Speculative fiction that is set in near-world time or setting is going to have a dated feel very quickly if the tech is not predictive enough or if your guesses as to future tech trends are off.
But urban fantasy and near world science fiction or science fantasy need not feel too outdated if we are smart in our strategies for worldbuilding with current and speculative technology. It's not just guesswork.
Here are my thoughts as to how you can make your best attempt at avoiding that dated feeling a few years after your story is out.
First, you can avoid the problem by a complete end run: avoid a serious sharing of the world and the tech. This is most appropriate for romance category novels or short stories, as these focus on different elements than a proper spec fic novel. In romance, it's all about the love, the sex, the interactions of the characters and the inevitable misunderstandings. In a short story, you must settle for giving the world a feel that suits the situation and setting, but you don't have the space in which to engage in real details...so you can gloss over the tech to a large degree.
However, if you are going to make me love your story, you are going to build a world in which I want to set up camp and return to again and again. And that takes details, baby! and, like Jules Verne or H.G. Welles--or more recently William Gibson's 1980s cyberpunk--you want your novels to stand the test of time...or at least a few decades. So, my thoughts on how to do that follow:
Determine cultural trends or outlooks that influence how technology is used. In Dune, for example, Frank Herbert proposes a loathing of thinking machines, so anything that isn't run by the human mind is verboten. If the world in which you are writing has an abhorrence, a fetish, a focus that is a strong undercurrent, give some thought to how that will or can affect the way people behave, the items that they use, or other matters such as how the government uses the technology. Perhaps your government in the story is using invasive technology to determine your role in life (DNA testing in Gattica); or perhaps the military has started using cloning technology to create soldiers for battle. (It might be expedient to build the army in the solar system where they are being used, for example, rather than expend the resources to recruit and train and then ship bodies where they are needed.)
Layering: Be aware of other options for your technology. You should consider at least a couple of other applications besides the one you originally develop, or where they will have an effect due to their lack. If you integrate a technology into the world, you need to give some thought to how it can be used in other areas. Why? So you round out your world just like a character. And if the tech is top secret, then you can show how there is another option to that secret tech in civilian use, for example. If the military docs have special regeneration chambers, but the civilians do not have access or knowledge of it...what DO they have access to? There should be some tech that is approaching that level, a few generations behind, perhaps, but approaching regeneration. It might be something like a liquid skin patch infused with nanotech that speeds clotting or tissue regeneration, but cannot replace limbs or fix major damage. (Your guess is as good as mine.) but there ought to be a level of tech that is in the ballpark with the other technology in use in the same society.
The basic areas that we generally see technology from one field used in another are
- military
- medical
- cultural
- individual use (personal entertainment, time/labor saving, silly gadgetry, toys)
- religious
- social control
- media/entertainment (public)
- commercial applications
Of course, if you choose to have a gap in tech, for example one based upon the strata of society, that is also a legitimate choice, and you will have to extrapolate from there who has what and why this is so. Which leads me to my next point: extrapolation.
Extrapolation. Consider social and personal implications of the technology at hand. If you suddenly had a world were every second counted, literally, you would be extrapolating from our current society and it's passion for being in touch and minute by minute accountability of what we are doing. Now we see Facebook and other things that show real time where you are and what you are doing; and in a future society, you could have something as weird as people who share (instead of web cams) their visual perspective of their daily activity. Virtual reality of people riding along with someone doing something. That idea has great merit, and could work in military, police, social, sports or what have you for applications. (I'm going to use that one some time; it's too cool.) But if someone can make money from it, you know that there will be an application used to make money.
So, extrapolating further, where could that particular idea bear fruit in your spec fic world?
- Porn. Instead of watching, someone can ride along with you in full sensurround.
- Sports. Athletes franchise the rights to have people experience their play real time. (You can bet that negotiations over that are going to be hot and heavy, and it will become a new market niche like web companies, ebooks or other things that took off in the past few years.)
- Commercial. Test drive a car virtually. Have a vacation virtually (already done, alas.) Attend class reunions via a double if you can't travel personally. I could go on and on.
- Medical. A surgeon could learn how to perform a new procedure by riding along with the surgeon doing the work. Students can virutally explore cadavers.
Your world is a character. As I mentioned above, by integrating tech in layers and rounding out your world, you're making your world deeper and more meaningful. It's far more gripping and your readers can engage with the characters more if the world has more detail and feels more realistic. Just like a flat spear carrier type of character, a world that's filled in will engage readers more. And I believe that readers of speculative fiction prefer detailed worlds. It makes them happy to engage with the world just as much as the story.
So, those are my thoughts on the matter. Any more ideas from the bullpen?
Happy writing!
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