For context: I've had frusterations as a science fiction writer, for the reason that I often call my work realistic science fiction even though it doesn't have the same feel as something like hard science fiction.
Would I need a better term than realistic for realistic science fiction? I'm not really describing fiction that is based on true science, so much as realistic in the literary tradition of contemporary fiction that approaches universal themes of the human condition in an honest and realistic way.
Should I just use the word contemporary? It just feels dishonest to me somehow.
An example: You take an image from a defining moment in your life. Then in order to make the story more interesting you add in light elements of science fiction--specifically class disparity and high contrast between rural dream-world and gritty suburban and urban realities.
I have an appreciation for how this dream world reality collides into the gritty real world. Dream world in this context meaning less what you see in dreams, and more a kind of fuzzy depiction and exageration to the point of nostalgia an older world. Though there might be literal dream world like effects.
For example: The collision of the romantized youth with the realities of the urbanization of mankind.
Would I need to find another word?
I know I should let the agent worry about it, but I do short fiction, and it makes it hard to really pitch something like this to a magazine.
I appreciate the challenge of reads that make different romantizations collide in a way that's increasingly depersonalized and decentralized.
Published author examples: Stories by Murakami.
Things I wrote as an example of the feeling: The New Rising Sun, Emma Dunking Bowling Balls
I feel the more I try to write science fiction, it becomes less science fiction or realistic fiction.
I think the safe path is to use what exists. Find the works that come close to what you do and use those as reference, like you did by mentioning Murakami. Except, he is a bit broad. Maybe pick out the specific work he does that you're referring to.
You might also consider maybe calling it speculative fiction. What happens is X happened? At least I think it's speculative fiction. You remember the good old days, there is the science there, but it's less important because now the characters have to survive in this new world where X is possible.
But still, use what exists and then after you're established you can develop your own thing to set yourself apart.
Hope this helps.
Yea the one story I'm thinking of is the one with the Old Aunt in your back. There isn't anything unusual besides some depressing old lady on your book.
But broader in scope, think a city called NashChat (that's Nashville Chatanooga post developmental merge) in an area called SmyrMurf (simplified as Potato District.)
That's a reference to a dated fashion sense of everyone in my high school besides me (it seemed at the time) wearing birkenstock clogs. At least in my school, it wasn't like Smyrna where they banned the Arizona style because of it being opened toed.
Smyrna high is a bit controversial in the SmyrMurf area. Though lucky me I was zoned for Blackman before they built a new school that was neither Blackman High or Smyrna.
Otherwise I wouldn't have met Slephner guy that later became Bentley. (Neither his real name.) So Meadow Of Gold is the same base person with different names--creating Slephner Bentley.
I'm also increasingly disatisfied as the libertarian way of the future (Neuromancer) being depicted as the only dark way for the future to go. People are diaspora seem to care more about copywrite law than the inability to have a cell phone due to expensive phone contracts.
