Writing Question

[chris_gerrib]

Here's a writing question that I'm looking for reader input on. In my upcoming novel The Night Watch, I have several situations where people are talking to each other face-to-face and are having conversations over a radio. For example, two people on the bridge of a ship are talking to each other and the Fleet operations center.

My question is this - after I establish that "Fleet operations" is on the radio, do I need to keep reminding the readers of that? My first reader thinks so - but she reads mostly paranormal romance. If so, how? Saying "the (radio) speaker crackled" gets old real quick.

Here's two examples - which do you, the reader, prefer? In both cases, "Ops" is talking on the radio and not physically present.

Example 1
"Chief of the Watch," Janet said, "sound General Quarters."
"Aye, ma'am," the Chief replied, reaching for the button.
"Windy City, this is Ops, be advised that we have friendly traffic inbound, over."

Example 2
"Chief of the Watch," Janet said, "sound General Quarters."
"Aye, ma'am," the Chief replied, reaching for the button.
"WINDY CITY, THIS IS OPS. BE ADVISED THAT WE HAVE FRIENDLY TRAFFIC INBOUND, OVER."

Please leave your answers and any discussion in comments, thanks.

Comments

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Few thoughts...

Peter Hamilton handles this in some of his Bloody-Great-Enormous-Space-Operas where he establishes early in the novels the different communications types with different fonts. I've used the different font for different comms types and people are getting used to that I think.

Are you leaning too heavily on the current military communications technology style for familiarity or something more key to the narrative? I'd assume that most of the "face-to-face" discussion is actually over local person to person headset conversations. In a space based setting would Fleet Operations comms come in on the voice channel, or text based overlay on screens, with perhaps an audio reply like a car GPS system?

I'm thinking of the communications paradigm most people who use Skype or similar for conference calls are starting to use - where there's a flow of conversation, with a single set of shared items being "dropped" into the conversation.

[chris-gerrib.livejournal.com]

Well, my "fleet" is just getting formed, so they're using commericial systems and practices. Since they don't have nifty fleet-specific tactical information systems, they have to use voice. Also, even modern-day fleets use voice for a lot of communication.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

My question then would be, will the commercial systems of the next 50 years be voice or VOIP - text+speech?

I'd say that more than 50% of all my business comms is now over Skype or similar and I'm not expecting that percentage to decrease.

I'd expect a commercial system they use to be basically a private VPN VOIP service then over computers.

[daveon.livejournal.com]

Either way, I'd expect that the "conversations" would be fairly seamless through headsets rather than you needing to overtly make a "thing" of people doing something with the communication. You could add a 21st century "social" comms aspect by having the chief of the watch "share" general quarters with the crew over the internal crew network or something.

I'm just thinking about the paradigms people are starting to think in, especially your facebook using reader of paranormal fantasy :)

[jordan179.livejournal.com]

Version 1, because Version 2 exaggerates the radio-voice. If you want the radio-voice visually differentiated, another font or italics might work.

[bdunbar.livejournal.com]

Example 1 works best, for reading.

Example 2 is how, in my recollection, real life radios always sounded to me.

Keep in mind I'm a jarhead, spent a bit of my time around com centers and PRC-77 man-portable sets

Not always the best reception, you had to apply a mental filter to parse meaning out of the static. And - in my memory - the volume was turned UP SO YOU COULD HEAR the traffic over an always noisy environment - motors running, doors slamming, people shouting, just ... loudness.

Knowing it was a military set and a radio that took me right into the scene. But I'm probably a minority in that regard.

[(Anonymous)]

Speaking strictly as a reader, it seems more natural that the change in format, if any, should be for the voice over the radio, not the person speaking into a mike. (Whether switching to all caps, ital, or some other change). This would show that the radio has modified the human voice somehow. The Chief's voice should sound (look) the same, regardless of the person he is talking to.

Other than that, the fact that you retain the convention of saying "over" at the end of each speaker's should be enough to let the reader know that the speaker is coming in/going out over the radio.

The one thing that *is* a little confusing is the line break between the Chief's reply to Janet and the call over the radio. For me, this suggests that a third party is speaking. I'm more used to line breaks occurring only after a new person begins speaking. It seems like it should be one continuous line, even though he's speaking to two different people.
______________________
Example:
Aye, ma'am," the Chief replied, reaching for the button. "Windy City, this is Ops, be advised that we have friendly traffic inbound, over."
______________________



PS: Looking for you at the next con/book club/Chicago-sf meetup. ;-)

special texting

[(Anonymous)]

i wrote a novel in the past, not published, where telepathy was common place, and used italics to indicate when telepathy was used. every submission came back criticising that feature. it was an editing nightmare and more than half of the proof readers couldn't keep track, which might have been my fault. i'm saying do without.

also wanted to point out, military and air radio traffic is very structured, brief and concise, like another language, that could help you define it. but the SEAL motto, no battle plan survives first contact; all those rules go to hell in actual combat. i speak from first hand experience. to many variables, combat is extremely noisy, even in spaceships, dirty, and confused. the noise in a spaceship is generated by the ships own environment and it's hull. is your radio operator still alive, not wounded?

USS Firedrake, vietnam war. when a ship gets hit it's load as hell, deafening even, steel transmits sound 15 times faster than air. i was a personnelman, but at general quarters, fireman, in the radio room.

my opinion, and some suggestions, wish you well.

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[(Anonymous)]

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