Balancing Realism and Science Fiction

A reoccurring theme I see in reviews of my books is the realism in them.  Some people compliment me on my work’s realism.  On the other hand, some people hammer me about how unbelievable my writing is.  (They don’t seem to grasp the concept of FICTION.)  Either way, there has been enough discussion on it that I think it merits a deeper dive.  Although I only have three books out, making me anything but a writing expert, hopefully, this helps out someone who may be facing issues with realism in their works.

For the sake of this discussion, I’m going to be giving my opinion on works that have a human in some significant role, like mine.  In this case, I have found that the realism of a story can be broken into two categories, personal interaction, and technology.  Both have to be handled differently as they are both judged differently.

As my ninth-grade english teacher used to say, “if you’re going to write a story, write about something you know from the perspective you know.” Even if your story is set in a different millennium with technology so advanced that the average person couldn’t even fathom it, humans should interact the same way they have for their entire existence. 

I made the main character an artillery officer with combat experience when writing my books.  Although he wasn’t a direct copy of me, there were enough similarities that I could put myself in his shoes and ensure he was behaving and speaking similarly to what I had experienced during my time as an artillery officer.  Just trying to make my character react the way I would, gave him an air of sincerity.  Trying to pigeonhole a character into a stereotype or persona that you think he should follow; seem to make characters that don’t feel genuine.

As I get better at storytelling, at least, I think I’m getting better; I am trying to incorporate characters that I don’t naturally relate to.  Although several aliens were in the crew of my first book, Samix, the female lead, was the most difficult to write.  She was an alien, which gave me some leeway with realism, but I didn’t want to fit the cliché “female for the sake of a romance” trope.

If you are a reader, you have undoubtedly come across poorly written characters at some point.  I used these experiences to vet how I developed Samix.  As I was writing her dialogue or actions, I would pause to think of how a lousy writer might make her appear then I thought of how my ideal representation of her looked.  Both perspectives are equally unrealistic, in opposite directions.  Then when I had that bracket set, I tried to keep her character between them.  Sure, she might come across as unrealistic in some scenarios, but I thought it would be good if I kept her in the middle of the bracket.

As for technological realism, the farther away from the here and now, the less realistic I would say you have to be.  Like everything else, I get some hate because of the technologies I have incorporated in the series and how they have changed as the story has unfolded.  Personally, I think we all enjoy science fiction because it allows us to escape from the tedium of our reality.  As long as the technology doesn’t undermine the story or show up as a convenient solution to a problem that has been building, I say the weirder, the better.

I would say that the human character’s mindset and ability to adopt unique technology should also follow the rule I laid out in the above paragraph about the technology itself.  In the first book, Zade is fresh off of Earth; his natural willingness and ability to adopt alien tech and science is hindered by his limited perspective.  He has learned about and built relationships with the aliens on the crew by book two.  His perspective has opened, meaning that he is more likely to adopt new technology.  Furthermore, he is given a ship from an ancient alien race that is thought to have gone extinct eons ago.

This new technology is about as far from modern-day Earth, both geographically and chronologically, as possible, so I thought I could make it even stranger than the things in the first book.  In the end, I would suggest that there is a much looser metric for the scientific or technological realism in a story.  I would recommend that the tech or science in question isn’t being inserted solely as a plot device.  Integrating it in a society or species on a large scale before or when a character has to adopt it helps stop readers from questioning where it came from.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading.  This was my first attempt at blogging, and, if anything, I hope it can help other writers who are running into this type of criticism.

Z.D. Dean