h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

But, I hear myself scream, YOLO....(and every other clever thing invented since I got too long in the tooth to care...)

We cannot write everything that is applicable or even understandable to everyone, everywhere, every when!

Isn't it nice to (in this day and age) have to look something up because it's new to us, or intrigues us?

I have long since given up explaining where my little part of the multiverse sits, 'near Chester' or 'not Liverpool' is close enough for most.

I get what you mean about writing for those on the same wavelength, but even then there are those who will always know more (or couldn't care less) about your chosen interest. Motoguzzi bikes for example!

If no-one reads my stuff, so be it, I'll write for bike sites, but that gets a little tedious....zombie/vampire fanzines zzzzzzzz....sci-fi...proper sci-fi....way to easy to get picked apart on the geeky bits!

So that leaves us where? Generic characters, doing generic things, in generic locations? Just in case someone in England can't stretch to looking up what a fancy Jewish word means? Or someone in Umpalumpaland has never heard of a knucklehead hardtail?

The world would be a boring place if we were all the same my friend, trust me, I've tried to write about that for years!

Don't understand half of what's going on in Hooverville at the mo....the difference in thinking of those who run on Monday to Friday, 9/5, is cracking me up!

But this glimpse into the minds of "it's one in the morning, my story can't start til everyone's up and about after breakfast" is fascinating to those who work shifts ,see? Different strokes! (Yes I do remember Willis!) Anything that makes us try someone else's shoes on, surely a good thing?

Off to take the dog around the block, before the night shift, I'll say hi to Jenny!

I'm going to stop writing these columns, I swear.

This was not about fiction, but about what we do in the Guide, which is talk about Stuff to people who don't happen to know all about it...we need a few tricks of the trade to do that, I think.

I wasn't in the least suggesting that anyone write 'generic' fiction. Of course you have to write fiction about whatever you like, in the language of your choosing, why shouldn't you? One of the novels I admire most is 'Riddley Walker' - it's postapocalyptic, believe it or not, before that was a 'meme', and written in a made-up version of English.

As for Hooverville and shift workers, well....there might be a night nurse at the hospital...nobody made up any factory workers. This may be my fault. I'm aware that the town I live in has no factories and no shift workers of any kind at this period in time. There's no tech industry to speak of, either. We have a lot of farmers who used to go to bed with the chickens before they got satellite TV.

We have a saying about this kind of town in the US. 'They roll up the sidewalks at 10 pm.'

Two out of three ain't bad! (Pop culture reference to a song by Michael Lee Day, a Texan singer who chose to use a stage name based on a popular American processed ground meat dish [for those in other parts of the world ground meat is beef mince])(2/3 of comments on this topic being written by researchers who get it...whatever it may be)

I swear (an oath of honesty, thought to go back to the Middle Ages, which was quite a while ago now),I'll stop commenting on your column (a piece of published written work, as opposed to a decorative vertical structural support), as I seem to do nothing but get the wrong end o the stick (a phrase thought to be about getting inky whilst typesetting or seventeenth century walking aids), which is also why I don't write for Edited Guide, just ain't got the smarts obvs!

Carry on....(continue to perform a certain task or duty, or a series of movies (films) based on cheap smutty jokes and farcical situations)

Aday not Day, even the 'puters getting me wrong now!

Love the Meat Loaf joke.

I have one question, though: what the heck is YOLO?

It is apparently the modern hip version of Carpe Diem, crazy kids are now using YOLO to justify all kinds of shenanigans, after all, You Only Live Once!

YOLO is currently the subject of a copyright dispute.

A copyright dispute? Seriously? This is wonderful!

YOLT then.

I think I agree with both if you. A bit of ambiguity can spice up fiction / provoke further thought.

As part of the remaining 38% I did get the Meatloaf reference, because I couldn't stand not knowing.

For edited entries, clear communication seems the logical thing to do.

Well said

Luckily you do have the 'smarts' FWR - the Edited Guide would be a poorer place without your contributions A87882394