As someone who did not read a lot of Science Fiction works growing up, I never truly understood the meaning of the genre and stereotyped the genre heavily to only dealing with concepts of aliens, space, and the future. However, in Delany’s “About 5,750 Words”, Delany presents the argument that Science Fiction is a genre where the author and the reader both are able to construct worlds of endless possibilities. Delany states, “ A story is not a replacement of one set of words by another– plot-synopsis, detailed recounting, or analysis. The story is what happens in the reader’s mind as his eyes move from the first word to the second, the second to the third, and so on to the end of the tale” (Delany 4). Through this statement, Delany tries to portray that there is no difference between writing style and context in science fiction because just only a single word or statement can completely impact the reader’s experience reading the work. As the reader shifts his eyes from word to word, the reader is meant to create their own image of the descriptions and plot within the fiction to create their own perception of the story in their mind.
Delany presents three levels of subjunctivity that illustrate to the reader the relationship between what is being depicted within the story and their own reality. The first level, naturalistic fiction, describes something that “could have happened” in the context of our own reality, like someone watching sand drift away in the middle of a desert (Delany 10). Fantasy describes images and aspects of reality that “could not have happened” because they are too supernatural or unrealistic to exist within our reality, like a unicorn (Delany 11). However, science fiction uses a level of subjunctivity to describe aspects of reality “that have not happened”, meaning that the concepts of ray guns, aliens, and spaceships exist within a space that is not completely far-off from our own reality and can be scientifically explained as being able to exist within our own reality (Delany 11). In Science Fiction, the reader will not have to create a perception of the unimaginable, but a perception of something that can still be possible, which is extremely interesting.
Using this same knowledge, Delany defines Science Fiction as a type of work that is meant to force the reader to understand and examine the author’s words to recreate these words into their own perceived images of the world that the author has created beyond normal reality. Each word is meant to trigger a process inside one’s head and produces some sort of information that they themselves have to put together. However, there are advantages and disadvantages to this definition.
One advantage I can see is the amount of freedom that the reader has in interpreting the author’s story. Throughout their reading experience, the reader is able to constantly use the author’s work to shape their own perceived images of the alternate reality, advanced society, or utopia/dystopia that the author is trying to create. To an extent, I also feel that the author is given the freedom to create whatever story that they so desire within the vast realm of Science Fiction, but I do not believe that the author has as much freedom as the reader in this scenario. However, there can also be times when the author trying to illustrate their fictional world uses so much detail or too many subtleties within the story to explain a concept. Delany believes that this could lead to the reader being “Injured by bad writing”, or that the author’s descriptions can be too complex to the point that the reader cannot understand (Delany 10). In this scenario, the reader will not be able to interpret their own images of the author’s fictional world.
The disadvantage of this definition, I believe, is that it creates a reliance on the reader and gives the author little control over the story that they wrote. If the meaning of the fiction is determined by how the reader’s mind perceives it, then it seems to me that the author’s intended meanings for the story or certain statements do not have any meaning unless the reader recognizes it which is strange to me. People read at varying degrees of speed and understanding. Someone who reads an SF author’s work might read very slowly and give themselves the time to analyze and reproduce the intended images that the author created in their minds. However, someone who reads quickly and does not take the time to fully comprehend what they are reading has a completely different experience when recreating the author’s intended story inside of their minds. Due to this, a lot of the author’s careful phrasing and diction that they worked to write gets lost in translation and so does the story to the reader’s subconscious mind. Also, if every word or every phrase is meant to have a supposed impact to create an imagery trigger in the minds of the reader, then it seems fruitless to carefully pick out every word that is meant to have an impact if most or even all of the readers are going to overlook it without processing it because of the difference in reading styles.
Works Cited:
- Delany, Samuel. “About 5,750 Words.” Perusall, Dec. 1968, app.perusall.com/courses/cold-war-science-fictions/delany-samuel_about-5750-words.