7 Things in Every SF/F Story

Last weekend I had a fun time at the Confluence convention in Pittsburgh. One of the panels I attended was titled “7 Things That Every SF/F Story Contains.” Kudos to the panel moderator Joshua Palmatier who managed to be the best moderator of any panel I was on, and that includes the one I moderated. Somehow, going item by item, the panel managed to segue into each other’s points almost as if it was planned that way.

Since we each made up our own list, I thought I might as well share mine with everyone.

Seven Things That Are In Every Science Fiction and Fantasy Story

1. Every SF/F story is going to have some major point of divergence between the reality of the story and the reality as the author understands it. i.e. THE IDEA. This can be magic or new physics, werewolves or some new invention, an alternate history or simply a setting in the nebulous “future.” However, without that, you’re writing something other than SF/F.

2. Every SF/F story will engage in some form of extrapolation; some examination of the broader consequences that follow from THE IDEA’s existence. i.e. WORLDBUILDING. In other words, the IDEA doesn’t really matter if it doesn’t cause some other changes in the universe around it. In fact, the reader is sometimes going to be introduced to those changes before they’re shown the actual IDEA. (see #6 below)

3. Every SF/F story will posit some type of PHILOSOPHY, an idea of how the world, and human nature, works. This can be implicit, or explicit, but is grounded in the choices the author makes when deciding what consequences of THE IDEA are most plausible. The author can try as they might, but the story will have some core ideology: imagine a novel about a future matriarchal society as written by Margret Atwood, then by Ayn Rand, then by John Scalzi, then by John C. Wright. . . not going to be remotely the same story.

4. Every SF/F story will have some necessary connection between THE IDEA and character and plot (and probably setting). The story could not exist in its current form without THE IDEA. If the character, dialog and plot could be moved to any other contemporary or historical setting with only slight changes, it really isn’t SF/F, it’s just a mystery, western, thriller &c. dressed up in SF/F drag.

5. Every SF/F story will have some proxy character to introduce the story world to the reader. Where general story construction impels us to select the POV that best illuminates the story, SF/F story construction also impels us to select the POV that best illustrates THE IDEA.

6. Every SF/F story will have some pattern of discovery to the world, THE IDEA, and the consequences of THE IDEA. Often this is structured much as a mystery, revealing small bits here and there until the end when the reader has a complete picture. This is especially true when complex WORLDBUILDING is involved. Sometimes the amount of information about the world is so vast that there’s little choice— if one actually wishes to convey an actual story— but to show the world in multiple cumulative glimpses over the course of the work.

7. Every SF/F story will echo the author’s reality in some fashion. It is unavoidable. Read any SF/F written in the mid-1950s and you will almost always be able to distinguish it from something written in the mid-1970s, even when the works are by the same author. Even when the style feels ahead of its time (say with Alfred Bester) there will still be multiple cues and assumptions about life, the world, and technology that will leak in from the outside. (see #3)