How does this thing work?

One of the passages that gets mentioned a lot is this one, from my first sci-fi book Burnt Worlds, when one character asked another how the hyperdrive worked:

“Want to know my theory? I don’t think anyone has the faintest clue how it works. I think someone was trying to invent, I don’t know, a new dishwasher or something, and accidentally made a jump drive. Wrote up a hundred pages of bullshit, collected their Nobel Prize, and retired. Everyone else just makes exact copies of the failed dishwasher, and as long as it keeps working, no one asks any questions.”

When it comes down to it, the author doesn’t need to know how everything works. When I’m doing freelance editing, I sometimes see scenes where the action is paused so the characters discuss the technology they’re using.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that the author has thought about it, but does it really matter? When I get in a car with someone to drive somewhere, we don’t have a discussion about the internal combustion engine. We don’t even think about it, we just turn the key and it goes zoom. Whatever your technology or magic, the characters live with it every day, and are just as likely to take it for granted. They don’t know it works, and don’t care.

Of course, there might be some characters who definitely need to know how it works. The starship mechanic, for instance, or the magical wand creator. But even then, there’s no need to go into a lengthy technical explanation. They just have to give the impression that they understand it, enough to satisfy the characters and the scene so the story can keep moving.

Who knows? Maybe that hyperdrive really is just a failed dishwasher, no one really understands it, and everyone just hopes it keeps running.

In other news, the first draft of the latest book has now passed 140000 words and is building up to the big crazy climactic moment. That’s what got me thinking about all this, y’see. In order to create the final battle, I need to come up some rules of how magic works. But only enough to be fun, drama-creating, and internally consistent. Just exactly how necromancy raises a corpse doesn’t matter. And, come to think of it, maybe we’re better off not knowing the messy details anyway.

I’m pleased to report that the Saturday Night Chuckleheads are still playing D&D and filling our lives with chaos. One favourite moment was when Zaelar, the tiefling monk, clad in his signature camouflage mumu and naugahyde spanx, jumped from the treetops onto a beholder and rode it down to the jungle floor. Because, by god, I’m the DM and there’s no way I’m going to say ‘no’ to such glorious nonsense.