When you think of some of the best books (or TV shows or movies, if you prefer) you realize that in many of them nothing actually happens.
Well, that’s not quite true, but you get my drift. The idea of plot, or incident, takes a back seat to characterization and character development.
Isaac Asimov wrote an essay called “The Little Tin God of Characterization,” in which he posited that, in a science fiction story, ideas are of prime importance. Orson Scott Card formed the MICE quotient in science fiction stories (milieu, idea, character, event) where “idea” and “character” stories were different things.
So what’s going on here? Do I watch Star Wars for all the deep characterization? The complex interplay of shifting motives? Is Star Wars so popular because it is the Faulknerian ideal of the human heart in conflict with itself?
Or, on the other hand, is it so popular because of the cool s.f. (and in this case, read “science fantasy”) ideas? Hyperspace, intelligent and sentient robots? The Force?
I’m being unfair, of course–I’m presenting this as a binary choice, when the question is nothing of the sort. A blending, an interface of character and idea is obviously at play in the best of works. The incidents that happen, or the ideas behind those incidents, take on a special meaning when the happen to this character or that one. What happens in Casablanca means very little if it’s not Rick Blaine to whom they’re happening.
Still, I think Asimov had something. The idea is what sets science fiction apart from other genres. “What if you could go back in time?” “What if aliens contacted us?” “What if a robot could be built who could feel?” All of those are IDEAS that are the special province of science fiction. If you take those away, you may indeed have an excellent story–but you wouldn’t have a science fiction one.
The problem with the Good Doctor’s approach (which his successors pointed out) is that it relies on labels, as if our job was to stock the shelves of some imaginary library and place each story squarely in its appointed genre. Increasingly (and, to my way of thinking, this is a good thing) stories are including science fiction elements while not really being science fiction–stories where the science fiction “idea” is merely a gimmick or a plot device to heighten tension or bring a conflict into sharp relief. The story may not delve into the ramifications of a scientific development but simply present the idea in a sort of “plot vacuum.” The aforementioned Star Wars is frequently guilty of this. So are countless love stories involving time travel, or many of the post-apocalyptic stories where the science of how we got here is secondary or even insignificant to the story.
A purist might claim “these are not science fiction!” and I might even agree.
But so what? I mean, ultimately, who cares? Was Christopher Reeve’s Superman science fiction? We can debate this back and forth, but at the end of the day, does it matter?
One of the best things to come out of the so-called New Wave of science fiction was the inclusion of what had been (and still are) marginalized voices in literature. It seems like this necessitated a widening of what science fiction was: no longer was it shackled to white cisgendered heterosexual able-bodied Protestant men speaking in clipped military accents as they bravely conquered space: everyone’s got a story to tell, not just those sitting atop the social pyramid. Inclusion, welcoming, and the Big Tent gave us some of the best science fiction we’ve ever seen, and if that meant widening the definition and placing characters–especially ones we’ve not heard from before–at the forefront, then I sing their bodies electric.
Be seeing you!
Well, that’s not quite true, but you get my drift. The idea of plot, or incident, takes a back seat to characterization and character development.
Isaac Asimov wrote an essay called “The Little Tin God of Characterization,” in which he posited that, in a science fiction story, ideas are of prime importance. Orson Scott Card formed the MICE quotient in science fiction stories (milieu, idea, character, event) where “idea” and “character” stories were different things.
So what’s going on here? Do I watch Star Wars for all the deep characterization? The complex interplay of shifting motives? Is Star Wars so popular because it is the Faulknerian ideal of the human heart in conflict with itself?
Or, on the other hand, is it so popular because of the cool s.f. (and in this case, read “science fantasy”) ideas? Hyperspace, intelligent and sentient robots? The Force?
I’m being unfair, of course–I’m presenting this as a binary choice, when the question is nothing of the sort. A blending, an interface of character and idea is obviously at play in the best of works. The incidents that happen, or the ideas behind those incidents, take on a special meaning when the happen to this character or that one. What happens in Casablanca means very little if it’s not Rick Blaine to whom they’re happening.
Still, I think Asimov had something. The idea is what sets science fiction apart from other genres. “What if you could go back in time?” “What if aliens contacted us?” “What if a robot could be built who could feel?” All of those are IDEAS that are the special province of science fiction. If you take those away, you may indeed have an excellent story–but you wouldn’t have a science fiction one.
The problem with the Good Doctor’s approach (which his successors pointed out) is that it relies on labels, as if our job was to stock the shelves of some imaginary library and place each story squarely in its appointed genre. Increasingly (and, to my way of thinking, this is a good thing) stories are including science fiction elements while not really being science fiction–stories where the science fiction “idea” is merely a gimmick or a plot device to heighten tension or bring a conflict into sharp relief. The story may not delve into the ramifications of a scientific development but simply present the idea in a sort of “plot vacuum.” The aforementioned Star Wars is frequently guilty of this. So are countless love stories involving time travel, or many of the post-apocalyptic stories where the science of how we got here is secondary or even insignificant to the story.
A purist might claim “these are not science fiction!” and I might even agree.
But so what? I mean, ultimately, who cares? Was Christopher Reeve’s Superman science fiction? We can debate this back and forth, but at the end of the day, does it matter?
One of the best things to come out of the so-called New Wave of science fiction was the inclusion of what had been (and still are) marginalized voices in literature. It seems like this necessitated a widening of what science fiction was: no longer was it shackled to white cisgendered heterosexual able-bodied Protestant men speaking in clipped military accents as they bravely conquered space: everyone’s got a story to tell, not just those sitting atop the social pyramid. Inclusion, welcoming, and the Big Tent gave us some of the best science fiction we’ve ever seen, and if that meant widening the definition and placing characters–especially ones we’ve not heard from before–at the forefront, then I sing their bodies electric.
Be seeing you!
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