I read Applied Ballardianism by Simon Sellars a few years ago and was blown away.

I had read theory fiction before, but nothing had moved me like this. I think it was because of the interplay between theory and creating a narrative/fictional world.

Typically theory creates a product, but here theory makes a story.

I never thought about writing theory fiction until I wrote a weird story about moss.

What is a theory? A theory is an idea about the world. Before the scientific revolution, theories were metaphysical speculation. After the scientific revolution, scientists could accumulate data and evidence to create a theory that was empirically grounded.

These new theories could create new devices, experiments, and predictions. Empirically grounded theories could develop models that could be prototypes for natural objects.

What is theory fiction?

Theory fiction is not really about these empirically grounded theories but speculative theories, often from literary criticism. However, these theories are used in theory fiction to create models. These models are the stories.

There is a connection between these models and the notion of worldbuilding by Nelson Goodman.

Is theory fiction or theory?

One idea behind theory fiction is epistemic content to theory fiction. That is, there is knowledge contained in theory fiction. In regular fiction, perhaps the knowledge is about emotional states or interpersonal relationships, but it is more an investigation of the existing world.

Fiction is analytical; it breaks down and examines parts of our reality

Theory fiction is synthetic; it combines elements of truth to create something new, resulting in general knowledge.

What is new knowledge anyway?

I always think of how the ancients knew which plants to eat.

Options include trial and error, or they watched what the animals ate, but my favorite is that the plants themselves told them.

These are three ways of knowing right here. What ways of knowing are there in storytelling? There is knowledge of our culture, psychology, and relationships with one another, but what about plants, animals, the stars, oil, and physics?

Final Thoughts on Theory Fiction

I suppose I am interested in knowledge, in new ways to understand the world. What is the theory that one should use in creating fiction?

I am thinking about my moss short story that feels like it wants to be a work of theory fiction. But what is the theory that it involves? I think about Bergson and vitalism and of Boltzmann and the neo-Kantians. I think about Lyotard and his discussion of Duchampian machines, Lacan, and language's constructive power. I think of symbols and the imagination and what is the knowledge that symbols posses. Perhaps this is the knowledge of theory fiction.

Models are symbols; their reification is the world.