Grounding Impossible

Published September 22, 2026

by Erica Balfour

Tell me if you’ve heard this one before. Three stories walk into a bar . . . 

Story 1: An astronaut gets stranded on Mars and must figure out how to grow potatoes to survive. 

Story 2: A mercenary shows up in ancient China and gets pulled into a war against swarms of hungry mythical monsters. 

Story 3: A guy gets fished out of the rough sea, only to discover he’s got elite combat skills and the CIA is trying to kill him. 

Can you tell me what three things these stories have in common? I’ll give you ten seconds . . . 

All right, here are the first two (you’ll have to read to the end to learn the third): 

1. Each is the premise of a major film 
2. Each features strong speculative elements

And incorporating speculative elements into stories is what we’ll be discussing today. 

People like to malign speculative fiction. They say it’s not realistic. They say it’s not believable. They say it’s not good storytelling. 

What I really think those people are saying is that the speculative elements in the stories they hate don’t feel grounded. And that can be a valid criticism. In my experience, speculative elements don’t fall flat because they’re too weird – they fall flat when they’re not critical to the story, not grounded in human experience, or not bounded by internal logic.

Let me explain. 

Critical to the Story

Every story ever told always begins with “what if.” Speculative stories just happen to ask bigger, stranger “what ifs” than other stories. Instead of asking “what if a manipulative woman faked her own death and framed her husband for it” they ask “what if there was a castle-school where angsty, magically gifted teenagers could solve mysteries during the school year.”

To be successful, a story’s speculative elements must be central to the story. Harry Potter would be pretty dull without the Wizarding World. And the Martian would not be so fascinating if it took place in Iowa. 

If you’re incorporating speculative elements – ghosts, magic, experimental memory enhancements, nanites, whatever – ensure they are foundational ingredients in your story. In other words, if you were to remove them, your story should fall apart. 

This doesn’t mean you have to smack your readers in the face with speculative elements in every paragraph (please don’t!). But they should have far-reaching impacts on your characters and their conflict. 

To that end . . .

Grounded in Human Experience

Speculative elements do their best work when they feel grounded. But what does this mean? 

How can we say Legolas, Ripley, and Iron Man all feel grounded when they inhabit vastly different genres and storytelling styles? It’s because each of them is deeply human. Their quirks, flaws, and personalities influence how they engage with their speculative worlds. 

In The Two Towers, Legolas gets in a “how many orcs did you kill” contest with Gimli the dwarf – a very human bit of one-upmanship. 

In Aliens, Ripley is haunted by the loss of her daughter and so she faces the queen alien head-to-head to protect Newt – something any parent can understand. 

And in Iron Man, Tony Stark must physically battle the results of his high-handed arrogance – a lesson many of us need to learn. 

These moments work because, no matter how fantastical the fictional worlds get, the characters are still driven by recognizable human emotions, desires, and motivations. In fact, the speculative elements in each of these stories amplify the stories’ human elements, giving them a depth and a nuance we wouldn’t see in a non-speculative story. 

Speculative elements don’t have to be thematically critical – they can also be wholly practical. In The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, wizard Harry Dresden’s innate magic plays havoc with the technology around him, so much so that his car is broken-down more often than not. 

A quick note for the non-SFF nerds reading this: you don’t have to write a space opera or epic fantasy to incorporate speculative elements into your story. In fact, there’re many powerful stories out there with only minor speculative elements. Think Groundhog Day or 13 Going on 30. The speculative elements in these stories drive the story’s whole conflict but are largely invisible once they dump their protagonists in their unexpected situations. 

Bounded by Internal Logic

One of the beautiful things about speculative elements is they allow you to break the laws of physics. You want your character to be able to morph into any animal they touch for two hours at a time? Go for it! You want to explore what could happen if AI decides humans must be exterminated… and sends Arnold Schwartzenegger back to the 80’s to do it? Game on! 

BUT. 

We can all think of otherwise enjoyable stories whose speculative elements suddenly behaved differently in the climax (a character manifests a new ability or the “rules” randomly changed). Those stories frustrate readers and break immersion.

You can do better by keeping your story’s speculative elements internally logical. There must be rules, boundaries, and costs associated with your speculative elements, and those rules must remain consistent. 

This doesn’t mean your stories must be externally logical. We all know there isn’t some random gene in some people that gives them the ability to move metal or shoot laser beams from their eyes. But even X-Men follows its own logic. Each character’s powers are sharply defined – well, except the Phoenix, but we’ll let that one slide. 

Part of maintaining internal logic is planning out your reader onboarding – how and when you explain the rules of your speculative elements to your readers. This is most efficiently done through action, not exposition, though a few lines of dialogue are usually helpful. 

Think about the movie The Matrix. The opening scene is a showcase of Trinity’s ability to move supernaturally fast and jump impossible distances. The scene gives the audience an idea of what to expect for the rest of the movie – and Morpheus provides the dialogue exposition during the Neo training montage (“Some of these rules can be bent. Others can be broken.”). 

So by all means, write a story where the sun gives an alien dude the ability to fly. Or write one where a young boy finds himself always talking to Bruce Willis because no one else can see him. That’s great. But stay consistent and stay logical within the story. Your readers will thank you.

Conclusion

Speculative elements make fiction fun. They give authors and readers the ability to ask unbounded “what if” questions, often delving deeper into the human experience than they could if they tried to keep their feet on the (literary) ground. 

But they can also alienate readers. 

So if you’re thinking of incorporating speculative elements into your story, whether in a tiny way (The Truman Show) or a huge way (Avengers), make sure your specul2ative elements are critical to your story, are rooted in the human experience, and are internally logical. 

Grounded speculative fiction isn’t about how big and flashy your idea is – it’s about how well you teach your readers to believe in it. 

** The third thing each story has in common: Matt Damon. 

Erica Balfour writes fantasy and science fiction with warmth, humor, and sharp edges. A multi-
time Writers of the Future Silver Honorable Mention award recipient, she infuses every story
she tells with magic, monsters, heart, and wit. Explore her worlds at www.ericabalfour.com.