: Re: Does the concept come before other "literary devices" in philosophical science fiction? I have read in a few books about writing science fiction that a compelling concept should override considerations

@Ann1701686

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Art is, in its truest form, the ability to communicate a concept through its medium; in novel writing, your medium is the story. The fundamental building blocks of a story are the plot, the characters, the setting, the themes, and so forth. As brilliant as your philosophy may be, if you fail to invest your reader in your idea, you've missed the trees in the forest.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not one of those advocates for "only show, never tell." Whenever someone tells me that, I tell them that people like Terry Pratchett or Neil Gaiman exist (or, in the case of the former, existed :( ) who spend their novels generally telling, but do so in an interesting way. You need a device to carry your idea - Pratchett's was humor and spoof, Gaiman's is his own unique blend of combing the everyday with the fantastical. If you strike that blend between device and concept, you've got a winner.

Of course, one should be careful not to push too far the other way. My favorite example of this is the Matrix. As much as I like the Matrix as an action movie, its philosophy felt (for want of a better word) very textbook and token. One common mistake when writing these "philosophical" texts is to state the question, but to never provide the answer, e.g. as if Hamlet dropped the curtains on "to be or not to be?" Dramatic, perhaps, but not enlightening.

TL;DR Concept and device have equal weighting. One cannot either have a topic but not engage the audience, or engage the audience but not have a topic.

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