Sci-fi defined?
What is science fiction? How would you define it and categorize it? There are so many types; it’s hard to lock down one clear definition. I’m taking a Sci-Fi writing class through the UCLA Extension Program this semester and the instructor asked for our own definition. I had never thought about this and it’s tougher than I thought.
To make our jobs easier, he first gave us his interpretation of science fiction.
“Any story that relies on science for its narrative advancement.”
This helps cover the variety of different sci-fi genres, but I don’t think I like it. I believe what makes sci-fi so compelling (at least to us sci-fi nerds) is that it holds a mirror up to society better than any contemporary story could. The science is a way of telling the story in a unique way. However, the science can be stripped away from many of examples of science fiction and still leave the main story. When the USS Enterprise visits a warring planet and tries to make peace, it’s a diplomatic story. No warp drive is necessary to tell that tale. District 9 deals with apartheid, it just uses aliens to effectively get its point across. Doctor Who is sci-fi at its finest, but some of the best episodes require the Doctor to make do without technology – his TARDIS can’t be reached in “The Satan Pit”; he is a human in “Human Nature”.
I don’t believe a story has to rely on science in order to be classified as sci-fi. A time travel story requires the technology to time travel, true, but it’s what happens in the past or future and the characters’ interactions that make up the majority of the story. The narrative is driven by their actions and attitudes while in a strange new world. It becomes a reflection of our own thoughts and ideals in our time and how they differ either in hindsight or in potential. I think in nearly every case of sci-fi, you can tell the same story in a different way without the science. It just wouldn’t be as interesting.
So how would I define science fiction? That’s a good question. I’m sure anything I put forth would be full of more holes than my instructor’s attempt. The problem is, there’s so many types – military, time travel, distopia/utopia, steampunk, hard, soft. The great thing about science fiction though, is that it always stirs debate. Debates about the realism of technology in the story, debates about the moralistic views of the characters, debates about how the characters are reflections of modern day – even when going for pure entertainment, there is something special about the multiple layers of any science fiction story.
I would say any story that invokes science as a story element in a speculative or fictional manner can be defined as science fiction. That’s to say that, this fictional science is used in order to create the world of the story. It’s a structure, but it’s only one pillar of the whole. It creates a world, but it doesn’t necessarily drive the narrative. That is left to the characters.
A phaser is no different than a gun in the sense that it’s used to achieve the same end. But how cool is it to see a laser instead of a bullet? And how cool is science fiction that writers can imagine all kinds of impossibilities that may someday come to pass? As technology continues to advance at breakneck speeds, the range of sci-fi storytelling continues to grow. The problem with trying to define science fiction is that it knows no bounds. It speaks to us in many ways, through many forms. That is the beauty of it.