Feasibility studies

October 1st, 2007

I think more of us should write science fiction.

“Well, duh, Mia,” you say, “That’s more than obvious, isn’t it? And honestly, look at yourself, you with your major in Physics and your minor in Math! You write science fiction. You have the background.”

Okay, first of all — I’m not sure if the college will grant me the “…major in Physics, minor in Mathematics” addition to my BS Economics degree, even though I have taken more physics units (and done a lot of work outside the classroom) than economics units. Secondly — I’m trying, though I have a head full of doubts and my current efforts are more like “half-baked attempts at brainwashing” than actual fiction. Third — huh. Third, it’s more complicated than that.

Let me explain. And tell stories! Wait, don’t go to sleep yet–!

It’s true that when it comes to academic heritage (or whatever you want to call it) I consider myself a student of physics more than anything else. That I cannot consider myself a physicist is something of an accident of location and character, since 1) I was born in the Philippines; 2) if I leave the Philippines for too long a time I will die; 3) brilliant as others may have thought I was (what? they really thought that? haha!) in theoretical physics, the sad fact remains that 4) there is very little research in theoretical physics being done in the Philippines, 5) it is backbreakingly hard to do good physics research here and still have time/money/energy left over for other fun things, and in addition 6) if I want to do all the things I want to do in physics I will either have to go abroad or spend forty years of my life and a lot of my personal money trying to bring it here. I’m no martyr. If I were feeling snippy I would say that there is no real theoretical physics research in the Philippines, but I’m not as bitter now as I was three years ago, and besides, my adviser would kill me.

I still do physics, but now I do other things too. I write. I read. I take voice lessons. I paint and draw. I write pretty letters. I don’t consider myself as having “left” physics, I’ve just left the course. Physics is still there, even in the other things I do.

So in a nutshell, that is why I’m not doing problem sets on QED or panicking over an upcoming exam in Topology (hahahahaha!) but am instead here in a computer shop writing an entry for a weird art/writing blog. That is why I have been thinking about science fiction over the past few days and fervently praying it doesn’t swallow me whole.

So. Science fiction. Huh.

I must confess that I have not read as much science fiction as I have fantasy or mathematical physics textbooks (my particular fetish). While I will freely blame myself for that uh deficiency (?), I hasten to add that I have read several books and did try to read others, but was put off by either the bad science or the unsympathetic characters and went back to my favorite science story book (Spacetime Physics by Taylor and Wheeler — you guys should read it, SRZLY). So now that I’m catching up, reading a book a day, and checking out the writing of people who write/are fans of science fiction, I’ve come across a few things that provoked… shall we say interesting reactions.

One thing is people’s attitude towards science fiction, or maybe just science in general. There’s a certain — what do you call it? — highminded, noble idea about what science fiction should be and about what science fiction writers should be like. Strangely enough it reminds me of a certain professor of physics, whom I dearly love but with whose approach to teaching physics I happen to disagree: he overwhelms the student with the technicalities and the equations, and should the poor student happen to drown in them that’s not his problem. Similarly I’ve seen people who seem to take the view that if writers are scared of science and readers are scared of science fiction then maybe they should just go to romance or fantasy, you know, one of those “easy” fields.

Whatever happened to, I don’t know, helping people instead of just looking down on them? The view from up there must be nice, but you’re not gaining anything, are you?

I have news for you: science is not an ivory tower, physics is not a queen sitting at the very highest window of the aforementioned tower, and there is no way we’re going to get better writers of science fiction by spouting things like “if it’s scary it might not be for you” and “you can’t write really good science fiction if you can’t understand Feynman diagrams!” How on earth are people supposed to learn to write good science fiction if, from the very start, they’re supposed to read books full of technicalities and equations and write stories that are “science fiction-y enough” for you, o Voracious Reader of Popular Science Books?

I did say that science fiction writers should have a basic understanding of the science they’re playing around with, enough knowledge to dispel any apparent fear. Yes, that’s true. But it’s counterproductive to start with hard science and expect writers to be capable of dealing with that, and it isn’t reasonable to expect a first-time writer of science fiction to come up with something rigorous and technical on demand. So people say they don’t know enough science. And? Let them keep writing and learning instead of telling them to do something else. How do you think scientists learn how to do science anyway?

Ignorance and fear are not insurmountable hurdles to any kind of learning, and you don’t turn away someone who says, “I want to write science fiction, but I don’t know how, and I’m scared,” with a pat on the back and directions to the nearest magical realism workshop. Neither do you say, “Okay, read this,” and hand that person the latest summary, riddled with Greek and Math, of the current state of string theory. What do you do? You try to help. You say: Here are some books you might like. Try reading them. Let me know if that doesn’t work out.

And — hey! wake up! — hard science fiction’s “hardness” doesn’t make it any better than soft science fiction. For instance… I honestly have a hard time reacting when people find out about my background and go, “Oh my goodness, you’re from Pisay, you’re too smart for me,” or “Physics, now I feel so inadequate,” or even fake a faint when they learn about the other things — because there’s no reason for any inadequacy or feelings of insecurity. Just because I know some science doesn’t make me any smarter or better than you. By that same token, why this hierarchy, why the insistence that hard science fiction is more intelligent than soft science fiction? True, to come up with good hard SF you have to do a lot of research, but how in the name of all the hypothetical cats Schrodinger has massacred is that more worthy of respect than the writing of a good soft SF story? Because in the end, you’re doing the same thing — writing — and what matters is the story or novel, isn’t it, the end result, rather than whether you had to read a hundred technical papers or one short monograph as background material?

(Also, by that same token, there’s no reason to treat a physicist with more respect than you would accord a chef or a janitor. Be nice to them all.)

May I reiterate — a field’s difficulty has nothing to do with the quality of the fiction written about that particular field. A story on quantum gravity is not necessarily better than a story on classical mechanics. A story featuring incredibly articulate intellectuals conversing at length on how the entanglement of quantum states is to be used for faster than light transport is not necessarily better than a story featuring a physicist facing a mid-life crisis and the matchmaking machine he obsessively constructs. (The latter story, by the way, is Time Out by Connie Willis, and I loved it so much the little slips in the science didn’t bother me a bit. What do you know, I’m maturing as a reader.)

I’m not saying that the science isn’t important, of course. When you do have science in your fiction you might as well write about it with as much confidence and skill as you can muster. I will not, as a well-loved character in Nodame Cantabile said, forgive half-heartedness! But neither will I forgive the sacrifice of the heart on the altar of the mind, the surrender of “I want to do this” to the Mongolian hordes of “but I’m afraid I can’t.” No. Go ahead. Write science fiction. Read scientific stuff, the kind that excites you, because if it excites you it will probably excite your readers too. Go on to more advanced topics if you please, but don’t ever let yourself think that science is too hard for you, because if you really want to write science fiction you’ll figure out a way. Just try, because not trying is yet another thing I cannot forgive.

Going back to the issues I mentioned at the start — it’s more complicated than that, because if I write science fiction (or if people say I should write science fiction) because I have the background, that would be a little like “only people who know enough science should try writing sci fi,” wouldn’t it? That’s only a few steps away. And I– if ever I write science fiction I’d submit to literary publications, it would be because I happen to think there’s a story there somewhere, and my physics background would inform the telling of that story, never superseding it. I hope that I will never be so full of myself, so much an intellectual snob, as to write a story full of hard science just to show people how it’s supposed to be done.

I mean, how is it supposed to be done anyway? There’s no such thing as “supposed,” there’s only good science fiction and bad science fiction. You want to learn good science to enable yourself to write more of the former, but it doesn’t guarantee you won’t write the latter. Yet being a writer — being human, come to think of it — has a lot to do with risks and fear and somehow working past that fear, so go ahead.

Let’s write science fiction. Let’s get over the fear. Let’s push aside the mystique. Let’s read and write about turbulence and chaos and falling apples. Let’s develop migraines and horrible self-doubt and let’s keep on going. Let’s barrel into the domain of the infinite with our overdramatic, selfish, hysterical humanity.

And let’s see what happens.

Entry Filed under: thoughts