I have an idea for a novel that takes place basically in the real world with normal people, only I want to add a few small science fiction/fantasy elements. Nothing as extreme as Harry Potter or True Blood, just little changes to some ordinary parts of life. What I want to know is would anybody read or publish something like that? I've only ever seen it done in short stories, and I'm worried that I'll get the thing written and then find that people are confused by the quantity of strange. Should I just leave it out? It kind of affects the story if I do, but it's possible. Can anyone point me in the direction of some similar fiction, if it's out there?
It shouldn't be a problem, though it depends how you use it. If you write a normal real world novel, except people just happen to use magic to heat up their coffee in the morning, or something, that would be silly and a waste of having it in the novel if you never use it for anything. However, mild science fiction is easy to get away with - most high-tech thrillers/sciencey things assume a lot of things technology can't do - often just for plot ease. For example, I remember a TV program set in the 90s where they used Google (or equivalent) to search for a scanned image, whereas shape-recognition stuff hasn't been massively available really until recently. And I still don't think you can use Google like that. People are always making up new developments for technology and posing it as the modern age or just next year - and science usually cooperates and makes half of it by then. However, tread a lot more carefully with magic. Do not randomly have anything magic unless it's meant to be plot-important. It's a lot harder for a reader to accept as a random part of life, unless it's very subliminal or an overarching theme that doesn't actually affect the characters. For example, Holes by LOuis Sachar has a gypsy curse and a whole lot of extremely neat destiny going on, but by and large you'd pretty much take it as being set on Earth and, scene to scene, nothing too strange or out of place. It was more the backstory which made the story magical. Or in Jane Eyre when she randomly telepathically communicates with Rochester near the end. No one makes too much fuss about that.
Just write your story. Seriously, worrying about the marketing a finished product is about the worst perspective to take when trying to create something. Just write your story, if it's good, you'll be fine.
There is a search engine that can search images that have certain colors.... search peach against green and get camping photos, even down to camping photos where the faces are in a certain quadrant. Anyway, 20 minutes into the future.... predicting that in X years, you can have technology that matches up to whatever the modern equivalent of "Beyond 2000" is barking. That's any good Sci-fi.... or else Star Trek is responsible for Bluetooth headsets.
The fantasy elements move you into the realm of magical realism, and there's plenty of that about, both within genre and within literary fiction. I don't see why a bit of sci-fi (what, technologies that aren't yet available?) should rock the boat.
William Gibson. He's very famous SF author who used to write Earth bound SF and he's credited with predicting the internet. All of his early books were very SF but then quite a long time ago I read an interview where he said that he wanted to do present time SF.
Thanks for your replies everyone. popsicledeath you are right, but this is just my form of procrastination. Everyone else, my idea is sort of a watered down thread of xmen/minority report type of thing to run through the book. I would have a group of characters connected by a mutation sort of, but it wouldn't be at the forefront of the story, and people wouldn't view it as odd. They would be connected similar to the way all men or all women are connected by gender. But the bulk of the writing would address everyday life, as it happens to be related to the mutant-things. They would't have special powers or anything. And I could just leave them unconnected, but I like those stories where the plot lines are separate but related.
