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What's the "made-up word limit"?

I would include a two to three page summary of the entire book. I can summarize a chapter in a sentence if I need to. Really, you're stripping out all the characterization and emotion and relating just the facts. That doesn't take a lot of space.

How about once you get to Book 3 or Book 15? This is one of the nice things about having a glossary at the end though. You don't have to include stuff and if people don't remember they can just look in the back. In fact, I think I can sell myself on the idea of having a "road so far" synopsis as an appendix to future books.

I'm steadily moving more towards the include-everything-and-the-kitchen-sink mentality when it comes to book extras. Timelines, maps, synopses, character profiles, drawings. Unfortunately that doesn't translate well to print unless you have an ultra-super-special edition version.

Going back to the OP, what do yins think about having new words as hyperlinks to the glossary during their first appearance? Or should this just be something you do on shelfari and hope people highlight enough to enable Xray on your book?
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
How about once you get to Book 3 or Book 15?

Book 15 is a horse of a different color as my largest planned series at the moment is 4, but, for book 3, I'd just make the summaries shorter. For the book 1 summary in book 2, I'd hit the highpoints of the journey to rescue Ashley. In Book 3, I'd eliminate between breaking out of jail and the rescue.
 

Rullenzar

Troubadour
If your words are described well and at a reasonable pace of new words being dished out there isn't really a limit in my opinion. One more thing to add would be make sure these words are used on a regular basis so the reader becomes more familiar with them. I found myself a little overwhelmed in LOTR when I first read it with all these random made up words being tossed at me, most of which only ever showed up once leaving it pointless. The only aspect it played to was making the world seem enormous and real but it came at the cost of my confusion. I'm sure I'm not the only one who experienced this.
 

Steerpike

Felis amatus
Moderator
They're a comedic website though, so I wouldn't take their advice seriously. Plus, Lord of the Rings, and all of Tolkien's other works, completely screw up that chart.

I think it is a good chart. It says "probability," after all, so that leaves open the possibility that some very good authors will do it well, while acknowledging that you're more likely than not to screw things up if you go down the path of a lot of made-up words :)
 

BWFoster78

Myth Weaver
I think the chart is pretty accurate for fantasy. It doesn't even intersect the y axis, implying that the best book is going to have some made up words.
 

Ghost

Inkling
I think it depends on what's going on in the story and the context of the words. Based on the usage, readers will have a glimmer of the meaning even if the nuance isn't there. You can add as many as you like, but there's always potential to lose the reader along the way, especially in the beginning or when made-up words are concentrated in a short span.

I finally read The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. The book confused me for a few chapters because of the unfamiliar words. Lynch didn't slow down the narrative to define new terms, and I understood the characters' actions as they moved about their city. Although I didn't have a good grasp on names and titles, but I knew what was happening. Without that, I would've been hopelessly lost. I became immersed in the world as the meanings became clearer. Because the characters and their actions intrigued me, I had a higher tolerance for the unusual names.

I haven't read A Clockwork Orange, but my understanding is that it's heavy on strange words and phrases. (And the Look Inside feature shows how much that's true, even in the first paragraph.) The foreignness is intentional, though. It's probably not a useful model, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

I think the key is for the slang, the names, and the idioms to be integral to how these characters view their worlds. Making it an essential part of the furniture, without adding emphasis, looks like one strategy for dealing with the problem. I think the made-up word limit is higher when the characters and the story itself are engaging, the context provides hints, and each term is used more than once.

Of course, authors also use real words that aren't in my vocabulary. :p It's only distracting to me when the author seems to be a thesaurus addict or if they use too much technical jargon.
 
I actually don't know if LotR would qualify in the "too many made-up words" department, because what xkcd was railing against was using made-up words in place of perfectly-good real words. Most of the regular things in the world had the same names as things in our world. Except oliphaunts. ;)

Names like Aragorn, Sauron, Galadriel, Andúril, and Gandalf don't count. Most of the made-up names for things also have English equivalents. Sure, they're called the Nazgûl, but that's their name in the Black Speech of Mordor; their English name is "Ringwraith," which, while made up, is just a compound of two real words. The Dúnedain are called Rangers; lembas is called waybread.

It also helps that all the terms in all the various languages are linguistically rigorous. The "mith" in mithril, Mithrandir (the Elves' name for Gandalf), and Mithrond (the Grey Havens) are all from the same Elvish root. I think Tolkien also did a good job in not introducing too many terms at once, and always explained them when they came up. One bad habit of some authors is to introduce a made-up word without explaining it, and without giving enough context for its meaning to be obvious. You can introduce all sorts of made-up crap as long as you take the time to explain it.
 
I actually don't know if LotR would qualify in the "too many made-up words" department, because what xkcd was railing against was using made-up words in place of perfectly-good real words. Most of the regular things in the world had the same names as things in our world. Except oliphaunts. ;)

Names like Aragorn, Sauron, Galadriel, Andúril, and Gandalf don't count. Most of the made-up names for things also have English equivalents. Sure, they're called the Nazgûl, but that's their name in the Black Speech of Mordor; their English name is "Ringwraith," which, while made up, is just a compound of two real words. The Dúnedain are called Rangers; lembas is called waybread.

It also helps that all the terms in all the various languages are linguistically rigorous. The "mith" in mithril, Mithrandir (the Elves' name for Gandalf), and Mithrond (the Grey Havens) are all from the same Elvish root. I think Tolkien also did a good job in not introducing too many terms at once, and always explained them when they came up. One bad habit of some authors is to introduce a made-up word without explaining it, and without giving enough context for its meaning to be obvious. You can introduce all sorts of made-up crap as long as you take the time to explain it.

To provide a counterexample though. LotR had wayyy too many names to remember--especially ones that were not relevant. And I never remembered the foreign names of objects the first time through either. In fact, without context of how things were being used I wouldn't have been able to make it through the book when I read it.

Granted, I was tiny back then and it's possible I wouldn't even blink at a read-through today (even if for the first-time), but I somehow doubt it. I consider myself an ADHD reader and if something isn't relevant I skim it. If something is introduced early for apparently no point to come up later with a point (the inverse of Deus Ex Machina), I'm still usually taken aback as though it was actual Deus Ex Machina. Am I like most readers? Probably not, but I would err on the side of ADHD before erring on the side of competence.
 
One of my favorite uses of the Wall of Made-Up Words method is at the start of John C. Wright's "The Golden Age". It's a two page introduction to the setting which serves to completely disorient the new reader. Everything gets explained at a much easier pace in chapter one and following, but the initial introduction has incomprehensible jargon coming at you left and right. It left me completely at a loss, and, perhaps surprisingly, eager to figure out what the heck he was talking about.
 

Mindfire

Istar
One of my favorite uses of the Wall of Made-Up Words method is at the start of John C. Wright's "The Golden Age". It's a two page introduction to the setting which serves to completely disorient the new reader. Everything gets explained at a much easier pace in chapter one and following, but the initial introduction has incomprehensible jargon coming at you left and right. It left me completely at a loss, and, perhaps surprisingly, eager to figure out what the heck he was talking about.

It should be noted that not all readers will react the way you did, and such a technique is not to be relied upon, especially for new writers.
 
It should be noted that not all readers will react the way you did, and such a technique is not to be relied upon, especially for new writers.

Oh, certainly -- YMMV, in the reading or the writing. However, I'm pretty sure the effect is deliberate in Wright's case, so it might be helpful for writers attempting the same, if it feels appropriate for the story. Not a technique to rely on, but there is a place and time for it, of course.
 

Devor

Fiery Keeper of the Hat
Moderator
So, what do people think of using foreign words, like jian for a type of broadsword or deel for a type of tunic or robe, if they imply relatively minor distinctions that the English words don't? Or should I start a new thread?
 
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