Challenging the “future”

In one of my posts a while back, I said that when you build your world and your setting, you need to keep your technology consistent or keep it plausible. It doesn’t have to be both, but it must be one or the other.

In science fiction, it’s most common for writers to adopt metric as the standard of measurement. Second most common, I’d say, is inventing your own original system.

Why?

Because a lot of science fiction takes place in the future, and there seems to have been an assumption made somewhere down the line that the metric system is more “futuristic.” (Ooh, it’s the future! We’ll all have converted to metric by then!)

When you create your setting, you get to choose whether you follow the standard conventions of the genre. Don’t feel pressured to do something a certain way just because everyone else does. Don’t feel obligated to break the mold just to be different in ways that are going to be distracting to your reader, either, but do take the time to think about the choices you’re making and why you’re making them.

If you want your universe to operate in feet and miles instead of meters and kilometers, go for it. Just keep it consistent; and if it isn’t consistent, keep it plausible. Have a reason for the inconsistency. Use it to your advantage, even! Different governments or worlds having different standards is certainly a valid and plausible reason — maybe it can even cause friction when those two bodies try to work together.

Don’t worry that your work isn’t going to be “sci-fi” enough if you don’t use metric; that’s like worrying that your work isn’t going to be “fantasy” enough if it doesn’t have elves. But at the same time, don’t worry that you’re “caving in” by deciding to use the standard, either.

Standards have a purpose: they give readers a familiar framework that keeps them from being distracted by the minutae, so that they can focus on the story. At the same time, if you make your break from the standard a part of the story, it can set your universe apart, or shift readers out of that comfort zone in ways that you can use.

Remember my post last monday about the haunted house? There are certain conventions, like a solid floor, that we take for granted. I encourage you to question the conventions and make your own choices instead of just adhering to them blindly.

I even encourage you to challenge them.

Tagged as: advice, worldbuilding, writing