One Oar in the Water
There’s been some hoo-rah in the genre about “sense of wonder” and where it might have gone, as if it had left the room just long enough to start talking about it behind its back, and that it might return at any moment…To the best of my ability to define, “sense of wonder” is a frame shift, or at least it requires a frame shift.
A frame shift is when the reader experiences something new, or something old from a new perspective.
This frame shift is necessary for a sense of wonder, but not sufficient. I think it would be pretty easy to show that a frame shift–new things–do not always engender a sense of wonder, although it is hard to engender a sense of wonder without some kind of frame shift.
It also means that frame shift, and therefore “sense of wonder,” is subjective. What is startlingly new to one reader may barely raise a jaded eyebrow from someone else.
A problem with that part of the genre that focuses its creative effort on nostalgia–stories of comfort–is that it becomes very difficult to honor both masters: to be rooted in an appeal to the familiar yet to bespell the new, different and therefore uncomfortable.
This strikes at the heart of the vitality of the genre, for it is the rare story that can succeed at both nostalgia and the sense of wonder that arises from frame shift.