What made me think this was SF?

[eimarra]

Nathan Bransford's Surprisingly Essential First Page contest last week had me looking at Sabra's first page, debating whether to enter. I decided against it for a single, simple reason: The book's supposed to be SF, but there's nothing in the opening that indicates that. The first page should reflect the book so the reader knows what they're getting; I realized my opening needs work.

Then I was thinking more about it this weekend and came to the depressing conclusion that, as currently written, Sabra isn't SF. It may have an SF setting (future time frame, human colony long-standing enough to have cities, genetically identical replacement organs available with enough credits to pay for them), but it's really not necessary for the story. When it comes down to it, it's a story about an athlete recruited to act as a bodyguard for a pharmacy company exec who's in the middle of a battle for rights for his company's most lucrative product. Nothing SFnal at all. As has been said about other things, there's no there there.

Now I'm debating what to do. Should I keep working on the editing pass I'm doing to make certain that I've fixed the bare bones and character arcs? Should I start over at the beginning and remove all the SF trappings? Should I figure out how to really make it SF and *then* do the edit over from the beginning? If I figure it out, I'll let you know. Or when, I suppose. I did make editing Sabra my number one priority this year.*

*Yes, I know I did not post my 2008 goals here yet. Or a 2007 wrap-up.

Comments

[marfisk]

Okay, here's my take on things...I've read a lot of great SF that "you can take the SF out and still have a story." I find that measure a little worse than worthless, among other things because there are questions you can comfortably explore in an alien environment that would bring out too many automatic, non-thinking responses if set in our own. So no, I don't think you should remove the SF from the story. If you'd crammed in SF to make it SF, then yes, but you wrote the story as it came to you. It's interesting in the environment where it's set (at least from snippets) and maybe the SF is incidental to the big picture, but I don't doubt it has relevance to the details, for example, would the product be a plausible object in modern times?

Anyway, you have to make the call, but please, don't make it just because there's that statement going around. I'll tell you that one of the short stories used as an example is metaphoric and the "SF element" could as easily be a marionette which is what? 18c or earlier tech? Don't let them squash the story into a little box :P.

[lazette.livejournal.com]

There are, I think, two things that make a story sf -- setting and attitude. The characters, their concerns, and what they do are going to be much the same as what we think and do. There is nothing in your story that couldn't be sf, and I think that if your original view of the story was sf, you might be short-changing it to try and take those elements out.

Science fiction stories range for 'way out there' to 'near future, almost like this world but not quite' stories. It sounds as though you might have one that is closer to 'near future.' It might be remarkably easy to tune the story back toward the sf elements by looking at the setting first, and then how the people react to the setting. Add in sf elements and see where they lead you.

Of course, it may just be that I like sf stories, so I'm biased.

[eimarra]

Last night, when I was thinking about how to respond to Mar, setting was what came to my mind--the fact that it doesn't affect the characters' attitudes or actions. Good to see some confirmation here. So that's one place to start. Thanks for the input!

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I would say: Figure out what would be different -- the setting and the ways people interact. And put those into the story.

Athlete? What sport? If it's one which exists today, how would rules and equipment have changed?

Everyday gadgets: Does he have an implant instead of a cellphone? Can he feel and smell the news? (If "he" is actually female, forgive me. If "he" belongs to a gender which doesn't yet exist, then you don't have to worry about it not being an sf story.)

How our time is seen -- perhaps have the viewpoint character read/watch/feel a badly-researched historical romance set in the year 2000.

If the story takes place mostly in one city -- what is that city like? What makes it different from other cities on the same planet?

What's the planet like outside the cities?

What's in the night sky?

[bonniers.livejournal.com]

Somebody told me that years ago and drove me away from writing SF for years. I'm only just starting to get the feel back.

From what you've said, Sabra is probably shading more toward space opera than pure science fiction, but that just means it's a somewhat different market, not that there's no market.