Hello, friends! Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writers’ Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and cohosted this month by Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Natalie Aguirre, Sarah – The Faux Fountain Pen, and Olga Godim. Are you a writer? Do you feel insecure? Well, good news! This is the support group for you! Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.
Today, I’d like to tell you a story. This story is half true, half not true, but I think it’s a good story nonetheless, and maybe some of you will find it relatable.
A long time ago, I was at a party for writers—one of those networking events they say you have to go to if you want to get published. I ended up sitting at a table with some dude who wrote historical fiction. He was apparently a big shot in the historical fiction genre, or at least he talked about himself as if he were a big shot in the historical fiction genre.
As the evening wore on, the conversation turned to research. Mr. Historical Fiction knew a lot about doing research, obviously. He and his wife had just returned from a trip to Europe, where they’d toured some castle that was going to feature prominently in his next magnum opus. Anyway, this guy went on and on about how important research is for every writer. Not just historical fiction writers but every writer, in ever genre.
“Unless you write science fiction,” this guy said, with a gracious nod toward me. “Sci-Fi and fantasy writers do ‘world building’ where the rest of us do research.”
At this point, I’d run out of patience. “Well, yeah,” I said. “Fantasy writers have no need for research. What would they even do research about? Horses? Livestock? Agriculture? Blacksmithing? Swords and armor? Military strategy? Medieval architecture? None of that ever comes up in fantasy.
“And as for Sci-Fi, well… my need for research is even less. Outer space is a mysterious void that we can fill with pure imagination. Biology? Geology? Chemistry? Don’t need them. Newton’s laws? Not important—not when you’re writing about spaceflight. As a Sci-Fi author, I will never need to know the difference between an asteroid and a meteor, or between dark matter and dark energy, or between special and general relativity. It’s a good thing, too, because that relativity stuff is complicated. Have you seen how much math Einstein put into special and general relativity?
“Nope, I have it easy. I get to just make stuff up. Maybe I’ll throw the word ‘quantum’ in there so that I sound smart, but don’t worry! I don’t need to know what the word quantum actually means. And when I get my stories published, I can rest easy in the knowledge that my audience—i.e., the nerdy people who read science fiction on a regular basis—will not notice my laziness and will not call me out for my ignorance.”
The room was dead silent now. I carefully set down my drink. “My point is,” I said, “we Sci-Fi and fantasy writers do world building on top of our research. Not instead of research.”
Okay, I lied. I didn’t say all those things. That whole rant is the part of this story that’s not true. But I really wanted to say that stuff. I really, really wanted to.
i-love-space.com 
Just reverse the polarity of the neutron flow, the science will take care of itself.
Seriously though, sometimes science fiction feels way more grounded in reality than stories that take place in the “real” world. Some of my favorite science fiction stories merely use the setting (such as outer space, or the distant future) to tell very human stories. To contrast, a story taking place in the present day in a familiar setting can often have fantastical characters and situations that are completely untethered from reality.
An example that comes to mind is “Severance”. Someone in the field of neuroscience praised the shows writers for being somewhere in the ballpark in terms of the areas of the brain the show references and manipulates for its overall premise.
Sometimes you can just make something up to move the story along, but other times good research can convey to your audience that you made an effort to make things as believable as possible.
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I’ve heard so many good things about Severance. I really need to watch that at some point.
My own theory is that science fiction should be a mix of real science and fictional science. And if you can ground a solid chunk of your Sci-Fi with good, scientific realism, then the reader will be more likely to trust you when you start making stuff up.
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I wish you would have said those things. I get it — I’ve written both those genres and there is ALWAYS research involved. In fact, one of my mantras is “Research is life.” Those who succeed do their homework. Those who fail usually jump in without due diligence. *shrugs* This is the way.
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Yes! This is the way.
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No research? Are you kidding me? Too bad you didn’t do that rant.
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I wish I had. I’m way too introverted for that, though.
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“Maybe I’ll throw the word ‘quantum’ in there so that I sound smart” 😀 But, seriously, I only write stories so my friends think all that time spent researching has an acceptable purpose 😀
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Oh yeah, fair point. I started doing all this research to make my Sci-Fi writing better. I wasn’t expecting research to be so much fun in its own right. Even if, for some crazy reason, I gave up on writing, I’d still want to read science books and science papers for fun.
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I think you should have said it. Writers of sci-fi and fantasy do lots of research.
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Indeed we do!
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Feedback he needed to hear, but I can understand why you didn’t. Correcting egotistical asses is rarely worth the headache. That and most people have no idea how different sci-fi literature is from the media versions. He’s likely judging all sci-fi by Armageddon.
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That’s probably true. Hollywood Sci-Fi is a very different animal. In most cases, I’d call that science fantasy.
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Way to be strong. I don’t have a filter so I’m glad I wasn’t there to rip the skin off his face. hehehe
Anna from elements of emaginette
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That would have been fun to watch. 😉
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LOL! Too bad you didn’t actually say all that (although I wouldn’t have been able to, either). I don’t think there’s any genre that doesn’t require some research.
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Agreed. At the very least, we all need to do a little fact checking before we hit publish.
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Don’t worry, I always think of the perfect thing to say afterwards, too! 🙂
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Glad to know it’s not just me!
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The genre-cemtric people you get out there. When they often talk about themselves being a big shot writer, they’re usually not!
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So true. I remember looking him up afterward, and he did have a fair number of books out there. I’m guessing he was a mid-lister.
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Thanks for stopping by my blog last week.
I really enjoyed this post, but I always enjoy your posts.
I really wanted you to have said that stuff, but so glad you wrote about it. Maybe you’ll get a chance to set another small minded person straight down the road.
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Thanks! I’m a little braver today than I was back then, so if I ever end up in a similar situation again, maybe I will speak up.
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