Stories and the possibility of their concepts
I am currently watching the sci-fi series The Expanse, and I can’t help but notice that its concept can happen in the future.
All good stories have that property. They all have settings that have the possibility of being true. You can say that the concept of a sci-fi story can come true in the future. You can say that the setting of a story set in the past is true or closer to how it was. You can even say that the fantasy genre stories may happen in some alternate reality. We cannot shake the possibility of them being true somewhere. (Wizards may exist in our world. But they stay hidden. We feel this from Harry Potter stories).
Good stories make you feel that.
Of course, the settings and concepts don’t drive the stories on their own. The characters in them do. There have been many amazing concepts with miserable one-dimensional characters which failed as stories, and there have been mediocre concepts with amazing, lively characters which engaged the audience.
But this is an important piece of the jigsaw puzzle.
