Jarringly modern dialogue?

[Chessie]

I'm not saying that we shouldn't do research on the time period or do our best to use the proper terms of the era story world is set in. But I am saying that it doesn't need to be perfect, and that there are terms used (slang terms) today that were not used back in those days and vice versa. Our goal as authors isn't just to entertain, but to communicate story clearly to readers. So if we're communicating in speech that's unfamiliar, then how are we truly immersing our readers? Let's remember that many people read at an 8th grade level and probably haven't read the works that one would use for "research".

 

[Reilith]

I remember when I was younger and was starting to read fantasy (and by that I don't mean Harry Potter and the lot of children's fantasy) I stumbled upon a very word-heavy book by a Russian author, although I read it in my mother language. It was a very hard thing for me back then, I felt like I couldn't understand what was being said, since I wasn't familiar with the terminology, but the general gist of wording was really in the zone of the story, without being over-pompous or confusing. It was more about my inexperience than with the wording, but even today I can't force myself to go back to those books, it just left a bad impression on me. On the other hand, now I don't have a problem with reading either, contemporary worded books or the ones with more medieval language, both are fine with me, but it probably rests most into what many of you have said already - if it sounds natural for the character saying it, it works. I'd have a hard time imagining or reading the words of a King talking to his courtiers saying slurs or talking like a ruffian, same way it would be weird to see a sheepherder talking like a highborn. It is all in the character and whether the writer makes their words believable. I've seen some great books written in more "plain" language and I enjoyed them as much as I do with the higher fantasy written stuff.
I myself am trying to hold it somewhere in between and currently I am boggled if my writing technique is lacking because my characters which are teenagers maybe have too much small talk and contemporary banter than I'd like or is it fitting as they are still young. Of course, they speak properly when addressing seniors but in conversations between themselves they do tend to wander off from it quite a bit. I am not sure if I am liking it, but I am also unsure should I change it or keep it as a quirk.

 

[MineOwnKing]

With the example you gave it does look out of place to me.

F-bombs have their place, but using them frequently can become a slap in the face simply from over usage.

To better understand what I mean, take another word that can be used often in informal, real world conversations, such as the word 'like'.

"Like, dude, like, you were totally like, not cool."

In this example the word 'like' can work well to add character definition, however, if somebody had to read 300 pages of dialogue with 'like' sprinkled in, it would become annoying.

A good example of a place to use an f-bomb would be inside of a hook.

There are different types of hooks. One style is to write about a character who says something you would not expect them to say. For example, if a nun says 'f%*k, that's creating a hook because we wouldn't expect her to say something vulgar.

 

[Philip Overby]

As someone that uses modern language in my writing, this is a topic that is close to my heart, so to speak. The reasons I use it are because:

1. I'm writing dark comedy so I feel like I have some leeway. I guess I follow the A. Lee Martinez school of thought. He uses a lot of modern conventions in his writing and I do the same. Since it's fantasy writing, I don't equate swords+magic=medieval. Any setting can use swords, magic, and whatever if it's a made-up world. You just have to have it make sense in that context.

2. I find writing in an older style jarring myself. This is why I've never been able to write historical fiction. I can read it fine, but when it comes to writing it, I'd be too worried with screwing something up. That's why almost all of my writing either takes place in the contemporary world or in a secondary world.

3. In some ways, I think my writing style is more closely related to the South Park guys than Tolkien. Which means I tend to have a lot of foul language. When I was teenager, a lot of my friends cursed frequently. Then as an adult, the same thing. I worked around construction workers. They would sometimes curse every other word. To me this just shows a different way of growing up. Some people never curse and some curse constantly. I'd say in my regular life, I curse when the need arises. I try not to be a potty mouth all the time. In my writing I try not to have super frequent, but I keep it consistent with specific characters.

I hope that in some way fantasy readers can detach themselves from this idea that fantasy has to mirror its real-life counterpart. Just because a world may be based on a particular time period, doesn't mean it has to be completely faithful to that. I read a YA book a while back that had people fighting with chainsaw swords in ancient Japan. While this sounds ridiculous, it actually fits in the world the author created and therefore makes it pretty awesome.

 

[MineOwnKing]

As someone that uses modern language in my writing, this is a topic that is close to my heart, so to speak.

It's pretty obvious that you are a literary pioneer Philip.

I think it's really cool that you can incorporate a flexible lingo into your darkly comedic talent.

We who are about to die salute you.

Long live Splatter Elf.

 

[Philip Overby]

It's pretty obvious that you are a literary pioneer Philip.

I think it's really cool that you can incorporate a flexible lingo into your darkly comedic talent.

We who are about to die salute you.

Long live Splatter Elf.

Cool, I'll use that for the future.

For me, this isn't the only way I write, but just one style that I like to mess around with. I do like to write stuff that is more faithful to a time period when I can, but it tends to be in a modern setting like the 80s or 90s. So I do have to keep in mind what people said in that period. If I do write a more medieval style fantasy story, I try to limit any modern language as much as possible.

 

[BWFoster78]

Part of my issue with restricting use of modern language is one of logic.

If I'm writing historical fiction, or even historical fantasy, I think it would be important to catch the tone of the time by using language that brought archaic speech to mind (without actually using archaic speech).

I'm not, however, writing about people on earth. I doubt my characters speak English at all. They're not even governed by the same physical laws that we are.

I would think that more of us on this forum are in that situation than in a situation where we need to adhere to Earth's history.

That being the case and we're "translating" the story from their language to English, why wouldn't we translate it into 2015 English instead of something that tries to mimic medieval Europe?

Again, if rockets don't exist, you probably shouldn't use "Xan rocketed skyward," but otherwise, why not use cool, lame, like, etc?

 

[Philip Overby]

I'm interested in this BW. What would be an example of you using modern language? I'm just curious if your use and my use are similar in some capacity.

 

[Penpilot]

I think it's all in the set up. You have to set up the world where language like that is expected. Also IMHO there's a limit to what you can get away with. F-bombs and Sh!t can fit into most worlds. Take a look at Scott Lynch's Lies of Locke Lamora, he used those quite effectively in his fantasy world.

But like I said there are certain things you can't get away with--well unless you're going for a story that's completely bonkers and absurd. I mean if you have characters saying things like gnary, dude, bossanova, rad, etc. I'm sorry, in a traditional fantasy world, where for the most part, it's a serious world, I'm not buying it.

To me, these things don't make anything more accessible. Quite the contrary. To me, they act as a barrier to immersion, a distraction that undermines the suspension of disbelief. It's like trying to concentrate on something but every few seconds someone slaps you in the face.

Again, it's all about the set up and the type of story. Some stories will allow you more leeway, while others not so much.

 

[SugoiMe]

I personally like to see variation in language. Not too much mind you, but enough to make it seem like I'm actually in a fantasy world, not in a big North American city. Language is so heavily connected to culture, so when I see the f-bomb or other slang used excessively in an epic or historical fantasy, it grates on me. It pulls me away from the setting and makes me envision a bunch of North Americans who've travelled to and occupied some other world.

That being said, I agree with those that say you can't twist the language so much that it's unreadable. I can only take so much of MineOwnKing's dude language.

 

[CupofJoe]

I think this pretty much an issue of personal taste, but I get annoyed when as a British-English speaker, writer and reader I get caught reading an Americanism.
I've gotten over reading color and humor and even labor... I know I've lost that battle there but in the middle of a fantasy tale I read a few years back a character said they "burglarized" a house, not "burgled".
Okay both words are perfectly adequate in their own ways but "burglarized" just seemed so wrong to me in the pseudo-medieval setting. It felt too modern and therefore out of place but may in fact be the more accurate word.
So I'm back to personal taste.
[and my spell-check want to change "burglarized" in to "burglarious" - okay, that's a new one to me...]

 

[BWFoster78]

I'm interested in this BW. What would be an example of you using modern language? I'm just curious if your use and my use are similar in some capacity.

Philip,

Mainly "modern" slang (if, by modern, you think what the kids were saying when I was in high school in the 80's):

Stop that. Play it cool.

Who would have thought Dylan would be the one to screw up?

Really? Waving to her? How lame was that?

Thanks.

Brian

 

[Philip Overby]

Ah, OK. So I think yours might be slightly different than mine, although I do use terms like "badass" and "awesome." I'm not married to the idea of using words like that, but I don't think it jars me out of a story if it's consistent. If it's just randomly thrown around, it might be more problematic. But if it's a consistent thing, I'm cool with it.

 

[BWFoster78]

Ah, OK. So I think yours might be slightly different than mine, although I do use terms like "badass" and "awesome." I'm not married to the idea of using words like that, but I don't think it jars me out of a story if it's consistent. If it's just randomly thrown around, it might be more problematic. But if it's a consistent thing, I'm cool with it.

Things like that don't bother me at all. Some people, though, feel it (like) totally throws them out of the story.

Again, I've gotten a lot of criticism about using modern slang, and I'm not trying to say it's not a valid complaint. It's hard, sometimes, to know when to make changes based on the criticism of other authors and when to say, "No, I think I need to do this my way."

I this case, I think that what I gain by making the voice sound more natural to me seriously outweighs the fact that some people, mainly other authors I think, aren't going to like it.

 

[Svrtnsse]

Ah, OK. So I think yours might be slightly different than mine, although I do use terms like "badass" and "awesome." I'm not married to the idea of using words like that, but I don't think it jars me out of a story if it's consistent. If it's just randomly thrown around, it might be more problematic. But if it's a consistent thing, I'm cool with it.

FWIW, I just finished your story, and I had no issues with your character's dialogue. It fit just fine with the rest of the voice of the story.

 

[Nimue]

Philip,

Mainly "modern" slang (if, by modern, you think what the kids were saying when I was in high school in the 80's):

Stop that. Play it cool.

Who would have thought Dylan would be the one to screw up?

Really? Waving to her? How lame was that?

Thanks.

Brian

What's the setting for this story, and the tone? (Is it light, comedic, or intended for younger readers?) If it's a fairly serious fantasy in a historical-analogue setting... Honestly, I'd consider this to fall on the side of laziness. It's one thing to use words like this if they support the world you're in, if they feel natural and expected within the world, and it's another thing to use them because it's the first phrase that comes to mind. And as far as clarity of communication goes, er, "that's lame" and "play it cool" isn't really default language any more. Straight from a 90's Nickelodeon show. Yeah, a lot of readers might not notice or care. But some are also going to get fed up with the lack of believability.

 

[Gryphos]

With regards to 'f*ck that shit', is it really an exclusively modern term? I mean, yes, as far as we know it's only entered the societal lexicon recently, but is there really anything inherently contemporary about it?

'F*ck' has been a word for a long time, 'that' has been a word for a very long time, and 'shit' has also been a word for a very long time. I can't see how it would be implausible for someone in a fantasy setting to put those three words together. The only issue, I suppose, would be that 'shit' has only recently begun to be used as an all-purpose vague noun. But that's not to say it couldn't have been used like that earlier in history.

In essence, it's no different than saying "damn that tosh", just much less cringeworthy.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

What makes me think BW's not being lazy is this:

That being the case and we're "translating" the story from their language to English, why wouldn't we translate it into 2015 English instead of something that tries to mimic medieval Europe?

Again, if rockets don't exist, you probably shouldn't use "Xan rocketed skyward," but otherwise, why not use cool, lame, like, etc?

There is logical thought being put into the language, and I think there's also a matter of comfort zone.

For me, I like to have characters speak a certain way. Addison Lane's voice was inspired by my limited exposure to Irish brogue, which is pretty much reading Annie Sullivan's POV (she's Helen Keller's teacher) and hearing the Lucky Charms leprechaun. Oh, and I was in Ireland once. Word choices are inspired by the way people talk on manual labor jobs and also the way people talk doing outdoorsy stuff like removing tree stumps or using stepping stones to cross Ye Rapids.

I don't think of Addy's words as modern or ancient. I just know when the words sound like her words and when they don't. Other characters talk like barbarians or talk like hicks or talk like princesses or talk like poncy knights. It's a judgment call, and I think we all do that when we give characters a voice. It's just that some of us use the language we know of in the modern world, while some of us use the language we know of from the medieval world, and of course we mix and match ways of speaking and we're all inspired by our favorite characters and our favorite authors.

If you've had a lot of exposure to the way people talked in medieval times, you'll likely write that language well. Me? I'd botch it, but I can give my characters a voice that makes them believable as long as I'm not forced into rules like "don't use the F-word" or "greet with 'Howst doth thou fareth?'"

 

[Russ]

With regards to 'f*ck that shit', is it really an exclusively modern term? I mean, yes, as far as we know it's only entered the societal lexicon recently, but is there really anything inherently contemporary about it?

'F*ck' has been a word for a long time, 'that' has been a word for a very long time, and 'shit' has also been a word for a very long time. I can't see how it would be implausible for someone in a fantasy setting to put those three words together. The only issue, I suppose, would be that 'shit' has only recently begun to be used as an all-purpose vague noun. But that's not to say it couldn't have been used like that earlier in history.

In essence, it's no different than saying "damn that tosh", just much less cringeworthy.

History is replete with scatalogical curses and references.

 

[Tom]

You're writing what would qualify as fantasy steampunk, right? If that's the case, I wouldn't find it jarring in the least. Your style, to me, seems to wed past and present, so modern-sounding dialogue isn't a big deal.

I myself use modern dialogue quite a bit, even in what's supposed to be high-ish fantasy. It just seems more realistic, as there never was just one way people spoke in any given time period. We might expect formal speech in a Medieval fantasy setting, but in the Middle Ages, not everyone spoke like that. Slang has always been around.