As we discussed yesterday, research is the key to getting everything right – or at least plausible – in your works.  But in all that, there's a question that should really be asked.

Why?

Or rather, does everything need to be true and accurate in all details?  Yes, it helps to know that the point end of the sword is not the part that you hold, and that the moon is not made of green cheese.  But what it if was?  What if ol' Luna were composed of Swiss? (sorry, couldn't come up with a gouda enough variety).  What if there was air in space?  What if we just threw the book out?

And, of course, it goes without saying that some things just don't mesh well in a realistic setting.

One of the things that I hate – absolutely abhor - about hard sci-fi is the dogged de facto requirement that everything must be completely and utterly realistic.  If you're in interstellar space, there's nothing but black.  If you fire a laser in space, you don't see anything.  If you fire a laser in an atmosphere, it won't work well because it will bloom at some point.  Then there are the other things like time travel, FTL travel, wormholes, instacloning, etc. that you would have to give up. (Fortunately, force fields do actually exist.)

When we created Claude & Monet, I wanted things to be a real as possible: we opted to go with mass-driver weapons instead of lasers.  I did a lot of research on astronomy and science to make sure that a lot of it was accurate.  And yet, at the end of the day?  They're still travelling FTL.  There will be starlight in deep space.  Mars will be terraformed (while there are studies done on it – most notably the "black rose" scenario – it's by no means a surety.), as will several other worlds.  Some of the stuff (like 3D printing) will exist at the commercial level, though not at the "matter replicator/recycler" level that Star Trek does.

I'm not the only one who thinks this.  Game designer Paolo Munoz has this to say on the topic of realism vs. non-realism:

Realism is unnecessary. Some of the best games are not realistic and are complete abstractions like Go or Chess. What is important for game design is consistent and sensible rules, clear and challenging goals, and of course, fun.

Munoz knows what he's talking about, folks. He's currently working on a game that's anything but slavish realistic (I know; I've helped test the game and let's just say that farmyard animals aren't supposed to do what they do in the game, much less earn bonus points for it.)

Realism is nice, but it's also needless from a literary standpoint. Ghost stories wouldn't exist.  There'd be no Mushroom Kingdom.  We couldn't go to Warp 5.  We couldn't go back in time in a DeLorean.  We couldn't do any of that, because that's not the way the real world works.  The real world has plenty to offer – rainbows, explosions, unexplained mysteries galore – but it also doesn't work in the way that we as creators want it to.

Nor is there any rule saying that one cannot exist without the other.  Look at magic realism.  In that both science and magic exist and are taken for granted, from the works of Gabriel Marquez Garcia to Star Wars and Tenchi Muyo! it is all a part of one grand whole and no one thinks any differently.  Reality and the fantastic can coexist without a problem.

Ultimately, what you determine is the way you go.  With Claude & Monet, we ditched some of the realism to better the narrative.  For something like Grand Theft Auto IV, you're better off not using magical wands.  And for a work like Xanadu, it's perfectly normal to have an immortal goddess founding a roller disco.  Of course, then again, that could be considered realism, as how else can you explain the Bay City Rollers?

Tomorrow: Day 12 – Continuity (Yeah, Right)