SCP Foundation

Disclaimer: I'm speaking strictly for myself here.

Remember that your item needs to make sense to a layperson. Jargon is fine, but if the meaning is obscured by the jargon, it can be off-putting.

An in-universe way to put it: The SCP articles are executive summaries. The 05/Level 4/etc reading them may or may not have degrees in the subject, and it needs to be comprehensible to them.

One of my favorite articles features the phrase "quantum-encrypted lumelinguistics". The thing is, the rest of the article makes it clear what the phrase means, without dragging.

Above all, remember that you're trying to tell a story, not publish a paper in a peer-reviewed journal. If your readers can't understand the story, it won't do well.

This might not be the best advice in the world, and I'm sure others could offer better help, but I think I can offer something worth your time.

I want to start of by saying that a better place for this thread would probably be the General Advice Forums. (I may be wrong here.)

Articles like SCP-1322 sometimes have quite a bit of scientific terms in both the Containment Procedures and the Description, (testing, event, and/or discovery logs too). However, it only works because parts like…

SCP-1322 is to be contained in a sealed spherical Class-VIII containment chamber with ablative inner surface, hardened against particle beams, nuclear and conventional explosions, and corrosives

…and…

Procedure 1322.CD.S311 is to be initiated if atmospheric pressure should exceed 6.00 x 10-2 Pascal. As an anti-pathogenic measure, radiation levels within the containment chamber should be maintained at no less than 4.50 roentgens per second.

…make actual scientific sense in context, and can be understood by the reader without too much difficulty. (You might have to google a thing or 2, but you shouldn't have to spend a week studying quantum physics just to understand one part of a skip.)

Don't try to dumb down the science too much, either, because the Foundation probably wouldn't do that. Like, a footnote to clarify what the Lorentz factor is would be O.K, but a paragraph explaining the concept of atoms as if the reader doesn't even know what the difference between Hydrogen and chocolate pudding is, would be excessive. A good rule of thumb might be to assume that all readers have at least high-school level knowledge.

In short, as long as the science isn't impossible to understand, and it isn't something that you just pulled out of your ass, like "SCP-88888's memetic radioisometric properties can only be counter-causated by the semi-mascular nasal introduction of Beta-Red Class magnesium trio-sulfonic xenofluorate acid capsule-form amnestics" you should be fine.

Jarb's right. This belongs in the General Advice forum, and has been moved there.

You'll end up alienating different readers at different levels. When I wrote SCP-2460 one critiquer pushed back at "You're probably asking, isn't the photon the gauge boson of the electromagnetic interaction?" but then was okay with it when I lampshaded it. But yes, I had to rewrite it a couple times before successfully describing how spin makes all the difference between a boson and a fermion, why that matters, and how dark matter looks under supersymmetry.

I also enjoy SCP-2123 but recognize that the hard science there is a bit more opaque.

All in all, I'd say write it, and let people critique it before posting. The critiquing was just what I needed for mine to work.

I think the lesson is, you can please all of the people all of the time, and you can please some of the people some of the time, but you can't please some of all of the people all of some of the time.

Hope that helps.