A Q&A Thursday Question I Didn't Know How to Answer

An Agents & Books First

Hey Friends,

Shocking everyone, including me, I met a Q&A Thursday question I wasn’t sure how to answer. Come with me on a journey of discovery.

L asks: When an agent says they want “grounded sci-fi only,” do they usually mean “grounded” as in “on-planet-Earth/near-present” (no spaceships, no year 4000 AD)? Or do they mean “grounded” as in “realistic/not-fantastical” (no dogfights in space, no space magicians, no aliens that look and talk like humans)?

Hopefully it’s not both, but if it is, how do we know which of the two it is when submitting?

This might be one of the hardest questions I’ve ever gotten for a Q&A Thursday. Congrats! Of course, it’s a deceptively simple one. Publishing should have an answer, no? I really had to think about this and come up with both how I would define it and how I think publishing broadly would define it. Unfortunately, I do not have a succinct and definitive answer for you. I don’t think there is one.