Writing Any tips on how to write an easily understandable explanation for certain scientific topics?

[Lord_Drakonus]

I'm writing a sci-fi mixed with isekai fantasy, it'll have a lot of real science and sci-fi. Does anyone have any tips with the science explanation?

 

[UYScuti]

This differs on what science you’re focusing on, but generally, people are reading a novel for the story and characters, they’re not judging your dissertation.

Ten pages of research might only be a paragraph in your story, so don’t drag your book down with keywords that people don’t understand or don’t care about. Keep things simple based on fundamental principles.

 

[Lord_Drakonus]

This differs on what science you’re focusing on, but generally, people are reading a novel for the story and characters, they’re not judging your dissertation.

Ten pages of research might only be a paragraph in your story, so don’t drag your story down with keywords that people don’t understand or don’t care about. Keep things simple based on fundamental principles.

Ah, I see. Thanks!

 

[BenJepheneT]

remember: people are here for story. they're not here for a lecture.

do it like how marvel explains their chemistry: make keywords and names and then associate those keywords with vague ties to real world equivalents. Say Wakanda and Vibranium. what is vibranium? scientifically, no one knows. but they do know it's versatile and stores kinetic energy. how? none explained: just go with it. it's only mined in Wakanda which is a fictional place anyway.

just make up shit and tag it with descriptions and details. it'll work, trust me.

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

I think when you want to implement info dumps, just research what is necessary and not be to informative. I tend to write scientific stuff even with my lack of knowledge. Basically, just give a bit of an info like how it works, the process of science stuff and don't add too much research into it but make it more believable.

Like, creating a fire? You generate a spark using the kinetic force of two objects to create a force which starts a spark of lighting between two objects and then it is made from the highest force to spark a small ember, capable of being enough to start a fire. I think thats it. You don't need to have a degree of science knowledge but give an accurate and easy to understand knowledge everyone knows while do a bit of research that lets you understand how your science stuff works. The more complicated you make, the more research you need and the more difficult it would fit into your story. Don't make it too sciency that you can't understand but make it so that you research enough to have a bit of knowledge in what you wrote.

 

[yansusustories]

I think there are two things I'd try to make sure of: The first one is to only include the minimum of information that is necessary to understand the effect this has on your story and nothing that goes past that. The second one is to use simple language. Science (no matter which one) is often not or hardly accessible to people not educated in the specific field because of a high number of specific terminology that a layman will not know and often also bogged down by an overly complicated language use (run-on sentences, loanwords where a simpler word more common in the given language might have sufficed, a multitude of parentheses, ...) that makes the often already complicated matters more difficult to follow.

 

[DubstheDuke]

At the end of the day, you're allowed to make up your own science. It's a fantasy for a reason. As long as something makes logical sense, it doesn't have to be real science, because you can just say 'this is how the world works in my universe'

 

[someonesomeguy]

release the witch is good example of scientific explanation. if you really know your stuff then write it. Nick lucid in science asylum explains well.
world where exactly one rule is different and everything else is a consequence of that rule being different are good in sci fi.

 

[K5Rakitan]

I love hard science fiction. I say go ham! Define key words as you go and don't use too many acronyms. Use the glossary feature.

If you're deciding between two words that mean the same thing, use the one that people will generally understand more easily. For example, this one book I read recently used uxorilocal instead of matrilocal. Matrilocal is easier for people to grasp because most people know what a matriarchy is. The root word is simply more familiar.

 

[ZynGrand]

Metaphors and similes,
Are easy to make,
It's simple to compare,
What's real and what's fake.

If you know what you know,
And understand it quite well,
You can dumb things down,
To make it easy to sell.

 

[LostLibrarian]

(As long as we aren't talking hard sci-fi) the Science in a book isn't about science itself, but a plot device. The super-hyper faster-than-light drive of your space-ship isn't anything different from the horse cart in your fantasy world. The difference between the world-ending black matter torpedo and the graviton hyper ray is the same as the difference between a fire ball and water magic.

As long as you don't write for a very specific subset of readers, most won't care about your science at all. Even more so, a lot of readers won't even bring the knowledge needed to understand your science in the first place.


Important are the same two things as with every kind of magic and worldbuilding:
(1) what are the rules
(2) what are the implications for the story

If you introduce faster than light travel after 200 chapters, the reader will want to know why it wasn't available before. If your new weapon can destroy planets with ease, why was the last base of the enemy "the worst threat to the galaxy ever"? If you can jump from planet to planet, why not directly jump to the final goal but travel through all those worlds in between?

Those are the questions you should answer for your reader: what are the rules for using the technology and how does it fit into the story. And yeah, you can go a bit ham with some techno-bubble for your the rules, but the (majority of) reader(s) won't care whether your "once a month weapon" is due to "mana-limitations" or "graviton-van der waals-exchanges in a sub-vacuum". The important fact is "once a month".


So make the cost clear, make the rules clear, and explain the impact to the story/world and how it fits in. But don't try to teach science to an audience that would need years of math classes to be able to understand the theory behind it.

And yeah, there are people who really like hard SciFi and it can be really well-written and entertaining. But I doubt wether you find a lot of those readers when you combine it with a typical isekai story. So given your setting, I would go for as less actual science infodump as possible...

 

[CheertheDead]

Even science book or text book will refrain from giving you the absolute details about the matter.
“The book is designed to not tell you every single details.” As my lecturer said.

You can also do the same thing by not giving every single detail.

I basically write my story like an encyclopedia so i got some experience in how to prevent it.

Basically, you explain up to the point that is necessary for readers to understand that situation. There may be more but if in that scene, the extra details isn’t necessary just skip it. You can return in another scene or another chapter to review the entire thing with your readers.