What Could Have Been, pt. 1

Story telling is divided down two generally clean lines: Fiction and Nonfiction. While these two worlds are often the only ways one can spin a yarn, it is easy to see how these two distinctions might bleed together. Great men, from ancient China's Guan Yu to President George Washington, have many stories that are unverifiable attributed to them, but they weave almost seamlessly into the fabric of both popular story and cultural tapestry.



At what, however, does the storyteller diverge from what is considered to be the accepted historical narrative to ask "What if?" Speculative Fiction fills this gap and has provided the literary world both beautiful and outlandish contributions to culture. Speculative fiction does not entirely deal in history; any subject where there is room for debate or imagination allows for an author to spin a tale within an already accepted realm.

Jules Verne, arguably a master of Speculative Fiction, released his classic work, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in 1869. The story focuses around the crew of the Nautilus, a submarine far advanced of nautical technology at the time. Nemo's crew deals with giant squid, hunting for giant pearls, and battles against the elements in this ground-breaking piece, and yet for reasons seemingly unknown, the story has stuck in the consciousness of the literary world seemingly since it's publication.

However, not all of Speculative Fiction are so seemingly light. Kevin Wilmott's "mockumentary" C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America was produced in Britain in 2004, asking the simple but world-altering question of "What if the North had lost to the South in the American Civil War?" With an unblinking eye, Wilmott's film tells a story that would be considered shocking to most audiences though not necessarily to that of historical scholars.

So what can be said of Speculative Fiction in relation to the world outside of books and the proverbial "Silver Screen?"

Join me next week for a look at one of the quickest growing and most bewildering out-cropping of a fictional genre known.