Why Sci-Fi/Fantasy?

Faye HG

Faye HG

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Hello,
I have just finished writing my first sci-fi novel and it is currently being edited. It is actually the first book in a series entitled ‘Transcendal’. It has always been my dream to write a book since I was a young child. For me writing within the sci-fi genre allows me to exercise my imagination and create new worlds beyond the boundaries of earthly expectation. This in turn allows me to experiment with social issues and narrative that would prove to be too controversial if based in ‘real life, real time.' I was always a horror and sci-fi reader and watcher. I was wondering though - what made you write sci-fi and/or fantasy and not some other genre?
 
Ray McCarthy said:
Lots of SF isn't "what if"
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True, but I personally feel the genre gives more space to experiment with alternative outcomes and allows room for thought experimentation. Of course, other genres can also offer this additional platform in creative writing, but from my writing/creative experience it was the most flexible genre.
 
I am fascinated by that line lately. What divides the two genres. The 300 word challenge used the term 'speculative fiction.' Cool term. I think that term alone is causing me to explore a whole new range of possibilities.
 
Because Angus, my main character in my first book, needed to overhear something. I'd tried many solutions but one day turned him into a bird and then spent the rest of book explaining how he'd become a bird and why.

Then whilst writing a detective novel Ian Black, the father (now stepfather) of one of the detectives rolled up a shirt sleeve to reveal a very hairy forearm and I realised he was too big for the book so I wrote him his own story. At some point that standard murder mystery where Ian, a former detective, was trying to prove his grandson innocent, brought in a variety of species of fae and a demon or two -- oh and at least one gargoyle (he was a natural to do surveillance in a monastery. Ian discovered his partner of over forty years was a fairy and his twin brother wasn't just a cheating priest (slept with Ian's wife) he was also outright evil. Urban fantasy it became.

I have never ever set out to write a fantasy book they just tend to turn out that way.
 
AnyaKimlin said:
Because Angus, my main character in my first book, needed to overhear something. I'd tried many solutions but one day turned him into a bird and then spent the rest of book explaining how he'd become a bird and why.

Then whilst writing a detective novel Ian Black, the father (now stepfather) of one of the detectives rolled up a shirt sleeve to reveal a very hairy forearm and I realised he was too big for the book so I wrote him his own story. At some point that standard murder mystery where Ian, a former detective, was trying to prove his grandson innocent, brought in a variety of species of fae and a demon or two -- oh and at least one gargoyle (he was a natural to do surveillance in a monastery. Ian discovered his partner of over forty years was a fairy and his twin brother wasn't just a cheating priest (slept with Ian's wife) he was also outright evil. Urban fantasy it became.

I have never ever set out to write a fantasy book they just tend to turn out that way.
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That is really interesting how your characters are presenting as too big for the confines of the world you originally saw them inhabiting. With my sci-fi novel, I sat down to write and the main character (Marc) constructed an energy wall in front of me. Sci-fi it was!
By the way, I do love the term 'urban fantasy.'
 
Yes, but I don't write them :p Its my reason, not everyone's reason.

Although, even with Science Fantasy, you frequently see them mining the past for ideas and inspiration. Sticking the lad on a space ship doesn't stop a knight being a knight.
 
Steven Sorrels said:
Often, but then you have things like Star Wars, which is Science Fantasy. I mean, I guess it does take place "A Long Time Ago..." lol
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That is what my novel is basically. As Time Travel isn't technically scientific because there is no basis for it in reality as far as we know. Although there are vague theories about what would happen if we did. That way, with a bit of disbelief I can create an entire universe around the concept and it will be fantasy not factual. As such there is hardly any physics in my WIP, just what I like to call temporal logic. Which all starts with the phrase, "If time travel exists then..."
 
Faye HG said:
That is really interesting how your characters are presenting as too big for the confines of the world you originally saw them inhabiting. With my sci-fi novel, I sat down to write and the main character (Marc) constructed an energy wall in front of me. Sci-fi it was!
By the way, I do love the term 'urban fantasy.'
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I do wonder if I should have called it rural fantasy as it's in a small market town in a fake county in the North of England.
 
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