Why no sci-fi??

Yes, it opens up multiple possibilities, requiring only a slight touch to tweak a standard plot, making the story a sci-fi. To me it allows to step outside the limiting frames which requires you to struggle to maintain realism. Making it a sci-fi, other rules, laws and traditions applies, giving more creative freedom to write something unexpected into the story.

I feel the same way.

Unfortunately I still like to make things difficult for myself by wanting it to feel as if it could be realistic, so I start to research things that would only be a tiny detail of the story anyway. Gotta hang on to those methods to not finish stories, I guess!

@ DianaMiller

Realism and SF are a good match

Trekkies will tell us we could even beam today, the only problem is the energy and time needed.

For once I don't want to be the lucky test subject that's beamed within hours or days, and I doubt the rest of us would feel lucky when one of the nuclear power plants needed to satisfy the energy need blows up.

Netherlands / Dutch : Can you enlighten me? Somewhere I heard the Americans were too lazy and confused Dutch and Deutsch.

Yes indeed, it just happened that way when I was asked to pick an author name and I didn't think longer than my nose, so as a member and as an author I have different nicks.


I know what you mean. Not being English speaking from birth, I estimate that it takes three to four times as long for me to write a story as for a Brit or an American. I frequently use various dictionaries and normally have to rework my stories at least a dozen times before I let a friendly proofreader have a look at them, to grind out stylish flaws and revise sentences which in a sense are grammatically correct but it's just not the way an English speaking person would put it. As I am a foreigner coming from the Germanic language group, that last is particularly difficult to catch and get right. What I want to say here is that - don't give up! At first it'll be hard but then it'll gradually get easier and in the end there are also the validators on site who will clean up the last of the flaws to get the story presentable.

I've written a couple of VR stories... and a couple of Superhero series (Owlman and a "totally original").

My problem with Sci Fi is that science is going forward so fast that it catches up to sci fi. Look at sci fi from the Golden Age, New Age, etc all the way until the arrival of Cyber Punk and you won't find anything like the internet. My VR stories are probably out of date, because they were written so long ago and not project far enough into the future.

Consider 1984, written in the 40s about a dystopian future when 1984 was a long way into the future. It has, however, stood the test of time---I'm re-reading it at present, forty years after the date of its setting. Still very relevant and believable.

Geoffrey.

Fatherland by Robert Harris, is an alt history book set in a world where the Nazi’s didn’t lose WW2, and Hitler is still running the place in the ‘60’s. It reminded me a lot of 1984, and as an alt history is also regarded as sci fi.

Yes, sci-fi is an incredibly wide subject. Rather it is historically correct and realistic stories which are within a very small boundary, while sci-fi and fantasy span over a much broader area. It puzzles me that not more authors find pleasure in diving into the large pool.


Sounds like a good plot for a spanking escapade. When the king runs out of money, the people have had enough and the royal family ends up getting a royal spanking for wasting the nation's wealth.

Gloup

@ Seegee & Glagla


Alternate histories always have negative effects too.My father tended to say, if Germany had won the war I would now be in Siberia overlooking a few dozend Slav or Russian workers, which doesn't have much of an appeal to me.

Another alternate history would be the South winning their war of independence. That allways reminds me of a pair of park benches. One marked Arier the other Non Arier.While we didn't behave well in the exhibition the result of the fun making was later when you thought of it. Back then you could no longer share a bench with your best friend. OK, back then there was no chance to become best friends.


My guess is that monarchs are a bad target for a spanking. If you spank an adult king you most likely forfeit your life and in the case of king Ludwig they settled for a more permanent solution if some speculations are correct. He drowned under mysterious circomstance in the shallow part of a lake.

John Benson has a nice spanking a princess story named Royal Pain. In my eyes I would label it as SF.

I don't see the contradiction. A good sci-fi might have a high level of detail and therefore be realistic. It's just that it won't follow the same society rules as we currently do. You can shape the world as you like, as long as it abides to the rules you have set for it. A sci-fi might even be more challenging to write as you must look for plot holes resulting from side effects from the rules you have set. It takes a lot of thinking.


Now you're being way too realistic. We're talking about spanking stories here. Of course a princess is the perfect spanking target in a fantasy story


Well, they don't exactly do anything to make it easy for us to grasp it either. I watched the Olympics and there was one conuntry competing, Great Britain, while only a few weeks before there had been the soccer world cup or Euro Cup or something and there were England, Scotland, Wales and I don't know how many different nations competing. I can't understand why sometimes it's one country and sometimes several.

Gloup