Suspension of disbelief (for writers and readers, I guess?)
 

Okay, so I have a bit of a worldbuilding question for anyone with an opinion on said question:

If someone writes a story that involves a world completely unrelated to Earth -- as in, not an alternative history or speculative fiction piece that takes place on any version of Earth -- what's the limit to the suspension of disbelief for language, customs, societies, etc.?

In other words, if I were to write a story involving a fantasy planet that takes a lot of aesthetic cues from, say, the Regency era, where do you draw the line on what's believable? Can I use words that would be reasonably used in such a historically-inspired setting, like "pianoforte" or "chemise" -- if there's no Italy or France? At what point does a reader lose their willingness to accept words as impossible or illogical in a non-Earth setting?

I've never liked the sort of fantasy or sci-fi stories that made up ridiculous words for everyday things in order to avoid these questions, but I suppose those writers never got stymied by a quagmire of etymology...

Don't have a serious answer for this as of right now, considering my mental state's not exactly intact, but (-snickers-) the first thing that came to mind is, you're writing a story in an existing language; there's no way to escape the inevitable use of words like that. Least, that's what I think.

And if you do end up using words like "pianoforte" or "chemise", well, you're writing for an audience that's a stranger to the world you've built, and those words are just a means by which to make it easier for /them/ to understand things.

A made-up word here or there in a scifi setting, IMO, is fine. But a whole plethora of made-up words becomes jarring and just sounds...abrasive.

Tangent to your question: For settings in which there's still some resemblance to Earth or humanity, I prefer using words that are based off real languages -- Latin roots, Greek prefixes, etc. Sounds realistic and relatable enough, yet still has a foreign, not-quite-earthly ring to it.

EDIT: I have more thoughts pertaining to this, but, ironically, words are difficult.

I'd suggest an understanding of language structures somewhat (not as a professional, but enough to give good context clues). I haven't gotten fully to that phase in my writing yet (though mine is speculative fiction, so I am more trying to use languages that are either at risk/dying or dead...slower)

But Galla's right - the world, unless you intentionally are making a joke/breaking the fourth wall, needs to feel like its elements fit, and over-explaination breaks that.

I disagree with this as far as those are pretty specific words. A pianoforte is a specific type of instrument, and an old way of referring to one. Unless the thing actually is a piano, why not be more general and call it a keyboard?

I agree that consistent language use is important, and more so than individual words, but I do find it jarring when I'm reading something that's not supposed to be Earth set and suddenly a very "Earthian" term shows up. A violin an exist in fantasy just fine, but if someone pulls out a Stradivarius I'm going to blink a few times and wonder what happened.

Whoops, I was thinking of "pianoforte" as the music dynamic...thing. My bad. In the other case, you have a point.

On a general world building note, I find that it's the little details that might get to me more than the big ones. The tiny things that don't make a lot of logical sense, or things that just show up and don't come back again will make me rethink the story.

For example, I was reading a story about a guy who was just fighting a group of people with his badass wolverine gauntlets, but then goes to shake hands with another guy after the fight. No mention is made of those gauntlets when he shakes hands, even though they are sticking out several inches and do not retract (as far as we've been told.)

I can handle the king of the world being a cephalopodal dinosaur with a pink hat, but if people against this domineering king are hiding out in other countries, where are they hiding? Like, Dinoctohatus Pinkus is king of the world, where in this world are they hiding? There ought to be some explanation for that, like an underground resistance movement or something.

From the same story where I encountered the King of the World with his enemies hiding out in areas that were apparently not in his world, the three rebels were travelling together via different modes of transportation. They are travelling through a forest. One guy is flying on a big thing. Another guy is flying on a smaller thing. The last guy is on foot.

One guy...on foot.

Explain!

I think the issue with that is the idea of how the terminology is associated in the minds of the reader. I used pianoforte as an example because of the setting I threw out there: a Regency-inspired fantasy, set on a non-Earth world. Pianoforte is the sort of thing they would say in a Regency story, so it fits with the "era" of the world. Words have different connotations that could help reinforce a story or take a reader right out of it. The word "keyboard," even though it's the simplest way to describe something like a piano, is more readily associated with the electric type, so I'm not sure would fit in with a history-inspired setting.

That's along the same lines of my dilemma: at what point when worldbuilding do you have to value "scene setting" over etymology and logic?

Your later comment does help a lot, though. As does Gallagher's about setting rules first and then adhering to them. This is just something I struggle with while in the planning stages of writing. See also: "Do all my characters have to have made-up names if they're in a world where the origins of Earth names don't exist?"

So basically, use the language the reinforces the world (or society) created in the story?

I always over-think myself and my writing by assuming what readers might think or have problems with, but the consensus seems to be that, if I prioritize the society I've created and the rules of that world (even the rules borrowed from real Earth history) then readers should be able to overlook stuff that doesn't quite make sense -- so long as the stuff that doesn't make sense compared to our world does make sense within the boundaries of the fictional world.

That mindset does make a lot of sense.

I guess I've just read too many critiques of stories in which people nitpick things like the etymology of names or words, how maps are laid out, stuff like that. The criticism exists somewhere in the back of my mind and makes me second guess everything from the perspective of those critics.

I'm a nit-picker, but it can be of use if only to make a writer aware of something a as potential issue. Since, ultimate, everything write will be earth relative in some way, as it's our own frame of reference. A good thought might be to ask yourself "how much period language can I get away with?" before the setting becomes that period and may as well be on Earth anyway.

One of my pics about Fantasy and sci-fi is that there should be something that makes them sci-fi and fantasy and not something that would fit seamlessly into another category is you took some funny names out.

I'm reminded of playing Final Fantasy Tactics as a child, and being rather thrown-off when a character refers to a castle's housing conditions as "Spartan", which even at such a young age struck me as very incongruous. I eventually attributed it to the overall poor quality of the translation.

Now, though, while I think my first inclination on seeing things like that is to be annoyed, the more erudite part of my brain is quick to remind that all manner of seemingly-common words have their roots in very specific cultural references that have been all but forgotten in modern language use. 'Sinister' is one that always sticks out in my mind, but likewise, 'Dexterity' as well. There's no particular reason a secondary world would have the same superstitions and cultural biases of the Romans (though such beliefs were hardly exclusive to them, obviously, but we're talking about the words themselves), I'd hazard not even 1% of readers would give words like that a second glance in fantasy or sci-fi.

In terms of words that are straight-up anachronistic, though, the line might be a little harsher. I'd think such references should be used to characterize the setting. If you want it to feel Regency-Era-ish, then use words that reinforce that. If not, then maybe think twice before doing so. I'm currently writing a military fantasy novel in a late-Medieval-era world, and I have little to no restraint throwing around onerous French terms for armor components, much to the dismay of some people in this thread. :P

...which on that note, I'm not sure what it says that our RP group comprises the sum total of responses in this thread.

I guess it matters how much you care about the separation of a new setting versus history. If you don't care that readers assume you are writing an alternate Renaissance (even if you don't use the names of countries or significant people,) then don't worry about the language and connotations. If the setting in quest must absolutely be separated from our history and planet, then more care needs to be put in for word choice.

Regardless of the implications, I'm happy you folks stopped by to discuss this. I think it's been pretty interesting and helpful, for me at least.

That's a pretty good point about how much concern I have for the readers assuming it's an alternate reality rather than its own world... I think it may be more that I don't want them to get confused, though, rather than making sure they know the story's universe is its own thing? I don't want them to get pushed out of the story by questions over whether they should be picturing maps as post-apocalyptic Earth maps or just regular Earth maps with the names changed. Distraction can be the enemy of world building.

I'm sure that most people don't know the etymology of words, or at the very least realize that the characters need to say a great many words that shouldn't exist in order to make the dialogue understandable, relatable, and so on -- but are they confused if a hostess in a fantasy asks that guests enjoy an assortment of hors d'oeuvres? It's a word so very obviously French, do they get distracted by the question of where a French phrase came from in a world without France?

I think a lot of novels get away with this sort of thing by populating their world with stand-in countries and cultures and applying the borrowed foreign phrasing to those fictional counterparts. What's everyone's opinion on this workaround?

It probably won't be a very helpful answer, but I think really it would come down to how you personally handled it. It's easy to imagine ways that those inclusions could seem tacky or strange, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily have to be at all. A large part of it for me would be the style of the narrative; if it sounds like there's a storyteller with a real personality describing things, I wouldn't think twice seeing a reference like that. In a more distant narration, though, it might stand out to a greater degree.

But, that avoids the issue of those terms actually being used in the setting itself, as in character dialogue, which I really think could be tolerable as long as it sounds natural. Reactions will probably vary on a case-by-case basis, too.

I am not hugely a fan of stand-in countries in secondary world fiction, though. It feels somewhat shallow, when even a mix of historical cultures with no additional creative invention on the author's part would be more interesting, generally.

Then there's the Traitor Son Cycle where it's literally medieval Europe except with monsters and magic, and the map is all wrong and all the countries have pretentious Ye Olde names (Alba and Galle for England and France, and so on.) but everyone is in on the con from page 1 being that it opens with a company of knights fighting a wyvern with Hermetical magic while swearing by "Jesu Christo". And really, what more can you ask for? :P

Suze, I mean, minus Lawtan, everyone so far in this thread = writers/ex-writers.

Speaking of Final Fantasy (slightly off-topic), the thing that has bothered me the most about that series is the "ninja" class. Just...argh. No. I've rambled about this particular incongruity to many friends, most of whom see no issues with it. I can't be the only one who feels twitchy about the Ninja class...

I remember how strongly you felt about it, but not quite specifically what your annoyance was.

I don't want to derail johnny's thread, though. Hit me up on skype.

I think it definitely requires finesse. The notable example from my childhood is reading involving a Japan stand-in culture in Tamora Pierce's novels, which I don't think I had any issues with while reading (though it was quite a while ago) and nowadays I'm probably too embedded in nostalgia to give it fair criticism, but I do get this "the author probably read a bunch of stuff on Japanese history and wanted to do something with that culture" vibe from the whole thing.

I really wouldn't want to give that impression to anyone reading my stuff - I'd rather my world be built more naturally - but I guess it's not the worst thing ever, either.

This is quite a conundrum for me as well. I'm writing a sci-fi setting that has ancient civilizations and empires reimagined as star systems in the same galaxy. The main system is based on the ancient Greeks. Since the species is human, it's not too much of a stretch to say that the language is a renaissance from the actual period on Earth, which may or may not be part of the very distant past of these same people. But if you want it to be utterly divorced of Earth history, then it gets muddier to me. The solution may just be that these people are speaking their own alien language, and those particular words and the best English (or whatever language you are writing in) can translate? I mean you can use more generalized descriptive words instead of specific jargon (like "keyboard" instead of "pianoforte"), but I wouldn't get overly literal, cause then it will sound like Homestuck troll names lol (not that that is bad, but that had a much different intention).

I was trying to think of why I don't really wrestle with this particular issue very much last night, because it's actually taken a fair bit of reflection to even come up with comments here, and it ultimately comes back to, I'd guess, my tendency to eschew world-building details wherever possible. I pretty much only invent setting information as I need it for my story to progress and leave everything outside of that vague and undefined, which contributes to the overall sparse/concise nature of my prose, I think.

Does that strike anyone as a problematic way to approach secondary-world fiction? I think, rather than obviate the anachronism/extra-universal references concern of this thread, it just shoves them out of the spotlight, which, it occurs to me at this moment, may not be a net-positive.

Suze -- Not sure if I mentioned this back when we were talking about that particular tendency sometime over Skype, but IMO only having setting information where it's relevant to the plot, and eschewing most other world-building, lends itself to the writer having to pull deus ex machinas if they manage to write themselves into a corner.

I suppose that's why I tend to plan my plots in detail before I start actually writing. (And also why I never get around to actually writing anything...)

I don't believe it's problematic, necessarily. In certain kinds of story, I think limiting the background data and world-building can be beneficial, though I think it's probably something that's difficult to maintain in longer fiction. If it's a novel, I can see it being hard for readers to invest themselves in 50,000+ words of a world with rules they don't know or understand, and a layout they can't mentally map.

Like the suggestion to keep the whole fictional universe vs. alternate-Earth setting vague, it's something I think could confuse readers and take them out of enjoying the story.

I think this is how people hand-wave most stories written about -- or set within -- fictional, wholly made up universes and realities. But that last bit -- that's where I get held up, because the language chosen can help build the universe. "Pianoforte" has different connotations than "keyboard" and inspire different immediate mental images. Someone reading "keyboard" is more likely to picture either an electric musical keyboard, or a computer keyboard (or similar, perhaps futuristic console) but "pianoforte" is more likely to bring to mind not only a piano, but an old-fashioned piano.

It basically boils down to whether or not logic (the fact that there should be no "pianoforte" in a world without Italy) beats the world-building shorthand of using existing terminology to ensure that readers picture exactly what you want them to picture.

Again, for me, it just comes down worrying over reader confusion.

I'd say no, because so long as there is enough to maintain flow and consistency (things that are west stay to the west unless the characters have moved to the other side) then I don't think it's an issue, because language and flavour adds to the setting's feel (hence the topic here in the first place) and if the reader can fill in the details without issue, not a problem.

To clarify, "keyboard" would be a more general term in the way that 'pipe' is more generic for flute or panpipes, etc. but that doesn't make it equal to something more specific like 'pianoforte.' It is a generic word, so you would have to put more effort into describing the object as you want it to appear. Sometimes you need a sentence to equal a word, and I can spend a lot of time in my writing deciding which route to take.

Ultimately, everything been to boil down to how well we can pull something off, rather when whether we should try in the first place.

Personally, I think you should just go all-in with how you'd like to do it, and see how beta readers react. You can always dial it back if it seems like a consistent complaint, but there's every chance you'll pull it off. :)

...or you can be like me and ignore what they say!

Good points. I think I'll be using ancient terms so that I can be more specific as well about setting a scene. I can't say for certain being as I'm not completely familiar with your story, but in my case I think the jargon will work for me not against me.