Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Avoiding Science Howlers

How do avoid people throwing your book across the room because they have an issue with your science.  First avoid the urge the proselytize for a fringe position.  Avoid turning your story into an argument for the existence of immortal souls, intelligent design, the falsehood of climate change, the reality of extraterrestrial UFOs, or other fringe positions.  Oddly, making any of these true in your fictional world won't cause problems for any reader but avoiding using your story as a soapbox to argue the truth of these propositions in the real world.

Second, know what you don't know.  If you have an idea you want to use in a story think about and research it.  One writer created a story based on the idea that all biochemical changes are reversible.  Without that idea he had the makings of a good adventure, but he needed to come up with another device to do the work that idea was doing in his story since it is clearly silly.

Finally when you make stuff up, do so wildly.  If characters nanotechnology then readers may balk at being used to summon ancestral spirits.  If you go ahead and call it magic than most readers won't have a problem.

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