Modern colloquialisms in fantasy?

Discussion in 'Fantasy' started by Stormsong07, Jun 21, 2018.

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  1. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    From what I read, it EXISTED prior to that but it wasn't common enough to really be seen in the streets prior to WWI, but ok fine, I'm wrong about shaving lol

    I frankly think my point stands. This entire argument is based on the fact that "medieval style" fantasy is presupposed to have some kind of societal and technological setting, at least by some people, frozen in time. Which is why in some of these worlds millennia pass but technology and culture remains unchanged, in a way that is frankly absurd and unrealistic. But there are entire genres built around, and entire tropes of fiction founded in, dispelling this or outright mocking it, so the idea that "it's set in this fantasy world so it has to look like D&D" isn't really sound. In fact I'm pretty sure a trope exists built on that...I'd have to look it up but yeah it's a concept that a lot of fantasy seems streamlined and linear because a LOT of writers just assume that "fantasy" means "Old School Europe/Asia" and leave it at that, which frankly has hurt the genre to a degree in the same way that a LOT of sci-fi writers seem to think "sci-fi" means "Star Trek/Wars" and take it as a matter of course. So whenever a writer breaks out of this, it looks bizarre and stunning, not because it's some unheard of sci-fi epic but because it's NEW. The fact that most of modern cyberpunk is just a rehash of Blade Runner is a similar issue, but that's off-topic.

    Anyway, so my position is simply this: if the modern colloquialisms don't have ACTUAL references to real world products and countries and people, then yes, and I would have no real issue. But when it does that is when some explanation is necessary.
     
  2. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Then it's good that absolutely no one said that.
     
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  3. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Plus there are spaceships in D&D :)
     
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  4. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    Ok so then what does it matter if it's "medieval style"? You keep saying you never "said" these things but some things can only be interpreted so many ways, if you insist terms beyond a certain era should never go in a "medieval style" fantasy setting, then yes that's what that means. Or more specifically that is the logical end result, that it becomes set in a specific era and can never advance beyond it. IF you believe that it can evolve beyond that setting, beyond those trappings, it would by definition no longer be "medieval style" since it would reflect other era and time periods and if that happens then you can put whatever colloquialism you want in it. Or technology or whatever. YOU were the one who kept saying stuff about how the setting has to be specific, I said it can be whatever because it's escapism and therefore inherently fanciful.
     
  5. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    I'll take your word for it, I assume some spin-off since last time I saw Dungeons and Dragons it was more quasi-steampunky than space ships, but maybe I'm thinking of Warhammer? Honestly I read fantasy but I don't play RPGs a lot so I can be wrong, idk.
     
  6. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Warhammer is more steampunkish. I'm talking about an old AD&D module from the 1980s. Had lasers, an android, and other cool stuff. Was a spaceship that crashed on the world of Greyhawk and the characters go to investigate. :D

    Barrier_Peaks.JPG
     
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  7. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    We can discuss this when you create a new thread.
     
  8. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    @ChickenFreak
    Uh, huh. Ok so I will be as specific to the topic as possible...THIS is the ORIGINAL post...

    Now, according to this, it is a "medieval world" and is technologically the same as ours was at the time, HOWEVER it includes modern terms like hang out and badass and suck up. He asks if this is pulling the reader out of the world. Now, putting any technological differences aside, where everything crossed the line was the fact that the term "anachronism" is used to rebuke using these terms. However the world that exists here is FANTASY and therefore never existed, and so it cannot have "anachronisms" because it's history is nonexistent and therefore can be made up ad hoc, and there are actual tropes and writing devices to get around this and to do so. ENTIRE GENRES are founded on that. So, Stormsong asks, does using "modern" phrases, which frankly aren't even that modern but ok whatever, in a setting ostensibly veiled in a medieval era is somehow going to make this seem odd or out of place. My answer is no, since it's fantasy, and thus the history and setting are already based in pure escapism. Technological discussions came into the debate because I said, and I stand by this, that an "anachronism" only pops up when a specific, actual, real world time period is being referenced--a "medieval-type world" is just that, a fantasy world which resembles, RESEMBLES, ours during medieval times so whatever else happens in it is purely made up and fictional and has no actual basis in our timeline.

    YOU said all that about light bulbs and Richard Nixon as a response to ME saying that "anachronisms" don't exist in pure fantasy. MY response was that these ideas are ancient, the concepts are ancient, so the terms that evolved from them likely have no genuine origin so having people use them in a fictional world which is ALREADY divorced from our world has no actual problem and forms no "anachronism". You can only have an anachronism if ACTUAL history is being referenced, in a fantasy world it's irrelevant so go for it. When light bulbs and Nixon came in that is when I pointed out that there are tons of fantasy novels which literally have electricity and light bulbs, and Nixon wouldn't fit because it involves our Earth history and nations and therefore requires a direct explanation as to why it would suddenly exist on MiddleEarth...and even then it can and has been used and explained before. The mere existence of a multi-genre spanning trope like It Was Earth All Along shows that basically this concept is omnipresent in a good chunk of fiction.

    So to answer the original post: my thoughts are that it would have no impact on the story unless they directly reference real things, like Facebook or something, but otherwise its fine, and frankly "hang out" isn't some purely modern concept since "hang in there" and similar concepts existed since...forever. But even if they did only exist since the 90s or something it's irrelevant since you can just assume that's how it works in that world. IF they do reference real world things, then there are ways to make it work but that's more of a twist ending than a setting.
     
  9. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    And I disagree and think that they would drag the reader out of the illusion.
     
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  10. Oscar Leigh

    Oscar Leigh Contributor Contributor

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    Doing some more mixed technology is fine if that's how your setting works. It's just that people will expect some sense of consistency between the setting and the language.
     
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  11. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    That's fine, no skin off my balls. My point earlier was that I can cite a hundred actual books and several genres that empirically disprove this, which was why I brought up Final Fantasy. If that were true then entire chunks of the fantasy genre, including steampunk and gunpowder fantasy, wouldn't exist. The mere existence of these genres shows that fantasy is not about a specific time period or setting but basically the broader concept of escapism.
     
  12. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Nobody said that fantasy was about a specific time period or setting.
     
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  13. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    Yes, you did. You specifically pointed out "medieval style" a some important point, and said that "anachronisms" can arise, which only would happen if you cared about the specific period--since that is what an anachronism is:

    "An error in chronology, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects or CUSTOMS in regard to each other"--Miriam-Webster.

    If fantasy is not set a specific period or setting, it cannot, by definition, have no anachronism since it would have no specific period and therefore nothing would be chronologically out of place.

    Ninja edit: cannot have AN anachronism.
     
  14. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    No. I did not.

    So, where's that new thread?
     
  15. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    So if it's not not set in a specific time period how can it have an anachronism? Since that infers a set time period, by definition.
     
  16. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Maybe you don't know how to make a new thread? I did it for you:

    https://www.writingforums.org/threads/does-fantasy-have-rules.159880/
     
  17. X Equestris

    X Equestris Contributor Contributor

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    I'm not sure how this disproves anything. The premise of this thread is not that all fantasy is medieval style, it's that the OP's setting was medieval style, and rigorously accurate to the real world medieval period in other respects, and they wanted to know whether modern slang would take a reader out of the story.

    And personally, I would say yes, because it clashes with the tone of the world.
     
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  18. John Calligan

    John Calligan Contributor Contributor

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    I mean, this is pretty easy to test. Just write your book with modern slang and give it to a bunch of people to read. See what they say.

    That's why I started avoiding it. Fantasy is a smaller genre, and way too many people who are fans don't like it. No one actively likes it unless it's some kind of satire, like "A Knights Tale" and no one is seeking out modern dialog in fantasy. From my experience, writing a lot of modern lingo into a fantasy is like showing up for a competitive race with ankle weights on.

    Good on you if you can still win, but why?
     
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  19. Bobby Burrows

    Bobby Burrows Banned Contributor

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    I plan to make my Heroine use them in my two part story.

    Jessica Dower will be a girl from our future who probably started the Salem Witch Trials when she took her adopted daughter to America because London was too busy and she was afraid of blowing her cover.
    I want Jessica to be the Heroine of part two in this two parter about a Mother/Daughter bond between an adopted daughter and her adopted mother.
    Part one will be the story of Rose Dower, Jessica's adopted daughter born London, England 1681.
    Jessica was working in 1681, London and she chanced across a poor peasant mother in labour, thoughtlessly, Jessica took the mother to a safe dwelling, and used modern technology to deliver the baby safely, but the baby's mother soon died after seeing her baby girl, and Jessica, I want to make her Jessica Gonzalez from Columbia right living somewhere in the Anglosphere, but using the name Jessica Dower to 'blend in' into society (might even have to call her Goody Dower in her newfound puritan life to escape London with her baby she and her modern technology will ensure her and her daughter's well being)?
    I want Jessica to be smart, and good natured, but, viewed by her daughter and those in Salem, as a witch (because of her modern technology); but only her daughter Rose knows she's a good witch and so stays loyal to her and is soon caught and burned at the stake and her name goes down in history defamed and she becomes a horror story to scare children in Salem of an evil old witch from England.
    Jessica however, I want her to be 'killed' at the stake where the colony try and convict Jessica of being a witch and Jessica using future technology to save herself, her last emergency trip to the future which was a 1 way ticket, she used.
    I'm saving Jessica, the mother for part two, who as far as Rose knows, the town found out and killed her and are after her (Rose) for being loyal to her mother.
    I want Jessica to be an everyday no one special still has bills to pay woman, in the future/our future; a future with time travel in it; and I want Jessica's speech to be out of place, unless it's forced and she's trying to blend in.
    Like if someone from 2018 had a vision of the future and sent someone from that future to the 1600's where my person went across the world and started something big by mistake.

    Jessica will only find out about the fate of Rose in the future in Part Two when Jessica arrives back.
    And...
    I want part one to be a Halloween story and part two to be a Science Fiction adventure of the same character viewed in different lights (Witch/Scientist), who saves her daughter and brings her to the future and rewrites history erasing the ghost story of the old evil witch.
    And saving her at the point where Rose died in part one so part one still remains and the only difference is the ending where Rose lives.

    I want to write this for children, and not offend Salem, MA.

    Rose, will start at birth in London and quickly go to the age of 18 in Salem.
    And... Rose will talk with a puritan vocabulary.
    Jessica, will be from our future, and will probably think and talk more like we do now, only will be a helluva lot smarter (can out smart any opponent before 2450's) and enlightened (I have faith in the future of humanity) and will be aided by future technology - but I'm saving all of that for part two.
    Part one, Jessica is a good witch who dies, and it's told by Rose.
    Part two isn't told by Jessica, but it's a fly on the wall introducing Jessica as someone who only let them think that she died in 1700 and is now at home in the year 2499.
     
  20. Stormsong07

    Stormsong07 Contributor Contributor

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    Perhaps I was too vague with my "medieval-style" wording. It DOES have a specific time period, and I have done quite a bit of research to ensure that the technology the characters are using reflects that. It is heavily based on Medieval Europe, yet is its own world. I used medieval times as a jumping-off point, a baseline, so to speak, and my world reflects that. So it can have anachronisms- no zippers, for example, as was pointed out before. Just because fantasy is completely made up doesn't mean it doesn't have rules and parameters it needs to fit in.
    My question was, should my baseline (medieval Europe) also extend to the language and speech of the characters. Obviously, I'm not going to write in Middle English or anything, but I was wondering, since I did make the effort to establish a recognizable time period, if not making the language and speech match would pull readers out.
    I received a lot of good answers, and with these in mind, I have made the decision to continue writing it as I have, but in the editing process, go back and re-phrase word usage that stand out as being too modern to fit my baseline time frame. While I respect your opinion, @18-Till-I-Die , I do not concur with it, but I thank you for taking the time to weigh in on my thread. I would be happy to discuss it more in the thread that @ChickenFreak created (link a few posts up).
    Also, just because it bugged me, in this particular case, the author is a SHE. :)
     
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  21. 18-Till-I-Die

    18-Till-I-Die Banned

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    @Stormsong07
    Cool, thanks for clarifying that. Yes if it has a specific, literal time period then using more "modern" terms would be an anachronism, I was I guess imagining something akin to MiddleEarth or something where the setting is not tied to a literal time just a setting with a similar look or technological level. And I was unaware about the genders involved or anything so my mistake.
     
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  22. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I don't know your age, but if you're reasonably young, you might want to try to recruit a fairly old beta reader and ask them to keep an eye out for what drags them out. My theory is that it's words, terms, and idioms that come into existence in one's lifetime that feel jarringly modern. So it could be good to seek the longest practical lifetime. :)

    I'm still trying to figure out what words with a clear historic origin jar me, and which don't. For example, "puritan" as a noun ("don't be such a puritan") makes me think of the specific historical people. But as an adjective ("don't be so puritanical"), it doesn't. "Platonic" meaning non-romantic doesn't bother me nearly as much as "Platonic ideal" would. And so on.

    Turns out "martial" is based on the god Mars. Doesn't bother me a tiny bit.
     
  23. Stormsong07

    Stormsong07 Contributor Contributor

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    I'm 33, but that is a good idea nonetheless.
     
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