From Lances to Light Sabers
Why do we write? Well, that's a highly personal question for
which each person needs to look inside him or herself to find
the answer, but I would guess that, in many cases, it is a way
to set aside "everyday" life for a while and retreat into a
setting of your own creation. After all, when you're writing a
story, you don't describe all the routine things people do
everyday, because the reader doesn't need or want to hear about
all that, as it is a regular part of life. Characters in stories
have to use the restroom just like normal people, but how often
have you read about them doing it? As a writer, you don't relate
every moment in the day; only aspects of your characters' lives
that are interesting and pertinent to the story.
As another example, television shows often dramatize certain
professions. One example I can think of is the now-cancelled
"Boston Public." Winslow High School had an awful lot of
problems - several every week, in fact. Anybody who watched and
interpreted this show as a documentary of the American school
system missed the point and should have gotten their information
elsewhere. We didn't spend an hour watching teachers grade
papers or give lectures, because who would be interested in
that?
But, returning to the matter at hand, we want to forget about
our "normal" lives for a while and create our own tale, and this
is especially true of the fantasy genre. You don't have to be
writing about Hobbits and hobgoblins or dungeons and dragons for
your work to be considered fantasy. If your story takes place in
a fictional world, then that is obviously fantasy, but if you
are writing about our otherwise "real" world, then anything that
is outside of our typical understanding of the way things are -
or, in the past, were - supposed to be can be considered
fantasy.
As a starting point in discussing science fiction, I think it
might be beneficial to begin with a dictionary definition.
According to Dictionary.Com, science fiction is "a literary or
cinematic genre in which fantasy, typically based on speculative
scientific discoveries or developments, environmental changes,
space travel, or life on other planets, forms part of the plot
or background," which means that science fiction is a sub-genre
of fantasy. It is merely a type of fantasy that has become very
popular, and therefore deserves its own designation. Stories
with magic and mysticism in the past or present are what I will
henceforth refer to as "fantasy" stories, even though, as I have
said, that label encapsulates much more.
The idea of the "good old days" doesn't just exist in the minds
of groups of elderly men sitting around tables in small town
caf