McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Uh, oh . . . it's magic
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: o_O on September 24, 2012, 10:42:32 PM ---Fire resulting from water magic seems to clash with the basic definition of 'water'.
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If you correlate lightning with storms, I can buy that as a method for water-aspected magic to start fires.
Aminar:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on September 25, 2012, 02:14:36 PM ---And not having red/blue shift in is what popped me out of the story.
All other things being equal, I'd sooner err on the side of overestimating the reader than of treating them as dumber or less informed than they are.
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But imagine the stupid complications that would have on the story. He'd have to explain red shifts and blue shifts first off, from the perspective a fairly primitive society. He'd have to do so in a way that made sense to them. And it wouldn't add anything of interest, as well as ruining the stealth factors of the time bubbles. Basically, it would be detrimental to the story. Sure, it popped you out, but for every you that reads the story there are four people who have no idea what red and Blue shift are and ten that don't care/ didn't think about it. It's not marketable.(I could go into the number of things his time bubbles don't do that they should. It's a long and interesting list. For instance the slow time ones should create wind tunnels.) It would have been a better book for you but a worse book overall.
Everybody has sciency bits that they've come across that most people won't. I got popped out of Alloy by the compounder's lack of pain. Anybody with healing factor should feel pain far more severely than you or I do to nerve's regenerating. We can't fix everything, nor see every scientific bit. Hence going with intuitive. It makes sense that a man who has been shot hundreds of times and heals constantly would have epic pain tolerance until you look at the science, but its better to ere on the side of intuition.
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on September 25, 2012, 02:15:23 PM ---If you correlate lightning with storms, I can buy that as a method for water-aspected magic to start fires.
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You can also use the heat index of water, showing just how much heat is stored in water like Dresden. There are ways to explain everything, just explain it if it defies common sense.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Aminar on September 26, 2012, 01:25:09 AM ---But imagine the stupid complications that would have on the story. He'd have to explain red shifts and blue shifts first off, from the perspective a fairly primitive society. He'd have to do so in a way that made sense to them.
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No he doesn't. It just has to be obvious to a reader who expects that. It can look like incidental flash and bang to a reader who doesn't.
Aminar:
--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on September 26, 2012, 01:38:47 AM ---No he doesn't. It just has to be obvious to a reader who expects that. It can look like incidental flash and bang to a reader who doesn't.
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Yes and no. But I mainly look at it this way. Every single superspeedster in comics has ignored red/blueshifting since the beginning of comics. One of the best lesser used aspects of superspeed is being able to move quickly to turn invisible, an effect that showing a puff of blue light(which isn't really what would happen either) every time a time bubble is used and somebody moves would nullify. Lastly he interviewed his readership base on the subject and was convinced by them that red/blueshifting was overdoing the science.
o_O:
Too bad. Red shifting down to radio range would have been awesome on a radio-interference level and blueshifting up into the Xray range would have been awesome on a "get a free chest Xray" level.
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