Aug
6th
2017
A question of measurements and units · 4:16pm Aug 6th, 2017
I have been using metric measurements as of recent in story because I feel like they are more universal than the imperial system. That and I have a better grasp of numbers for them in part because up or down by factors of ten is easy and imperial system is sort of absurd and I say that as an United States citizen. But I figured I should actually ask. Is that confusing for you my readers? Is my use of the metric system being a distraction? I am about to put a temperature out in the next chapter that will be in Celcius because Farenhiet is kinda weird too.
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Tohshi · 378 views
· Story: Broken then Healed 2
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#Broken then Healed
#Reader Input
#Measurements
Eh, doesn't bother me.
4625597
I mess up though so much. Like I am pretty certain I have stated Hope's height in feet. Actually every character whose height I have referenced has been in feet....
4625612
Probably force of habit. If it makes you feel any better, I never noticed any inconsistencies.
I just look it up with a converter if i feel i need to know it... usually if I don't like my guestimate.
Metric ftw!
The imperial system is kinda messed up... no solid logic behind it
I'm kinda used to read stories with the imperial system tho... so I kinda used to it also...
But yea, metric and Celsius would make it simpler
Btw... from Europe so Metric is default here, so might be biased
As a general point, carefully think about every number, length and time you put in your story. ( I have not read your work ).
Some examples 'They hugged like he had learned pegasus ponies did when greeting each other, for two minutes'. 'The building was round, and 300 feet in diameter'. 'They landed half a mile away and saw x at the door'.
(bad paraphrases, not direct quotes)
In the first instance - count out how long two minutes is - that is a very, very odd custom, and work out if the dialog was sane for that time period. (it wasn't).
For buildings, think for a moment about them - how long would it take you to walk round them, how the windows would work, ...
For example, a 300 feet diameter building, with normal spaced floors (as it was later described) is pretty much entirely dark in the middle, as you can barely see the windows. It is also so large that it entirely removed one plot point, as everyone in ponyville and the surrounding districts could easily have fitted in.
For the last, they landed, and then immediately could recognise and shout to someone at the door half a mile away, and moved to the door without mention of a significant walk.
Either all ponies have supernatural vision, hearing, and can leap half a mile, or you need to think a moment.
4626036
Time is rarely refered to by amounts in my stories. Mostly I will say a few moments or seconds. I tend to error on the side of too quick than too long. Tend to being the key word. Sometimes I will be like ten minutes of casting for something really hard and time consuming. It is suposed to be a long time for that but maybe it is a bit too long. Hard to tell honestly. As for distances I try to keep them under 100m unless talking about over land distances. Or I give vague answers. As an example. Across town. how far is that? I don't know at all. Like across town for where I live is like ten miles but for pony cities I have no idea. I definitely have some dubious sizes of buildings though not due to sizes and measurements stated in story but more of how much fits in the thing. Aka the Friendship castle in show is actually quite small on the inside and my version is much much larger. But yeah I get you there. I do try to keep things at least sort of within reason.
4625679
Yeah biasis is probably acurate but also the imperial system makes no sense to a person who has been taught it all their life. Like it is really weird. I have a general idea that i am just under two meters tall and can extrapolate from there for distances so it is easier for me to just use metric cause the whole magnitude of ten thing.
4625675
I do that a lot for things I am less well informed. Like celcius is the much more logical system to use than fairenheit (yeah I can't spell) and kelvin would be if it werent for big numbers for normal day life is a bit weird. realizing that the average temperature of summer in kelvin is 308 degrees is sort of absurd. 35 degrees is much easier. and even with that I have to think about it for Fahrenheit (success) in that I have to convert to celcius.