Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Reserach in Fiction (the SF tangent)
From: mschmitt@eagle.wesleyan.edu
Date: 21 Jul 92 13:21:14 EDT
Organization: Wesleyan University

	Note title has been uncorrected.  :)

In article <24003@castle.ed.ac.uk>, eoghanni@castle.ed.ac.uk (Eoghann Irving) writes:
> 
> 
> In article <1992Jul20.175859.571@HQ.Ileaf.COM> hal@HQ.Ileaf.COM (Hal Wadleigh) writes:
>>A recent episode of STNG had the ship assuming synchronous orbit over a pole.
>>The writer missed a great opportunity for drama when the ship cratered into
>>the planet, since unmoving synchronous orbits can only be over the equator.
> 
> 	Yeah, so he missed what might have been a good idea. Was it a
> good episode anyway, in which case it doesn't matter how many ideas he
> missed, or was it terrible, in which case it matters a lot?
>
	Actually, it was a pretty good, but not excellent episode (I assume
"Power Play" is the one being referenced - I remember the scene).  A lot of
people complained about this, because a polar geosync orbit is not _NATUALLY_
possible.  However, with a little power assistance (and the Big E has plenty of
that).....
 
>>If you don't want to get the facts right, please don't try to write science
>>fiction.  There's enough half-baked crap on the shelves already.
> 
> 	WHAT!!!! I think I've posted about this a couple of times
> already, but...
> 	You do not need to be a cosmologist an astro physicist or any
> other type of scientist to write science fiction. All you need to do is
> have a good story to tell.
> 	How can you possibly get all the facts right in science fiction,
> nobody knows what most of 'the facts' are.
> 
	No, you don't need to be a cosmologist or an astrophysicist, or have a
Phd in physics - I agree with you on that.  However, you need to have more than
a good story to tell.  True, if you don't have a good story to tell, you should
stop there.  But if you do, there's more to it than just writing it.
	If you're going to "bend" or "break" the laws of physics as we
currently understand them, then you _NEED_ to know what laws you're breaking or
bending.  Otherwise, you tend to just look like a baffoon.  Maybe you don't
have to go with the _facts_ as we currently understand them, but you need to
know how your "facts" relate to the "real" facts.  This does not require a
doctorate, but it does require at the very least a high school understanding of
the laws of physics. (for example, the previously mentioned example of going
from .9c to 0 in a few minutes (or was it hours) requires _only_ a very basic
understanding of physics, which you would get in the first weeks of a high
school course - if a ship is going to do that, then you need to provide an
explanation _why_ it's possible)  Without that understanding, you're going to 
burn yourself sooner or later.  You may get away with it in some types of 
stories, but not forever.
	It's not necessary to deluge a reader with tons of technical detail -
in fact, it's probably very detrimental to do so.  However, tossing in some
basic, correct facts (or explanations for altered "facts") will lend immense
amounts of credibility to a story.  So, I have to partly agree with the earlier
post - get your facts straight, or at least your _BASIC_ facts.  There is too 
much garbage on the shelves.  But get a decent story with decent prose too -
that has had an almost equal contribution to the garbage.

					Matt Schmitt
					mschmitt@eagle.wesleyan.edu
				  "Aspiring SF writer, dreamer, idealist"
Newsgroups: misc.writing