How to balance for readers who are not technologically literate

Side note: This problem isn't limited to computer jargon. There are many stories where the characters discuss things that all the characters would know or understand but a reader would not necessarily, like science, historical events, or things about their friends. For example, yes, if a character says, "We should use an Ajax call to the cloud server here and on the backend have it construct a parameterized query to Postgres and then export the results in CSV", we might well expect the other characters in the scene to understand exactly what he means, but a non-computer person reading the story could be totally lost. But likewise if a character says, "We'll have to take this to Lansing", the other characters in the scene might be expected to know that this is the capitol of Michigan, so that it would be incongruous for the character to say, "That's our state capitol." But a reader who does not live in Michigan might not know that and would find the statement puzzling. Or even, "Oh no, if Sally does that, it could turn out just like what happened with Granger", the other characters might be expected to know exactly who or what "Granger" is and what happened, but the reader does not. Etc.

A really lame solution to this problem that you often see is for the characters to tell each other things that they already know, and that the reader surely realizes they already know. Sometimes the writer will even have the character begin the speech with "As you know ..."

Better solutions include:

One: Leave the dialog unexplained. If the exact meaning is not critical to the plot, if the point is just to create a certain mood or feel, than the exact meaning doesn't matter. I've seen lots of cop shows lately where they have a character throw out some computer jargon to explain how they tracked down the criminal's cell phone or whatever. Often this jargon makes no sense so they couldn't explain it if they wanted to: the writers apparently just took all the "computer words" they ever heard and threw them together into one sentence. The point isn't to really explain how something technical works, but rather to create the impression that some highly technical means were used to solve the problem. So the viewer says, oh, okay, I don't understand exactly how they did that, but apparently some really smart people found a technical solution to this problem. (I sometimes wonder whether chemists or automotive engineers or whatever find the way their fields are presented in TV shows as far from reality as what I find with computer stuff. But I digress.)

Two: "As you know dialog" can be okay if it's done well. It might not be implausible for a character to say, "Do you know that a temporal synchronicity distortion can cause a time traveler to be stuck in the past?" Then the other character says, "Yes, of course" and they move on. Or a character may say something that everyone knows as a brief exclamation or aside. Like, "Wow, this will be Bob's fourth divorce!" Even if everyone in the room knows that Bob has been divorced three times before, it wouldn't be absurd for someone to point it out like that.

Three: Include a character who WOULDN'T know these things in the scene. I recall a movie I saw years ago about a computer crime -- sorry, can't remember the name -- where the main characters were mostly a bunch of computer experts, but one of the guys brings his girlfriend along so the writer had an excuse to periodically have the characters stop and explain things to the girlfriend. BTW, a variation on this idea that I've never seen pulled off in a way I found effective, but which has potential, is to have a scene where someone is teaching a class. Like, you have the professor explain a lot of background material to a class, then someone rushes into the classroom and says, "Professor, we need your help", and he rushes off to the main action.

Four: Break up the action and/or dialog with explanatory narration. "'It's looks like we've created a temporal synchronicity disruption', George said. Loss of temporal synchronicity is a constant threat to time travelers: it can result in ..." Of course you don't want to have the character say one sentence, then go off on a 20-page explanation of what that means, then the other characters replies, and you go off on a 20-page explanation of what the reply means, etc. But a couple of sentences here and there can tell the reader what's happening without creating unrealistic dialog and without seriously breaking the flow of the story.

Five: Try to word things in a way that makes them self-explanatory, or so the reader can figure out the meaning from context. Like: "Do you raise morphogs on your farm?" "Yes, but mostly we raise cows and goats." The reader will get the idea that a "morphog" is some sort of farm animal, without the farmers having to tell each other, "As you know, a morphog is a kind of domestic animal that you have on your farm."

Probably other ways, but that's a sampling.

posted over 9 years ago

CC BY-SA 3.0

Jay‭

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If the technical terms are important for the rest of the plot, you might be able to explain them in the narration as the acts unfold. (A said to B, "I'm hacking the mainframe." A entered a command into her laptop, and the specialized software disabled the security system and allowed her to access the protected database. etc.)

If the book is fantasy rather than tech, then your readers don't really need to know those few terms. Those terms can be blipped over or grokked from context or just ignored once the main plot gets underway. Grandma can either look up "alpha test," ask her granddaughter to explain what it means, or not worry about it.

posted over 9 years ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

Lauren Ipsum‭

2098 reputation 13 1143 397 1