Why do authors keep trying to give me hard numbers?

[pacifist]

Begin rant:
Authors have a bad habit of trying to impress me with numbers and it's getting annoying.

Security in and around the base's perimeter has been increased by 150% as a result.

Meaningless numbers that bring no sense of scale to the story or useful information for that matter.

A pair of single handed war axes, they were a jet black In colour and they could both turn into a pair of Sub-machine guns that could dish out, to put it in her own words 'A metric shit-tonne of damage.' Most likely due to the Dust enfused rounds propelling them to speeds of up to 1500 KPH.

Did a little math. 1500 KPH comes to 417 mps an average speed for a modern 9mm bullet. Am I supposed to be impressed?

It's like having a character entering a room then describing the rooms width and height when it doesn't pertain to the scene at all.

One example that really gets to me is measuring the MC's reaction time.I don't care that the hero reacted in .01 seconds.
It matters not a jot. All it does is interrupt the narrative and make the reader think your a horrible writer.



It's not even confined to fanfiction writers.

Movies with the ever popular 2 minutes till the bomb,warp core, whatever happens then the scene proceeds to drag on for 7 minutes.



Just stop trying to give me hard numbers unless you know what your doing.

/end rant

 

[PCHeintz72]

To me, it depends what I am reading... If I am either reading sci fi, or reading something where hard numbers are relevant, I prefer to see them, otherwise I agree.

The problem is in so many cases the author trips themselves up... much like you found with the numbers given after doing the math becoming barely average with the bullet.

There are other things that make little sense... like the characters you see in a anime or movie get up to their alarm blaring, we see them get up right as it starts and turn it off, and yet the first thing for them to do is look at clock in horror and say 'I'm late' and they rush to get out door. Well, why was the alarm set to that time then?

 

[NuitTombee]

There are other things that make little sense... like the characters you see in a anime or movie get up to their alarm blaring, we see them get up right as it starts and turn it off, and yet the first thing for them to do is look at clock in horror and say 'I'm late' and they rush to get out door. Well, why was the alarm set to that time then?

This could possibly be attributed to hitting the snooze and forgetting to get up afterwards.

 

[pacifist]

One last example that really gets to me is measuring the MC's reaction time.
I don't care that the hero reacted in .01 seconds. It matters not a jot.
All it does is interrupt the narrative and make the reader think your a horrible writer.

 

[MnemoD]

All it does is interrupt the narrative and make the reader think your a horrible writer.

Strange, I don't need that much to figure out whom are terrible writers.

 

[nuclear death frog]

This is usually not something I notice, and yet... at some point, it does become annoying. I think I'm in agreement with the OP.

 

[Prince Charon]

There are other things that make little sense... like the characters you see in a anime or movie get up to their alarm blaring, we see them get up right as it starts and turn it off, and yet the first thing for them to do is look at clock in horror and say 'I'm late' and they rush to get out door. Well, why was the alarm set to that time then?

This could possibly be attributed to hitting the snooze and forgetting to get up afterwards.

Yeah, that's generally my view. Showing someone repeatedly hitting the snooze bar/button would make it more clear, but would also be repetitive, and probably boring.

Of course, that could be solved by having Mom, Dad, or a sibling or some-such say 'Well stop hitting the snooze bar so much.'

 

[PCHeintz72]

There are other things that make little sense... like the characters you see in a anime or movie get up to their alarm blaring, we see them get up right as it starts and turn it off, and yet the first thing for them to do is look at clock in horror and say 'I'm late' and they rush to get out door. Well, why was the alarm set to that time then?

This could possibly be attributed to hitting the snooze and forgetting to get up afterwards.

Yeah, that's generally my view. Showing someone repeatedly hitting the snooze bar/button would make it more clear, but would also be repetitive, and probably boring.

Of course, that could be solved by having Mom, Dad, or a sibling or some-such say 'Well stop hitting the snooze bar so much.'

I really do not agree it is in so many cases due to people hitting snooze. And if it is that is lazy since it could easily be shown that is what they were doing.