Your mention of speculation gave me a thought: Of course, all fiction is speculative. If we couldn't speculate, we'd only have non-fiction (and not good non-fiction either; we seldom truly know enough about one subject to fill a comprehensive book). But among works that are openly, or perhaps more intently, speculative, perhaps there are two types: the external speculation, in which we imagine differences to the world around us, such as the presence of aliens or the existence of magic, and then there's the internal speculation, where we put a character in a strange situation and try to guess how they would behave.
For a good writer, the former would necessitate the latter. But perhaps also, the latter validates and lends perspective to the former.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-05-23 06:03 pm (UTC)Of course, all fiction is speculative. If we couldn't speculate, we'd only have non-fiction (and not good non-fiction either; we seldom truly know enough about one subject to fill a comprehensive book). But among works that are openly, or perhaps more intently, speculative, perhaps there are two types: the external speculation, in which we imagine differences to the world around us, such as the presence of aliens or the existence of magic, and then there's the internal speculation, where we put a character in a strange situation and try to guess how they would behave.
For a good writer, the former would necessitate the latter. But perhaps also, the latter validates and lends perspective to the former.