The other day, I was talking to one of my co-workers about stories. In the middle of the conversation, she suddenly says, "I don't understand why anyone would want to read or write science fiction. The stuff that goes on in the real world is so interesting, why do people feel like they need to make up worlds of their own?"

I answered, saying that fantasy is my favorite genre and that the reason that I like making up my own worlds and reading about other worlds people make up is because the things in the real world aren't interesting enough. (I probably should have said that I like fantasy because it allows me to go places I couldn't go in real life and to experience things that are impossible to experience in this world--that's the real reason I enjoy fantasy--but I didn't think before I spoke). She didn't understand, still insisting that the things in the real world are far more interesting than anything in science fiction (and fantasy).

I live in the real world, so I don't need to read about it. I couldn't give a rats about some random person's triumph over their drug addiction (unless I knew them, and then I wouldn't need to read a book about it); SRP's insightful journey through their psyche to come to terms with some aspect of their past; or SRP's comic/tragic/romantic travels through a foreign country/culture. I'm sure there are plenty of other "real world" settings I would eaually have no interest in.

I have read a biography, as well as some non-fiction books (recently Blink, The Tipping Point -- both by the same author) that I enjoyed. I'm more selective of "real world" material, because I'm a slow reader, and I want the time spent to be rewarding.

There are things that just cannot be done in the normal world, that can be done in science fiction and fantasy.

To me, the important thing in a story is the interaction of the characters. All the types of interactions that we could come up with have already been played out many times through history: love, betrayal, a choice between duty and desire, learning to be a father, lying to save yourself... So it's entirely possible to write the interactions we want to write in a real setting. But sometimes it's just easier to put them in a fantasy setting, or sometimes it's easier to combine multiple of these interactions into a single story in a fantasy setting.

The point is that if you look hard enough you can find what you want to portray in the real world, but sometimes it's just easier to make up a world so that you don't have to do all that searching.

I also agree that any fiction is a fantasy, whether it "could have happened" or "might happen" or "could never happen."

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I probably should have said that I like fantasy because it allows me to go places I couldn't go in real life and to experience things that are impossible to experience in this world--that's the real reason I enjoy fantasy--but I didn't think before I spoke).

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Maybe you should think it over one more time. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with fantasy...it is so not one or the other, I enjoy both immeasurably...it's that the first couple of posts here seem hostile towards things that could have happened in the "real world."

You want to experience something that you can't experience in real life? Are you a 17th century pirate? A senator? A spy? Jacques Gusteau? You have no way at all to explore history in your own "real world," for one thing. You have to experience it through books, and I find fiction more enjoyable than non-fiction because it gets me more involved and besides, non-fiction is often just as fictional. Are you looking for adventure? Romance? Hate? War? Psychoses? The depths of the human mind are just as explorable in the real world as another.

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I live in the real world, so I don't need to read about it.

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Do you? The WHOLE thing? You've been to war? To asia? To Africa? To Antarctica? To the moon? To Mars? (Now we're getting into science fiction but still...it is theoretically an extention of the real world so I have to wonder how you can write it without understanding the real world.) Have you ever been in love? With a member of the same sex? Have you been a disadvantaged youth with a drug adict for a mom, no dad in sight, and gangs seeming to be your ownly outlet for acceptance? Have you been one of the richest men in the world? Have you beenin politics? In prison? Both?

Read fantasy. Read science fiction. Love it. I love the magic. i love the speculation. I love the "What if?" I love tghe ability to explore things that happen in the real world without the same social restrictions and taboos. But in the end, I like to explore the way humanity deals with those strange things...real humans, if not a real world.

I wasn't sure I was going to say this, I'll probably make some people mad, but my fingers aren't giving me a choice:

If you don't read and enjoy fiction set in the "real world" then you will not write good science fiction and fantasy. I'm not saying you have to love it or it has to be your favorite...but you should fins eomthing there that you enjoy.

I'm sorry, but that's all there is to it. If you can't find what's good in what's real, then you'll never make your extra-worldly stories believable and real to me. I don't just want to live in the daydreams of your mind. I want you to be able to make them come alive for me.

[This message has been edited by Christine (edited April 20, 2006).]

I think we'll find the construction of stories is basic to intelligence. You're an agent existing in an environment, and you see another agent. It's taking action; some of these might impinge on yours. It's in your interest to predict what its will be, so you won't be in its way or vice versa. So you tell yourself a story about what it's planning.

This doesn't get into why I read SF. I read it because I want the "novum," the something-different. I don't know why I want this.

The kind of stories I wish people wouldn't tell themselves: the kind they won't be budged from believing are true, about how evil someone else is. I think this is the real danger for people who won't play intellectually: they *do* play, but they don't recognize it as play. Of course, I'm not saying SF is good for the soul, but fiction is.

My best answer to that colleague is, if I'm going to consider something that isn't true, why limit myself? It's like saying, we've got plenty of good food here in the USA; why do you insist on eating bananas?

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Having read Robert's post . . . yes. I *did* make up the real world, as I perceive it. Fortunately for me, it does provide enough hard data my story has to conform to something outside me, somewhat. But, well, consider your favorite or least favorite recent President. E.g.: Clinton was a cute bad-boy type who was getting spanked for being naughty, and flipped off his moralistic persecutors. Clinton was a serial liar, a narcissist who had no core values but himself. Clinton was a gleefully clueless frat boy who didn't give a damn about anything but "where's the party?" and "does she put out?" I don't know anyone in the US who doesn't believe any of these stories (or some other equally provocative one). And they're all made up. It isn't a *fact* that Clinton is any of these things; it's a story. I'm troubled when people are so attached to the story they can't see it's a story.

For example, my best friends' wife didn't like Star Wars because she thought the aliens were silly. She pretty much only likes contemporary fantasy, things she can easily relate to, etc.. There are exceptions, of course. My wife is a hard core realist and doesn't seem very imaginative, mostly because she's always thinking about the real world, but enjoys SciFi/Fantasy.

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Remind your co-worker that these writers all live in the real world, so no matter how far out the story may be, it is still a reflection of the real world. It's just disguised in a fun venue.

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SF+F let's people explore and ,more importanty, focus on important issues without getting caught be the mundane that litters the real world. A setting other than the "real world" allows exploration of the darker and brighter sides of mankind. It also allows to think out the best future possible, i.e. what would it really be like to run the world on methanol or ethanol fuels, why waste precious time with hydrogen powered vehicles when better and easier solutions lie within our grasp, a SF writer can show to the reader that large businesses and politics is leading us on a much longer twisted road than is needed to reach our destination like a man who won't stop to ask directions. If the stupidity of funding of H2 vehicles(assume it's stupid) was written in non-fiction than the writer and/or publisher would come under political attack. Here the SF writer reigns supreme planting the ideas into some of the brightest minds in the nation who then softly whisper with the authority of intellect and slowly change the world. Would we have ever reached the moon if noone had dared to dream?

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Do you? The WHOLE thing?

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they only allowed modern, real world writing.

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That's no excuse. I wrote a nice slipstream/modern fantasy piece about an old woman who finds the long lost wooden box her late husband gave her fifty years earlier and she sees memories played back inside that box.

Everything that woman saw inside the cardboard box she carried around was inside her head.

Nothing at all speculative, I say!

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Maybe you should think it over one more time. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with fantasy...it is so not one or the other, I enjoy both immeasurably...it's that the first couple of posts here seem hostile towards things that could have happened in the "real world."

You want to experience something that you can't experience in real life? Are you a 17th century pirate? A senator? A spy? Jacques Gusteau? You have no way at all to explore history in your own "real world," for one thing. You have to experience it through books, and I find fiction more enjoyable than non-fiction because it gets me more involved and besides, non-fiction is often just as fictional. Are you looking for adventure? Romance? Hate? War? Psychoses? The depths of the human mind are just as explorable in the real world as another.

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Perhaps I should clarify: I like fantasy because I can go places that no one has ever been--past, present, or future. I can go to surreal worlds that exist only in the imagination and meet peoples that I can only dream about. I like fantasy because I can experience things that are impossible for anyone to have ever or to ever experience such as shapeshifting, the use of magic, etc. I can be witness to events that have never happened and will (most likely ) never happen in this world such as an epic quest to destroy a magical Ring.

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Why do we like sci-fi and fantasy?

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Why not?

I agree with the comment that all fiction is fantasy. And Christine hit it on the nail when she mentioned that you need to read "real world" fiction in order to write good sci-fi and fantasy. But I'll go a little further and say that you just need to read good fiction wherever it can be found to write good fiction.

A hundred years ago, airplanes were the stuff of science fiction, along with any number of other devices. Babbage wrote about the workings of his hypothesized Difference Engine for years, but the notion that such a machine could actually be built was laughable at the time. I could start into long list mode, but that would also be a digression.

It's fun to write about what already exists. But isn't it more powerful to imagine a concept that then changes the entire world? The fruits of SF are evident everywhere we look in today's world. The real world you and your co-worker inhabit is largely the result of the SF of the past.

And fantasy? It's harder to make a straightforward case, because fantasy doesn't produce gadgetry and tangible changes in what is possible. Fantasy allows you the freedom to face situations that you don't face...yet.

What is the play of children but fantasy? Can a child really develop into a sentient adult without imagination? Can an adult really continue to develop without that same faculty?

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Perhaps I should clarify: I like fantasy because I can go places that no one has ever been--past, present, or future. I can go to surreal worlds that exist only in the imagination and meet peoples that I can only dream about. I like fantasy because I can experience things that are impossible for anyone to have ever or to ever experience such as shapeshifting, the use of magic, etc. I can be witness to events that have never happened and will (most likely) never happen in this world such as an epic quest to destroy a magical Ring.

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That stuff is definitely really awesome. But I think for myself, that's not what sticks with me once the story is over. You refer to LotR. When I finished the trilogy I wanted to cry because it was over and there was no more. But in a way that had nothing to do with any of the imaginative fantasy stuff that was in the story. It was because I loved the characters so much that I didn't want to lose them. Regardless of all the fantasy, the things that the characters went through and all the decisions they had to make were "human." They were things that I could identify with. And I can find those same kinds of things in all sorts of other fiction. Take Crime and Punishment, for example. That book completely blew me away. It was just so real. I think Christine is right, I think we should read all sorts of fiction. You never know when a work of fiction will be so true to your own life that after reading it you'll never be the same, and that applies to all kinds of fiction.

I guess I'd say that fantasy is fun and cool and amazingly rich at times, but what stays with me long after isn't how fun something is but how powerful it is.

All these people who scoff at sf and f are uncomfortable with are the gadgets and the locations. Put James Bond in as the protagonist and set whatever in Europe and they're perfectly happy.