Sci-Fi Circuit: What Makes It Sci-Fi?

I was indoctrinated into the world of sci-fi by my father at the tender age of nine, when he handed me my first sci-fi book, The City and the Stars by Arthur C. Clarke. Right around the same time, I saw Star Wars.

I was hooked. Together, they changed my life.

No longer was my world limited to the known and the knowable.

It expanded into the realm of possibility, discovery, and exploration. The idea that there might be so much more than I could see and know was endlessly exciting.

Star Trek reruns, the original Battlestar Galactica series, and a steady stream of sci-fi novels were my salvation — the barest of bare minimums to tide me over until The Empire Strikes Back was released. George Lucas became like a god to me, delivering tales to satisfy this unending thirst for more.

I gobbled up sci-fi as fast as I could get my hands on it.

I lived inside Anne McCaffrey’s dragon books, read and re-read thrice over Marion Zimmer Bradley’s hybrid world of Darkover where magic and technology were interwoven, and fell in love again and again with the works of Orson Scott Card (his outstanding book Ender’s Game will be released as a motion picture in December 2013 - pictured above).

At some point, my hunger became a desire to create my own sci-fi. I got my hands on a copy of How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy by Orson Scott Card, and I still consider it to be a seminal work on the subject. (Since then Writer's Digestreleased an updated hardback version here and an ebook version here.)

His comment about sci-fi and fantasy precisely encapsulates my abiding love for both genres: “... science fiction and fantasy are the genres in which stories can hew closest to the archetypes and myths that readers in all time and places have hungered for.”

Yes!

What’s always stayed present in my mind (even years later) is Card's distinction between sci-fi and fantasy.

Because let’s face it, they are often lumped together -- even in the title of his book!

And yet to me -- to most of us paying attention, to be sure -- they are quite different.

Card does a useful job of explaining WHY they're often put together. Despite the fact that apparently in the publishing world, sci-fi and fantasy often function as separate animals, with different trade magazines, publishing departments, and labels, in the bookstore realms, they’re put together, because, as Card says, sci-fi and fantasy “have a largely author-driven market.” A reader wants to find all the books by a certain author together, not scattered pell-mell throughout the store.

Card explains this author-driven aspect behind this adroitly, saying, “Most of us who write speculative fiction turn with equal ease from fantasy to science fiction and back again.”

Of course we do.

On the other hand, on the movie shelves we see both sci-fi and fantasy put together, sometimes with weird results. The other day I was on Hulu.com and noticed they’d categorized “Once Upon a Time” as science fiction, something I’d never consider to be the case.

But I still like Card’s definition of them together as “speculative fiction.” He describes them this way because they both tend to be stories “that take place in worlds that never existed or are not yet known.”

He also says, “The intrinsic difference between speculative and real-world fiction is that speculative fiction must take place in an unknowable world. At some point, every science fiction and fantasy story must challenge the reader’s experience and learning.”

It matters when it comes to audience. In both genres, our audience has be educated about the world we've created and the rules the world operates within. We have to tell them which one we're in. And fast.

Sometimes it's obvious. Sometimes less so.

Time travel machines?

Flying cars?

Spaceships?

Sci-fi.

Magic spells?

Flying carpets?

Enchanted princesses?

Fantasy.

Magic spells that cause time travel? Fantasy.

Dragons that are the result of careful genetic manipulation and crossbreeding? Sci-fi.

Dragons who speak and foretell the future? Fantasy.

Or as Carson Reeves, author of ScriptShadow Secrets (whom I hope to interview in a future column) says, "I define science fiction as any fictional story with space, futuristic, or time-traveling elements. I like to keep it simple! Fantasy on its own is definitely not sci-fi. You wouldn't categorize Lord Of The Rings as sci-fi. However, there are science fiction movies that incorporate both elements, like Star Wars."

Yes, so true.

Regardless of the genre, we have to 1) establish the facts early on with our world-building, and 2) clue the audience into whether it's driven by science or magic. Luckily -- and perhaps in a slightly clichéd manner -- we can often do this quickly with the landscape. If we're seeing metal and spaceships, chances are it's sci-fi. If we're in the natural landscape or riding horses into courtyards, it's most likely fantasy.

Bottom line:

Are we switching a lever or waving a wand?

Perhaps the most important distinction here is that sci-fi should theoretically require less explanation than fantasy, because as Card says, “If the story is set in a universe that follows the same rules as ours, it’s science fiction. If it’s set in a universe that doesn’t follow our rules, it’s fantasy.”

More rules?

More explanation.

What about the pseudo-science that masquerades as fact in so many of the sci-fi features we see today?

I've seen more than few complaints about the careless science of sci-fi films disrupting the reality, including a discussion on the science of Prometheus that pointed out several logic flaws (e.g. the star formation that pointed out the location of the alien planet would have shifted significantly over the many thousands of years since the maps were left in the caves on Earth).

Here's my take:

As a sci-fi screenwriter, I'm interested in a number of questions, particularly about the marketability of spec sci-fi projects from unknown screenwriters and writing issues inherent to the genre. Stay tuned for more about genre, sub-genre, breaking in, adaptation, novelization, interviews of sci-fi screenwriters and industry experts, and more.

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