Do I need to define this?

Rechan

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I have a slice-of-life story about a character who is living with ALS and the conflict that occurs with his caregiver.

Do I need to define the acronym ALS (Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) for the reader?

I don't think I should, for the simple fact that there's no elegant way for me to do it. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis isn't going to come up in conversation - all the characters know what ALS stands for (because the only characters in the story are the husband, wife, and a nurse) and one does not typically use the full meaning of AIDS or HIV, they just use those acronyms. So I would only be putting it in the prose to tell the Reader what it is, and I can't think of a way to do that without it being so utterly blunt that it will pull the reader out of the story.

Because when creating new words for worldbuilding I've had readers complain the direct explaining the word in the prose is too jarring for them, too obvious that it's for the reader.
 

ElaineA

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Huh, interesting question. I know it because a friend has it, but I do wonder if the general public does. I mean, most would know Lou Gehrig's Disease. Is there no way you can work that in? I agree that using the entire medical name is clunky and awkward.
 

Maryn

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I think calling it by its full medical name won't be helpful. People who don't know what ALS is won't know it by the full name, either. Calling it Lou Gehrig's disease may help, since that's one common name known by many. More than either, though, will be your character either experiencing or observing the symptoms, depending on who the POV character is.

Maryn, hoping it's the patient
 

Jamesaritchie

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Yes. Doing so is easy, and would even make for very good dialogue. It's always good to identify any initialism or acronym that the reader is unlikely to know.

I guarantee people with ALS have to say the full thing now and then because someone is always going to ask, "What's that?".
 

Hoplite

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I guarantee people with ALS have to say the full thing now and then because someone is always going to ask, "What's that?".

That would be me. *Lowers head in shame*

I've heard the medical acronym "ALS" before, but knew nothing else, not even what ALS stood for. I think some narrative/dialogue that describes ALS in action, as opposed to an infodump, would be good.
 

Rechan

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Yes. Doing so is easy, and would even make for very good dialogue. It's always good to identify any initialism or acronym that the reader is unlikely to know.

I guarantee people with ALS have to say the full thing now and then because someone is always going to ask, "What's that?".
I'm sure they have to do that with people who don't know what it is, but all three characters know what it means. There would be no reason for one to say, "As you know, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ... " That's wholly unnatural sounding.

ore than either, though, will be your character either experiencing or observing the symptoms, depending on who the POV character is.
The PoV is the caregiver. But the whole story's conflict relates to the progressive loss of motor control, the more things the caregiver has to do (and how her behaves when she does it bothers the patient), that it will soon get worse, how they both feel about this, and it's effect on their their marriage.
 
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Mr Flibble

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Calling it Lou Gehrig's disease may help, since that's one common name known by many.

Not by me. I'd wonder what the heck that meant - that OR ALS tbh.

I think you might be fine showing the disease in context (how it affects them) and not even needing to name it. If you want to be precise however, I think you're going to have to name it rather than rely on an acronym -- it might be different if it was an accepted/well known one (like MS or AIDS) but ALS isn't that well known afaia so you might need to work it in.

ETA I just had to google he full name anyway -- and found it's Motor Neurone Disease (which I have heard of, often). So having a different name to the common one isn't going to help matters either. Maybe a convo about the different names? It seems it's refered to differently in the US and UK, and
To avoid confusion, the annual scientific research conference dedicated to the study of MND is called the "International ALS/MND Symposium".
So talk about that?
 
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WeaselFire

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I have a slice-of-life story about a character who is living with ALS...
Advanced Life Support does keep many people living in case of an accident or emergency...

Yeah, you better define it. Or, more appropriately, describe the condition and define your acronym.

Jeff
 

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Odds are your story will have a blurb, put the fundamentals there. People reading the story will either be attracted to it by ALS as a topic or the blurb, right?
 

MJNL

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I personally wouldn't worry about it. If people have to google ALS they'll also have to google the full term, so unless you're going to lay out a complete diagnosis there isn't going to be an elegant way to explain. The best thing you can do, I think, is show what living with ALS is like via your character. If it's sufficiently advanced, the symptoms will be prominent, and readers should be able to generally infer what ALS does, if not what it is--which is really all you need for the story, right?
 

Rechan

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I personally wouldn't worry about it. If people have to google ALS they'll also have to google the full term, so unless you're going to lay out a complete diagnosis there isn't going to be an elegant way to explain. The best thing you can do, I think, is show what living with ALS is like via your character. If it's sufficiently advanced, the symptoms will be prominent, and readers should be able to generally infer what ALS does, if not what it is--which is really all you need for the story, right?
This is pretty much what I'm going to do.
 

Rechan

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Odds are your story will have a blurb, put the fundamentals there. People reading the story will either be attracted to it by ALS as a topic or the blurb, right?
No? Where are there stories with blurbs? This is going in a collection.

And the other stories aren't getting author commentary because I find that too distracting. I'm not going to put a PSA or info-dump at the beginning either.

I could use a footnote. That way it's not directly distracting in the prose. Are footnotes jarring?

But among other issues I have, just defining it doesn't tell you anything, because it's a bunch of medical terms. It's not like the ACLU, where once you know the acronym stands for American Civil Liberties Union, you have a better idea of what's being discussed. Seeing Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis isn't going to help the reader in any way unless they're a med student.

The bottom line is I don't want to define it, but is it wrong if I do not.
 
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beatkay

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Would it work to have the caregiver explaining something briefly to a minor character? For example, telling a grocery store clerk or church member or some other conversation, like. "No, I can't go, my husband has ALS."
"What's that?"
"blah blah blah definition here.

If you kept it short and sweet and just kinda breeze over it, early on, then readers might just go along for the ride.

If it's organic to the story, of course. Forcing a character into having a conversation with someone just to convey this info will feel stilted.

As an editor, I'd have to stop and look up the acronym for myself just to be sure what disease was being referenced. The average reader may not know.
 

Myrealana

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I think calling it by its full medical name won't be helpful. People who don't know what ALS is won't know it by the full name, either. Calling it Lou Gehrig's disease may help, since that's one common name known by many. More than either, though, will be your character either experiencing or observing the symptoms, depending on who the POV character is.
This is more or less what I was going to say.

If there's no organic reason for the POV character to explain to anyone else in the story what it means, maybe it could come from an outside influence. One of them could mention a TV spot or a news article and say "I hate when they call it 'Lou Gherig's Disease' like he was more important than all the other people who live with it. He didn't do anything special." Or maybe they admire him and appreciate the comparision. Whatever.

But if the reader doesn't know what ALS is, calling it Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis is not going to help.
 

Debbie V

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A whole generation of Americans gets the Lou Gehrig reference. I know ALS as ALS. So do my kids, but our intermediate school collects funds to help fight the disease each year.

My vote is to use ALS and maybe Lou Gehrig somehow. The Latin name won't help. If you show the progression, that should be enough anyway. You could tell the story with a fictional disease and still have the effects on the marriage, etc. The name isn't the story.
 

nkkingston

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I wouldn't put it in the dialogue, but in the body of the text. Yes, a character isn't likely to think of it by the full name very often, but it's a lot less jarring than throwing in an unnecessary character just to define it.

e.g. Some days she could almost ignore how his amyotrophic lateral sclerosis was progressing, but this wasn't one of those days. Today, she hated his ALS and everything it was doing to her sense of 'them'.

I'd also add that it was meaningless to me until Mr Flibble said it was the same as Motor Neuron Disease. It had never occurred to me MND might be called something else in the US (it took me long enough to get that mono was glandular fever!). So depending on the collections' audience it may be meaningless whatever you call it.
 

gingerwoman

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I think you should define it, because sorry I didn't know what it was. I'm sure you can find a creative way that makes sense to include it, even if you have to introduce a minor character at the beginning of the story, who doesn't know what it is, or have a character reading a little from a book about it at the beginning of the story. That's what I would do anyway.