Since you like writing science fiction, you know the hard/soft distinction. You may think of hard sci-fi as having all that ‘science stuff’ with all the nerds endlessly arguing about it. You like writing soft sci-fi because it gives you a rich tapestry to set your stories. However, you might get ‘gate-kept’ by those same readers who insist, sometimes rudely, that your work isn’t really science fiction. That your story could just as well be in Atlantis or some other place, and it wouldn’t have mattered. You may have dismissed their observations as being irrelevant or overly anal. Still, in the back of your mind, it bothers you, and you’d like to do something about it, but the thought of taking the science part more seriously intimidates you. You don’t have a science degree or any actual knowledge of it. So, you don’t touch it. If you see yourself like this, then the following is for you.
First off, there is nothing wrong with pure soft science fiction. You don’t need to concentrate on science. You have a story to tell! An example of this is Jules Verne versus H. G. Wells. Jules Verne is about as hard as a science fiction author can get. The Nautilus? He knew exactly how everything worked, including the equipment, in excruciating detail. This guy predicted which nation would land on the Moon and which state it would be from, not from pure guessing but from logic. H.G. Wells, on the other hand, had no clue how a Martian Tripod worked and didn’t care, which irritated Jules Verne. The tension between nerds and artists goes back that far. If H.G. Wells wrote sci-fi without worrying about science, you can too.
But Clarissa, you say. I want to harden up my stories. Not as fanatically as Jules Verne, but at least a little. Can I do that without getting flayed alive by my readers and laughed out of the room?
Yes, you can. Let me introduce you to the concept of “Handwavium.” (Name credit to Wendyg)
Handwavium is where you give enough information so that the reader gains confidence in that you know what you are doing, but leave the hard or impossible parts vague. It sounds like hard-core readers would reject this, but they won’t. They know that you don’t know how it works! Nobody knows. What they want is to think about it and go “Hmmm, that has possibilities”. That’s all they want.
An example is likely the best way to show this. In the 1984 movie The Terminator, a man from the future is talking to a woman from our present, and she is quizzing him about time travel. In the middle of it, this exchange happens:
Woman: Look, I am not stupid. They cannot make things like that yet.
Man: Not yet. Not for about forty years.
Woman: Are you saying it’s from the future?
Man: One possible future… from your point of view. I don’t know tech stuff.
That’s all it takes—pure handwavium! The author needed to know or research this line, which led them to the theory about multiverses and time travel. If this exchange hadn’t happened, the story would have been poorer for it. Just one line tells the hard-core watchers that the writer knows about time travel and its complications. They realize the story may be deeper (or harder sci-fi) than they thought. And this is one line. Imagine if you had a little more.
If you decide to add handwavium, you need to consider it carefully. In the example above, the line added gets at a debate about how time travel would work if it existed. Part of that is the multiverse splitting theory. The author must know this to craft an acceptable handwavium that will ‘stick to the wall.’ This requires some research and someone more knowledgeable to give it a smell test and tweak or reject it.
Handwavium, for its own sake, is a waste of potential. When you devise your handwavium, do so in a way that enriches the fabric of your world-building, one that not only hints at deeper science but also gives potential for interesting plots and scenes. That line in The Terminator is not only essential to the plot but is the driving theme of its successful sequel.
Another example is the Star Wars movie ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. In this movie, the author needs a spaceship not to escape the bad guys by just hitting the faster-than-light (FTL) button. The problem is, why can’t they? The writer, in his/her creativity, came up with a way that added to the plot. The ‘hyperdrive’ (FTL) continues to break down, creating dynamics, conflict, and even humor in the story. It works well. However, could they do that again? If they did, the audience would reject it, saying it's been done before. Come up with a completely new reason? Probably.
Why not stop this with handwavium? The author had to know that in a space drama, there will be times when he wants people to fight and not be able to press a button and escape. That’s boring, so the author spends a little time researching FTL travel.
In my WIP, there is FTL travel. The problem is that if one has FTL travel, one can use it for time travel. You need a ‘third party,’ but it can be anything that fits the bill. FTL is such a staple of sci-fi that even hard-core readers will accept it, though likely with an eye-roll. In my WIP, I know enough about special and general relativity that I can come up with a probable universe that has FTL but no time travel. However, the explanation is boring to most and, more damning, adds nothing to the plot except plug a hole that 90% of readers don’t care about.
However, when I thought about it, I found a way that fits into that useless explanation but also prevents spaceships from warping away from conflict. There's no need to come up with the hyper-drive spinning down or not working when trying to escape. It’s now part of the fabric of world-building.
The supreme experts at Handwavium are the writers of Star Trek, and we geeks love it. Star Trek is not hard sci-fi, but it feels much more up the scale of hardness than Star Wars. They use handwavium to set up plots, conflicts, and solutions to conflicts. I’m not going into specifics on Star Trek because you all are intimately familiar with it. If you are a sci-fi writer and not, well…
In conclusion, don’t be afraid to add some ‘hardness’ to your science fiction. You don’t have to get a science degree or spend weeks researching. Learn some about what you want to harden up so that you have a basic understanding. Make handwavium exciting and find a knowledgeable person to give it a smell test. Your stories will be richer, and you might get those geeks defending your writing rather than lifting their noses and dismissing it.
There are innumerable resources to use for your research—too many great ones to list. However, I am a rabid fan-girl of the highly prolific Isaac Arthur. Link: (128) Isaac Arthur - YouTube. Also, I live for giving handwavium a sniff test, so feel free to contact me. Keep writing!