Science fiction writer Jules Verne did not believe in impossible things. In each of his novels, he explained in loving detail how the marquee invention would work. Whether it was launching people to the moon in a cannon or a long-distance submarine, Verne covered his bases. Verne wrote very hard science fiction.
His successor H.G. Wells took a different approach. Wells granted himself license to posit one impossible thing, and then took the resulting story to its logical conclusion.
To this day the question remains - how many impossible things are allowed in a science fiction novel before it loses all credibility?
Conversely from a writer's point of view, what is the smallest number of impossible things needed to open up new horizons and ideas to explore in your science fiction novel?
Let's get one thing clear - H.G. Wells absolutely knew that he was presenting impossible things, and he didn't care. For instance, he came under criticism relating to The Invisible Man - if his eyes were invisible then they could not bend light within the eye, and thus would not be able to see.
My dad once told me that H.G. totally waved it off. "Of course that's true," H.G. would say. "But if the Invisible Man couldn't see, there would be no story."
At the time, it was a somewhat new idea - including something impossible within a story otherwise written in a modern and realistic manner.
In time, the radical becomes ordinary, and including an impossible thing or three became the norm in science fiction. Readers came to expect and accept faster than light drives or wormholes, time travel, and a variety of mental capabilities well outside of what our current science would consider possible. But if you give a moose a muffin . . .
A challenge for any writer in science fiction is how far to go with the license to use impossible things. The more you use the license, the fewer limits are placed on where your imagination can carry you and your readers. But it's also the easy way out, a kind of empty carbs for your story. And if you pull an impossible thing out of a hat in order to resolve the plot, you don't have a novel any more, you have a Star Trek episode.
Just a note on "impossible" - many ideas that I am calling "impossible things" are conceivably possible with very advanced technology or an alternate worldview. I'm using "impossible" as a shorthand to refer to things that are not widely recognized now as reasonably possible. A device to allow the writer to ask "What If?"
When planning my novel, I came up with some rules. Just for me, of course, and reflecting my taste as a reader. YMMV. Here they are:
1) The fewer impossible things, the better. Preferably one. But it's fine to grant yourself that one. If you need your hero to get to another star system, and spending a century in cold sleep would slow down your story, then just go for it.
2) Introduce your impossible thing as early as possible. If further wrinkles of the impossible thing are revealed later, make sure they are logically consistent with what you initially provide to the reader.
2a) Impose limitations and rules. Your impossible thing isn't a free for all.
3) If you can't hide it, decorate it. Be proud of your impossible thing. Your characters accept it, so your reader will too. The more central it is to your story, the less it will be questioned.
Here's my one impossible thing. It's opposite Page 1, just before the start of the main text.
Glome: A naturally occurring hypersphere that allows near-instant travel between star systems. Every glome has a single point of emergence, usually light-years away, which cannot be determined except by entering the glome. Travel through a glome is not reversible – to return home, a ship must travel through one or more other glomes and create a circuit. As of the year 2304, humans have mapped glome travel routes between thirty star systems.
Today's writing challenge: What is the smallest impossible thing you can add to a story, for maximum thematic impact or opening up a great idea to explore?
Or: Take a widely accepted impossible thing from science fiction, and add the smallest possible wrinkle that changes everything.
For an audio version: On today's interview on The Joe Show AM930 Bellingham WA, I talk about One Impossible Thing at about minute 23:00, and The Kübler Ross Stages of Editing at 33:30.
Schedule note: I'll have limited connectivity this evening due to the various geographically disparate places where my extremely talented child needs to be.
James R. Wells is the author of The Great Symmetry, which is now published yay!
In an asteroid in the Aurora star system, exoarcheologist Evan McElroy has made a discovery about the Versari, a long-departed alien race. But Evan’s sponsor, the Affirmatix family of companies, realizes that they can make huge gains from the new finding, if it is kept completely secret.
As Evan flees for his life, he finds that his trajectory has reawakened the long-buried struggle of the Infoterrorists, who believe that all knowledge screams to be free, against those who maintain the True Story that holds all of civilization together.
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