The Plausibility Trap
Science-fiction readers have to face it, sure -- but first, so does the author
It’s interesting — as I kinda remembered from past long-fiction projects, and am having it forcefully drummed into me recently: this experience of diving back into a piece of fiction1 which was written over an extended period of time. Inevitably, you find that you misspelled or dropped words because you were typing too fast at the time; you hit these little inconsistencies in narrative flow ("How did I forget that Character X said the same thing seventy-five pages ago?!?”) which drive you crazy, and will require some kind of extensive masonry patch-ups; all the character names start sounding alike…
But those aren’t the big things driving me crazy. I kinda knew the big things, too, would have to be dealt with… and, well, it seems they indeed will, after months of just skipping blithely around them.
Here are a couple.
Big(ish) Thing #1: Booze
23kpc’s general premise — and especially its tenor, its sensibility — was inspired by that of the 1934 film The Thin Man (from Dashiell Hammett’s book of the same title). You start with a bit of a roguish, self-deprecatory private-eye protagonist (Nick Charles, played by William Powell); add in his equally clever wife (Nora Charles, played by Myrna Loy). The PI is a bit of a reprobate, a scoundrel-turned-good-guy; the wife, an independently wealthy socialite (but in no way an airhead)…2
This combination gives the author (and the characters) a pretty fertile field to play in.
First, they don’t have to worry about money. The PI seems to get involved in his detections without thought of payment; he’s in it — and eventually, so is The Missus — primarily for the entertainment value it affords him.
Second, that they come from different strata of society means that each has resources the other can’t possibly bring to bear in solving a mystery. They each “know people” — thugs and ex-cons on one hand, and, on the other, high-class attorneys, showbiz figures, industrialists, and so on.
But a complication in this narrative model clouds the frivolous atmosphere, at least for readers in 21st-century Western society:
The film takes place in the US, of course (Hollywood, duh) — where, in 1933, Prohibition3 had very recently been repealed. So booze was everywhere in the Thin Man film (and its sequels): homes, bars and restaurants, the back seats of automobiles, hotel elevators and balconies…
For a writer of a light-hearted detective story, this meant — means — that the atmosphere can be dense with hints of future and memories of past frivolity Under The Influence. The plot and dialogue — like the characters — can be entertainingly, well, tipsy.
But in 2025, and going forward, I think it’s fair to say that the appeal of alcohol-fueled fun approaches an expiration date. It’s not just practical “Don’t Drink and Drive” and Mothers Against Drunk Driving campaigns, either: it’s the knowledge that booze drives domestic abuse, sex crimes, murderous rampages… Furthermore, we’re regularly treated to news of the actual internal, physical damage which alcohol — a poison, for cripes’ sake — does to one’s body…4
So the problem then, for a writer of narratives whose action occurs far in the future — centuries later — is: how to retain that mood of booze-lubricated devil-may-care flippancy which so naturally carries the viewer through The Thin Man?
In 23kpc’s first draft, I partially addressed this problem: I established a “booze ration” sort of calendar which makes it impossible for characters to drink more than some prescribed threshold of alcohol. But I really need to completely dispense with alcoholic substances for consumption, period…
I think I’ve figured out a way to do this, while leaving carefree terminology like “booze” and “cocktail hour” in place. The bigger and still unanswered challenge: how to introduce this solution without a lot of tiresome exposition.
Big Thing #2: Late-Stage Capitalism
Oh boy. The really big problem.
I mean, this is science fiction, after all: emphasis on both words. The stuff can spring from pure imagination — but it’s got to be at least plausible in its, uh, imaginativeness. And I don’t know if I believe humanity capable of the kind of capitalism which would make 23kpc plausible.
In short, I need to portray a sort of wealth driven by social good at least as much as by the accumulation of even more wealth.
I keep thinking, sorta-kinda, that it’s not completely impossible that capitalism could still actually fuel the migration of humanity off-Earth, in a manner something like described in 23kpc. (I’m trying hard not to spoil plot points here.) And maybe we’ll someday, somehow, pull ourselves out of the cesspit into which capitalism seems to have driven us. But damn: at least as practiced over the last couple centuries, capitalism is sure not shaping up that way.
So how to address such a systemic implausibility?
I don’t really know (yet, if i ever will). My best guess at this point is that I’ll just duck the question, and hope that future readers forgive me the rank idealism. It could still happen, right? Right???
If you’re a newcomer, this refers to 23kpc, the science-fiction/detective-mystery tale whose first draft I posted here a chapter at a time in recent months. If you don’t know anything about 23kpc, you can get an introduction to it here… but note that the bulk of this first draft, by far, can be accessed only by paid subscribers.
Per Andrew Sarris’s Hollywood history You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet, re: the two main characters:
Prohibition: the failed social experiment which outlawed the sale of alcoholic beverages. It had been driven largely by the forces of post-Jazz Age do-gooders and, while not “bad” on the face of it, had actually exacerbated the problems it meant to address: it drove them underground.
The irony of this paragraph does not escape my notice: I myself look forward to cocktail hour, almost every day. I have one or (usually) two drinks, unless I’m away somewhere where that’s not practical (or I will be driving).