How do you handle near-analogues in your world building?

[Wrensul]

In my fantasy setting, I’m working toward a defamiliarized environment.

The people of Parsk belong to two broad biological lineages, divided into five distinct subgroups. Each of these peoples are close to a familiar fantasy concept, but none are exact equivalents.

The simplest example to present is the group I used to call my elves.

In concept, they are closer to what some settings treat as genetically distinct witches and wizards. They are not particularly Tolkien-like. They are certainly not cookie-makers living in trees, nor tiny seasonal authorities responsible for frightening children into good behavior. If they’re decent citizens, they avoid playing with time magic and live and die a life in about 100 years.

Some time ago it occurred to me that Parsk is an entirely separate world. Its inhabitants cannot possibly know what an “elf” is. The word carries a collection of associations from our own folklore and fantasy traditions, none of which exist for them.

So I began playing with language and history, and I developed a more world-appropriate name.

Amongst all the Tullan, they are the mystics. The Elturn. Stemming for an old Parsonul word (not their own Tullish) as an insult, meaning cave or tomb dweller. Irony goes that they do become more common than the Faer that judged them so long ago.

Anyway. I’ve realized this creates an interesting challenge. I am presenting concepts that are both old and new. Describing someone that looks perfectly human, aside from the bright purple hair and funny, swively ears hanging on the sides of their head. Yet they don’t even know what a human is. . .

I wonder.

How do you handle concepts like this in your worlds? How do you make a concept recognizable without allowing the familiar analogue to overwhelm what makes it distinct? How would you achieve such subtle oddity without confusing readers?

I certainly don’t intend to hide my inspirations, but I want to have some level of control over how they inform my work.

 

[skip.knox]

First, keep in mind that what is familiar to one reader may not be to another. There is no way for you to know what are the expectations of your readers, nor what is their current understanding of ... well, of just about anything. Which leads to Second.

Second, sell it to yourself. You can't know all your readers, but you know yourself. So if the descriptions seem appropriate to you, then that's a crucial first step. Not the last one, but you can't get to the last one without the first one.

Third, sell it to a character. This is a standard technique. Have a character who is young or a foreigner or otherwise does not know the thing being introduced. They see it (or them) and say what is that? Then another character can provide explanation.

Fourth, resist the temptation to explain everything at the first. Do the information drip. Let your characters encounter the new thing piecemeal, spread out the descriptions, and thereby spread out the explanations.

Fifth, sometimes none of that works and you'll paint yourself into a corner. Those kind of problems have to be solved one by one, in the thickets of the story itself. This is not only okay, it's unavoidable.

 

[Prince of Spires]

The easiest way to frame this for myself is to view the author as a translator / interpreter. You get told this story by one of the inhabitants of the fantastical world. And then you as author translate the story to make it understandable for someone in our world. This lets you use terms from our world to describe whatever is happening in a way that makes sense to a reader without needing to explain absolutely everything.

After all, once you start with the idea that they don't know what a human is, then where do you stop? They probably also don't have the exact same definition for cookie, or magic. An empire and a kingdom would get different names, since empire comes from the Latin imperium, meaning supreme power, command, or military authority. And since your world never had Roman, they wouldn't have words with Roman roots. All the food in your world would be called different, since they're unlikely to have potatoes, carrots, or turnips. Or beef or...

To keep the book readable, I just go for the nearest real world equivalent. If your protagonist is human like enough to fool someone in a dark alley at night, then just stick to human. If it walks like a duck and quaks like a duck and all that.

 

[Wrensul]

The easiest way to frame this for myself is to view the author as a translator / interpreter. You get told this story by one of the inhabitants of the fantastical world. And then you as author translate the story to make it understandable for someone in our world. This lets you use terms from our world to describe whatever is happening in a way that makes sense to a reader without needing to explain absolutely everything.

After all, once you start with the idea that they don't know what a human is, then where do you stop?

That seems like the most logical approach, if broader readability and marketability are the goals. I’m not sure I’ve settled on making Parsk quite that digestible.

So, a question for you as a reader: do you think there is a comfortable halfway point between familiar terms and invented ones, or do you generally prefer the basic English?

I still think your translator analogy is very useful and I will remind myself of it when I’m trying just a little too hard to be exotic.

I truly appreciate your insight!

 

[pmmg]

I tend to agree with PoS on this. Once you are on that road, you have a lot of names and labels to change.

But...I did not stick to it I did decide to change some of race names in my book. I changed humans mostly because it caused too much confusion with capitalization, and men. A group and Elves and Orcs, and humans, just doesn't look right to me. But, I use these newer names so commonly that it would be hard for a reader to be confused about it. I did not rename things like apples and cattle, but I did avoid anything that would have a real world name in it, like a German Shepard, or a Spanish Galleon. Most tricky for me was earth, as they are not on Earth, and the stars, as no one can actually see them.

My advice, if you are going down this route, use them enough, and with enough clarity, that they become familiar. And keep it limited.