posted
Since a lot of what I write is science fiction, and since a lot of that is set somewhere in the future, there are bound to be a lot of terms unfamiliar to the present-day reader---wouldn't there? If you're using technology, there will be terms that would mean nothing to someone not familiar with that technology...if you're on a plante that's not Earth, there might be flora and fauna that would need new names.
I generally like to drop a few unfamiliar terms into the mix---some that are important to the story I'll define, but others that are just background color I might leave alone. I generally like it that way (it's the Cordwainer Smith influence on me, where things would be dropped in but sometimes not defined until three or four stories down the way)---but I can see it might be confusing to some.
I could define the terms I use---but it might add to the story length and slow the story action. There's a passage in Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky, where three or four pages of description of the main technology of the story (teleportation / star travel), followed up by something on the order of "He no more thought of that than he thought of 'Otis' when he used an elevator." [Not exact but I'm quoting from memory here---anyway, you get the idea.]
What do you guys think? Confusing, a practice to be avoided...or a necessary part of providing color to an exotic self-created world...or somewhere in between, or somewhere else?
posted
Classic example: "The door irised." Needs no explanation.
Maybe sometimes things do, but often less than I might think. I think of it as technobabble: it's there to make things sound good, not to actually change the dynamics of the action.
For example, you're going to use the transporter (Star Trek), and there's a problem with it. That's the dynamic. All the stuff about narrowing the confinement beam and adjusting the Heisenberg compensators is very effective window dressing.
posted
It's important for the reader to know what's going on. That said, not everything has to be spelled out. If you want to call a flower a 'flotta' or something like that, I don't need to know what it looks like. In fact, unless it's a flower that acts in ways that are not flower-like, then you should just call it a flower.
Basically, if it doesn't matter what something in the background is, don't bore me by explaining it all. I tried reading "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis. The man describes everything that he sees, in detail, and gives us thoughts on how plants, trees, and mountains may have evolved. It bored the heck out of me.
So, keep it simple, don't call flower something else unless it's necessary, and don't bore me.
posted
Suppose you're going to use the transporter and there's no problem with it? (Would anybody use it at all if these problems were routine?) Does your reader / their watcher need to know the engineering details? And "Star Trek" and its successor series are notorious for undefined and obscure technobabble.
I don't mean that I expect the reader to be familiar with the terms I use---I just want it to be obvious from the context without going into lengthy detail.
posted
I've wondered about this a little bit, and I'm interested in what other people think, too.
The line about Otis and elevators shows that it's likely that something went wrong with the author, I think.
A lot depends on POV. If the POV character would have noticed it, you can say it. In 1918, few people would have thought that automobiles would have power windows, but I'd bet that readers would understand "Edgar pushed the button that lowered the window."
For the Star Trek transporter, "They stepped into the transporter and dissolved" is probably sufficient.
It helps that "transporter" is named in a self-explanatory way. In 1918, "I moved the mouse until the cursor was over the 'OK' button" would have been gibberish. Simple is better than clever.
I've recently been reading Matthew Hughes's excellent short story collection _The Gist Hunter & Other Stories_, and I think he drops in quite a few things that I'm just supposed to "get" -- at least, I don't recognize them from anywhere else -- and I think he does it very well. For example, what I would think of as a computerized artificial intelligence, he calls an "integrator", and I think the term works well because its job is to integrate information for its owner. I don't think he ever makes that explicit, though. Henghis Hapthorn just talks to his integrator, and it responds in such-and-such a way.
posted
What I meant was not, if there's a problem with the transporter, we need engineering details. What I meant was that we don't. We just want to know that there's a problem. Or that there's not. "The flux capacitor's fried" tells us what we need to know; we don't need to know what a flux capacitor is to enjoy it.
Note: non-SF readers seem to hate this. It scares them, hearing terms thrown out there that they can't identify.
posted
My front-burner novel is set on a faraway planet, colonized by humans, so I have a lot of new flora and fauna to come up with, at least some of which will need names to tell the story, but they're names invented by humans. What I'm trying to mostly do in that one is make up names that (perhaps with a wee bit of help from context) are (hopefully) readily interpreted. A 'hedgiwog' is a small prickly ravine and hedgerow dweller, a 'gozzle' is a large waterbird, a 'bobblehead' is a large upland game bird. Some names, like 'yellow starflower' are pretty entirely self-explanatory. My aim is to have most of the conlang in that story be readily understandable so the reader isn't going 'huh?' in every other paragraph.
Feldrea the Bounty Hunter's world (a new short-story series idea) is a different kettle of fish in a way, as it is not a human-based settlement, so while names like 'yellow starflower' might be useful, naming animals in ways that vaguely relate to earth critters isn't particularly appropriate. I'll be trying to put any conlang in a strong enough context that the 'huh?' factor isn't too great (and it's aimed at a target market that is pretty used to conlang). I don't mind conlang in situations that really call for it, but I like it when there's enough information to make a good guess as to what it means. I read a book awhile back that used a conlang term to describe some kind of obviously alcoholic beverage, but I never could figure out from context if it was more like beer, more like wine, or more like hard liquor, and it niggled at me throughout the book. I'd like to avoid niggling people that way if I can.
posted
For me: I don't have to have an in-depth description of something alien, unless it is relevant. I read names of plants that are alien to me--since I only have a working knowledge of the plants that are common here--all of the time. Rarely does the author go into explaining them, unless they are relevant, like the orchids in a Nero Wolfe novel.
Other than that, I would agree with wbriggs:
quote:"The flux capacitor's fried" tells us what we need to know; we don't need to know what a flux capacitor is to enjoy it.
[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited March 03, 2007).]
posted
A lotta early SF---I'm talking 1920s and 1930s here---would take characters (such as they were) through their wonderful future worlds filled with all sorts of strange and new things, while they say to each other things like, "How wonderful it is that we live in a world where this is possible."
Y'know, totally unrealistic dialog and character. It'd never pass muster in these latter-day later days. Really, people in the here-and-now don't spend a lot of time explaining to each other how, say, Thomas Edison made the world wonderful with the electric light, the phonograph, and wax fruit. (Unless they work in a museum dedicated to Edison---there's one not ten miles away from where I'm sitting right now.)
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