Immersion, and the days of the week.

[Vvashjr]

You guys are giving me a lot of ideas about this, and I didn't think of naming my days. My character's POV typically takes place within an entire day. If I need to make it known that an appointment is set days ahead, I simply put it as simple as "over the new few days" while giving a summary of what has the character been doing(usually something mundane).

 

[Vvashjr]

That would break immersion for me, if a fantasy character referenced Friday night or something. In my WIP i'm doing my best to avoid it.

I have a similar problem with saying things like January or 6:00. Who knows if any measure of time would be the same as ours? I don't want to come up with a whole other system to make my readers memorize, so I sidestep it.

For timing, for hours I use "bell tones" from a religious place of worship to denote. For minutes, I typically use candlemarks or water level(water clocks). But overall, I try not to be too specific about the actual timing when it comes to minutes, so I usually use "a few moments later"

 

[kjbartolotta]

I would do anything to sidestep an issue like this. IRL days of the week don't sound right to me, and I don't want to learn new ones. The calendar in my setting doesn't really have days or months, rather everything runs on an elaborate cycle based on lunar and sidereal movement, and people measure days by how close they are to important holidays and festivals. There's one at least once a week or something, so it's doable.

 

[The_Lone_Paladin]

I hadn't thought of the week as a judeo-christian construct. I thought it was more to do with easily dividing the 28 days of the moon's cycle.
In the past I have spent a long time preparing creating calendars, days of the weeks and months and all that went with them. Now I just use relative dates or made up "holidays". So something might happen in three weeks/twenty days time on the eve of Star-fall night or Saint Glem's day...
I do wish there was a word in English for "the day after tomorrow" and "the day before yesterday". They would be very useful.

That's what a fortnight is

 

[Ireth]

I do wish there was a word in English for "the day after tomorrow" and "the day before yesterday". They would be very useful.

There are, tho they're rather archaic now... "Ereyesterday" and "overmorrow".

 

[ZLMeinecke]

My story's calendar is a 13 month system, based on the 13 holy saints. To keep it comparable to the American calendar to help readers, and admittedly myself, each month is 28 days to keep on track with the moon cycle, and one seperate Holy Day to keep it at 365 days.

Rather than naming the days, it will be more 'On the 12th day of the month of St. Domnhall' instead of "Next Tuesday".

 

[Svrtnsse]

Since this thread popped up again, I figured it's time for an update. I'm now 7 books into the series, and so far I still haven't mentioned any name for any weekday.

 

[skip.knox]

I've read a fair amount of medieval documents, from court records to chronicles to literature to parish registers. One rarely finds a day name (except for Sunday, of course). I've not looked into it, but I'd be willing to bet one shiny dime that we start seeing day names regularly when we start getting factories.

 

[Svrtnsse]

I've read a fair amount of medieval documents, from court records to chronicles to literature to parish registers. One rarely finds a day name (except for Sunday, of course). I've not looked into it, but I'd be willing to bet one shiny dime that we start seeing day names regularly when we start getting factories.

I had no idea of this, and it's actually quite cool.

In Enar's Vacation, the anfylk talk a fair bit about the Restday, but the names of the other ones are barely even mentioned.

Could this be one of those cases where modern writers are overthinking it and are unknowingly applying modern day conventions without there being any "need" for it?

 

[skip.knox]

Medieval chronology is fascinating. It's actually its own sub-discipline. Rarely taught in grad school any more, but was once upon a time. I have the pieces and parts for an article on time in the Middle Ages, but all writing right now is queued up behind getting the wretched novel finished.

 

[ZLMeinecke]

I have a book in my writer's library, I believe the title is something like 'A Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England', and it has a great bit about medieval calendars and timekeeping.