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I am writing a science fiction story (actually a screenplay for a film, but I imagine that for the purposes of this question the same rules apply) and I have been told that it isn't really science fiction. It's a series of vignettes with an overarching plot about the snowball effect, and is designed to not really have any single antagonist; the primary "vessel" for this is social media and its abuse. All of the social media used does currently exist (it's a film for a school project, so I get fair use). Does this... count as science fiction? If not, why?

user124
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    Hi user124 and welcome to Writing.SE. Amadeus gave you a great answer but we ask here that you wait a full day or two before choosing a best answer. That will encourage others to answer, which is of course what you want. You can choose that accepted answer at any time, there's no time limit. Also, it's not required but if you like, you can choose a name for yourself. You can be anonymous or not, your choice, but you don't have to have user### anymore. Thanks for asking a question! – Cyn Apr 07 '19 at 23:10
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    it's a film for a school project, so I get fair use – I can only guess that this is about you thinking mentioning existing social media is relevant to copyright or similar. I do not see how this would be the case. If anything, writing about real social media may make you guilty of libel or product placement, but then fair use won’t protect you. – Wrzlprmft Apr 08 '19 at 13:56
  • How have you seen other media work with Social Media? I was impressed with how Crazy Ex Girlfriend used it throughout, and that's a contemporary romance. – April Salutes Monica C. Apr 08 '19 at 14:00
  • This question, actually, highlights a more generic question: "What differentiates sci-fi and literary fiction?" I have yet to see a comprehensive answer to it anywhere (@Amadeus' answer is getting there, imho). Many other subgenres are traditionally classified as Sci-Fi, like Disaster, Apocalyptic, Alternative History and even Thriller, even though the stories may not feature any non-existing science, finished engineering or supernatural events. – Alexander Apr 08 '19 at 17:14
  • @Alexander - To me, "science fiction" refers to plot elements. "Literary fiction" is a value judgment that readers make (This work deals with important themes") or that authors do ("I'm writing about important themes.") The two can easily overlap. – Obie 2.0 Apr 09 '19 at 12:28

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It isn't science fiction, it is just Contemporary fiction, aka Realistic fiction.

A Science Fiction story must rely heavily on some non-existing tech or some reasonably plausible guess at a futuristic development; like being visited by aliens, or discovering them.

In some scenarios (about the future, or space operas, etc) there is a lot of this; in others it can be just one thing; e.g. a time-travel story may have only one piece of non-existing tech (the time machine).

The NEW tech (or discovery) must be central to the story line and what happens, e.g. in Star Wars, FTL space travel, light sabers, sentient robots and sentient aliens are all central to the plot. In Men In Black, only a little new tech is important, but aliens are central to the plot.

It isn't "science fiction" if it is about science but the science employed is not fictional; it is what we already know, you offer no surprises or eye-opening innovations on the tech front, or about the future.

Amadeus
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    Note though that "near future" science fiction does exist. The concepts may already be here, and even the basic technologies - the novel simply takes it to one plausible conclusion. "Interface" by Neal Stephenson is a good example. – Graham Apr 08 '19 at 00:38
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    @Graham Sure. But "taking it to one plausible conclusion" is the key. I think, if I set a novel ten years from now, but the story wasn't about some new tech and instead was just a love story with faster iPhones and self-driving taxis, I shouldn't call it SciFi; because it would be panned as boring by somebody looking for "fiction about new scientific developments". – Amadeus Apr 08 '19 at 10:45
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    @Graham Even "near future" science fiction is expected to discuss some future development which might be conceivably just around the corner but which is not reality yet. Social media hate mobs destroying people's lifes for no good reason is nothing new. We already have that for several years. It would only be SF if some technological or social development would make this problem a lot worse than it already is. – Philipp Apr 08 '19 at 13:07
  • I wonder about retro-SF. sort of like alt-history, but replacing the spaceships-with-slide-rules and planet-sized computers with current-tech, and how that may have changed things. sorta like "Seinfeld+cellphones = problems all solved in 3 minutes." – April Salutes Monica C. Apr 08 '19 at 14:07
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    A good example I can think of for Sci-fi that does use near future aspects (and significantly social media in many of the stories) would be Black Mirror. Many of the episodes take place in what is essentially our time and our technology, with a few differences that usually set the theme for the episode. – JMac Apr 08 '19 at 14:39
  • @Amadeus I think that's a misconception about sci-fi. It's not about the inventions - it's about the characters and the society within the new context. Elsewhere, Philippa Gregory for example isn't writing about monarchy and feudalism, she's writing about people in that context. At least on the surface anyway. The smart stuff can say something about people, or societies, by using those individuals as a pathway into new concepts. – Graham Apr 08 '19 at 20:01
  • @Graham I disagree. *All* stories are about the characters. What distinguishes SciFi from other stories is the science, and the changes to society that brings. Likewise for Fantasy, but substitute "magic" and other supernatural elements for science. Same thing for a mix of the two, like Star Wars (magic in a SciFi setting). I have no misconception about SciFi; it is not distinctive to SciFi when all stories are about people. You need to consider what is special about SciFi that distinguishes it from all other genres, and that specialness is speculative science. – Amadeus Apr 08 '19 at 20:47
  • " e.g. in Star Wars, FTL space travel, light sabers, sentient robots and sentient aliens are all central to the plot." Not really. – Acccumulation Apr 08 '19 at 21:05
  • @Acccumulation Yeah, really. You don't have Star Wars without Yoda, without FTL, without R2D2 saving the day, without "These are not the droids you are looking for." The suspense in getting the FTL drive working and then escaping is a plot element. The whole "death star" planet-killer is a fictive science element central to the plot. You'd have a completely different movie, and a different plot, and different characters, without these fictional science elements. So yes, really, the plot depends on the fictive science elements. – Amadeus Apr 08 '19 at 21:13
  • @Amadeus But the fact that Yoda is an alien, or R2D2 is a droid, isn't really crucial to the plot. One could have the suspense of untangling sails. One could have a massive ship carrying a city-destroying weapon. It would be a different movie, but the core elements would remain. – Acccumulation Apr 08 '19 at 21:20
  • @Amadeus That's the catch. Arthur C Clarke wrote some pretty crappy stories about science. (Not just my opinion - there's plenty of formal criticism, even from other writers.) Great concepts, lousy stories, because they were about the science and not about the people. Like you said, good sci-fi is about the society or individual experiences which these things enable - the science is almost immaterial. Ray Bradbury is a great example of the blurred lines between what's real, what's fantastic realism, and what's science. The end result for people is what matters most. – Graham Apr 08 '19 at 21:32
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    @Amadeus Don't forget that Star Wars is *not* sci-fi, by the definitions of sci-fi. It's space opera, which is to say it's straight-up fantasy with futuristic decorations. Not only could it have been done as straight fantasy - it has been, many times over. And not only that, Lucas is perfectly upfront about which fantasy sources he took all his various elements from. R2D2 and C3PO, for instance, are direct copies of characters from The Hidden Fortress. – Graham Apr 08 '19 at 21:39
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    @Graham As I said in my answer, it is a mixed genre. And no, *robots* are not "direct copies" of characters in an old movie; and even if those characters inspired R2D2 and C3PO, no characters in those movies were carrying holograms or hacking into city management software to open doors or stop the trash compactors or fly ships. We shall disagree; the tech portrayed in Star Wars is crucial to the plot. It is a mix of SciFi and Fantasy; the "space, aliens, FTL, robots" are SciFi, the "Force" is the magic in the Fantasy component. – Amadeus Apr 08 '19 at 22:40
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    @Graham That's the point. Hidden Fortress wasn't sci-fi. Take much the same plot, add droids, spaceships, light sabers, etc. and it becomes sci-fi. Same thing with High Noon -> Outland. And I think space opera is considered a sub-genre of science fiction. – Barmar Apr 09 '19 at 00:02
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    @Philipp and Amadeus: I think most people would consider "The Martian" science fiction. Other than the "strong wind" on Mars setting up the premise, it's some of the hardest of hard SF (intentionally aiming for zero made-up science), and set very near future. I think even propulsion for the manned mission to Mars is plausible with current tech, if not a ship as large as in the movie version! The science isn't fictional, it's real science applied to novel situations. Amadeus's definition of SF excludes this: By accident? Or do you consider it Engineering Fiction? :P – Peter Cordes Apr 09 '19 at 00:09
  • ... Ok, you did comment earlier that "taking it to one plausible conclusion" is the key, so The Martian could be considered SF for that. And space travel could be considered a "futuristic development" like you mention early in your answer, and an "eye opening development" like you mention in the last paragraph. Working through the consequences of the hypothetical scenario raises some eye-opening scientific facts. :) (ping @Graham, you were also mentioning near-future SF.) – Peter Cordes Apr 09 '19 at 00:22
  • I think at some point it becomes unproductive to get hung up on strictly binary is/isn't in story taxonomy. You could take it to logical absurdities like a one-word edit to a story making it SF or not when it's close to the threshold of the science or tech being significant to the story. (And not s/katana/light saber/). Fuzzy logic resolves this paradox by letting us say that a story is 0.6 / 1 SF for example, if it's very close but the tech is mostly just backdrop for a character-driven story. vs. many Larry Niven stories where the science is the plot being maybe 0.9999 SF. – Peter Cordes Apr 09 '19 at 00:26
  • @Barmar ... Or it becomes fantasy with different clothes. I don't become Japanese when I wear a karate gi, and I don't become a woman when I wear a witch's outfit on Halloween. If it would be the exact same story with swords replacing lightsabers, sailing ships replacing spaceships, magic scrolls replacing holograms, and the Eye of Sauron replacing the Death Star, then I submit the costumes don't change the nature of the story. If you can find one piece of tech which changes the society, then cool - but Star Wars really doesn't. – Graham Apr 09 '19 at 09:31
  • @PeterCordes I do consider The Martian science fiction; the trip to Mars itself is not yet actual science, and may never be (i.e. we might never go there). (The storm is literally impossible; at 1% the density of Earth's atmosphere, you'd need Martian winds of about 2000 mph to do that kind of damage. They'd have been better off using a landslide, perhaps delay-triggered by their own ship landing; foreshadowed by weird seismic readings.) But yes, it is SciFi, all about a plausible scientific future, and about characters but the plot is linked hard to the science itself. – Amadeus Apr 09 '19 at 09:33
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    @Graham But it isn't the exact same story at all, you can tell because it wouldn't appeal to the same audience. You can't take all the magic out of Harry Potter and still have the best-selling novel in history. By your light, strip all the settings out of a story, and it is still the same story! No, it isn't, it doesn't sell the same, it isn't enjoyed the same, it isn't loved the same, thus it is a different story. *How* R2D2 saves the day is important; how* Luke loses his hand is important. A story is not just a plot. Setting counts, as do exactly how the plot beats get realized. – Amadeus Apr 09 '19 at 09:38
  • Yeah, Andy Weir readily admits he just totally intentionally fudged the science on purpose for dramatic purposes with the wind storm, because he was having a hard time setting up the situation he wanted to create. (One guy left behind in a chaotic departure. I think a land-slide would happen too quickly or not at all, but interesting idea.) – Peter Cordes Apr 09 '19 at 09:40
  • @Amadeus: And BTW, I used to consider Star Wars not really an SF story, because travel to single-biome planets are not different from travel on Earth to a single-biome country. But you've convinced me; good point that the backdrop matters for audience enjoyment even and self-insertion into the story, even if the story fudges things so the space setting works just like travel on earth. And also a good point that a planet-killing deathstar is a unique mechanic for the plot to revolve around. It's not like nukes on Earth. Plus the Force is real magic, while real life only has the meditation. – Peter Cordes Apr 09 '19 at 09:47
  • @PeterCordes The landslide should happen slower on Mars (lower gravity). They would have to be near a mountain or in a crater. An astronaut reading a seismic device might see a pattern and realize the micro-tremors are getting quicker, exponentially so, and realize a landslide might topple their ship, so they have to take off. They could even see Watney apparently buried in the slide; his radio could be broken the same way, etc. Undisturbed ground thrown up by a meteor strike can be precariously balanced and unstable; on Mars no rain or strong wind to help settle it. – Amadeus Apr 09 '19 at 09:49
  • @Amadeus The audience for Star Wars is a different audience to, say, Conan the Barbarian or Masters of the Universe? I don't think so, judging by the kids' toys. But it's very different to the audience for, say, 2001 or Bladerunner. A hand gets cut off by a sword. Does it matter if the sword is glowing or not? Even the Death Star is just Grond reskinned. But anyway, we're well into chat territory here. :) – Graham Apr 09 '19 at 11:31
  • @Graham The audience for Star Wars is obviously different than the audience for The Hidden Fortress, and YES, it is a different audience than for Conan. Yes, it matters if the sword is made of light and energy, it is what cauterizes Luke's wrist. The audience for Star Wars wants to imagine tech and the future of humanity and spirituality of the Force, nothing comparable exists in Conan. I disagree with your claim. The audiences may overlap, but they aren't identical. Different levels of tech create different settings and societies that appeal to different audiences. – Amadeus Apr 09 '19 at 11:40
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Social media is no longer sci-fi

In years gone past concepts like the internet would be considered sci-fi. Many book exist which use digital communication on a global scale as part of a sci-fi setting. Oxford Living Dictionary defines science fiction as:

fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes, frequently portraying space or time travel and life on other planets.

20, 10 or, to some degree, even 5 years ago it would have been difficult to imagine a single network or service having as much control over our lives as facebook does today. A setting that used such a network would have been considered sci-fi or at least dystopian as little as 5 years ago, but wouldn't be today.

For example consider the novels Feed (2002) and The Circle (2013) both books deal with an overarching network connection with control over our daily life, set in the not too distant future. Feed is a distinctly sci-fi novel, written when the internet was still relatively new and the idea of a network like that is a major technological advance and social change. The Circle is slightly less sci-fi and more dystopian or alternate reality as the technology and social structure are less distant from reality at the time of writing.

Move forward another 6 years to today. The concept of a social network is not longer futuristic and required no technological advances or social change. They already exist and writing on them would be more closely considered social commentary than alternate reality.

In conclusion; it would have been sci-fi if you wrote it 10 years ago. Today it is just fiction.

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linksassin
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  • Not even just fiction, such a story today would almost certainly stand as social commentary — a genre rife with potential of its own, in the right author's hands.

    Though, of course, any such story is practically destined to be very much "of the moment". Whereas one of the best things about really great sci-fi is the timelessness it can achieve, remaining relevant and interesting even long after "real world" technology has surpassed its fiction!

     – FeRD Apr 08 '19 at 15:17
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    @FeRD Agreed, i mention that in my second last paragraph. It just didn't make as snappy a closing. – linksassin Apr 09 '19 at 02:12
  • So you did! My apologies, I get a D- in reading comprehension. – FeRD Apr 09 '19 at 02:22
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I wouldn't really consider a story science fiction if the science and technology in the story exists entirely within the confines of reality today. For it to count, some aspect of the technology in the story would need to be more advanced or significantly different compared to what currently exists today.

Tom Scott actually has a lot of videos outlining sci-fi-themed hypothetical scenarios relating to social media and the internet, so here are some examples, along with my view on whether they seem like science fiction:

Doesn't feel like science fiction (rather, just fiction):

Feels like science fiction:

ahiijny
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