If I write a story involving a body swap, does that fall under the ‘fantasy’ umbrella? I have one I’ve just started and wondering if I can submit it to Writers of the Future, which is a fantasy/sci-fi competition.
I suppose answer would be whether the body swapping is a result of "science" or "magic." It's more nuanced than that, but that's the broad question.
Thanks, it’s not really part of the story to explain why it happened but I guess magic, definitely not science. So would this make it fantasy?
To clarify- the question isn’t whether it’s fantasy OR sci-fi, it’s whether it can be submitted to a fantasy/sci-fi competition.
I think most sci-fi has elements of fantasy. Modern technology would have been considered fantasy 100 years ago but yet here it is. Inventing and progressing is deeply rooted in imagination and it's impossible to say what is actually achievable in this world as we still don't even understand its true nature. We probably never will. The new Amazon series Tales from the Loop has an episode centered on a piece of technology that can swap bodies and that show is very much classified as sci-fi.
It’s maybe a bit like time travel in that it can be fantasy or sci-fi. But either is good enough for me!
The separator might be something as simple as if technology is involved. If a team of scientists builds a gate that opens a portal to another dimension, then I don't think anyone would have a problem calling it sci-fi. But if a wizard waves a staff or wand to open the dimensional portal, then fantasy would probably be best. But again, who knows what our minds are actually capable of
From my perspective it would depend on how its handled. For instance if I'm looking to watch a sci-fi/fantasy movie I don't think about pulling out Freaky Friday. I don't think just having some fantastical elements necessarily makes something speculative fiction, especially if those elements are mostly there for a literary purpose. For example, Edge of Tomorrow is a sci-fi film, Groundhog Day not so much, despite both focusing on time loops. But then that's just my take on the genres, which is limited.
Based on the little bit of information I have, it's sounding like fantasy so I don't know if it would work in a sci-fi contest. However, if it's something like Altered Carbon and that's how the body swapping works then it's sci-fi. Now if it's ancient technology that is so advanced or future technology that is so advanced or present technology that is so advanced (think the gods, priests/priestesses of Ada Hoffmann's The Outside) then it may be a sci-fi fantasy or slipstream story that could be submitted to this contest.
