I've decided to classify the series of novels I am writing as a Big Speculative Fiction Epic.
I decided to nix "Science Fiction Story" because the new classification is much more accurate and conveys the proper sense of difficulty in my effort. It certainly is Big--I estimate it will be at least 1 million words. It's Speculative rather than Science because, while there are definite Scientific elements to it, like spaceships and time-travel, there are also elements of fantasy, conspiracies, religious magic, all weaved with tales from humanity's historical record, into what is perhaps an alternate reality--or not. It's a race against time and the forces of time itself to prevent catastrophic events.
There are also elements of mainstream fiction in that it starts out as a normal story, and then goes down the speculative road in a gradual way, much like the great plains gradually rise from east to west. And it's an Epic because it involves multiple characters across large time periods, although not as much so as other Epic novels.
And this all makes writing this story very, very difficult, and at the heart of that difficulty is consistency. Seemingly wild events need future justification in the mind of the readers, or they will feel cheated. And when there are inconsistencies of any kind, the readers, while they may not overtly detect it, will get a sense of unease that something is not quite right. Their sense of "confusion" will linger to the end of the work.
My target readers will enjoy being "confused", but at the end of the work, the Epic, that confusion needs to have been turned into a sense of satisfaction with the story. Otherwise, quite frankly, my future works will not sell as well. Also, the last thing I want, even if I'm not writing any more future works, is for my readers to feel cheated--that they didn't get the story that I promised them. The reason I am doing this is to write a story that my readers will enjoy. Yes, I want to be financially successful so that I can keep writing these stories, but financial success is not worth subverting the goal of writing this story for my readers to enjoy. If all I cared about was financial success, I would have become a doctor (I was one class shy of pre-med qualifications).
It is also difficult because, over long periods of time, characters must grow and change. It's easier to write a novel that takes place over a few days, because it is actually unrealistic for a character to grow too much over that short a span, even if their was a great deal of stress involved. Later, upon weeks and months of reflection, the character may change, but not in a few days. And so, my characters must change weeks or months after events have occurred. These changes will happen gradually, but they will happen.
A good example of this is the T.V. series, "Lost". In this show, at one point three years pass in a very short amount of time. For some characters, we don't see them at all during those three years. All of the characters are different after the three years, and some very much more than others (Jack, Sawyer). The fact that we saw Jack evolve but not Sawyer serves to juxtapose how, for some people, we see them change gradually, but for others, we don't see them for three years and wonder what changed them. We are given hints and clues, but we don't quite know for sure.
And, in the end, I have to make this all seem believable to my readers. What a psychologist might think is not very relevant, but what the majority of my readers think is (unless the majority of my readers are psychologists).
And the speculative nature of this has to be explained enough to allow my readers to engage in "the willing suspension of disbelief". That is achieved, I believe, by being "honest" to the story, which is another way of the story being consistent to itself.
The conscious part of the human brain inherently does not want to believe in non-benevolent things over which they or their leaders have little or no control of. UFO's is a prime example. Despite hordes of evidence of extraterrestrial visitation, many people state that there's no evidence at all. This is the cognitive dissonance of a brain that shuts out that which cannot be controlled.
But the subconscious human brain also needs to explore and entertain these possibilities so that it can be prepared to leap into action in a stressful situation.
These two aspects of the human brain make speculative fiction work. The conscious part of the brain is stimulated because the story is speculative and interesting. The subconscious part of the brain is doing its normal work, but when it does so it generates an emotional response.
This is what speculative fiction taps into, and that is why, while it is difficult to write, it will ultimately satisfying for me and my readers. I hope I can pull this off.
