Diction: vocabulary

[osprey_archer]

I’ve been reading Limyaael’s fantasy rants. They’re interesting, but I think they shade occasionally into over-stringency.

It’s always struck me as terribly unfair the way some fantasy readers complain about the word “okay.” In all fairness, anyone who objects to okay ought to object to fuchsia and chauvinism and blizzard (not coined till the 1880s), too. Fuchsia and chauvinism have the additional black strikes of being eponyms, but evidently neither Mr. Fuchs nor Mr. Chauvin were memorable enough to strike their namesakes from the fantasy vocabulary like Machiavelli.

It’s a problem, because Machiavellian is an awfully useful word, and it’s a bit silly to come up with a direct fantasy replacement (Eogolfian!) because everyone knows that Eogolfian is Machiavellian which still throws them out of the story.

In fact, inexplicable vocabulary generally throws readers out of the story as they try frantically to parse it out. There seem to be two ways to get around that reaction: make most of the weird words superfluous, a la Tolkien, so the reader can rush right on without understanding the Numenoreans, or create a relatively small body of new terms and make most of the vocab self-explanatory, a la Isobelle Carmody.

I think Isobelle Carmody did a better job in Obernewtyn than in Darkfall, though. I though Obernewtyn’s language, like much else about Obernewtyn, felt organic and real, whereas Darkfall felt artificial. Darkfall’s worldbuilding is complicated but it’s all surface, no depth.

Whichever method—don’t create unpronounceable letter strings. There are languages where ktoshtza is a phonetically valid (I’m studying one right now) but it makes English speakers cry. Let your readers save the tears for the scene when Our Hero cradles his sidekick’s dying frame and vows revenge on the Dark Lord Evil.

I’m torn on fantasies where the words are based very obviously on some earth language—Italian or Norwegian or what have you. On the other hand, it’s easy to be phonetically consistent that way, but on the other it drags in associations about Italy that may not be germane to the fantasy world.

(Speaking of germane: is that word allowed in a fantasy world? It’s derived from the word German, after all. If germane is disallowed, what about slave—it’s related to Slav through the Latin, after all.)

…I feel that I should not be let loose near dictionaries.

Comments

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

There's a definite blance to be struck with language; too many made up words is painful, but a too obvious twenty-first century english vocab is no good for suspension of disbelief. I find Limyaeel gets a bit harsh on a lot of language things - I can't say I've even been thrown out of a story because of a pun, and I doubt many readers have - but words such as okay, which noone can even agree on a root for, do tend to stand out in most traditional fantasy.

Personally, I would shy away from Machiavellian, since most people are aware it refers to a person/character, whereas words like chauvinism aren't so well known (though I don't think it belongs in most fantasy anyway). Both words can be replaced with a bit of thesaurus nudging without being too obvious. I don't think making up equivalent words works well, though. Trudi Canavan's magician series suffers from this; a ceryni is obviously a rat, and renaming it just means characters have to stop and awkwardly explain this. She's really bad for it in the first book, but gets better as she goes; however, it's rarely a good idea to start renaming the obvious when you could just use a normal word.

Language as a key to context can be used very well especially in historical fantasy; Guy Gavriel Kay is absolutely brilliant for things like that. He writes fantasty analogues of historical societies, such as the Romans or Vikings or Rennaissance France. Names of characters and places really help a reader get into the setting, and reduce the need to exposition. By playing off the expectations of readers a talented writer can reduce the amount of explicit worldbuilding. Unfortunately, an untalented writer would probably struggle; it's like Canavan versus Tolkien on made up words, really.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Limyaael's ban on puns made me sad - it's going beyond striking out a few obviously earth-bound words to striking out an entire method of discourse, for the dubious reason that puns are untranslateable. First: I've read translations that were unaware of that. Second: given this is a fantasy, isn't it possible the characters are speaking English?

I do agree that okay is worth avoiding because so many people dislike it.

And God save us from made-up words for things we already have words for. The proper place for made-up words is placenames and concepts that we can only describe in a phrase (and even then, such concepts are only worth words if they're pretty basic to the culture).

Of course then you have the problem of explaining just what "illusair" means, but that's what characters from foreign countries are for.

[minervasolo.livejournal.com]

I get the impression Limyaeel doesn't read a lot of recent foreign-language stuff; in formats like manga it's quite common to substitute a Japanese pun with an English one on the same subject. Puns are such an ancient form of humour that to remove them from a fantasy society seems forced.

I have a friend who is planning to write a fantasy novel with the characters speaking in a sort of sixteenth/seventeenth century english. I'm a little dubious; it takes real dedication and consistency to pull it off without being trite, and it will make it pretty hard for modern readers to get through (having just slogged through Pepys, even just syntax differences get wearing after a time). I'll wait and see, but I'll be impressed if even she keeps it up for the entire novel.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

If she can pull it off that would be a really interesting story.

I just read a duology by Elizabeth Bear, Ink and Steel and Hell and Earth, which is set in Elizabethan times (and has Shakespeare and Marlowe as main characters. Also Lucifer and the Faerie) where the dialogue is a sort of Elizabethan pastiche and the non-dialogue (and non-interior monologue) portions are modern English with period-inappropriate vocabulary cut. I thought it worked well; it gave the flavor of the times without the headache.