The LL&L Rumpus Room

Just don't use too much of today's techniques or you'll end up sounding like Asimov with his positronic brain. Positrons was something that was just found out about in his time so he used it for his robots, then within years it was a word turned ancient.

Also, be careful in making up words for things you've invented. Don't call something that reads mind and composes letters by that means a golgul - think of how people would actually call such a device when it's first invented, and if it's been in use a while, think of how that original term could be modified by the average user. For example: we 'google' stuff when we do an internet search, even if we don't use Google to do it. We use a 'cell' (mobile phone becomes cell phone becomes cell). That sort of thing. Make it sound fancy but realistic.

As for making it sound as if your characters know what they're talking about... well, within the realm of your imagined science fiction environment, you and your characters are the only experts. The reader has no clue what you're talking about, they only understand it through the understanding of the characters (which is why it is so often done, a sci-fi cliché if you ask me, to have a team of scientist accompanied by a layman, like a reporter or a policeman). Basically, whatever you say goes... and if you want to bore the reader, yes, then I would go looking for the nearest science nerd.

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Why should I leave this green-floored cell,
Roofed with blue air in which we dwell,
Unless outside its guarded gates,
Long, long desired, the Unearthly waits
Strangeness that moves us more than fear,
Beauty that stabs with tingling spear,
Or Wonder, laying on one's heart
That finger-tip at which we start
As if some thought too swift and shy
For reason's grasp had just gone by?
C.S. Lewis

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