Fiction and Taking Things For Granted

This is Steven Petrick posting.

You are writing a fiction story set in an imagined future. Your main characters have reached a small ship that is badly damaged, but if they can fix it, it will take them to the space station orbiting the next planet over. As most of your characters provide security, your technician repairs the engine to a minimal level. Your characters all climb aboard, activate the controls, and scan the engine instruments, determining that the ship can climb out of the planet's gravity well. They then take off, heading for the next planet over.

What is missing from the above?

Obviously lots of things that the characters should be asking.

Does the ship have enough fuel for the trip for example. Kind of embarrassing to get 500 feet above ground level and run out of gas.

Even if the fuel is sufficient, did any check to make sure the damage to the ship is not such that it will fall apart on lift off?

Even if you got past those two hurdles, did any check the control systems to make sure that once you make that first lift off, the vehicle will actually fly where you want it too?

Given that you are flying through space, confirming that the life support system works might be a good idea.

Most of those can be handled by having someone simply comment that they have checked the craft, and if they can repair this little problem it will be fully serviceable, at least serviceable enough to get them where they need to go. But there should at least be a statement to that effect, unless your plot line involves some failure on the part of the characters not to look. For example the next scene will have them stranded in space in a ship that has run out of gas, or finding them crossing the "point of no return" and only then realizing that the only way they will make it to the station is if one of them takes a long walk through a short airlock, and that one has to do it in the next three minutes.

The general point is that your characters must actually LIVE in the story you are telling. They need to show some knowledge of what they are doing as part of the background. It is not enough to say that George can operate the ship, George must pass a judgment on whether or not he thinks the ship will get them there. At minimum, he needs to say something about checking the ship out. You do not have to read a long pre-flight list and bore your readers, but you do have to indicate people doing aspects of the reality in which they live. So having a character ask George: "If we fix the engine, can this thing get us to Brantley Station?" George should not respond "Sure", he should respond, "I have checked, and if Mbenga can fix the engine, it should get us there." Or he could say "Let me check it out." and then later have in the scene he can interject saying the ship can make it, and perhaps adding a lot of caveats and ifs if that is needed as part of the story.

That does not mean that once George says that that you cannot have him miss something for plot development: "I checked the fuel, there was enough. We must have a fuel leak!"

But always remember where your characters are and have them deal with their reality. Little things like starting on a seven week journey and just mentioning that they have the appropriate supplies and transport not just for themselves, but the supplies. It is always odd to read about a part of three adventures going on a long trip, just them and their three horses, but they have a large tent, a small cook stove, are dining fresh apples and . . . where are they carrying all of that and how about some oats for the horses?