Night?

[Androxine Vortex]

In my novel there is no night, meaning that there is constant daytime (the sky changes color to signify time change) I know it sounds strange but it is very critical to the storyline. So since there is no night I am trying to figure out what to call the late hours of the day.

Morning, Noon, Midday, Evening, X

I was thinking of just calling it "Late" but I'm not sure. I also considered just to make evening stretch out into morning and make morning a bit earlier. Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[Meg the Healer]

I would think you could use Dusk. But I don't know if that is considered too much of a synonym of Evening. Though, unless Noon is time specific to your novel, then I would just use morning, midday, and evening (leave out noon and the twilight equivalent).

 

[Ireth]

Late work for me, or possibly Twilight.

 

[ThinkerX]

In my novel there is no night, meaning that there is constant daytime (the sky changes color to signify time change) I know it sounds strange but it is very critical to the storyline.

To me the answer is glaringly obvious. You give it here, but I don't know what it is. Specifically: what colors does the sky change to? Whatever the color is, is also the name for that time of day. If the sky is orange, then it is the 'Orange Hours'. If the sky is Blue, then it is the "Blue Time' and so on and so forth. Make up a little quarter page chart explaining this, giving the lengths of each color time to be used as a sort of into or frontspiece to your work.

 

[bbeams32]

First of all, I love your idea. I don't think it sounds strange; it is a unique premise Secondly, I mostly agree with Meg the Healer about leaving out noon, but I feel that you're right about needing a term to take night's place to denote the time that people typically sleep(if that's the case in your book). I know it's just a synonym for evening, but I love the word "gloaming". I think your "late" idea works well too, though.

 

[Devor]

You should also scratch evening.

I think you should work with ThinkerX's suggestion about playing off the colors. It's also worth noting, as "night" is now productive time, it would also get broken up into shorter spans of time for the people who are awake then.

But if you're going to use "late," at least make it lateday.

 

[gerald.parson]

In Lampters of Clayborne there was a southern empire called Gatha that had similar constant day light, it went along with there religious beliefs that their god Ga' was always present in some capacity, anyway, the called or referred to the segments of the day as "The Rising" "The Watching" "The Vesper" and "The Resting". But I do like the transition of sky colors too.

 

[Telcontar]

As ThinkerX said: use the colors of the sky, or something connected to them. Maybe the colors have come to symbolize things like work or rest or some other and you can use the symbols instead of the words, but either way it seems likely that if they change colors at regular intervals then anyone living there would use them to tell time.

 

[Queshire]

I wouldn't use the colors directly though, it sounds a bit corny to me. Maybe translate it into another language or something? Anyways, I think suggest taking a few moments and considering just what such a not-night would do to the world. You can't just change such an important aspect to the world and expect it to have no repurcussions. Take a look at what life's like in those northern/southern areas where there's daylight for months at a time. People would be out at all times, especially in hotter areas, they will be out more during "night" then day. What about predators? With no night, no nocturnal predetors.

 

[Steerpike]

These sorts of designations would have come about very early in the development of intelligent species in the world. As soon as they could start putting together words for things and think in abstract manners about time, and correlate it with changes in the color of the sky. So, at least initially, it is likely the colors are going to come into play when naming these time periods. Early peoples would probably see the colors as the chief defining feature. You could take it forward from there, but at its root it seems like the logical place to go.

What is the basis for the color change, and for there being no night? How do plants deal with this, since they need darkness as well as light to survive (on our world). There are questions you may want to consider just because they can lead you down an interesting path. Or you may want to ignore them entirely, if answering them is not important to your story.

 

[emma]

Not to get to deep into your worldbuilding but another variation on using the color of the sky could be using what makes it happen. Are there more than one sun or moon that moves and alters the colors? You could use those to denote time as well. If say a darker deep blue is caused by a specific event -- say a moon or sun -- then you could have something like evening=black moon or dark moon or something. Or if it's more magic related and the people attribute it to gods it could to "godsname here" Rising for morning . Or falling for evening. If that makes sense. lol

 

[Androxine Vortex]

First let me say thank you for all the responses. Sorry I havn't been able to reply as soon as I had hoped, don't have much free time lately.

First let me go into a little more detail of my world. The world is flat and there are no orbital revolutions. Now obviously the scientist in the back of the room is throwing red flags everywhere saying, "Objection! How can this blah blah blah? How can that yadda yadda?" Well my world is ruled by the "Star Gods." They live in the sky and they are real in this story, not just a myth. The sky is Heaven and so the stars and constelation are the Gods themselves. So yeah on normal circumstances life would be impossible to achieve but with divine intervention, all things are possible! I'm not going into extreme detail explaining how all this stuff happens because it would jsut defy all reasonable logic. So the reader jsut has to go with the fact that "the gods say so and so it is."

I am trying to build a world that is very different from our own. Never ending day, the world is flat, I didn't mention this before but there isn't any winter. Now I know this setting would be impossible but in my world, it is created by Gods and Divine beings. They shape creation and existence to their view and their word is law. All of the Gods in my novel are what the people call "Star Gods" or the Celestial Children. Although there is never ending day, the sky is a riot of wild colors and the constellations of the Gods and heaven burn bright. So even though there is day and never night, the Stars are always there.

The Gods wage war against each other to claim the Sun Throne as their own and become the dominant deity of heaven and earth. Since stars and the sky have a big impact in my setting, the priests of these Gods have spells and rituals to move the sky and stars above them. So by worshipping their patron God and using sorcery to alter the stars positions, they are able to move the stars of their Gods to be eclipsed under the sun. So let's say people in a certain area have a drought. They will pray to their God of Fertility and so when his star is in alignment with the Sun, then his powers will be strengthened and rain will come.

have also considered using the actual colors of the sky to tell time. If the same cycle of colors occur and do not change duration, then perhaps they can develope a time system based on the color. Maybe somthing like There are 6 colors in the primary color wheel. 24 hours in a day. 24 divided by 6 is 4. So each color could have 4 "hours" before changing to the next color, and each one of those 4 of a specific color will have a different tint or shade. So the "warm" colors would be like day while the "cooler" colors are like night. Something like this would be a "time chart" of a day. Now I say "cooler colors are like night" keep in ind there is no night, but this would kind of resemble night.


File:RGV color wheel 1908.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This image above could be used as a clock.

Now Emma had an interesting idea of using the names of Gods for the time. I like the idea, but it just wouldn't work out because in my novel, pretty much all of the Gods are at each others throats and every city of Man worships a different pantheon. I want a more unified sense of time to use.

Maybe I will use "The hour of X(color)" to tell time. I'm just wondering how it would sound between two characters talking to each other. "What time is it?" "It's about 3rd shade of the Blue Hour. That sounds a little weird lol So now I gotta come up with a good name for the parts of the hours themselves. Like I said earlier, each "color time" would have 4 hours before changing to the next color. So if we use the color wheel I had, and it was the "Yellow Hour" then it would go "Yellow, Orange Yellow, Orange, Orange Red" and then it would go to Red and it would be the next "color."

So what do you think I should call:

Color (the main colors of the day. Yellow, red, etc.)

The intervals inside the main colors (orange-yellow, orange-red)

 

[Rullenzar]

Maybe I will use "The hour of X(color)" to tell time. I'm just wondering how it would sound between two characters talking to each other. "What time is it?" "It's about 3rd shade of the Blue Hour. That sounds a little weird lol So now I gotta come up with a good name for the parts of the hours themselves. Like I said earlier, each "color time" would have 4 hours before changing to the next color. So if we use the color wheel I had, and it was the "Yellow Hour" then it would go "Yellow, Orange Yellow, Orange, Orange Red" and then it would go to Red and it would be the next "color."

So what do you think I should call:

Color (the main colors of the day. Yellow, red, etc.)

The intervals inside the main colors (orange-yellow, orange-red)

Because your characters live in this world it's safe to say they can tell apart the hours of the colors like the back of their hand. Even if it's 3/4's, 1/10th, 2/5ths etc.. So it's safe to assume if it's say 3/4's of the way through yellow hour they can say something like 'it's a quarter to orange' or 3 quarters past yellow. orange yellow would be 'half past yellow', the actual yellow hour would be 'it's yellow hour'. And so forth and so on. If it's not yet 3/4th's you could say sometihng like 'it's almost 3/4th's past yellow if u don't want to get really specific with 1/10's and more. I think keeping on the 4 quarters system would prob work best.


This is how I would imagine it working anyway.

 

[Devor]

Use the colors, but not by name. You should come up with a short nick name for each color because half-past-orange (which is exactly what they'd say) just sounds weird. Maybe try the names of flowers that commonly appear in each color? The second hour of the Jasmine sounds a little better.

 

[Queshire]

I might be interpreting this wrong, but from what your saying, the stars are supposed to be the gods, or at least represent the gods, and humans have prayers to move those stars. That seems a bit wonky to me personally. It suggests that a priest can make their god shut up and do what they want, as well as making the other gods unable to interfere. That... doesn't sound very godly.

Instead, I suggest having the stars move on their own to represent the god's victories and setbacks in the war for the sun throne, maybe making constellations with other stars to represent alliances between those gods, and, depending on where their god's star specifically is, limiting or strengthing what prayers their priests can do.

Also, from how I interpret what you wrote, it suggests that each star in the sky would be an individual god. That's... a lot of gods. I won't say anything about that, personally I love the idea, it reminds me of the 8 million kami of shinto, but I just to make sure you're aware of what you're getting into.

 

[Poppy]

What's wrong with 9pm, 9.15pm, 10pm, 10.10pm etc

 

[Steerpike]

Well, A.M. and P.M. refer to the position of the sun I think. I don't know if the world has a sun. If so, it could work, but if not I suppose it would strike people as odd to use those designations.