Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Speculative

As I’m sure I mentioned, I started on a new project and instead of being apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic, it’s urban fantasy (gasp!) with an apocalyptic twist. Now, I’ve written urban fantasy before, but that was a long time ago, before I had a good grasp on writing. I’m still getting a feel for the story, but I like how it’s going. Plus I realized that it was still speculative fiction, which is most definitely my forte.

But “speculative fiction” is a funny title. Yes, what I’m writing is pretty close to what I usually do, but why are fantasy and apocalyptic under the same classification? If you look at something like LORD OF THE RINGS, you’re not going to mistake it for THE HUNGER GAMES. They’re nothing alike.

It happens that speculative fiction is basically the catch all term for any genre with things happening that don’t really happen. Or, as in the case of alternate history, didn’t really happen.

Then you can get into the subgenres and things get even more complicated. The family tree I posted up there hardly encompasses all the speculative offshoots. Science fantasy, dark fantasy (horror fantasy), and all the crosses with non-speculative genres. Suffice to say, it’s one incestuous family tree.

Really, as a name, speculative fiction doesn’t say much. Science fiction is speculative. Horror is speculative. But science fiction isn’t necessarily horror, nor vice versa. Unless the genres are deliberately joined, like the sci-fi horror movie Alien, they are separate creatures that for some reason share the share a genre.


Sometimes I wonder if speculative fiction is needed at all. The term, of course, not the books. I think we all know how important those are! But why such a broad classing? Is it necessary? Or useful? I’m not so sure. What do you think?

10 comments:

  1. True, you will never see a bookshelf at a bookstore labeled 'speculative fiction.' And writing in one doesn't mean we write in another.

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  2. I think the term is useful for agents and publishers to express the umbrella of genres they deal with, rather than listing them all. It might even be handy for writers who dabble in all those related genres.

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  3. Speculative fiction is a term that is only being used these days to get away from saying "sci-fi." "Speculative fiction" is pretentious and trying to sound better than it is. All fiction is speculative. Period. To say "I write speculative fiction" is just trying to make people go "ooh." I will never use that term to describe my work.

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  4. Speculative fiction does sound a bit redundant but I don't write in this genre so I can't really say. Maybe it came from a desire to modernize the classification labels or, it's just here confuse the crap out of us...or at least me. (=

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  5. I'd rather hear something more specific than "speculative," although when someone says that word at least I know it's not realism.

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  6. I don't find it a very useful term really. When you think about it, all fiction is essentially speculative. It all starts with "I wonder....." or "What might happen if...". Speculative. All of it. I say lose the term and be specific.

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  7. This reminds me of an old George Carlin bit. I think it was George Carlin. Anyway, he goes on about how over the years, the terms for things change, getting longer and more euphemistic. What used to be called "shell shock" is now "post traumatic stress disorder".

    I bet it's on YouTube if I cared to look.

    I think that's what's happened with the term "speculative fiction".

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  8. Interesting perspective. I see spec. fic. a bit differently now.

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  9. LOL - I was going to say what Andrew did. All fiction is made up and speculative.

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  10. It is redundant, really. All fiction starts off with a question along the lines of "what if..."

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