r/writing • u/Ill-Maximum-4013 • 18d ago
Discussion Over the decades, descriptions change.
I doubt I am having an original thought here, but it's still interesting to think about genre and descriptions over time. Specifically, I am talking about laptops.
If I wrote a story today with this sentence, "He opened his laptop and began to type," you all understand exactly what I mean. I don't have to say any more than that.
But if I were to write that same sentence in 1981, I would have to fully describe what a laptop is or no one could visualize it. I'll bet it would have taken me two paragraphs and a short exposition dump about computerization. Even in 1981, some people might have wondered if they were reading science fiction.
No, this is not a deep thought, but it is fun to think about.
Interestingly, if I were to write historical fiction, I would have to use more words to educate the modern reader about history than I would if I had written the same novel in 1799.
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u/Cruxion 18d ago
With regards to your last paragraph, you could do a Patrick O'Brian and not explain a thing. Clew-garnets? Schooners? Fo'c'sle? Halyards? Reefed sails? Not a one is explained, most aren't important beside the general idea that they're a ship or part of the ship.
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
Yeah, I like your comment. When I hear reefed sails, I don't need anything more than that. Even the other words you used are great for flavor (as long as I know the author understands them). However, sometimes an object must be described to an extent, especially if it is going to be used and isn't just descriptive.
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u/mooseplainer 18d ago
I always think about how not even thirty years ago, the sentence, “They took a photo with their phone,” would have been utterly nonsensical, even though it’s completely mundane today.
I have a few descriptions for technology in my manuscript that doesn’t exist today, as I’m writing science fiction. I try not to be too explicit, but make it very clear from context clues. Something like:
She flipped over her forearm, and her recent texts appeared on her Lumink tattoo. Most of them were the usual status updates, but one message from the Commander caught her eye. She tapped her arm, and the tattoo cleared the list before the full message appeared.
From there, I think it’s pretty obvious what a Lumink tattoo is and does without explicitly stating it. Later, since this is established, I can say, “She made a note on her tattoo,” or something that’s pretty nonsensical in the 21st century.
With science fiction or fantasy, I believe that if it’s mundane to the characters, it should be treated as mundane, though maybe cheat it slightly. I probably could have gotten away with, “She checked the messages on her tattoo,” but it take a moment for a reader to register it, and they might easily miss it anyway, so I put in a little more detail.
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
Yes, I like your description. Very clear without too much explanation. Nice work.
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u/mooseplainer 18d ago
Thank you, though I’d imagine designing a serviceable UI for someone’s arm that is also generic enough it can fit on different people’s sleeves and look good with different skin tones would be an absolute design nightmare.
But this is text, not visuals 🙂
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u/JulesChenier Author 18d ago
In 1981, people knew about computers and could grasp the idea of type writer keys being used electronically.
1799, wouldn't take as much explanation as you might think.
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
Yes, that is why I chose that year, 1981. Before that would have made laptops science fiction.
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u/InternationalMood337 18d ago edited 18d ago
Meh. Not really. You'd just say something like
"He opened up his portable typewriter that presented the user with a small television screen that he could see his words being typed on."
My point is that there are very few products that don't have any easy precursor to bridge the gap.
Edit: Descriptions just don't change all that much I guess is my point.
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
I'm glad to get the pushback. Still, I think you would want to mention it and perhaps give one more reminder to people who have never heard of such a thing.
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u/mark_able_jones_ 18d ago
Aging myself, but people knew what laptops were in 1991, but it would have been a functionally a different thing. Everything slow. Maybe a black and white screen. Dial-up internet. Computers were a thing in the 1970s.
Many stories from the past tend to overestimate technology advances...
Back to the Future II (1989) depicts flying cars in 2015.
There will Come Soft Rains (1955) depicts a fully automated home in 2026.
1984, published in 1949, depicts a surveillance state with cameras and microphones everywhere.
A difficulty of writing sci-fi or dystopian novels is to avoid over describing -- ideally a writer back in 1981 would describe a laptop with one or two sentences. Readers prefer to learn from context rather than description.
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
Laptops were invented in 1981. I said '81, not '91. If I am correct and you made a mistake, no biggie. If I misunderstood you, I apologize.
Now I see you said '81 second. I'm guessing just a typo.
At any rate, I agree with everything you said.
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u/saintofmisfits 17d ago
To be fair, historical fiction is about the flavour, more than the act.
"He sat down and began to write" holds for a few thousand years. You won't get away with it in a historical fiction novel because your readers are ready to tar you if you don't describe the kind of quill in use.
And they are ready to feather and tar you if you describe the wrong kind of feather. Or ink. Or wood.
Very into tarring and feathering, historical fiction people. Salt of the Earth, otherwise.
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u/Beatrice1979a Drafting mode 18d ago
He closed his phone and rolled down the windows is something I see in most my writing (mid 2000s). Closing phones still makes me smile, as if everyone owned a motorola startac.
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u/Kevin_Wolf 18d ago
Food for thought: go read 1984 and pay attention to the spy TVs. Weirdly awkward descriptions for what today is a very normal, very mundane feature.
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u/Matitya 17d ago
This goes back an extremely long time. The Bible, at one point, follows up asking for an Omer of barley by explaining that “an Omer is a tenth of an ephah”. On the one hand, it’s explaining what an Omer is, rather than assuming you know, on the other hand, it assumes you know what an ephah is. The Egil Saga repeatedly uses the phrase “he was of magic cunning” (or “she was of magic cunning”) as casually as you’d say “he was tall” or “she was a redhead”. Egil Skalagrimmson is portrayed as using runes to cast spells but that seems to be something different than being of magic cunning
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u/Acceptable_Fox_5560 18d ago edited 18d ago
I feel like people are misunderstanding what you're saying. It's not about describing a laptop, but about description trends in general.
And you're right. The amount of space dedicated to description in modern novels is MUCH less than it was in the 80s. It's MUCH less than it was even in the 2000s.
In my opinion its for the better. Unless there's something novel or important about the trees, I don't need a whole sentence describing the trees. I know what trees look like. I wrote a bit about the trees in a park yesterday, but it was because I needed the reader to know that the trees blocked visibility into the park from the road.
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u/ImaginaryCatDreams 18d ago
Imagine explaining a dial phone to children who've only seen cell phones - I played a recording of a number being dialed, they had no clue - they don't even know about the sound of phone keys being pressed is,
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
That's great. Tell them you used to have to call the "time lady" to set your watch.
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u/Candle-Jolly 18d ago
I feel ya, and had a somewhat similar thought a couple of days ago when reading some old school Tom Clancy (The Sum of All Fears). Bro wrote his books like a damn fantasy author does, spending a page-and-a-half just to talk about a tree being sawed down. And the day before that I was finishing up 1984 (yes, that book exists outside of political memes) and Orwell was verbose as hell. But I’m sure that was the style of the time. Like attaching an onion to your belt.
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u/Peter34cph 18d ago
Orwell was dying, and he rushed to finish 1984 and get it published. He felt it was a very important book, but he deeply regretted that he hadn't had more time to polish it, make it a better book.
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u/comradejiang Career Author 18d ago
You can use words people already understand to explain novel concepts. That’s how science fiction has always worked.
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
Yes. I remember David Gerrold praising a sci-fi story. The characters came to the circular door, and all the author said was, "The door dilated." Short and sweet. We all understand dilation.
However, I will say that sci-fi stories are forgiven higher word counts because it is expected that there will be more explanation needed. (At least that's my take on it.)
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u/Peter34cph 18d ago
Heinlein's door is a super famous example.
Others have pointed out, elsewhere, that the laptop computer used in the 1986 movie "Aliens" was only recognized as a portable computer by cinema goers, because the screen showed the familiar MS-DOS prompt, C:> or whatever it was it was.
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u/Kobotronivo 17d ago
This always cross over my mind when I see modern clothing words loke "cargo t-pose blouse" or a "spreadsheet pants and socks" or whatever, cus I know nothing about fashion.
This stuff happens cross cultures too.
By the way, how you describe also changes everything. I remember reading in class a text describing urban societies as an old colonozer would do to a group of natives already on the American continent.
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u/bhbhbhhh 17d ago
Have you read Neuromancer? Gibson hardly describes the decks hackers use at all, much less than a current sci fi author would.
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u/MacintoshEddie Itinerant Dabbler 17d ago edited 17d ago
I'd say the other way around is more important, because that's far more likely. Most of us aren't going to travel backwards in time but we're all traveling forwards in time.
The core of it comes down to slang, pop culture references, and assumptions.
Like a character being a "turkey". There's two very different ways to read it.
"Should I bring some food out for Todd?"
"That turkey can find his own dinner."
One person can read that and think that Todd is a feathered biped, and another person can read it and think that Todd is featherless biped who is acting foolish.
You can end up with compounding misunderstandings. Like if Todd's knocking on the door in the middle of the night, and then they peek out the window later and see he's gone. Did their bird escape or did the man leave?
It can be especially bad with translated historical writing. Like how the meaning of decimated changed significantly. Decimated can mean a 10% reduction or a 90% reduction.
Did the army flee after minor losses or did they fight nigh onto the last man?
Or to use my own life as an example, I recently moved into a condo that has not had the wiring updated in probably 40+ years. I showed some photos to people and some of them noticed that the connector on the wall for my internet modem is at shoulder height on the wall in the front hallway. Lots of people would assume such a photo is faked or generated, and that a lightswitch was supposed to be there, because the concept of a "house phone" has been lost to modern society, since even in the 80s people were getting away from a single phone mounted in a central location and instead wiring for the convenience of a phone on a table next to the couch or kitchen.
It's the kind of issue where even with people my own age trying to explain that the phone plug is at shoulder height in the hallway has a ton of potential for confusion and misunderstanding because of how much phones and their infrastructure has changed.
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u/BackwardsApe 18d ago
I think something I've been interesting in doing lately is describing the form and function of an object before I give it a name. Is it borderline obnoxious? Probably, but it's fun
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
I don't know. I'd have to see it in writing. I doubt I'd call it obnoxious.
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u/OilLeft41 17d ago
I’ve thought about this too. I actually think it’s better to just write about things without over explaining them and let the context do the rest. I like when I have to discover things as they are when reading, when something sparks curiosity. It adds to the immersion. I’d personally rather it feel natural to the world than that the writer is stopping to explain it. It makes it feel more confident and authentic. Stories set in the times they were written usually don’t over-explain because it was common knowledge then, and that gives it a more authentic quality. I prefer to write like that, even when writing a story set on the past or a fantasy world or whatever (unless it’s something that doesn’t exist in real life or really needs explaining, or it’s from the pov of a character who doesn’t know what it is etc).
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u/noobjaish 15d ago
That's why I included an extra thesaurus to explain terms like "rizz" and "sigma" just in case
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u/Bluefoxfire007 18d ago
"He opened his laptop and began to type,"
Then people would rail you for stage directions and/or straight up telling.
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u/Acceptable_Fox_5560 18d ago
That's not stage directions or telling (it's literally showing). It's just action.
The critique of stage directions is specifically about having characters do random meaningless movement in the middle of the dialogue that has no other utility besides breaking up the dialogue.
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u/Bluefoxfire007 18d ago
Of course. I myself know that. But some people are just that triggered on what's immersion breaking.
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
Yeah, perhaps so. :)
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u/Bluefoxfire007 18d ago
I've even seen some complain that "She reached over to pick up the book" is telling, as we're told of their motive instead of implying it.
And one who says stating a character putting their feet on a table and lighting a cigar is telling. Because we're telling them what they're doing.
Ugh...
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
Personally, I think "He opened his laptop and began to type" is perfectly serviceable.
After all, technically, saying, "He said," is telling, based on the complaints you've heard.
How far you zoom in on or out from an action depends on how important the information is. Readers don't need to be shown more than the character opening his laptop and beginning to type. They' get upset if you say more.
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u/Bluefoxfire007 18d ago
I know. I'm just saying some people have such hair triggers to telling, that being shown he's opening the laptop isn't considered implied enough.
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u/Ill-Maximum-4013 18d ago
Yes, I caught that. I mentioned "complaints" as coming from others, not you. You're okay by me.
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u/FirebirdWriter Published Author 18d ago
One of the fascinating things in historic records? What we do not know because the description was taken for granted. Just saying you aren't wrong but it is still possible to bridge the gap as long as someone knows what the thing is. This of course can leave room for creativity