posted
Im starting on another cyberpunk styled story that is going to be mostly set in cyberspace. it my visions of the gritty bleak near future, much of the acronyms and such that are in use today will still be in use.
for my question: is it to jarring to see things like brb and rolfstomp in writing in their normal form or would it be better to write the letters as they sound like bee ar bee and rofflestomp?
posted
I would have throught the former would be clearer. At least those in your intended audience who are familiar with the terms will have no problem (note that, for example, I've never come across "roflstomp" in 15 years on the web - rofl and roflmao, yes, but not roflstomp). Using the latter versions mean people first have to back-translate them to current usage, which will be completely incomprehensible if they don't know what the current usage is.
Posts: 1469 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm thinking a portion of the audience will be alienated either way...I'm reminded of "A Clockwork Orange"---the book, not the movie---where at one point the first-person narrator said he punched somebody in the "something-or-other" (I forget the actual word used; been awhile since I read it, if I didn't actually pick up the point from a commentary or review), which could have been anything...then, later, was having a beer which, the narrator said, had a "something-or-other" on it. So "something-or-other" was most likely "head"---but the reader was lost from the first reference...
Posts: 8809 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yes, I think it comes down to your audience. If you want to target a wide audience, including people not familiar with netspeak, you might instead use the full term in some cases, like 'be right back' for 'brb'. Instead of rofl, you could say 'so and so rolled on the floor laughing', describing the action instead of telling it through 'rofl'.
Its a tricky issue, from what I've read from books on prose and author comments, they tend to avoid use of jargon (thats what this is really, the jargon of the netizens) in narrative. I think its fine to use jargon in dialog, and then hint at what the jargon means in the narrative.
posted
Read Scott Westerfeld's Uglies, Pretties, and Specials series for a good example of how to use jargon and slang. Or Cory Doctorow's Big Brother.
You can totally do it. Just make sure you keep it necessary for the story and characters and don't overdo it. In this day and age I think most people will either get it or just gloss over it, either way it won't hurt.
oh and the roflstomp is from gaming it's used when one's avatar dies in an amusing manner, or something funny is done to the 'corpse' before the player has a chance to respawn.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
