Long, scifi 

« Another thing which makes this worse is that our science changes over time. If I did the best possible research on what we right now think would be the best shape for a superfast flying thing (based on the Blackbird perhaps?), nonetheless ten years from now we might do other research and discover a new shape is better, and using that shape would come across as wrong and super dated. To give a real example though I forget what story it was, there’s an SF story set in the future where an explorer entering a derelict spaceship pulls out her cell phone and turns the screen white so she can see by its light–instantly dates it to the brief phase when phones didn’t have flashlights, and feels distracting. If it just said “She shone a light” it wouldn’t be distracting at all, it would always feel correct no matter how much tech changes.» from exurbe.com/terra-ignota-ama-qu

I find it really interesting that the author thinks this is bad instead of one of my favorite things about reading older scifi. Everyone’s taste is different I guess??

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re: Long, scifi 

@Satsuma yeah i mean it does seem like the author is advising avoiding writing specificity (in specifical circumstances, but still, avoiding writing it) which is a good way to write more boring work imo

re: Long, scifi 

@aescling oh yeah thats exactly what they’re doing — this is from a section titled ‘why i didn’t describe the flying cars’ or something like that

And some of their reasons were good (use peoples imaginations in your favor, etc) but this one just had me going ughhhh you’re taking all the fun out of it

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