use thereof. It can also be defined by setting and the rules of the given world. Take a look at Bruce Sterling, specifically his short We See Things Differently. It's one of my favorites specifically because it isn't about technology, it's about the state of civilization. There aren't even many (any? now I need to go re-read it again heh) specific advances in technology mentioned, but it is absolutely Science Fiction by the conditions imposed by the world and the environments in which his characters live.

I still want to know how exactly Star Wars and Star Trek are fantasy. Okay, the force I'll give you, but Star Trek? even though they conviently have warp speed, it is in a hard surface tech world.

The stories themselves, especially Star Wars, are grand tales most often seen in fantasy books. Black and white, evil vs good, Tolkeinesque stories told from extremes. The term Science Fantasy was batted around for a long while, and even Lucas referred to Star Wars as a Space Opera and not as Science Fiction.

Personally, I feel that whether you are talking about horror, sci-fi, YA, fantasy, it's all just a tag that makes categorizing easier by those that market, sell, and buy. I think it's good to know, but I personally never set out to write a fantasy, or a horror story. I have the spark of a story and I write it, seeing where it takes me along the way. In the end I'll let other folks argue about what it is once I am done with it (kinda like we are doing now, actually ).

THanks man. Space Opera, That sounds way cool and epic. Like Star Wars.

sassandgroove said:

THanks man. Space Opera, That sounds way cool and epic. Like Star Wars.

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I love writing space opera - it's a whole legitimate sub-genre. I have a series I write in, with a sassy junk freighter pilot, lots of criminal activity, drinking in sleazy bars, high adventure and, oh yeah, science that I make up but which is consistent with the world in which my characters operate.

After all, no matter the genre, in a story it's the human element that is most important. (Even if your characters aren't human...)

The veriety of responses to this post illustrate what I was saying about keeping your audience in mind. Some people will stop reading the second they see anything that isn't grounded in hard science, other people don't care, and still others don't care for stories that get all scientifically technical.

So if you're writing Hard SF, be prepared to crack the books to make darn sure everything's right, because flaky science will annoy the heck out of your readers. If you're writing just sort of general SF, try not to stray too far from the plausible (stay away from faster-than-light travel (you can generally get away with hyperspace or string theory though), Star-Trek-esque replicators and transporters, etc. ). If you're writing Science Fantasy, do whatever you want, because the science is totally not the point.

It just depends what kind of story you want to tell. For instance, I've got two projects going right now that take place on Mars. The first one has to do with connection to the land and feelings of alienation from Earth. It's Hard SF, because it's about the human condition and how we as a species deal with changes in technology. The other involves a swashbuckling Robin Hood/batman type character. It's science fantasy. If I tried to make it hard SF, that would just make the idea of a guy running around in a costume fighting crime and getting even for the little guy even more ridiculous than it already is.

Pick a setting that suits the story you want to tell. You're never going to have a science level that's going to please everybody-- that's like trying to come up with a genre that everyone will want to read.

I agree with James. Star Wars is technically "science-fantasy" (or "Sci-Fi"). Much (but not all) of the scientific elements in Star Wars (in reality, the Death Star simply couldn't be as large as it was and still function IF it were made of steel, iron etc even accounting for zero gravity in space) are pure fantasy.

Star Wars and Star Trek are called science fiction, ONLY by the layperson. They aren't anything resembling pure Science Fiction to the editors of most current science fiction magazines. There is a trend toward 'Hard Science' in Science Fiction magazines today, and to write that, as James has said, you'd better be comfortably familiar with the science you're writing about and any extrapolations you make better be based on what we know to be possible within the context of current scientic theory. In other words, being internally consistant is more than enough for Science Fantasy and other types of 'Space Opera, but it generally is NOT enough for the editors, or the readers of so-called 'Hard Science Fiction' magazines.

No matter how good the story behind it, is, if your manuscript reads like Star Wars (or.. far worse-Star Trek!) in any way what-so-ever, it'll never get published in a magazine that specializes in hard Science Fiction. For these reasons, with Science Fiction, it is extremely important to research your market extra carefully and only submit to the magazines that accept both hard and soft science fiction if you are unsure as to your grasp of the science you're writing about.

Hope this helps,
Take Care!
BS

Star trek

sassandgroove said:

I still want to know how exactly Star Wars and Star Trek are fantasy. Okay, the force I'll give you, but Star Trek? even though they conviently have warp speed, it is in a hard surface tech world.

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Star Wars is fantasy front to back. Star Trek wasn't quite as bad, but still horrible where the science was concerned. The trouble with the hard tech they had was that almost none of it was plausible, it was all explained away with handwavium, and , well, it just wasn't SF in any way. Great fun to watch, but not SF. At the very best, it was sometimes sci-fi.

Probably the biggest single mistake wannabe science fiction writers make is thinking what's on TV and in the movies is SF. Just write like what you see on TV, and you're in. Not a chance.

If you want to write SF, you have to actually read SF, which means magazines such as Asimov's and Analog, and novels by real SF writers. You have to read a LOT of SF. Watching TV and teh movies just means you'll get everything wrong.

You don't have to be a scientist, but you absolutely have to know the science. You can't fake it these days. You'll be caught in a second. What's on TV and in the movies is almost never actual science fiction. You have to read SF. There is no other way.

You can't even play fast and loose with space opera today.

I think we've got a definitions problem here.

There's a big difference between what Analog will publish and what will end up in the science fiction section of a bookstore, but both would be considered SF by the average SF reader.

Look at Frankenstein, for instance-- it's considered the first SF novel ever written, but I doubt the leading scientific minds of Shelly's day would have called it's premise plausible.

It really just depends who you ask. Some people like their SF hard and some don't. There's a market for both.

(Also, I was always under the impression that scifi was short for science fiction... wouldn't Science Fantasy be Scifa?)

"Sci-Fi" is technically short for science fiction to laymen, yes, but to editors and readers of Science Fiction 'Sci-Fi' (pronounced 'skiffy' to them) is a completely different animal altogether. Sci-fi (skiffy) is like the Buck Rogers type fiction, or the majority of what is shown on the Sci-Fi Network on television.

There are differences in definition, yes. For instance James R. would call Star Wars a Fantasy, and I'd term it as a Sci-Fi (skiffy), or a 'space opera'. The lines do often get blurred, but the main point is that, as James says, even in 'Soft Science Fiction' nowdays, its not looked upon as 'okay' to completely fudge with the Science aspect. In Soft Science Fiction there is more allowance for vaguries (as James said, you can just call a Time Machine, a time machine, and you aren't expected to know or explain the science behind it... but at the same time, you CAN'T just pull theories out of the ether either, I hope I'm making sense..

Soft Science Fiction = the science & technology as merely a backdrop for the story.. the science isn't EMPHASIZED.

Hard Science Fiction = the science and technology are so integral to the plot that they indeed ARE the plot and the story could not exist without the science aspect (for these stories, the modern reader demands you know what you're talking about... because many of the readers of hard science fiction come from backgrounds in the physical sciences)

Sci-Fi (skiffy) is unencumbered by the rules of known science, or plays so fast and loose with it, as to make any internal consistency almost meaningless, like most Star Trek, etc.

Some (but not all) would include Space Opera, and Science-Fantasy, and Sci-Fi under the umbrella of 'Soft Science Fiction)

I hope I'm making things a bit clearer, though certainly there are some who'd disagree with my advice or add a caveat.

thanks for the explanation, BuffStuff.

I guess my only argument is that regardless of whether a story is Soft SF, hard SF, or Science Fantasy, there is a market for it. A writer should write the story they want to write. If that story would be better served by a hard sf setting, they should do the research and make it hard SF. But if the story would be better served by a space-opera backdrop, they should make it a space opera-- they just shouldn't then submit it to Analog.

Star Wars really worked as a space opera. When Lucas tried to nudge it towards soft-sf by trying to bring in scientific justifications, people started getting miffed. X-Men's another good example. It works as soft SF. When the comic book writers start turning it into Science Fantasy/Space Opera, I stop buying the comic books those writers are working on (I like my witchcraft before breakfast and my mutants after, thanks).

BuffStuff said:

Star Wars and Star Trek are called science fiction, ONLY by the layperson. They aren't anything resembling pure Science Fiction to the editors of most current science fiction magazines.

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So are these the only people who can define what Science Fiction is?

If that's the case, and let's say in a few years time there are new editors in charge, who have different views on the definition, will the definition itself be different, and will you be happy to take whatever they say as being Science Fiction as Science Fiction.

My point is, and I'm not trying to be an agitator, or a smart-***, or argue with you in any way, how can the opinion of a small group of people be seen as the absolute definition of what Science Fiction is? Have they attained this power just because they control what gets printed and what doesn't? To me, that's a bit scary.

Jamesaritchie said:

There's a term for using a word such as "flux capacitor" in SF. Danged if I can remember what it is. "Handwavium," maybe? But it's not a good thing.

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Bolognium.

Like so many others have said, it depends on what level of science fiction you are writing. If you are writing hard science fiction, where the science is integral to the story, then you're going to have to do research and make certain your facts are straight. If you're writing scifi/science fantasy/soft science fiction or even fantasy, your details, and your bolognium, are still going to have to be true to your universe and made believable to your reader.

Simon,

I agree with you. It can be scary and if, in the future, new editors, publishers etc are in charge and they decide that the term 'Sci-fi' should be changed to fit yet another label then, unfortunately, writers will have to go along with their views if they hope to find a correct 'Market' for their stories. It can suck, yes and there are many who decry the whole 'labeling' of genres for convenience-sake because of what happens when a story doesn't quite fit into the labels of certain genres. It can make it a bit harder to find a home for the piece in some instances.

The publishers and editors don't get to decide what 'Sci-fi' really means to the rest of the world.... but they do get to decide what it means to them, and writers simply have to follow the rules of the market if they hope to be published.

If its any consolation, regardless of the current labeling in the publishing world, to my mother, and to millions of others arouns the world, 'Sci-fi will always be short for Science Fiction ^_^

Here is a very good link that explains the differences between the sub-genres within Science Fiction. In the end, it all comes down to what a particular editor wants, and no matter what you decide to write, if its good enough, chances are that it WILL find a home sooner or later, regardless of whether or not it's "sci-fi" or "space-opera". ^_^

http://www.otherworlds.net/otherworlds.net/genres.htm