Welcome to my guide on how to write technobabble! Every post will start with one letter of the alphabet, from A to Z, and cover tips and ideas for all you writers of sci-fi. Whether you’re writing about near-future science fiction, far-flung alien worlds, or historical steampunk adventures filled with advanced technology that never was – these posts are designed to help you write convincing and unique tech for your story! 

N is for Names 

With all of the tips and advice I’ve given about how to go about creating technology and analyzing how it fits into your story’s world, you might still be struggling with the actual naming of things. I gave some tips in my first post about using acronyms as names for gadgets and other sci-fi elements. And this post is another offering on how to actual create technobabble names or words. 

The “N is for Names” of this post has a double-meaning, because using real names is a great way to name things in sci-fi. Much like using acronyms, there’s a precedent for this in the real world: 

Welcome to my guide on how to write technobabble! Every post will start with one letter of the alphabet, from A to Z, and cover tips and ideas for all you writers of sci-fi. Whether you’re writing about near-future science fiction, far-flung alien worlds, or historical steampunk adventures filled with advanced technology that never was – these posts are designed to help you write convincing and unique tech for your story! 

H is for History 

There are two different aspects of “history” that I’d like to mention when it comes to writing technobabble and sci-fi gadgetry: 

First, there’s the history of technological development itself in the real world. Certain levels of advancement came about during the Industrial Revolution; the World Wars led to further tech developments. The history of humanity is the history of scientific discovery and technological advancement, ever since we started using simple tools and invented the wheel.

Second, there’s the history of technological development in the fictional world of your story. One will probably matter more for your story than the other. It’s up to you as the writer, and the sort of story you’re telling, to decide which sort of history has a greater impact on what you’re writing. And of course no “history” of any kind may actually make it into your book—it may be just part of that research and development that you as the author spends hours doing but never writes about. And that’s okay, too.