How Would You Describe My Work?
Filed under My Writing • 12-02-2009 •
So, I was chatting with someone and mentioned that I wrote science fiction, and they asked what kind of science fiction it was. Was it hard science fiction or soft? Was it cyberpunk or post cyberpunk? Was it Mundane or Space Opera?
The trouble was, I didn’t have a ready answer for them. I just did what I usually do in such situations – wave my hands around and mention “Bladerunner” a few times. But it got me thinking: on the one hand, these sub classifications are generally pretty meaningless to anyone outside the genre, but on the other, they can be useful descriptive shortcuts when talking to fans, agents or editors.
So, here’s my question: if you’ve read my book or some of my short stories, how would YOU describe them? Do they fall into a recognised category?
The stories I’ve seen are a fairly diverse mix of hard and soft, mundane and space opera … but they seem to have more in common with each other than the labels would imply. They’re all character-driven (rather than plot-driven) and quite literary in structure and pacing.
Hmmm… “Character-driven SF”. That’s a label I could live with.
Jason Stoddard is having a similar moment of introspection over on his blog, and I have added comments: http://strangeandhappy.com/2009/02/10/monetized-reviews-and-a-moment-of-self-inspection/
Ha, it’s funny how we fall into the same, er, tropes? Trips? But I suspected I was getting too close to a been-there mode when my wife said, “Oh yeah, the government falls, the money is revalued, everyone goes to Mars, typical Jason story.”
I think it comes down to: keep exploring.
I agree with Justin (sorry for the first name informalities, “first poster” sounds so inhuman). Personally I see more soft sf elements in the work I’m familiar with. The focus on character puts it in that bracket for me.
When I think of Hard SF I tend to think of writing centred on scientific/technical accuracy and less on character and the wider world the characters exist in. But I guess that depends what you class as Hard SF.
There are definitely space opera tropes in some of your stories as well as mundane, though I hate the mundane tag.
Ultimately most categories in everything in life blur and smudge into each other.
OK I’ll come down and say: Soft SF (as a general category from what I’ve read so far).
As Justin says, Character-driven SF is a pretty good description.