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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25650
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/25650
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

It's not that it's not acceptable, it's that it is orthogonal. What editors care about is compelling stories in the current taste. There is nothing to say that cannot include scientific detail. That is certainly something that there is a modern taste for. As Emily Gilmore once said, "I don't watch television. I'm not interested in forensics."

But in a story, everything exists in story world and exists to support story. Story world in both neater and more chaotic than our world. Wounds heal faster. Psychological trauma that would reduce people in our world to gibbering madness, is brushed off with kiss or a beer in story world. Problems that in our world would be solved by a phone call can bring story world to the brink of chaos. There is truly no such thing as realistic fiction.

That does not mean that story world science can never correspond to our science. Story world needs anchor points in our world so that people can find their bearings and learn the rules. Those touch points can be scientific just as well as anything else. But whatever story world copies from our world still has to obey the overall rules of story world.

Crichton is a good example of anchoring story world science in real world science, as he did in Jurassic Park. There are insects from that era, and even bits of dinosaur, complete with feathers, preserved in amber. But that is just the anchor. From there, story science takes over: neater, simpler, and at the same time more chaotic. Because this is story world, and in story world, story rules apply. Break story rules and you break story world. Break story world and you break story.

Can you write a story world in which story science corresponds 100% to actual science? Maybe. But your story will still have to obey story rules or it will read not like a story but like a painfully awkward textbook.

One of the most important rules of story is that you must not introduce any more background than the reader needs to follow the story, and you must not introduce it any sooner than the reader feels they need it. This means no more science than the story requires, no sooner than it is required -- whether that be real science or story science.

Like most other story rules, though, this is overridden by the highest rule of story world, which is that anything truly compelling works. The question then becomes, who is it truly compelling for, and how do I find them?

Story is the one thing that is truly compelling for everyone, but careers have been made on being compelling about other things to the right audience at the right time. Though when it comes to science, I think the question becomes, if you can be truly compelling about science, why do you need fiction as a vehicle?

If your aim is to hide the bitter pill of knowledge in a spoonful of fictiony jam, you should know that that pretty much never works. The kid eats the jam and spits out the pill.

Original score: 2