posted
I’m writing a near future hard SF novel centered around nanotechnology and pervasive computing. The main characters, which include scientists, engineers, and physicians, routinely communicate with each other using three letter acronyms. So far, I have been trying to define these acronyms in the text, but it is invariably awkward and always unrealistic. It’s not a scanning electron microscope. No one would say that in real life. It’s a SEM. It’s not a focused ion beam, it’s a FIB. It would be silly for these characters to say otherwise.
I’m reading Doomsday Book (C. Willis) and I noticed that she sometimes uses acronyms without defining them. I know from the context that an SPG (I think this right, don’t have the book with me) is some kind of protective gear for medical professionals when treating patients in isolation.
So, should acronyms be defined explicitly or understood from context? What would you prefer?
posted
You always need to define acronyms if they are story specific and do so before you start casually throwing them about, or the reader will be lost, confused, and annoyed.
Remember, acronyms aren't always the way people naturally abbreviate things. A Computed Tomography Scan, what you might call CTS in your book, is actually just a CT Scan, or is better known as a "Cat Scan."
For your scanning electron microscope, you might call it an "electro-scope." And for a focused ion beam, I could see that being just "beam" or "ion beam." (Unless they work in a lab where there are 500 different beams available!)
Also, whenever you make something a 3 letter acronym it might look shorter on paper, but take just as long when you say it aloud, which would defeat the purpose of the abbreviation. Always good to sound things out and see what is easier to say.
posted
My advice is to put a Layperson in there, someone who wouldn't know what a Scanning Electron Microscope even if you spelled it out for them. So the scientists have to at one time or another explain. Or perhaps say, they talk about doing something with the SEM and then you explain what the Scanning Electron Microscope is doing. Of course you could do what Robert Jordan does with all his book and add an Apendix. Personally I usually pick things up from their context. The real question is how much do you rely on your reader's scema?
Posts: 1895 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
Trust the force! Just throw the abbreviation in there in the same way that the actual characters would use it. Write the story assuming that the reader will understand.
Posts: 42 | Registered: May 2002
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posted
Thing is, people working with the technolgy every day are not going to refer to it as any more than its abbrevation. Outside of a class room, or in a formal conference presentation (and only for the brief intro at the beging of the talk), it's always GCMS, HPLC, SEM, ICP, FTIR to name just a few. No person in a lab is going to actually say "High Performance Liquid Chromatography" ot "Fourier Transform Infrared" -- it's always HPLC and FTIR.
Posts: 652 | Registered: Feb 2002
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posted
Okay, just to expand on my comment, now that it no longer applies, I have to say this.
NEVER USE DIALOGUE AS A STANDALONE FORM OF EXPOSITION
Yes, I know that sometimes, in bad movies, they are forced to do this. Hint to the movie industry, if anything needs to be explained to the audience that doesn't need to be explained to the main character, then your script is a stinker. It might come from a great book, but there are plenty of great books that every sane person understands will never be made into coherent movies.
Dialogue is very important in many books. It is important to get it right. But it isn't the be all end all of writing.
posted
I would definitely be careful about throwing too many new acronyms into a story. I would carefully weigh anything that makes the reader concentrate to figure out what the actual words mean and only put it in if it's absolutely necessary. If I have to stop every couple of paragraphs to try to figure out what a SEM or a FIB is, I will quickly get annoyed and toss the story into the vast pile of "stuff I started but never finished because I thought it sucked."
***Note: I'm not saying your story sucks. I would probably never find out one way or the other, though, because I wouldn't want to put the effort into figuring out all the technical TLAs. That's even worse than reading it and thinking it sucks.
If you have to use all the TLAs, which may very well legitimately be the case, then you need to make sure its very easy for me, the reader, to figure out what they mean without much effort.
Wether you define them explicitly or let me figure it out from the text is really just a style choice. Either way could work. I would probably prefer to see them explicitly defined, but that's just my opinion.
[This message has been edited by wetwilly (edited March 28, 2004).]
posted
I suppose that there is a balance between trying to create verisimilitude and not completely jarring the reader from the story by forcing them to think about what an acronym might mean. I just wish I were good enough to work in the acronym definitions in such a way that they would be as invisible as dialog tags. I’ll work on it. Thanks for all the advice!
Brian
By the way, Pyre, the layperson suggestion is a good one. In this story, it just doesn't fit the plot to have a layperson present at certain times.
posted
What about an appendix, where all your hypertechnical acronyms are spelled out. You wouldn't even have to define them.
With the appendix, if the acronyms are bugging me, a quick flip to the back of the book gives me the meaning, and I can infer what the thing actually is, or, if I'm really curious, I can go look it up in an encyclopedia.
posted
Did anyone hear what I said? I said, don't use dialogue for exposition. Read that aloud so you hear it.
Try a short example.
quote:Abby sorted through the deceased's effects, checking each with a simple optical magnifier. Bingo. The undershirt had ultra-fine optical fibers glinting throughout the weave.
"I got something here." She held up the shirt so Taylor could see it. "Optical fibers, looks like a sensor net."
Taylor walked over, glanced at the display, and made his decision instantly. "Put it under the SEM."
"Don't you want me to use an IRI to find the nodes?"
"Do the whole shirt." Taylor went back to his terminal, conversation over.
Typical of the man. Prepping the entire shirt for the scanning electron microscope would take forever, and the data generated would be far too much for a human to look at, so she would have to apply for processor time again...but old ways were the best ways in Taylor's book. He would claim that an infrared illumination could only find the obvious...and if she pointed out that anything not connected to the optical net could easily be on an article of evidence by itself, he might just make her prep, scan, and analyze the whole lot.
This is better than an appendix, because now we also know not only the technical definition of IRI and SEM, but also the character impact, how Abby feels about both...and about Taylor. We even get a distillation of whatever other conversations happened in her past with Taylor to make her aware of his attitude towards time-saving approaches to forensics. And of course, we know something about the relationship...who gives the orders and who does the scut work.
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