“Speculative fiction is not an escape from the real world, and writing it is not to have a literary career without having to research anything! Speculative fiction instead provides a lens through which to view the real world better than it could ever be seen with the natural eye.”

This type of allegorical view is what attracts me most towards speculative fiction. One of the first science fiction stories I read was “Enemy Mine”. At the time I was attending a high school that was battle ground for ethnic conflicts. I remember the story offered an engaging perspective on what I saw happening each day. Though my school merely engaged in verbal abuse and petty quarrels--not interplanetary warfare--“Enemy Mine” definitely helped me deal with and understand people’s ignorance.

I think what strikes me about the excerpt above is that Scott Card doesn't say that S-F is a means to view the real world in “another way”, but in a “better” way. This gives s-f writing (or at least a particle sub-genre or take on s-f writing) a goal in its creative ventures.

A difficult goal! In generating stories plots, I was struggling with whether to find an idea first, or to decide on the “message” or “insight” first.

In the end I’m just going with whichever comes along, developing it as much as I can, and then putting it aside. I’ve noticed that they start courting each other when I’m not looking. I’m hoping they’ll “be fruitful and multiply.” I’ll just keep on checking in every once and while, to see if there’s anything they need. I expect they’ll flourish nicely in my right brain—as long as the left side minds its own business.

Any other thoughts on how on to integrate the real world into a speculative world?

In creativity rising,

But, if the story you're writing feels important to you, and you care about it deeply, you'll find that a theme appears naturally. It's just a result of the fact that you care about certain things, and they show up in your writing. This works so much better than trying to force the story to convey a certain theme.

Basically, any messages and insights that you'll bring to the story are already in your head. You don't have to decide on them now. Any messages and insights you recieve in the process of exploring the hypothesis aren't available to you before you find an idea to base your story on anyway.

In other words, your understanding of the "real world" provides you with the ability to answer (or even ask) a "What if...?" question. But asking that question informs your exploration of the real world to expand your understanding of what would happen as a consequence of your idea. Without some idea of the real world, you can't figure out which speculative ideas will be interesting and really speculative.

"What if insects had eight legs?" Well, they'ed have eight legs. It wouldn't make a huge difference in the world as we know it. Even insects themselves don't care how many legs they have. Nothing really depends on insects having six rather than eight legs.

"What if language could be encoded as electrical fields in microscopic structures made of inanimate material?" Well, that's the way the world already works, isn't it? We just have to look at the world as it is to know the answer to that question. There's no need for speculation at all.

But despite the need to have a working understanding of the real world before you can decide on an interesting idea for a story, any really good question will require you to gain additional knowledge of how the world works in order to answer it believably.

"What if scientists successfully crystalized a molecule that developed electrical potential by absorbing heat?" Our entire industrial economy is based on the assumption that various forms of energy get turned into heat, and that the process is irreversible. Even though I know that, I don't know all the details of how something like that would change things. It would change pretty much everything, but figuring out how it would change everything would require a lot of study of the real world.

I don't keep a journal or diary. I never have. I don't like having "ME" written down for other people to read about. By writing fiction, I can openly and honestly write about myself, the people in my life and my relationships -- but behind the guise of "it isn't real".

I think in reading, people are more open to the message if it isn't specifically about them.

I research elements of the real world to make my story better. When I was writing about cyberpunk intrigue in Korea, I learned about Korean geography and business practices. So it was story-driven.

And, to the other part: how to make science fiction and fantasy applicable to modern readers. People. Characters. That's all you really need. No one I know sits around salivating over the Enterprise's warp necells. They talk about Picard and Data and Beverly Crusher. No one really sits and talks about how awesome the Herbology details are in Harry Potter, either. They talk about Harry and Ron and Hermionie and worry and fret about them. My grandfather, after an hour of HP discussion with our family, commented, "Funny how we talk about them like they're real people."

Good timing too. I've been drafting a story idea for about a half hour each day/800 words a day (the rest of the time spent editing and rewriting a WIP) all because of a "what if?" that hit me one morning.

The first 1,000 words went great and then I was at a dead end. But, only minutes before falling asleep the other night, a second "What if?" came to me for the very situation where I left the character.

This led to three more "what ifs". It was quite an experience, which iw ould preferred happened earlier in the evening.

3,000 words into this piece now, a theme is plainly visible. The whole situation seems plausible enough to me. It offers several juicy moral dillemmas to how we deal with death, which can easily lead into some stimulating drama, once I inject the oppusing views into enough of the characters.