What do you call the type of door used in garages and storefronts? The best I can come up with is shutter, put I Googled and checked Wikipedia for any clues and came up with nada. Wikipedia used roller door, which is the closest I can come, but this is in the future where the doors don't roll down from the ceiling. Does anyone know what they're called or can come up with a good word? I'd hate to call it a garage door or a storefront door because the setting is netiher a garage nor a storefront. It's a hangar. The problem is I'm not sure if the average reader is familiar enough with hangars to know what I'm referring to if I mention "hangar door."
Most garage doors around here are called sectional doors. They differ from roller doors in that the door doesn't roll around a drum or reel attached to the ceiling. Instead, they move along a track affixed to the ceiling, with each section being hinged so that as the door goes up it is able to move along the curved path of the rails.
Personally, I would say 'hangar door' would work just fine, just describe what it's doing when/if they open/close it (i.e., slides, swings, rolls, etc.).
I might go with sectional door. Coincidentally enough, I read a book today that used "roll-up door." I'll get some feedback on "hangar door." But I don't think I can just describe what it's doing. It appears first and then operates a few pages later, and I think just calling it a door wouldn't be very helpful to the reader. So, hangar door possibly. Anybody else know how a hangar door would operate without first seeing/reading about it operate?
I guess you could describe how it operates without showing it operating ... you know, as part of its description...just a thought.
I've seen them called volets (pronounced volay), or rolling volets. I assume this is after the French volet roulant - meaning rolling shutter, of course.
'hangar doors' are solid panels on rollers and open sideways... storefronts often have 'roll-up doors'... most garages have 'overhead doors'... 'shutters' are something else entirely... if this is in the future, why are you trying to use a current word and style for your doors?... why not make up your own original, futuristic style and come up with a suitable name for them?
Why not just call it a door? If the way it operates matters to your story then you're going to have to describe it anyway.
Yeah, I'm trying to, but I'm coming up empty. Everything I think of comes back to "roller door," "garage door," "hangar door," or "sectional door" (the latter of which I think is something else entirely). I just wanted to see if anybody here had any wise ideas about any familiar terms. I'd like to. It just feels almost like calling a bus an automobile: I'd like to be a bit more specific when introducing it to the reader but before they see it work. I might do that, too. It's in the middle of an action scene, though, so I don't really want to pause to make a description. Also, I'm not really sure if the POV character would stop and describe something to himself that he should be familiar with. That type of thing always struck me as a little inauthentic in other books. "This face recognition software we use every day, which, as you know, studies the points of a person's face and any distinguishing scars to determine a suspect's identity..."
Could literally not agree more. If it's in the future, it'ss obviously not realistic, therefore, you can do what you want with it. Take a good ten, fifteen minutes sketching, describing and revising it, and you will have a good door. This may seem like a bit much just for a little scene like this, but it could really help. Hope this helps.
That is one type of them and the more popular ... there are others. Some swing out and up, some roll up, others slide horizontally or vertically, and some more swing out like regular doors ... depends on the hangar Not sure what to tell you, lostinwebspace. I know that you don't want to call a bus an automobile, but it almost seems you are searching for a term that will describe every little aspect of that bus down to what horsepower the engine is to how many passengers it can hold. Is it THAT important? And if it is, is it then not important enough for a single-sentence description from the POV character? I have a feeling that if you word it well enough it won't come off quite like exposition... Just some more thoughts.
You might be right. I might have to go another route. But how good of a writer would I be if I didn't at least try for the perfect word? I might go with "barrier" or some synonym. Without going into too much detail, it would serve almost the same purpose as "door" in this context.
Aha. No sooner did I post that, I found my answer. I went with "emergency barrier" and used the adjective "massive" to introduce it. It goes up in times of emergency, so the word "door" was misleading me when this worked better. Thanks, everyone.
