How many paragraphs of hard science can you take?

[psikeyhackr]

Sasha slipped into the space skiff and yelled Go! while sliding into her acceleration couch. The instant she was safe the craft super-accelerated. It slashed into the night sky blazing like a meteor.

Yuck! Definitely sucks.

The Derringer -class heavy battle cruiser was a design that went back nearly two centuries. Designed for speed and acceleration, the ring-and-cylinder design was a compromise between a good thrust-to-mass ratio and an adequate low speed spin-gravity capability. The design was ungainly and fragile looking, but proven in battle. One advantage the cylinder-and-ring ships had over purely cylindrical designs, if a ship were severely damaged, the habitat ring could be jettisoned whole, or in as many as six separate pieces.
"Dagger reports anti-radiation shield test complete, Captain."
"Very good, Communicator," Drake said. "Open up a channel to Captain Marston."
"Aye aye, sir."

Antares Passage by Michael McCollum

Much better.

But it is a question of what audience the author is trying to appeal to.

psik

[Laer Carroll]

Sasha slipped into the space skiff and yelled Go! while sliding into her acceleration couch. The instant she was safe the craft super-accelerated. It slashed into the night sky blazing like a meteor.

Yuck! Definitely sucks.

Hmm, maybe. But it was written to make a point, not make great literature.

When you express an opinion it's a good idea to back it up with details and logic. "Sucks" helps no one understand how to do something better. Nor does it help you to make a point. It's the kind of remark that brands you as inarticulate.

I found the "Antares Passage" quote clunky in flow, unduly wordy, and used too much jargon. Yawn-inducing, slowed the narrative.

Worse it's all tell and no show, no sensory input to help the readers put themselves into the scene.

[psikeyhackr]

I found the "Antares Passage" quote clunky in flow, unduly wordy, and used too much jargon. Yawn-inducing, slowed the narrative.

"super accelerated" "slashed into the night sky"

That is so grade school

Might as well read Harry Potter.

psik

[Laer Carroll]

That is so grade school
Might as well read Harry Potter.

For Heaven's sake, take a deep breath and be specific. Flinging insults like "so grade school" and "Might as well read Harry Potter" do not make a point. I know you can do better.

[Seli]

Yuck! Definitely sucks.


Antares Passage by Michael McCollum

Much better.

But it is a question of what audience the author is trying to appeal to.

psik

Personally I don't like either, the first is too shallow and the second to dumpy.

It all depends on the quality of the writing and the integration in the rest of the work. At times one paragraph is too much, for other people whole chapters can be fine.

Personally I like Neal Stephenson, and I think he manages to use a large percentage of any book for hard science.

[Laer Carroll]

What is good sci/tech writing depends partly on its purpose where it appears in a story. Here it serves a plot purpose and reveals a bit of character.

Team leader Gail Cross stood up and said, "Good news for the gravity-sled project." She was dressed down today in a tight red-over-red blouse/pants outfit which showed off her trim figure.

She lifted a remote and pointed it at the flat screen on the wall just beyond the end of the conference table. It lit up, showing a full-color picture of a gravity sled, dark green with a yellow stripe all along its side.

"Here's the power supply." The image expanded, rotated, and the skin at the front of the craft vanished. The image zoomed further and a red arrow pointed at a fat cable with a connector in the middle.

"This connector is ordinarily twist-locked and stays that way for the life of the vehicle. It's actually sturdier than the heavy-duty cable. But the sub-subcontractor skimmed on quality to save a few thousand bucks, which would add up to a few million eventually. Under the kind of acrobatics extreme sports fans would put the sled through it slowly begins to fail. At some point--"

The image was replaced by a video showing a gravity sled doing a high-speed hairpin turn. Suddenly the smooth turn turned into a tumble. Then the screen went blank.

"And Chris almost ends up in the hospital."

She nodded at the other end of the table where Christopher Guest sat in his blue coverall.

"You ready for another flight test, Chris?"

White teeth flashed in his tan face. "You bet."

Here the technical stuff is minimal, but enough to understand the events. It's part of a worked out scene with some also-minimal visuals. There's a hint that the team leader is a bit of a clothes horse, and so it shows character. So does the smile and ready answer of the test pilot Chris. You wouldn't be surprised if it turns out he's an adrenaline junky.

[Modern Day Myth]

Work with what makes you feel good about your work.

Keep in mind, you can't please everyone.

Coming from a technical background myself, the more realistic the tech talk, tech jargon, science download, the more I eat it up. There are many others who appreciate it too.

For those who skip it, true science fiction is not for them. With all the mixed genre that has come out in the past few decades, finding pure science fiction is becoming harder and harder.

The people who skip over the tech talk may just be fans of action adventure from the movies that had a science fiction window dressing.

[Window Bar]

My wife and I read four different science journals, so I guess we both have a relatively high threshold of science tolerance, at least among non-scientists.

Still...

When writing a story, one should keep in mind two main questions:

1) Your intended audience comprises what age groups and educational levels?
2) How much scientific detail is necessary to move the storyline forward?

Hundreds of latinesque scientific terms might turn off non-scientists, whereas a few such terms might lend credibility, as long as they are easily deciphered via context.

Consider, for example, a murder mystery. A slew of genus-and-species plant ID's would probably be a waste of ink (or pixels)... unless the clues and the solution rest on detailed botanical knowledge.

Scientific detail is no different than any other detail: It is available to us as a tool. Do not reach for a Geiger counter when you want a hammer, and vice versa.

--WB

[ShellyS]

I have a friend who's writing a time travel piece. He spent six long paragraphs in the first chapter explaining the mechanics behind the the time machine. It's kind of interesting, but after about three paragraphs, I'm ready to move on with the story, and it keeps going. Does that lose you guys like it does me? (The story's unpublished, so I can't post the paragraphs)

For me, it depends on what science, how much I can follow without having to think too hard , how interesting it is, and how well it's written.

So, it varies.

[Riothamus]

It depends on how it's presented and the subject. If you make it sound too much like a text book or incredibly dry, then it can be boring, especially if it feels like it's taking the author forever to just explain what the hell it does. Just give me the theory, what it's based on, and what precedents there are for it. I can do a lot of my own research if I so desire. A bit of metaphor is always good for spicing the description up.

[Laer Carroll]

SF readers are a varied lot, getting more varied all the time. Our numbers are also (very slowly) increasing. For a long time the walls around the SF ghetto have been getting lower, and there are more breaks in the walls. There are more cross-over works, some of them very popular.

The reasons are varied; Kat and others have described some them in a number of posts.

For those of us who are or want to be SF writers this means there are more chances that we will find readers for what we want to write, what some of us need to write.

It's foolish to declare any kind of SF evil and to be avoided. We CAN say what we ourselves might have a taste or distaste for. But it's wrong to try to force others to share our tastes. The more readers, and the more varied readers, the more chances there are that they will expand their tastes into the little corners of the SF world each of us have staked out as our personal camping grounds. And buy our stories.

[Modern Day Myth]

SF readers are a varied lot, getting more varied all the time. Our numbers are also (very slowly) increasing. For a long time the walls around the SF ghetto have been getting lower, and there are more breaks in the walls. There are more cross-over works, some of them very popular.

The reasons are varied; Kat and others have described some them in a number of posts.

For those of us who are or want to be SF writers this means there are more chances that we will find readers for what we want to write, what some of us need to write.

It's foolish to declare any kind of SF evil and to be avoided. We CAN say what we ourselves might have a taste or distaste for. But it's wrong to try to force others to share our tastes. The more readers, and the more varied readers, the more chances there are that they will expand their tastes into the little corners of the SF world each of us have staked out as our personal camping grounds. And buy our stories.

I agree with you. +1.

[Periboob]

I have a friend who's writing a time travel piece. He spent six long paragraphs in the first chapter explaining the mechanics behind the the time machine. It's kind of interesting, but after about three paragraphs, I'm ready to move on with the story, and it keeps going. Does that lose you guys like it does me? (The story's unpublished, so I can't post the paragraphs)

Six para is too long to explain time travel to the reader. I suggest that, if the details are important for future plot development, have the hero try to explain it to his girl friend while trying to show how smart he is, and she humors him, and he explains why it is important that she understand the details. When she understands, in a eureka moment, she is so impressed that decides to have sex with him.

After all, the whole purpose of hard science fiction is to get the smart kids to be more interested in science than in business.

[Laer Carroll]

If you think you must include lots of detail of esoteric knowledge, look at examples by authors who've especially impressed you. Don't just look at SF writing, but every genre.

This includes forensic detective work such as the popular Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell and legal thrillers such as those by John Grisham, police procedurals, spycraft stories, and even dramatic behind-the-scene books about auto racing.

I've noticed several techniques by such writers that I've tried to use.

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One is to include the enfolding of details in dialogue, but it has to be dialogue which is more than just recitation of facts put in someone's mouth. Such as when two experts tell each other facts they certainly know already!

They break the knowledge and details down into logical units which go together, and show how they fit. So that the reader understands the knowledge, at least at a basic level.

They use mostly ordinary words and phrases rather than jargon, using jargon only when it's necessary.

Descriptions and explanations are broken up into sections which go together and are needed in a scene when needed, not much earlier or later.

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What techniques have you noticed, especially ones you may want to use?