What’s a girl like me doing in a genre like this?
That’s what fiction is for. It’s for getting at the truth when the truth isn’t sufficient for the truth.
Tim O’Brien
“You’re going to write a dystopian science fiction novel, and it’s going to be amazing.” This is now-me, whispering in the ear of me-ten-years ago. Then-me laughs until she cries. And yet, here I am.
Now-me knows something then-me doesn’t. Science fiction, including the dystopian variety, is not defined by the stereotypes many of us hold. You know the ones — technology, aliens, endless techno-babble, ultra-modern societies, more aliens, more technology… But we aren’t all H.G. Wells or Isaac Asimov. Indeed, we are not.
Just because a story is set in the future, or in space, or in an alien land, doesn’t mean that the story itself is about the setting. Evolving Elizah: Initiatum isn’t a story about technology or outer space — that’s simply the setting. No, this is a story about life and death, love and adventure. It’s a story of friends and enemies and family. Most importantly, it’s a story of possibility and imagination, and it happens in an ultra-cool setting.
So why write it that way? Why not write it in the here and now, somewhere and sometime you can already relate to? Maybe I don’t want you to relate — not yet. Maybe, instead, I want you to suspend belief for a little while — belief about how the world works and what it means to live in the midst of the present.
This is the value of fiction as a truth-telling tool. You don’t have to be weighed down by the convictions of your beliefs. Instead, you are free to experience a different reality, a reality that may seem completely irrelevant to the world you live in, until you realize it actually couldn’t be more relevant.
I’m an avid reader, across a wide array of styles and genres. And yet, it’s fiction that gives me hope. It’s fiction that carries me through my toughest times, and it’s fiction that inspires me to be more and do more. Fiction is where I hide when I need to process the world, where I go for comfort and solace. It’s where I look for heroes.
By suspending belief in the world around you, I believe you can see your own world more clearly. Indeed, I have written a dystopian science fiction novel, and it is amazing. I believe this story will mean something to you, just as it means something to me. I don’t yet have a final publication date, but it’s coming. Expect great things, my friends — it’s coming.