Start of a new series - Question

[pgbthewriter]

Hi all,

I am just starting to write a new adult series, this is about the sexual adventures of an IT support person. So far I have written the first and second stories which I am looking to get feedback on and have ideas for three and four.

My question is around how much technical details I should put in to the stories from an IT point of view? I don't want to bog down the reader with too much "tech talk" but at the same time it is written from the point of view of somebody who works in this area.

Thoughts?

 

[JackLuis]

Well it will need some jargon for verisimilitude, otherwise it's just a horny nerd in search of anyone willing. Like RL.

Depending on the jargon you should be able to find some double meanings or puns if you're that desperate, and we all are occasionally.

Scanning a hard drive can have two or more meanings.

 

[pgbthewriter]

Thanks for the feedback, I am trying to find a balance between being technical enough to make sense and not over doing it.

I will continue with it as it is and see what sort of feedback I get.

 

[Katiecat]

Keep in mind your audience -- too much jargon and they could be overwhelmed. That not only applies to IT, but to any technical language specific to any profession. You want to use enough to set the tone, to help identify the character, but not so much that it bogs down the reader and they don't enjoy the story.

I have a story about an IT guy on here -- my husband did tech support, so the character was a lot of fun for me. And JackLuis is right, some of the terminology can be fun to play with -- I think he described his erection as experiencing a firmware upgrade in his pants, or something to that effect.

https://www.literotica.com/s/dream-girl-8

 

[Hypoxia]

When I get back to writing I have an unfinished series about a photographer. I had great fun writing explanatory paragraphs about technical minutiae. I scrapped all those. My readers won't care that I adjust DOF (depth of field) by changing focal length and/or aperture and/or subject distance. I might say "I focused to surgically isolate her from her surroundings" and leave it at that.

How much detail is enough? Enough to flavor the story, to anchor the story, but not to try to carry the story. Only say what needs to be said.

 

[PervOtaku]

Every watch something out of Hollywood that centers on computers? Say, "CSI Cyber". Typically there is enough detail to sound impressive to non-technical people, while technical people get a lot of laughs at the stuff that is blatantly inaccurate.

Star Trek screenwriters would famously insert "[tech]" whenever some technobabble was needed to explain why a thing was going wrong or how a problem was being solved. Point being that stuff was literally unimportant to the story.

And then there's this, from an episode of Stargate:

Malek: Do you have the means to generate a high-frequency electromagnetic field?
Maj. Carter: I could modify the wave output of the naquadah reactor.
Malek: Within a range of 400 to 700 nanometers?
Maj. Carter: That might just excite the phase particles enough to bring them into our visible light spectrum.
Col. O'Neill: Carter?
Maj. Carter: Sir, the invisibility field must operate—
Col. O'Neill: Are you about to tell me that you can make the invisible guy vi—
Maj. Carter: Yes, sir.
Col. O'Neill: That's all I need.

 

[Katiecat]

Excellent example

I remember reading an interview with actual medical personnel about the scripts for the TV show House. They said the terminology used often made them giggle, and many of the diagnoses and proposed treatments were completely outrageous. But to the non-medical professional, it sure sounded good.

 

[CeasarBoobage]

A small percentage of people are enough into a specific career that would recognize technical stuff, and the majority would probably either skim through it or get lost and click the 'back' button.

I remember watching a movie a while ago where the tech squad was supposed to be "hacking a firewall". Some people I was with said "oh cool" when they saw the geeky stuff on the screen, but I had to laugh because I knew it was showing a supposed live capture of Wireshark. Yeah, right.

How many times have you seen a 24-shot revolver on-screen? Or a Springfield XD9 subcompact that was called a Glock 45, and it had a 50-round magazine clip?

------------------

The tech should only go as far as it needs to in order to drive the story, regardless of how real it is. Most of the time, the rest of the story is 99.9% BS, but it still sounds good, so why can't the technical surroundings also be made up to fit the story?

 

[DreamCloud]

Condense it down to a sentence or two. Don't try to embellish it into paragraphs unless it has a strong bearing on the plot. Little bits and pieces can be interesting during dialog. Too much will bore the hell of the reader. It is the end result and not the process that is important.

Example:
"Usually," I answered as I booted Tammy's box in safe mode, "Most of the time we can save the file."

 

[slyc_willie]

And then there's this, from an episode of Stargate:

The writers of Stargate made no apologies for their tongue-in-cheek use of technobabble. It's one of the reasons why I enjoyed the series so much. They didn't take the technology seriously, and viewed it as quasi-mythological "magic" while at the same time throwing a bone to the techno-geeks out there.

Sadly, "real" technical jargon is much more bland and much less adaptive to dramatic storytelling. The entire setting behind such shows as Star Trek (in any form) and Stargate are so far outside what current conventional science agrees is possible that to expect anything completely accurate in regards the explanation of technology would be ridiculous.

On the other side of the coin are the works of Arthur C. Clarke, the master of "hard" science fiction. He writes along plausible lines of what our current understanding of technology can achieve, and while his stories can be compelling overall, they aren't exactly what I would consider dramatic. They are very technical, and without a co-writer such as Gentry Lee, could be considered almost boring for a good percentage of the readership.

It's my opinion that the use of technical detail in a story can only detract from it unless the detail is geared toward some sort of dramatic resolution to the plot. In other words, don't bore me with the pragmatic workings of a computer hard drive unless there is some tie-in to the greater story. And if you have to fudge the workings of the computer in order to satisfy an analogous comparison within the story, I'm not gonna hold it against you.

There's a reason techno-babble exists in popular fiction: it bridges the gap between those seeking drama and those seeking definable resolution. I'll take an episode of Star Trek describing how a photon emitter can stop a sun from going nova over an intricate description of a heart transplant any day.

 

[3113]

More than just tech terms—plot!

I'd also recommend that you make the IT part relevant to the story in some way. I mean, if you haven't already done that. I always feel that when you mention what a person does, to the point of bringing in their lingo, it should have some impact on the story. It need not be a large part, but it should add more than just flavor to the character—it can inform settings or plot twists.

It's something that I find often happens in my stories; I'll mention something specific about a character, their upbringing or work or religious beliefs and then, along the way, not only do I discover how this element is going to direct/inform the character, but also the story. Sometimes it's pretty amazing how a seeming throw away ("I'm an actor...") can suddenly become the whole story (i.e. the character starts take on different roles during the sex scene because he's an actor).

So, my advice, don't just look for where and how to put in the tech terms—see what else you can do with this info in relation to the story.

 

[Hypoxia]

I'd also recommend that you make the IT part relevant to the story in some way.
<...>
It's something that I find often happens in my stories; I'll mention something specific about a character, their upbringing or work or religious beliefs and then, along the way, not only do I discover how this element is going to direct/inform the character, but also the story. Sometimes it's pretty amazing how a seeming throw away ("I'm an actor...") can suddenly become the whole story (i.e. the character starts take on different roles during the sex scene because he's an actor).

Indeed. I'll populate a story with players of arbitrary throw-away qualities -- which emerge as critical (and surprising, to me) as the story grows. Each player (hopefully) has their own voice, including some jargon. The jargon helps establish their place in the world, and (hopefully) informs the narrative. Techies talk tech; quants talk numbers; bidness folks talk bidness. Each field has its own dialects. And those dialects can conceal many secrets.