Writing Blog Number 2

20240411 What Is Speculative Fiction?

What Is Speculative Fiction?

Recently, Damon Nomad asked what exactly is speculative fiction.

There are four answers. All are equally valid. Sorry.

The overall answer is that it is an all-encompassing term for any fiction genre that looks at things that are not in the real world. This could be: pure fantasy, the creation of worlds; science-fiction, where the technologies or experiences could happen, but are yet to occur; supernatural works where things are believed but not proven, encompassing everything from monsters to ghosts, zombies to vampires, angels to demons; real-world settings with creatures that could not exist or people having abilities they could not have, like super-heroes. It is held as distinct from works which examine the modern world as it is, or historical settings.

The second response is that all fiction not set in the here and now of when it was written is speculative, as we cannot know the past, and because memories are fallible. This is a definition I have not seen too often, but some literary journals tend towards it.

The third response is that it only encompasses fantasy and science-fiction stories, and all their sub-genres, so long as they do not take place in our world as we know it. The world-building, creating a world that does not exist or has not existed, is what makes the fiction speculative. This does mean that anything set in our world, no matter how many differences there are, is not speculative. This includes most horror, urban fantasy, and even some contemporary science fiction. Alternate history stories are a muddy area under this definition.

And the fourth is… whatever the publisher says it is for their market. One magazine I have sold to a few times says that spec fic is anything that does not happen on the Earth we know. Another company I have sold to once says it is science fiction that is technology-based; that is, the technology has advanced, as we are speculating what it might be, and so steampunk is not spec fic to them. Yet another company says that anything that falls outside of history as we know it and anything set in the future beyond fifty years is speculative, but it must involve the Earth (or the planets/satellites of our solar system); they accept alternate history, steam-punk and hard science fiction, but rarely fantasy.

Okay, that does not really help, but to me, the first definition above is the one I tend to agree with. But the last one is the one I need to be aware of.

In my opinion, stick with horror, fantasy, science fiction and alternate history and the many sub-genres of each of those as genre markers and only use speculative fiction if you have to or, as I do, as a catch-all for all these genres.