Consider a publishing bash of some sort, probably in London. A respected but still-young-enough-to-be-promising author of literary fiction (that's the sort who tends to get reviewed in serious newspapers such as the Guardian, is generally published in both hardback and then B-format paperback and might even stand an outside chance of nabbing a Man Booker prize) approaches their agent – or editor; either is acceptable – all bright eyed and enthusiastic for reasons which go beyond a couple of glasses of wine or a recent good review and tells the agent/editor: "I've just had this great idea; I've got to write this!"

The agent/editor immediately assumes a look of fascinated interest, while internally recalibrating his or her wariness threshold to "Caution: Incoming". "Right," the author says, "prepare for something entirely new, fresh and completely different: a novel, written by me . . . which might look like what people call a 'detective story' –" (both sets of index and middle fingers may be needed by the author at this point to indicate the presence of the quotation marks enclosing these words, though the slight but unmistakable accompanying sneer is actually more important), "– but which isn't really, because it's me who's writing it, see? Anyway, it's set in . . . an English country house," the author says, with a dramatic flourish which strongly implies the agent/editor certainly wouldn't have been expecting that detail. Actually the agent/editor may have started to go a little glassy-eyed at this point, but no matter. "And there's a sort of weekend houseparty going on, you see? And there are all sorts of people there, like a retired colonel and a famous lady clairvoyant and an angry young man and a flighty young thing – isn't this just a fascinating cast of characters? – but then there's an unexpected snow storm and they're completely cut off, and then . . . there's a murder! Yes; a murder! But it turns out one of the guests is a famous amateur detective, and . . ." By now, of course, the agent/editor will be staring at the author, possibly open mouthed if they're still relatively inexperienced and so retain any sort of faith in the inherent wisdom and literary acumen of your average – or even exceptional – writer ". . . and then the twist at the end! I almost don't want to tell you because it'll spoil it for you first time you read it, but I've got to tell you, it's so brilliant!" The author pauses momentarily here, to let the agent/editor say something like: "Why, no then, don't! I've heard enough! Let's do the deal right here; we'll take your last contract and just add a zero at the end!" but, in the absence of something like this, plunges on with: "It turns out the murderer is . . . the butler!"

Now, even the most gifted literary author will be sufficiently aware of the clichés of the detective story not to let an initial burst of enthusiasm for a new idea involving any of them get beyond the limits of his or her own cranium, and even if they were foolish enough to suggest something on these lines to their agent or editor they'd immediately be informed that It's Been Done . . . in fact, It's Been Done to the Point of Being a Joke . . . and so all the above never happens.

Or at least, it never happens quite as described; substitute the phrase "science fiction" for the word "detective", delete the 1930s murder-mystery novel clichés and insert some 30s science fiction clichés and I get the impression this scenario has indeed played out, and not just once but several times, and the agent/editor has – bizarrely – entirely shared the enthusiasm of their author, so that, a year or two later, yet another science fiction novel which isn't really a science fiction novel – but, like, sort of is at the same time? – hits the shelves, usually to decent and only slightly sniffy reviews (sometimes, to be fair, to quite excitable reviews) while, off-stage, barely heard, howls of laughter and derision issue from the science fiction community.

The point is that science fiction is a dialogue, a process. All writing is, in a sense; a writer will read something – perhaps something quite famous, even a classic – and think "But what if it had been done this way instead . . . ?" And, standing on the shoulders of that particular giant, write something initially similar but developmentally different, so that the field evolves and further twists and turns are added to how stories are told as well as to the expectations and the knowledge of pre-existing literary patterns readers bring to those stories. Science fiction has its own history, its own legacy of what's been done, what's been superseded, what's so much part of the furniture it's practically part of the fabric now, what's become no more than a joke . . . and so on. It's just plain foolish, as well as comically arrogant, to ignore all this, to fail to do the most basic research. In a literature so concerned with social as well as technical innovation, with the effects of change – incremental as well as abrupt – on individual humans and humanity as whole, this is a grievous, fundamentally hubristic mistake to commit.

Science fiction can never be a closed shop where only those already steeped in its culture are allowed to practise, but, as with most subjects, if you're going to enter the dialogue it does help to know at least a little of what you're talking about, and it also helps, by implication, not to dismiss everything that's gone before as not worth bothering with because, well, it's just Skiffy and the poor benighted wretches have never been exposed to a talent the like of mine before . . .

In the end, writing about what you know – that hoary and potentially limiting, even stultifying piece of advice – might be best seen as applying to the type of story you're thinking of writing rather than to the details of what happens within it and perhaps, with that in mind, a better precept might be to write about what you love, rather than what you have a degree of contempt for but will deign to lower yourself to, just to show the rest of us how it's done.

However, let's be positive about this. The very fact that entirely respectable writers occasionally feel drawn to write what is perfectly obviously science fiction – regardless of either their own protestations or those of their publishers – shows that a further dialogue between genres is possible, especially if we concede that literary fiction may be legitimately regarded as one as well.

It's certainly desirable.