Doing a little SO scholarship. I was listening to the prologue and first chapter of Dan Simmons Hyperion on audiobook last night. Something about the number of unusual terms caught my attention and Im going to go through and make a list with the goal of trying to tease apart: 1) What is a good, descriptive word for terms that only apply to a given work of science-fiction. For instance, Bene Gesserit only applies to Frank Herberts Dune. It is a proprietary term, for lack of a better, currently-used term and Ill use that unless someone can come up with a better one. Blaster is not proprietary. Neither is Hyperspace. The Church Of The Shrike, however, is. Likewise, Biononics and 2) Is there an optimum number of proprietary terms that can be thrown at the reader in the first chapter? At what point does it constitute gabblefab? At what point is it too much? Certainly, were not going to arrive at a magical number (even if its just sufficiently advanced, lol, look it up...thats funny), but there might be a sweet spot range. And, of course, a truly talented writer might be able to weave in quite a bit without the reader tripping over all the new words. Personally, I feel like assaulting a reader thats completely unfamiliar with a given universe, like that of Hyperion, with too much is counter-productive to that readers enjoyment of the work. Over-thinking it? You betcha.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Nov 2014 22:23:17 +0000
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