I’m finding myself in a very strange place with regard to my NaNoWriMo novel: I’ve got writer’s block. This isn’t something I’ve experienced before, as ideas come very readily to me. This problem isn’t universal, it only comes down to novels. I’m not sure whether it’s just science fiction or all fiction. Since what I really want to do is work on my video game idea (the order of the wilds), I’m inclined to say it’s not all fiction.

My NaNoWriMo novel this year is a continuation of one I abandoned due to lack of time when my third child was born, and it’s a science fiction story about space exploration. And to give background, while I don’t read much science fiction, I grew up on Star Trek and loved it, and also loved Star Trek: The Next Generation. I liked Deep Space 9 and grew cold on Voyager, but space exploration SciFi is something deeply engrained in me. And yet, I can’t help but think that it’s time is past. All modern Science Fiction is either magical fantasy or something that could as easily be set on the present day earth. But if one is writing magical fantasy, why wrap it in a veil of science-sounding language and pretend that it’s not magical fantasy?

That question has been occupying my mind for a while now, and I can’t think of an answer to it. The only answer I can think of is Sturgeon’s Law (this version being published in 1958):

I repeat Sturgeon’s Revelation, which was wrung out of me after twenty years of wearying defense of science fiction against attacks of people who used the worst examples of the field for ammunition, and whose conclusion was that ninety percent of SF is crud. Using the same standards that categorize 90% of science fiction as trash, crud, or crap, it can be argued that 90% of film, literature, consumer goods, etc. is crap. In other words, the claim (or fact) that 90% of science fiction is crap is ultimately uninformative, because science fiction conforms to the same trends of quality as all other artforms.

I had heard this in my youth, mostly (as I recall) as a defense against the fact that Science Fiction had elements of adventure, which was considered immature by people who had grown old and tired and disliked fun. I’ve no doubt that that defense needed to be made, just as I’ve no doubt that Sturgeon defended science fiction in the time period of 1938-1958 against some unworthy attacks. But at the same time, I’m not sure that this defense really holds against the problem that I have with modern Science Fiction. I think a great deal of modern science fiction is very well written but ultimately serves no real purpose.

And to be clear I don’t mean that SciFi is escapism. I’m all in favor of escapism. I don’t mean that SciFi is childish. In fact I think that the real problem is that SciFi isn’t nearly childish enough. I’m coming to think that SciFi still exists for only two reasons:

1. People like me remember it with fondness from their childhood.
2. People unlike me aren’t hardy enough to hear wizards called wizards.

There is probably something of a case to be made for SciFi in the vein of #2, along the lines of why we give crutches to people with broken legs and feed mushed up food to people with broken jaws. It is right to be gentle with the weak.

But it seems to me that outside of truly hard SciFi like Andy Weir’s The Martian, which is just the story of a castaway surviving until he’s rescued which could as easily be told in a jungle or a desert island, Science Fiction is riddled with inescapable plot holes because it refuses to take its magic seriously.

And this brings me back to where I started—as an author, I have a huge, almost pathological dislike of plot holes. I don’t claim that all my plots have been perfect, but I certainly put a lot of work into making them consistent and coherent and as close to free of plot holes as I can make them. And I can’t explain to myself why I’m bothering with a genre where that is impossible, especially when I could have a lot more fun with magic if I just admit that the world is filled with magic.

Please bear in mind that this is basically me thinking out loud. These aren’t conclusions, and I’d be very happy to hear a strong argument that I’ve got it wrong.