I suppose this can be a generalized question as well, but I do have a specific example this time. Is it possible to use descriptions that are too technical in nature to make sense to all but a few readers?
My specific example is for the next chapter of my story, Open Your Heart. In it, my character describes his first time actually having a glove fit like a glove. My character is a major geek and describes the experience as such:
Although, oddly, before he went to replace his worn out work gloves one day back when this began, he’d never really understood the common saying “fits like a glove”, gloves never fit right. Men’s small gloves were too wide at the wrist, too long in the finger, and had too much palm. However, he wore them anyways. That day, though, he couldn’t find men’s smalls at all, and on a whim decided to give women’s a try. The fit was perfect. The palm was taut as a bungee, the fingers length as exact as the voltage tolerance on a CPU, and the wrist… the wrist was as if it were a perfect mirrored powder coating.
After I wrote it, I looked back over it and thought that, as beautiful as the prose is to me, how many people are likely to know what the voltage tolerance on a CPU is? Or even, for that matter, what a CPU is exactly? How many people are likely to know what a mirrored power coating looks like? What a powder coat even is? Could this be more distracting than it's worth for the extra meaning if the reader has to stop and look these things up?
misplaced
The work gloves would really have nothing to do with CPU voltage tolerances and unless your character is a computer tech, why would he/she know? Your character is a groundskeeper, the prose is out of place for him. He should be talking about a nozzle fitting on an end of a hose or something groundskeeperish.
K.T. Leone
My fiction feels more real than reality
Katie Leone (Katie-Leone.com)
Writing is what you do when you put pen to paper, being an author is what you do when you bring words to life
oh, he's a groundskeeper all right.
But in case you didn't notice, it wasn't exactly by choice. He "fell" into the position. He was going to school for computer science before he dropped out. I believe one of the very first things I said to describe him was "washed out computer geek".
Tools used in groundskeeping aren't particularly precise in general. You don't really want to know how many leaky nozzles I put up with every day, just to go with your example.
Abigail Drew.
If your character is technologically inclined ..
... The description is perfectly in character. He's describing precision the best way he knows how, and the readers will understand bcause he sets up the description by telling us all whata terrific fit the gloves were. And that's what matters most. So keep it -- it's perfect!!!
*hugs*
Randalynn
These days EVERYONE (well almost) knows what a CPU is
And a Grounds keeper might just be the biggest geek of all, spending every spare dime on electronic equipment and every spare minute in game play or on the net.
with love,
Hope
Once in a while I bare my soul, more often my soles bear me.
You have a point...
And perhaps this is a great way to remind readers that he IS geeky.
Abigail Drew.
It COULD be...
It COULD be okay... The use of the geeky reference.
The key is whether or not the character has been shown to be geeky already & will be subsequently. A one off? I'd probably suggest some other reference.
Another point... It depends on whether the "narrator" is the character (the character thinking to him/her self, for example) or if the narrator is some THIRD party. In the former part, then the description should be in character as above. In the latter case, the description should probably be more in line with what the readers will understand without deep thought. (You don't want to SLOW them down reading... You want them to "get" it right away.
And, another way to look at use of phrases like that... If they're in dialog, the point to the "geekiness" of the character using the term (as well as their background). But, they also provide an opportunity for someone else to say "HUH, what the heck are you talking about?" :-)
Have fun!
Anne
I write in an odd (old) style.
While technically third person, the third person narrator is in fact the most major character in the scene. For probably the majority of this story, that will be Drew. I might wind up with a few sections where Drew is not in the scene, the narrator in those scenes will be whoever IS the most major character present.
Prose written in this manner tends to make use of a lot of poetic devices in order to layer on meaning within meaning - So I rather enjoy using it. You might have noticed an ancient Semitic device in the posted paragraph.
It certainly makes for a heavy read if you want to catch everything though.
Abigail Drew.
<Raise hand>
I do. In this online forum you'll find a bunch of geeks who could talk endlessly about such things... If they need to know more... Google. is your friend!
Dayna.
Too technical?
Most people won't know such terms.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
Not a problem
They used to spout all kinds of guff on the various 'Star Trek' shows and it never bothered anybody.
If I come across something which doesn't mean a lot to me, like for example all the baseball/US football references which don't mean squat to most Brits, I just slide over it to something I can follow.
With an audience as broad as ours, there are always going to be technical terms and comparisons someone is not going to recognize.
Penny
PS 40 years a computer geek and I don't care about CPU voltages. On the other hand, I've had bike frames powder coated so I know exactly what that is. As always in these things, YMMV.
At this point I've already decided.
That I'm keeping it, in fact, taking it a little further and having him make comparisons for how awful men's gloves fitted with things he'd deal with on the job - further drive home the point that although he's good at what he does, he does not like it.
I figure even if the references themselves are lost to some readers, as long as they can get the fact that men's gloves never fit right, and women's do, and that he uses references to geeky things as positive reinforcement and references to work as negative reinforcement, it's enough of a win to be worth having around. And for the geeky readers who actually get the references they can feel good about themselves for something, even if it is kind of trivial.
BTW - my character rides a custom bike as well! And it's powder coated! In fact... nah, I'll leave everyone wait till I finish writing the chapter before letting anything else slip ;)
Abigail Drew.
The proper installation of
The proper installation of copper Profibus cabling in an appropriate Distributed Control system architecture will yield significant increase in data speed transmission via the reduction of induced interference and the elimination of ghosting on the redundant portions of your control network. The required grounding of cabling as it enters or leaves any control cabinet or MCC via clamp-on grounding straps grounded to a major ground bar via a heavy gauge ground wire. When utilizing a one to five volt differential Profibus DP signal it is essential to shield the signal from any external interference since it only takes a volt or two to cause signal degradation and the need to retransmit and verify proper reception, thereby increasing traffic and reducing the overall traffic load which the cabling can handle.
Okay... was that too much detail?
roflmao
Wholeman
Yes, the weird author with the boob fetish.
Yes, the weird author with the boob fetish.
rofl.
I think Wholeman has just proven that, yes, it IS possible, and no, I didn't even approach it.
Abigail Drew.
I think it was fine.
I think it was fine. Although I admit -- and even though I work in IT -- I did kind of tune out when I got to the CPU, and I missed reading the end of the sentence. Still, I knew what you were saying.
I can tell you what I do... and I got this from Robert Graves The Reader Over Your Shoulder. When I read what I've written, if my eye sticks anywhere, even for a moment, it means there's something that needs fixing.
If you have to stop and back up, or pause a moment, or re-read something... It means that something is blocking the flow. Ideally (in my mind) the reader ought to keep reading even if they don't want to. It ought to be like rolling down a hill. Not that you push the reader, no... you just don't want anything to get in the way, or interrupt the momentum.
Rule No 1
Rule No 1 in writing, like in so many other things, is that nothing is right for everyone. Writing must always be a compromise.
You have to play it by ear. If your story has been aimed at geeks, then they will understand about CPUs and voltage tolerance. If you're writing for the general public, then you have to accept that the majority won't understand it - they'll either skip over it, or, if it becomes too intense, they'll stop reading.
I'm a techie who got on well in my career because I could talk non-techie to the directors. I was actually the person who didn't blind them with science and tech-speak, and could translate what the other techies were saying. My advice is avoid techie speak like the plague. Use other words that both techies and non-techies can understand.