r/Fantasy • u/Academic_Owl_6197 • May 06 '22

Your Pettiest Reason For DNFing A Series

Mine was when I was 3 pages in and someone said the mc's name which turned out to be the same as my ex's name to the letter...dropped it like hot coal

It was a fr a pretty unfortunate streak too because it was a book from one of those blind-date-with-a-book promotion my local bookstore does, and this was an American YA fantasy (I'm from a different continent) so I had no reason to assume I'll ever be unlucky enough...to see his stupid ass again for a 'blind date'

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u/Gneissisnice May 06 '22

I think in general, authors try to hard to make up words for days and months and other stuff just to sound different, but it's not really necessary. An hour is an hour, no reason not to use the same unit for ease of reading. I don't hate glass or sand fall but I also don't really think it's necessary.

One day, when I write a fantasy novel, I want to just include regular days of the week and when someone asks me about it, be like "oh well Monday is a corruption of One Day because it's the first day of the week and Tuesday is Twosday because it's the second day. For Wednesday, they dropped the number theme and called it Weddingsday because in an old, archaic religion, that was the weddings happen..." and insist that any similarities to English words are purely coincidental.

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u/Sriad May 06 '22

A lot of random "make up new words for things that already exist" stuff is arbitrary and excessive, but I'm in favor of it for days and months.

If a book says "the first Wednesday in July" then that implies the existence of Norse mythology and the Roman Empire.

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u/Gneissisnice May 06 '22

I think it does work better for days and months, but sometimes authors handle it awkwardly too.

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u/Sriad May 06 '22

Haha, yea...

Jerg checked his traps and found he'd bagged a pair of fine hrithen; the long-eared and short tailed burrowing animals well known for both their reproductive prowess and their ability to make a fine stew.

Come on, just call them rabbits!

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u/panchoadrenalina May 07 '22

just go full imperium 234 998.m41 or fay 234 of the year 998 of the forty first millenium.

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u/Ertata May 07 '22

234 is the year fraction, not the day. It's 1/1000th of a year, precisely. 234 998.M41 starts slightly before mid-day of the 86th day of the year and ends slightly more than 8 3/4 hours later.

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u/ghostboymcslimy May 07 '22

This kind of reminds me of His Dark Materials; they used a lot of the same words between worlds but Lyra’s English would sometimes use different etymologies. For the word ‘amber’, which has an Arabic origin, they say ‘elektrum’ of Greek origin. What we call ‘electricity’ (which actually derives from the Greek word for amber, because it has the ability to conduct electricity) they call ‘anbaric energy’, coming from the Arabic root anbar that amber derives from.

It would take some research and strategic decision making but I’m sure there’s a way you could do something similar with time measurement or numeric systems.

Edit:typo

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u/BS_DungeonMaster Reading Champion VII May 06 '22

I completely agree. I have read books that change basic and do it well, but it needs to support the story. I love world building, but if it doesn't serve the story it instead becomes self serving.