quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: But isn't that part of the quality of the text itself? Being interesting, engaging the reader, making them not feel all miserable like throwing the book across the room or sitting on the toilet reading passages in disgust going, . . . .
Certainly, their are qualities of the text that make it engaging and interesting, but engaging and interesting are not themselves qualities of the text. They are reader responses to the text and not every reader will respond the same way to the text.
Consider the book you mentioned, "Ender in Exile". It being interesting and engaging were qualities of the text itself, then every reader would feel interested and engaged by the text. Some readers do but you find the same text disgusting. Its clearly about more than just the words written on the page, its about you the readers relation to those words. To write a book that will engage certain kinds of readers, you need to understand how specific qualities of the story and the prose will influence the reader. That understanding doesn't necessarily have to be a conscious level, but it has to be there.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Hum. Is it possible that it was actually a pun on 'author', as in "author-itarian"?
It could have been, but Scott confirmed it was not.
Look, Scott wanted to insult me but didn't want any one but me to recognize that's what he was doing. His initial attempt failed so he had to keep giving me clues. I finally got it. He confirmed that I had in fact finally understood his point.
OK. End of story. No need to keep discussing it.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Synesthesia: But isn't that part of the quality of the text itself? Being interesting, engaging the reader, making them not feel all miserable like throwing the book across the room or sitting on the toilet reading passages in disgust going, . . . .
Certainly, their are qualities of the text that make it engaging and interesting, but engaging and interesting are not themselves qualities of the text. They are reader responses to the text and not every reader will respond the same way to the text.
Consider the book you mentioned, "Ender in Exile". It being interesting and engaging were qualities of the text itself, then every reader would feel interested and engaged by the text. Some readers do but you find the same text disgusting. Its clearly about more than just the words written on the page, its about you the readers relation to those words. To write a book that will engage certain kinds of readers, you need to understand how specific qualities of the story and the prose will influence the reader. That understanding doesn't necessarily have to be a conscious level, but it has to be there.
Makes sense. Mostly I hated that book because instead of good prose, interesting characters, a decent plot there was all OF THIS POLITICAL NAGGING. Which is fine if you like them. Not so fine if you HATE being nagged in literature. I must try not to nag in literature. It's even annoying when liberals do it.
I don't think a person can please every reader. Even the classic writers can make modern people's eyes glaze over in boredom and make them long for short punchy sentences.
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Blayne Bradley
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I honestly didn't notice the authortract, once or twice I cringed but otherwise it was a fine book, so I geuss your mileage may vary.
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Cent one: Have you considered writing a story first, like a ten page story, or a 3000 word story? Not that you have to write stories before you write a novel, but there are advantages to that approach.
Cent two: I get the impression from your posts that you might be the type of person to really get wrapped up in research, to the point of getting distracted from the writing. Research is great, and a wealth of detail is nice, but for some people it becomes the focus. I have a friend who has to build models, and stage mock battles, and write biographies, and fill sketchbooks.... Months and months of background, none of which gets into the stories, which often don't get written at all.... Just a note of caution.
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Blayne Bradley
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I'm reading the books while EVE is heating up politics wise but will shift to rough writing mode (the kind done in Finding Forrester) soonish.
Also found this quote from the science fiction writing help site.
"Imagine a historical fiction novel where Napoleon at Waterloo defeated the knights of the Round Table by using the Enola Gay to drop an atom bomb. It's OK because it is "fiction", right? "
And my response is "THAT WOULD BE AWESOME!"
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I can definitely tell when what I write is good, and when it's otherwise, but it's much easier to make decisions about other people's stuff because I know what I'm trying to say. When I write well, I sustain mood, tone, and descriptions. I use illustrative verbs, as well. But more importantly, when I write well I feel excited about what I'm doing. I feel I'm creating a world and inviting a reader into it; I'm communicating something unique and painting a picture of a dimensional character whose genuinely interesting and not contrived. I have to be engaged as much as the reader. I think that's what Synesthesia was trying to convey, that good writing has the writer feeling the way a reader does when he reads something good. Correct me if I'm wrong Posts: 14 | Registered: Nov 2009
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: What do you think went wrong here Captain?
Nope. This problem isn't caused by failure to communicate or misunderstanding, just the opposite. It took a bit, but Scott has made his point pretty clear to his intended audience.
When one or both parties leaves the table with unkind feelings I think it is a failure in communication.
Not trying to pick on you, if I myself saw somebody leave a conversation they had just had with me angry but I only had the best of feelings, I would still say we failed in our efforts to communicate, or a failure to communicate.
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quote:Originally posted by BackwardBlackbird: I can definitely tell when what I write is good, and when it's otherwise, but it's much easier to make decisions about other people's stuff because I know what I'm trying to say. When I write well, I sustain mood, tone, and descriptions. I use illustrative verbs, as well. But more importantly, when I write well I feel excited about what I'm doing. I feel I'm creating a world and inviting a reader into it; I'm communicating something unique and painting a picture of a dimensional character whose genuinely interesting and not contrived. I have to be engaged as much as the reader. I think that's what Synesthesia was trying to convey, that good writing has the writer feeling the way a reader does when he reads something good. Correct me if I'm wrong
Yeah! It makes a person feel alive and passionate, and I end up hoping a reader will feel that too because I feel it.
Though it's easier with piano I think.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: What do you think went wrong here Captain?
Nope. This problem isn't caused by failure to communicate or misunderstanding, just the opposite. It took a bit, but Scott has made his point pretty clear to his intended audience.
When one or both parties leaves the table with unkind feelings I think it is a failure in communication.
Not trying to pick on you, if I myself saw somebody leave a conversation they had just had with me angry but I only had the best of feelings, I would still say we failed in our efforts to communicate, or a failure to communicate.
BB, You are talking about a situation where offense was taken although none was intended. I would agree such situation represent a failure in communication. But that isn't what happened here. When I final figured out he was trying to insult me, Scott confirmed that I understood his intent accurately.
So please quit implying I'm being overly sensitive and taking offense at something I shouldn't have. Scott confirmed that was his intent.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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quote:Originally posted by BackwardBlackbird: I can definitely tell when what I write is good, and when it's otherwise, but it's much easier to make decisions about other people's stuff because I know what I'm trying to say. When I write well, I sustain mood, tone, and descriptions. I use illustrative verbs, as well. But more importantly, when I write well I feel excited about what I'm doing. I feel I'm creating a world and inviting a reader into it; I'm communicating something unique and painting a picture of a dimensional character whose genuinely interesting and not contrived. I have to be engaged as much as the reader. I think that's what Synesthesia was trying to convey, that good writing has the writer feeling the way a reader does when he reads something good. Correct me if I'm wrong
Yeah! It makes a person feel alive and passionate, and I end up hoping a reader will feel that too because I feel it.
Though it's easier with piano I think.
It is wonderful that you feel good when you write. If you are writing for your own enjoyment, that is enough. Why should a reader, though, care how you felt when you were writing?
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: ... When I final figured out he was trying to insult me, Scott confirmed that I understood his intent accurately.
It seems to me that Scott R only confirmed that he called your words authoritarian rather than that you're a "pompous jerk" as you put it.
i.e. He confirmed what was said, not the interpreted jump described by you as "...his way of saying I was a pompous jerk."
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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quote:Originally posted by BackwardBlackbird: I can definitely tell when what I write is good, and when it's otherwise, but it's much easier to make decisions about other people's stuff because I know what I'm trying to say. When I write well, I sustain mood, tone, and descriptions. I use illustrative verbs, as well. But more importantly, when I write well I feel excited about what I'm doing. I feel I'm creating a world and inviting a reader into it; I'm communicating something unique and painting a picture of a dimensional character whose genuinely interesting and not contrived. I have to be engaged as much as the reader. I think that's what Synesthesia was trying to convey, that good writing has the writer feeling the way a reader does when he reads something good. Correct me if I'm wrong
Yeah! It makes a person feel alive and passionate, and I end up hoping a reader will feel that too because I feel it.
Though it's easier with piano I think.
It is wonderful that you feel good when you write. If you are writing for your own enjoyment, that is enough. Why should a reader, though, care how you felt when you were writing?
I don't know. I'd want a writer to be happy about their writing.
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I would hope so too, but a writer being happy about their writing isn't enough to make me want to read it. Or buy it. Nor would a writer who was unhappy make me not want to read their writing if it spoke to me.
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Yup. I could live ten times longer than I expect and not be able to read everything I want.
If an author has fun writing, that's fine. Some people enjoy playing video games, which is also fine. But in neither case is that enough to make me want to read/watch it myself.
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quote:If Scott thinks there was a misunderstanding, I'm sure he will say so. He hasn't been hesitant to do so in the past.
How would you know? I'm curious-- this isn't the first time you've insinuated a deeper-than-possible mental connection to others in this virtual space.
I'm not particularly inclined to apologize.
I *do* however, see evidence that my snarkiness got in the way of a conversation I care about, and that's something for which I feel rather stupid. I should have kept a lid on it.
___
quote:It is wonderful that you feel good when you write. If you are writing for your own enjoyment, that is enough. Why should a reader, though, care how you felt when you were writing?
The problem with having this sort of association-- "good feelings == good writing" is that in my experience, it's not always true. At least not for me. This sort of thinking tends to make me write less, and consequently write WORSE because I don't always feel good. And if I don't keep up a schedule, then my writing muscles tend to get flabby and my ideas become soggy and sloppy.
It's the problem of inspiration. Inspiration, for a writer, is like a clear, crisp, dry autumn day for a cross-country runner. It's a time to cherish, and coast, and indulge in good feelings. All your muscles are lean and stretched and fit; no knots. You can fly, if you felt like it.
But not all days are like that. It has been imperative for me to learn to work without inspiration, because otherwise, I'd only work when I had no other distractions. And then that good feeling is just an illusion, because my writing isn't nearly as tight as my emotion thinks that it is.
KMBoots asked earlier if I knew when what I was writing was quality. While I'm writing it, the answer is definitely (and usually) "NO." (My creative stuff anyway-- the stuff I do professionally, I know if it's crap the moment my fingers touch the keyboard, usually because I know when I'm about to try to cover up a lack of knowledge with some acrobatic prose)
I write with one pair of eyes; I revise with another. I do a lot of editing once a story has been completed. For example, The End of the World Pool went through something like 16 drafts before it was published. Blackberry Witch went through nine, I think. Eviction Notice only went through four, and it kills me to read it now because it has so many things I want to fine tune.
BUT-- different strokes. No one is right for everyone, all the time. This is why I stress that the important thing is to just sit your keister down in the chair and write. There's no substitute-- not research, not workshops, not classes. If you're writing consistently, powered by your own strength of character rather than your Muse, you'll better be able to figure out how YOU write, and what works for you.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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I haven't published anything yet, so grain of salt and all. But so far it seems to me that the good feeling is there to let you know which idea is worth pursuing. If you've toyed around with plots for five books, and only one really speaks to you and inspires joy when you're working on it, that's the one you should write.
But if you're going to write it well, you probably need to know all that stuff The Rabbit and KMBoots are going on about.
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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quote:If Scott thinks there was a misunderstanding, I'm sure he will say so. He hasn't been hesitant to do so in the past.
How would you know? I'm curious-- this isn't the first time you've insinuated a deeper-than-possible mental connection to others in this virtual space.
I'm not particularly inclined to apologize. [qb]
Clarification of intent is not the same as an apology and you seemed rather committed to the former just a short time back. Only a few week ago on a parallel forum, you made quite fuss about feeling the need to correct a misunderstanding. I'm not sure why I need some deep mental connection to you to presume you meant it.
I do think its odd that you expressed regret about your snarkiness hurting the discussion but none about hurting people. Why do you suppose that might be?
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quote:I do think its odd that you expressed regret about your snarkiness hurting the discussion but none about hurting people. Why do you suppose that might be?
I care more about the discussion than I do about your feelings.
You are correct; I am not apologizing. If you'll review carefully, you'll also note that I am not clarifying my intent.
quote: Only a few week ago on a parallel forum, you made quite fuss about feeling the need to correct a misunderstanding. I'm not sure why I need some deep mental connection to you to presume you meant it.
There, as here, I was correcting the idea that you can read people's brains.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: What do you think went wrong here Captain?
Nope. This problem isn't caused by failure to communicate or misunderstanding, just the opposite. It took a bit, but Scott has made his point pretty clear to his intended audience.
When one or both parties leaves the table with unkind feelings I think it is a failure in communication.
Not trying to pick on you, if I myself saw somebody leave a conversation they had just had with me angry but I only had the best of feelings, I would still say we failed in our efforts to communicate, or a failure to communicate.
BB, You are talking about a situation where offense was taken although none was intended. I would agree such situation represent a failure in communication. But that isn't what happened here. When I final figured out he was trying to insult me, Scott confirmed that I understood his intent accurately.
So please quit implying I'm being overly sensitive and taking offense at something I shouldn't have. Scott confirmed that was his intent.
Rabbit, I am not implying anything about you yourself. If I was trying to say that you are being overly sensitive I would have outright said as much. I am merely stating that when a conversation ends with one side disatisfied or frustrated or any sort of negative emotion, I classify that as a failure in communication.
Scott clearly has a quarrel with you, and feels he was right to criticize you in the manner that he did. When quarrels go unresolved communication has failed. I would say that God and Satan are failing to communicate, but it does not follow that I am then saying God is the or even part of the problem.
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I think the right idea is to write a short story, get it published, and go on from there. It's the standard method for writers to establish themselves, and if you can handle a short story you should be well on your way to writing a book. (1 chapter at a time!)
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Blayne Bradley
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I'm still working on this if anyone is curious, ProjectRho is an awesome resource.
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You have displeased Kwea. Posts: 3564 | Registered: Sep 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by AvidReader: What's ProjectRho?
It's a website that pretty much gives the best more extensive description of space related technologies and science while always framing it in terms of "if your writing a story, this is what's realistic if your going for hard science".
Essentially the holygrail for writers who want something scientifically accurate and willing to constrain themselves but lack the background.
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quote:Originally posted by El JT de Spang: You mean for people who want to write hard scifi but don't understand science?
You're so kind.
There's a huge difference between not understanding science and not having an extensive background in a particular field of science.
But that would require giving Blayne the benefit of the doubt, so I guess I understand where you're coming from. Still, seems needlessly mean.
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Blayne Bradley
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I most definately meant 'lacking the background' as in not having a degree in it yet can understand the material when described the clipnotes version in simple language.
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Well, he said "for people who..." and then described what he saw as himself. You said "You mean for people who..." which means you are essentially offering another view of a group of people that Blayne obviously identifies with.
Just read the posts in sequence. It's obvious Blayne is talking about himself, and therefore just as obvious that you are also talking about him.
If that's not what you meant, then I think you should probably explicitly say so, and clarify who you were referring to.
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Blayne Bradley
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So as it turns out I have discovered a flaw in my idea for economical space travel, it isn't insurmountable but it is pretty tripply!
Basically the idea of accelerating at 1g and then switching to deaccelerating at 1g work's fine, but the problem is that as pointed out to me by my friend is that at the switch over relative gravity will swap, so up will be down and vice versa.
It's really trippy and because most humans are rooted in thinking about gravity in terms of Earth gravity even when I should know better it's a difficult problem to notice, which is the advantage of having a second pair of eyes review these ideas.
The easiest solution is simply to design the ship with magnatized bulkheads and simply swap right before the switch over point where the furnature and finishings go and design things with that in mind, I also forgot to consider HOW the ship would even deaccelerate!
Should the ship simply turn off its engines and gradually turn 180 degrees and then deaccelerate or simply design my ships with engines at both ends?
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Blayne, as someone who's pursued this kind of technical stuff to make my own ftl travel system, I can say that sooner or later you have make the step from science to fiction or you will drive yourself nuts, especially if you're not a physicist yourself!
I do like the idea of the acceleration one way and the decceleration the other way, though. Whatever the science behind it, it's an interesting idea.
Posts: 8473 | Registered: Apr 2003
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The ship's main engines should be mounted so that they can swivel around the body (or along an axis perpendicular to travel). This would require some fairly strong structural elements, but if you're only planning to do a G or so, anything reasonable should hold up just fine.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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But then you have to worry that the engines don't incinerate the rest of the ship when they're firing in reverse.
Maybe it'll be easier to find a way around the gravity concern? Like make the ship a big centrifuge so that gravity isn't necessarily in the same direction as motion, like the Discovery One?
It might not be as aesthetically pleasing, but does it matter?
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Blayne Bradley
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It's not good to rely on for a warship, basically the going plan is "earth gravity when in transit, null-g in combat".
quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Well, he said "for people who..." and then described what he saw as himself. You said "You mean for people who..." which means you are essentially offering another view of a group of people that Blayne obviously identifies with.
Just read the posts in sequence. It's obvious Blayne is talking about himself, and therefore just as obvious that you are also talking about him.
If that's not what you meant, then I think you should probably explicitly say so, and clarify who you were referring to.
Problems with your reading comprehension and starting assumptions are not my fault.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_Frank: Well, he said "for people who..." and then described what he saw as himself. You said "You mean for people who..." which means you are essentially offering another view of a group of people that Blayne obviously identifies with.
Just read the posts in sequence. It's obvious Blayne is talking about himself, and therefore just as obvious that you are also talking about him.
If that's not what you meant, then I think you should probably explicitly say so, and clarify who you were referring to.
Problems with your reading comprehension and starting assumptions are not my fault.
posted
Question: does it need to decelerate that fast?
The Space Shuttle has maneuvering thrusters on the nose so it doesn't plow in to satellites. You could have a scaled down forward thruster... I imagine (and I may be wrong) that it doesn't take a lot to slow something down in dead space.
Posts: 3486 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Just flip the ship 180 degrees at turnover. Obviously everything needs to be stowed so it doesn't go all over the place in those few minutes of freefall. You warships will fall down towards their targets riding a miles-long flame; the enemy's gate will not only be down, it will be charred to a crisp.
Recall the Human Lesson from the Man-Kzin wars: Anything capable of accelerating any significant chunk of metal at Earthlike gravities is itself a deadly weapon.
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Blayne Bradley
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won't the crew go splat as its being flipped?
Like I mean if I have a warship, kinda box-y rectangularily or cyndrically shaped (so not a sphere) going at 1g in a given direction or 975km/s whichever is relevant here and then at that point I flip it around along the long axis will there be any newtonian g forces as its flipping that the crew would be affected by if distributed among it?
@KoM, a useless weapon as it would be in no ones interest to spagitify solar colonies, each one is the equivilent of a decently sized city with considerable industrial and economic and logistical implications for the occupier if it can be grabbed intact.
And unlike cities can be easily evacuated and repurposed.
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Just flip it slowly enough so that the centripetal acceleration doesn't hurt them (keep it under a few g, or if you want to be consistent, keep the acceleration at maximum inhabited radius to 1 g). Even a very large ship should only take a few minutes to do that (though I haven't run the calculations).
Indeed, if you turn it slowly enough, the centripetal acceleration will be low enough the crew will think they are in zero g.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Blayne Bradley
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After watching the first season of Sci-Fi Science I have some ideas in combination with ProjectRho for the material composition of a warships armor and possibly it's shields.
For the defense against Nuclear shape charges, mass drivers, small arms fire, and missiles:
For Lasers:
quote:Basically, the energy requirement to damage a surface is measured in joules/cm2. If you exceed that value, you do damage, otherwise you fail. Keep in mind that a Joule is the same thing as a watt-second.
However, neither thermal kill nor impulse kill works very well with armor. So we use the third method: drilling. The amount of energy required to drill through an object is within a factor of 2 or so of the heat of vaporization of that object. There are also two other limits: the maximum aspect ratio of the hole is usually less than 50:1, and the actual drilling speed, for efficient drilling, is limited to about 1 meter per second (depending on the material).
Therefore, the best anti-laser armor will be that material with the highest vaporization energy for its mass. The best candidate is some form of carbon, at 29.6 kilojoules/gram. You do not want a form that is soft or easily powdered, or the vapor action under laser impact will blow out flakes of armor, allowing the laser to penetrate much faster. Steel has a higher vaporization energy, but it masses more as well.
Under laboratory conditions, if an armor layer was 5 g/cm2 of carbon, burning through a 1 cm2 (1.12 cm diameter) spot of armor would take about 148 kilojoules and 20 milliseconds. An AV:T laser cannon with 50 megaJoules could burn through 330 such armor layers in a few seconds, under laboratory conditions (i.e., enough layers to burn through the entire ship the long way).
However, under combat conditions there is no way one could focus the laser down that tiny and keep it on the same spot on the target ship for multiple seconds.
It would be better to use a beam focused down to a larger 10 cm2 spot (11.2 cm diameter). Granted the beam power required to penetrate jumps from 148 kilojoules to 15 megaJoules, but now if we have an uncertainty in the target's velocity of up to 5 meters per second it doesn't matter.
Of course, if price is no object, you can do better than carbon. Boron has a vaporization energy of 45.3 kilojoules/gram and is only slightly denser than carbon. Expensive, though.
This in combination with Photochromatic coating of the armor with a carbon-fibre layer(s) would I think provide some protection against laser armament.
Then there's Cold Plasma, which could work if it could be determined how to mould it around the ship.
For nukes:
quote: In Space Propulsion Analysis and Design they give the specs on a typical shadow shield. Starting at the atomic engine, the gamma rays and neutrons first encounter 18 centimeters of beryllium (which acts as a neutron reflector), followed by 2 centimeters of tungsten (mainly a gamma-ray shield but also does a good job on neutrons), and finally 5 centimeters of lithium hydroxide (To stop the remaining neutrons. Hydrogen slows down the neutrons and lithium absorbs them.). This attenuates the gamma flux to a value of 0.00105, and neutron flux to 4.0e-9. This has a mass of 3,500 kilograms per square meter of shadow shield (ouch!). For a rough estimate it should be a disk with a radius equal to the radius of the reactor core. To estimate the size of the core is over my head but it is covered in SPAD.
Some sort of composite armor of the above for resisting radiation would probably be sufficient if my engine is efficient enough and uses little enough mass for fuel and still be practical.
Mass Drivers, Railguns, Coilguns:
A carbon fibre mesh with whatever is the strongest/lightest allow known to science.
Of course I'm skeptical that any of this could be effective for keeping the ship alive for the 'dozens to hundreds' of exchanged blows in fiction so story speaking the above armor is probably only to be good for maybe 3-6 direct hits.
Then we have Point Defense and Evasive Maneuvering, the latter is gonna be hard for anything in transit but the former is probably a good solution for any debris or missiles.
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