Quote:
Originally Posted by DMcCunney
If you can take out the science and still have a meaningful story, maybe you aren't really writing SF, and should consider removing the trappings.
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I understand what you mean... but it suggests that the SF background is undesirable if it is not critical to the story. I don't wholly subscribe to that notion, I think an SF backdrop is as valid and desirable as a contemporary backdrop, a wartime backdrop, a family home backdrop, etc. It's just a different backdrop.
You can have a story with a couple discussing something in their home. But if no one stops to cook, do you need to remove the story from the home?
I'd rather think that it might not be critical to the story, but that it can (and should) add value to the story nonetheless, much like the ironic juxtaposition of setting a couple's breakup in the middle of a circus, or placing a character's evaluation of his life on a ship at sea. It adds to the atmosphere, provides allegorical or symbolic emphasis, and allows for alterations to contemporary situations and surroundings that can make unreasonable situations... reasonable (or vice-versa).
Of course, plenty of adventure stories use significant amounts of SF elements that turned out to be major parts of the story, and they aren't considered SF (the James Bond movies, for instance). So maybe the proviso is on the right track after all...
Or maybe it means that SF isn't a genre after all... but a sub-genre that can be applied to most any major genre...