Real Science: The Key Ingredient to Real Science Fiction
Real Science: The Key
Ingredient to Real
Science Fiction
by A.E. Albert
“Science fiction is the most important literature in the history of the world, because it's the history of ideas, the history of our civilization birthing itself. ...Science fiction is central to everything we've ever done, and people who make fun of science fiction writers don't know what they're talking about.”
-Ray Bradbury
When I decided to write a book, I chose subjects I love. And I love science. Of course, being a lover of science is usually accompanied with the love of science fiction.
Since I'm also a fan of history, I decided to write a book involving time travel. I could have described some contraption and just said it traveled through time. But as a reader I like a little bit more meat.
Let's face it, good science fiction is born when it convinces the audience that's it's plausible.
Go Where No Man Has Gone Before...You Get The Idea.
I decided to not research time travel. Nor did I want to read what other story tellers did. I didn't want to pollute my idea or plagiarize.
So I looked up the greats. Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and a few others. I took their theories and using my creative imagination, made up my own theory on time travel.
Initially, I wrote the theory up as though I was writing a science essay and then tied it into my story.
If you're writing a sci-fi novel, don't think it's all been thought up. Science fiction fundamentally comes from science. Go the root of your idea.
Who knows? Your idea might be the next leap from science fiction into science.
What do you think makes great science fiction? Let me know.
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The one that stands out.. That's been my gut perception, the past week Aimee, seeing this article each time amongst the others on your list.
ReplyDeleteGuess what.. despite its being set in outer space, and, despite its featuring spacecraft (i.e. the Lane-Cycler) The Representative "isn't" science-fiction.
Okay, so I could just apply the term, and just allow myself the honour.. but it wouldn't be deserved!
Don't get me wrong, absolutely please. To its rim, The Representative has merit, and its has distinction, just not however in the realm of conjecturing future science. (The Lane-Cycler, as an example, is a feature of the story yet nowhere is its practical workings as a feature described - I don't have a clue about its workings!)
To finish.. The Representative may not be the next great target for science, but it's most definitely the next great target for the human race outright.
(Another 24 hours... then "The Importance of Beta Readers".)
No one knows how the time machine worked in 'The Time Machine', but that in no way takes from the story. No matter where or when a story takes place, it's really about people anyway. At least the good ones are.
DeleteWells did demonstrate at least some portion of knowledge, unlike me, of science in his story.. Perhaps not for the machine itself, but certainly elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI come back to the YA discussion, and my perception of it is that what makes a good story; The Representative is a great story, but both Croyan and Mariel aren't well conveyed.. To my mind, great stories aren't actually "about people", as everyone is the same. Instead, the prism through which I look at it is that great stories are the ones that are about the "great situation":
The great proceeding, or the great evolution of events!
I still need great characters. But you're right, what are great characters without a great setting.
ReplyDelete