How Much Do We Have to Explain?

[AnneMarble]

Once, I brought the opening chapter of one of my fantasy novels to a writing workshop that was held at work (as part of our activities thingie). I started to worry about some of the responses. I'd say about half of the people (OK, there were only five active members at the time ;) ) didn't understand some of the lingo and suchnot. For example, some didn't understand some of my terms -- even "mage." These people had really good vocabularies, but they weren't familiar with the term at all.

How much do we have to explain when we're writing a fantasy or SF novel? I realize that most people reading in these genres will know what we mean when we say "mage" or for that matter, "plasteel." But how much do we have to worry about people who don't "get" the worldbuilding? In my latest novel, it's hard enough to make sure they understand 1) who's related to whom and 2) despite the kings and castles, this isn't set on Medieval earth, so it's OK if some of the "rules" are broken.

I know some people claim that all those weird terms make fantasy and SF less accessible, and that they have a hard time getting into the stories. They may have a point. Yet plenty of novels are about specialized worlds, and some of the same people who say they can't get into SF or fantasy have no problems with the jargon of historical novels, technothrillers, etc. Another point is ... Does it matter if we make the works more accessible as many people don't bother reading out of their genre anyway?...
:Shrug:

[scfirenice]

I think you should write what you like, as you like it. Someone picking up your book will understand what a mage is after reading about your character even if they do not immediately know the definition of the word. I've read tons of SF and not once do I recall someone defining terms. SF is a genre that most don't "pick up" in a checkout line so your audience will already be on board with you. Good luck!

[preyer]

i don't make any apologies for using my vocabulary. it's not as if i'm using weird words or fifteen letter synonyms for 'kiss'. 'mage.' i mean, come on. i'm sorry, but you shouldn't pander to people who don't know the meaning of that. 'plasteel' is self-explanatory. 'plas' as in 'plastic' and 'steel' as in 'you're an idiot if you can't put two and two together.' i give people credit for at least being able to figure it out with context clues. 'the plasteel window separating me from the emptiness of space felt cold to the touch.' what more do you need? if 'mage' is a weird term to a reader, i'd give up on that reader instantly and move onto someone with a clue lest i find myself defining 'cloak', 'warp engine', 'pommel', 'stirrup', and what a 'rune' is. that may sound harsh, but i'm not going to hold anyone's hand by explaining basic, cliche terminology.

okay, i take it those people aren't fans of the genres. fine. chances are they're not going to buy your book no matter how you explain every detail that would alienate fans of the genre. that's not to say you still don't have to be careful, but i'd be insulted were i subject to a story that's been dumbed-down to include the lowest common denominator, i.e. people who don't know their phaser from a slingshot. if you're writing something that's meant to be an introduction to the genres, great, just don't expect me to read it.

making it accessible is cool as long as it doesn't make me feel as if i'm reading a primer, that's all i'm saying. even then, you have to draw the line somewhere. now, if it's hard science, i need all the reference i can get, and even then i don't feel as if the author should dumb his work down to suit my ignorance. put a glossary in it: i'll survive somehow.

what 'weird terms' are used that people claim makes these genres unaccessible? sounds like cop-out to me. if a reader doesn't know what a trebuchant (sp, not even sure i got that word right, just a bad example) is and can't derive it from the context clues, heaven forbid they have to look it up, eh? lol. if i use a mott and bailley (sp again-- yikes) castle, i'll use some subtle way to remind those who might have forgotten or those who are unsure what it is. i'd never write, 'the blankedity-blub, a kind of catapult, had its arm pulled back....' that's just too easy to get around. not only that, that's telling, not showing. i agree if the author is using very obscure terms that no reasonable fan of the genre would know without using *any* method of describing what they mean, that's not a great thing. of the two, dumbed-down or pretentiously obscure, i think i'd opt for the latter assuming it was done in moderation.

remember to write for yourself and your audience. that audience doesn't include the entire human race. you probably won't write in terms that i can't figure out if you give me a hint. i try to be reasonable with my vocabulary knowing not everyone knows the exact same words as i do, but at the same time i don't feel as if i need to make amends because someone doesn't know the definition of the word 'advantageous' (which i had one reader not know what that meant). use balance, common sense, craft and a sense of reason, and i think you'll get your point across. :) (sorry, i always get this way after reading maddox.)

[AnneMarble]

i don't make any apologies for using my vocabulary. it's not as if i'm using weird words or fifteen letter synonyms for 'kiss'. 'mage.' i mean, come on. i'm sorry, but you shouldn't pander to people who don't know the meaning of that.
That's true. I was just surprised how many people weren't familiar with the word. One of them was writing literary short stories, so I'm sure he had a wde-ranging vocabulary. (Surely he's heard of the Magi!) I guess I was worried as I didn't think it was such an unusual word.

I think sometimes there's a "block" to reading SF and fantasy that doesn't have anything to do with weird terms -- or odd names or things like that, even if people often say that's what gets in their way. Some people might be so used to reading a certain type of book, or watching a certain type of movie, that when they're exposed to something new, they freeze up. Look at the number of people who couldn't get into the Lord of the Rings movies. Many of these people have seen suspense movies and historical films that were just as complicated in the plot department, but they complain that they can't "get" the LOTR movies. They may be trying too hard, or not enough, or both. OK, I've just confused myself. :D But my mother, of all people, was able to watch the LOTR DVDs with just a little help from me. So if she can get it, why can't they? Maybe they don't really want to? ;)

i try to be reasonable with my vocabulary knowing not everyone knows the exact same words as i do, but at the same time i don't feel as if i need to make amends because someone doesn't know the definition of the word 'advantageous' (which i had one reader not know what that meant).
:Wha:

[veinglory]

Mage really is a word used only in fantasy fiction--but everyone reads it for the first time somewhere--the context should be enough.

[Phoenix Fury]

That's true. I was just surprised how many people weren't familiar with the word. One of them was writing literary short stories, so I'm sure he had a wde-ranging vocabulary. (Surely he's heard of the Magi!) I guess I was worried as I didn't think it was such an unusual word.

I think sometimes there's a "block" to reading SF and fantasy that doesn't have anything to do with weird terms -- or odd names or things like that, even if people often say that's what gets in their way. Some people might be so used to reading a certain type of book, or watching a certain type of movie, that when they're exposed to something new, they freeze up. Look at the number of people who couldn't get into the Lord of the Rings movies. Many of these people have seen suspense movies and historical films that were just as complicated in the plot department, but they complain that they can't "get" the LOTR movies. They may be trying too hard, or not enough, or both. OK, I've just confused myself. :D But my mother, of all people, was able to watch the LOTR DVDs with just a little help from me. So if she can get it, why can't they? Maybe they don't really want to? ;)

:Wha:

I entirely agree with this. It's amazing how many people freak out at the thought of watching a LOTR movie (because it's so "complicated") but will watch overplotted thrillers like The Bourne Identity until the cows come home. It's simply an anti-fantasy bias, unconscious or conscious. When dragged into a film as good as one of the LOTR ones, of course, the tremendous storytelling and artistry of the work takes over and people forget that they are supposed to be repulsed by the thought of elves, orcs, and wizards...but you need to get them into the movie first!

These people have always struck me as the same as those folks who take pride in being entirely clueless about computers. "Oh, I couldn't possibly figure out how to install that Firefox web browser," a typical one of these people will say, before walking out to his car, opening the lock, putting the key in the ignition, opening the sun roof, hooking up the hands free kit for the cell phone, plugging in the radar detector, turning on the radio, putting on the seatbelt, turning the car on, adjusting the side and rear mirrors, shifting into first, watching for traffic, and then accelerating into the road while simultaneously talking on the hands free kit and listening to the radio. :flag:


See, the great thing about having a higher-order intelligence...is that it is HIGHER-ORDER. We can do many things at once, including installing a software program by ourselves! It's a whole new world out there!

P.F.

[Minister]

When it comes to the specific term "mage" I think you've got your answer. But the more general answer is that you have to write to your target audience. If you're writing solely to please yourself, do it however you want. If you're writing to sell to a magazine that deals strictly in the fantasy genre, you can use conventions of the genre without explanation or difficulty. If you are writing for a more mainstream publication that also happens to publish the occassional fantasy piece, then you'll have to be much more careful. And if you're writing for a completely mainstream market but trying to incorporate speculative features into your story, then you'll have to be very careful indeed. Communication entails not only what you are saying, but what your audience is hearing -- and these different audiences may here dramatically different things from the same set of words.

[zornhau]

Genre readers expect a certain vocabulary augmented by new terms.

To make entry easier for genre newbies, how about always showing the terms in action? E.g. when you meet a mage, have him doing magic, or have a character fret about the magical power of mages.

[MadScientistMatt]

'plasteel' is self-explanatory. 'plas' as in 'plastic' and 'steel' as in 'you're an idiot if you can't put two and two together.'

On the other hand, while putting plastic and steel together as a word is easy, putting the materials together in a way that does anything useful is pretty hard. The only commercial application I've heard of is QuietSteel, which has a sheet of plastic laminated between two thin sheets of metal, and is mainly useful if you want steel with built-in sound insulation. Since actually making a useable material out of both plastic and steel is pretty difficult, a technically minded reader (like me) may very well assume that "plasteel" doesn't actually contain steel or plastic, any more than Plexiglas contains real glass.

In any case, the reader may not know what the properties of this plasteel are. If it really was made of plastic and steel, I'd expect it to look either like alternating layers of steel and plastic or like tightly woven steel mesh in a plastic matrix (sort of like carbon fiber composite, only with steel instead of carbon). It would probably break down at a very low temperature compared to steel and not be quite as strong. But you may envision plasteel being very different. For example, Preyer has a plasteel window. Is this an opaque "window?" Transparent in parts but full of stranded steel wire running through it? Or completely transparent?

Your best approach with a different material is just to give it a name and describe only the properties that are in play at the moment. For example, the plasteel is being used to make a window - can you see through it clearly, or are there a bunch of wires running through it that obscure what you see? Or you want to describe how strong this material is - have characters worried about an attack discuss what the odds are that a missile, asteroid, or whatnot could get through. And my advice is that the less you say about what's actually in it, the better. Too much information on how the material is made will mostly get any material scientist who picks up your book to nitpick it.

The word "mage" is also another potential target for nitpicking. Just about any reader who's familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, or the various fiction inspired by it, will recognize the word. On the other hand, if you're setting a fantasy story in ancient Rome, you might have magi, and the singular of that is "magus." For example, there's a character in the book of Acts whose name is traditionally given as Simon Magus, who also shows up in apocryphal books, Dante's Inferno, and elsewhere. I'm not sure when the word "mage" first surfaced, but TSR certainly popularized it. It's common enough that people familiar with RPG's or fantasy writing will know it, but it's definitely a piece of genre reader vocabulary like "ansible" is for science fiction.

[AnneMarble]

Genre readers expect a certain vocabulary augmented by new terms.
Good point. I've never seen a fantasy reader throw a book down and say "How am I expected to learn all these country names? What's the point? They don't even exist!" (Unless the fantasy novel was badly written and confusing, that is.)

To make entry easier for genre newbies, how about always showing the terms in action? E.g. when you meet a mage, have him doing magic, or have a character fret about the magical power of mages.

I'm pretty sure I did something like that early on, because my MC (well one of them) hated mages at that time. But I still had one reader who asked why "mage" was lowercased while the ethnic terms (Alnaarn and so forth) were capitalized. I guess he was trying too hard instead of just plunging in. He was so sure that it had to be another obscure made-up ethnic group that he couldn't accept it might be the equivalent of a job title. Maybe if I had named them "magical editors" instead, it wouldn't have been a problem. ;)

I guess some people aren't cut up to be SF/fantasy readers... Come to think of it, they might have the same trouble if they tried to read, hmm, something like old Viking sagas or Beowulf, simply because of the odd names and concepts so old they are new to us.

[victoriastrauss]

How much do we have to explain when we're writing a fantasy or SF novel? I realize that most people reading in these genres will know what we mean when we say "mage" or for that matter, "plasteel." But how much do we have to worry about people who don't "get" the worldbuilding?I don't worry about this for two reasons, one of them practical, one of them commercial.

Practical: There's already enough to explain without worrying that people won't understand words like "mage". If you're writing fantasy or SF, I think it makes sense to assume reader familiarity with basic conventions (whether you mean to follow those conventions or to subvert them).

Commercial: If your book is published, it will be given a recognizably fantasy/SF cover, and shelved in the fantasy/SF section of the bookshop, where mainstream readers don't go (in the library, a rocket ship label will be slapped on its spine, which is just as effective a form of segregation). Thus, the mainstream reader who wouldn't understand words like "mage" will probably never pick up your book. So why worry?

- Victoria

[preyer]

well, my plasteel example may not have been the best, but most folk aren't interested in the chemical composition and/or construction methods of something like that, are they? whether or not it's actually plastic with steel is irrevelant. it might just be a brand name for a company that makes really strong windows. the implication here is that the plastic is as *strong* as steel: doesn't matter if steel is part of the window or not. granted, you wouldn't want to gloss over every single futuristic item, but something like this i think most readers are satisfied that it's some kind of great improvement and leave it at that. something like a hovercar you could get into with as much technicality as you wanted... just bear in mind it would probably have a low-level plasteel windshield rated for bird strikes, lol.

i'm not familiar with the term 'ansible,' but i'd look it up if i came across it and couldn't figure it out. it would be a pain, but so what? it's probably not terribly important to the story, i'm guessing, and would otherwise ignore it. when i'm looking up five words every chapter that i put the thing down. i'm not an idiot, but i'm not a specialist in anything, either, lol.

again, if you can draw reasonable lines somewhere, i think you'll be okay. just if you call a cell phone a 'tapper,' put in context clues. at the same time, if your book falls out of a plane and some tribesman picks it up, they might not know what a cell phone even is, and you can't write to suit ubunduay out on the plains without adding a hundred pages explaining the basics of society everyone else knows about, eh?

[MadScientistMatt]

Commercial: If your book is published, it will be given a recognizably fantasy/SF cover, and shelved in the fantasy/SF section of the bookshop, where mainstream readers don't go (in the library, a rocket ship label will be slapped on its spine, which is just as effective a form of segregation). Thus, the mainstream reader who wouldn't understand words like "mage" will probably never pick up your book. So why worry?

- Victoria

While most bookstores I've seen categorize their fiction like that, the libraries in my area don't. Most of the libraries in the Atlanta area put all their fiction in one section, whether it's mainstream contemporary, mysteries, fantasy, historical, ethnic, science fiction, or even fiction from the nineteenth century. Orson Scott Card's historical fiction about women of the Bible goes right next to the adventures of Ender Wiggins. I guess it depends on the local library system.

My local library does have a display up front with a genre of the month, right when you walk in. Last time I was there it was science fiction, but they've also had mysteries, black interest, and more. And they don't put all the books from that genre onto the rotating shelf, either.

[PattiTheWicked]

I don't write sci-fi or fantasy. but this is in an interesting thread. I recently sent a copy of a romantic suspense ms out to my five beta readers. I got really good feedback from all of them, but one of them commented that she couldn't understand the "Irish" terms in the book and that made some parts of it hard for her.

Now, first of all, the story takes place in Scotland, so the reference to the Irish terminology was a bit of a puzzler to me. Anyway, I went back through and realized that the problem she was having was with a few Gaelic words which were then explained either by definition or in context immediately afterwards. As in:

"Cayden explained that his sister's band was called Tri Deug, which meant thirteen in Gaelic," or "Lachlan pulled the sgian dhu from his boot, and flung it at his brother. Dugald ducked, and the blade plunged into the tree above his head."

Now REALLY puzzled, I asked her if she had read many books set in Scotland before. She told me no, she actually prefered contemporary chick-lit.

Anyone who is familiar with the genre I'm writing in though, would know what a sassenach and a ceilidh are without me having to explain them at all.

[victoriastrauss]

Anyone who is familiar with the genre I'm writing in though, would know what a sassenach and a ceilidh are without me having to explain them at all.There's another issue here, though, which is whether readers are willing to ferret out contextual meaning, or want everything handed to them on a platter. I personally don't object if a book drops bits and pieces of information into the narrative that I don't immediately understand--I'm willing to trust the author to explain them later on, or make them clear in some other way. But some people just don't like that type of writing. I think you have to accept that you can't please everyone.

- Victoria

[AnneMarble]

Anyone who is familiar with the genre I'm writing in though, would know what a sassenach and a ceilidh are without me having to explain them at all.
I would think that a Sassenach was a poster at AW. ;)

[AnneMarble]

There's another issue here, though, which is whether readers are willing to ferret out contextual meaning, or want everything handed to them on a platter. I personally don't object if a book drops bits and pieces of information into the narrative that I don't immediately understand--I'm willing to trust the author to explain them later on, or make them clear in some other way. But some people just don't like that type of writing. I think you have to accept that you can't please everyone.
That's true, and it relates to more than just the use of "genre jargon." I remember reading a discussion about headhopping on a romance reader board where the issue of contextual clues came up. Some don't mind headhopping, some love it and even prefer it, some hate it. One reader admitted that she preferred headhopping than having to decide what the hero and heroine were thinking based on contextual clues, such as the clues you might get in true tight third POV. (To be fair, some writers aren't very good at those contextual clues, and that could be why that annoyed her. Writers who have been used to using headhopping might not adapt well to the requirements of tight third.)
But I'd rather leave the clues there and assume my readers are prepared to do the work than spell everything out and annoy most of my readership.

[brinkett]

I think you have to accept that you can't please everyone.

This is true. At some point, you just have to say, "Tough." It's why having more than one beta reader is critical. I'm not as concerned when only one reader has a problem with something, unless they make a really good case.

[PattiTheWicked]

I think you have to accept that you can't please everyone.

Exactly. Which is why when one of my five readers had problems, I tried to figure out if it was me or her.

It was basically a lack of familiarity -- and apparently a brain-cramp as well, since she didn't realize that people in Scotland aren't Irish :)

I think if someone's not willing -- or not able -- to learn through context, there's no way the writer can anticipate that. As a writer, you give people a certain degree of credit, and that includes saying, "Well, I don't want to just DEFINE the word, but if I use it in *this* manner then they'll know exactly what it is."

[Renatus]

As a reader, I would say that the best thing to do is show through context the meaning of the word. Show the mage doing magic, have people repairing a spacecraft talk about how they have to do fewer repairs now that plasteel is being used, but man it's a pain to solder. Something like that. If there are a lot of new terms or really oddball ones I appreciate it if there is an appendix or glossary for them, but that isn't necessary if the incorporation of the terms in context is good enough.

If some people are unwilling to pick up things through context, I would say that is their problem. That's how a person learns new words in the first place, for pity's sake. I think the readers that will be bored by infodumps or insulted by dumbing down for the sake of handholding will be more in number than the ones that do not want to pick up the new terms through context.

As a writer, I am unwilling to babysit. I don't want to make the book overly confusing - I don't appreciate snobbish or overindulgent writing, and I doubt anyone who would read my writing does, either - but I do expect the readers to use their brains. However, I also want to be certain that the terms I'm using are used consistantly and make sense. This means I end up making tons and tons of worldbuilding notes. Sure, most of what I write in these doesn't go directly into the story itself, but the work shows when I am able to use terms (and abilities, for that matter) consistantly.

It also helps to not use special terms for something that is going to show up once or twice. I'd rather a description than try to pick up from context that this word means some special flashy thing, and is never mentioned again.