I wonder if part of what makes YA sci-fi harder than, say, fantasy is that what is intuitive is often wrong?

For example, spaceships (of course), which feel like they should fly like airplanes but absolutely do not.

If you want to be more accurate, you have to do something like the Expanse and spend a considerable amount of time showing a ship flipping around to slow down so people won't be confused later when they see ships flying "backwards" as they decelerate towards a planet.

Over time that information might filter down and become understood in pop culture (by shows like the Expanse), but unless you do the Star Wars thing of just ignoring physics you're going to have to spend a long time getting people on board.

I love boring shit like that, but I imagine it's a blocker for a lot of people. Worse, a lot (most?) of sci-fi can get caught up in making the spaceships go right and forgot to make the characters interesting, which is a deal breaker (especially for YA).

I dunno, thinking a lot about this.

(especially because I absolutely want the spaceships to go right)

i'm reading through this and don't think i constructed a very good argument but oh well

stories are hard is what i'm trying to say