Months and Calendar

[Marscaleb]

I'm debating about using real months in my fantasy story, or using made-up fantasy month names. In fact, I'm considering using a new calendar system, not just replacing the month names.

On one hand, it makes the world more fantastical to have more original elements. But on the other hand, it is easier to follow the course of events if the time is chronicled in the way that we already understand.

I'm writing a series that takes place over several years, and I suspect that I'm going to have numerous flashbacks. While it certainly would be fun to have all-new month names, that also makes it harder for the reader to follow. Most readers are not going to want to have to flip back to some index every time a date is mentioned just to see what it means. And if I manage to get an audiobook recording, that's not even going to be possible. Plenty of readers will get annoyed every time someone mentions the Fourth of Garfumbleheimerinber and the twelfth of Frubinjuliarkuary as if we expect the reader to know which of those occurs first.
Sure I can reference the months by number, but this doesn't always work in every context. People say month names, not numbers.

But on the other hand, reverting to our own calendar is just unimaginative, and even a missed opportunity.
One thought I had was to have the calendar use twelve months that are all 30 days long, but they have a leap year every six years that has an extra month. This thirteenth month could have a lot of superstitious belief about it, like bad things happen in that month. And it would just so happen to be that a particularly important event in my story happens to occur in this thirteenth month, and it is there where a long-awaited confrontation occurs and a certain character falls in battle. That adds a lot of layers to my story, giving new opportunities for foreshadowing, and its way more interesting than just having that occur in December.

But it's also asking more of the reader, asking them to understand additional elements, and they aren't magic systems that let my characters do cool stuff.
I've already introduced new measurement systems that are going to throw some readers for a loop when they are mentioned. But at the same time, I'm also using the exact same clock as our real world, because it just becomes too confusing to the readers and too important to the story to be able to convey the passage of time.

Ultimately I have to decide this for myself, but I'd love to open up the forum to a discussion on calendar systems in fantasy literature. What other advantages/disadvantages have I missed? What are some examples of when a new system has been done well? Examples of when it worked better to just copy our calendar? What preferences do you have as a reader? What tricks do you use as a writer to know where to draw the line on using original systems?

 

[El_d_ray]

I just finished "City of Stairs" by Robert Jackson Bennett, and in this books he used different animals for the name of the month. It goes like "the month of the Rat, the month of the Rabbit" ect. I fought it was working very well! If I wanted, I could linked different animal with different season (it was not needed, but alas) and it wasn't just some word that will escape my brain for the lack of sense. I will definitely use this idea.
Diskworld by Terry Pratchett have a mix of familiar names and others, which usually explained right there when they are used and it is matter to the story. Can't came up with an example, sadly.

 

[pmmg]

I think if you used it, most readers would accept it, and file it aways as there are different month names, and this stuff happened in a different month than some other event, but...unless I have to piece it all together, I'll just go with some time in the past.

I do think it can help with immersion, but it can also distract, depending on how clear and how heavy handed it is. If you month have convenient names Hot month and cold month, that might help people place it better

In my own story world, I had decided long ago that the year was 360 days, and every month was 30 days (I even thought I would have the days be longer, 28 hours and not 24) and after I thought it all up, I never really came out in the story. So, its just for my own information. I also thought I would go with there being three seasons, a hot season, a cold season and a rainy one, but I never quite got it flowing. It just seemed like having four was inescapable cause they has to be in between hot and cold.

We can all dive into the weeds of this stuff and hope it add immersion, but...story trumps world building. A good story is needed more.

I will add, if you have a fantasy world and use our months, July and August will stand out to me as being particularly unlikely.

 

[Mad Swede]

Before you get to the point of working out the number of days in each month and so on, I'd ask you how many people in your setting can read and write? For illiterate people the names of months and the lengths of years don't have a lot of meaning unless some priest or other official makes a point of mentioning a month or year when something will happen or has happened. That means religion and the way a country or city is run has an impact on how people see things like weeks, months and years. The thing that will matter is the seasons, because these drive what sort of food is available.

 

[skip.knox]

It's fine to invent names of months or whatever else. What's not fine is to invent reasons to use them.

To put it another way, I use the English names, but for the most part the stories I have written simply don't use them. The characters don't have occasion to reference a particular month. They might say summer or even late summer. They might say harvest time or planting season. But to name a month just doesn't fit my thoroughly pre-modern world. Eventually someone one in one of my stories might need to say September, and then I'll use the name.

 

[Karlin]

I've read a fair amount of Chinese and Japanese classic novels. They refer to the Chinese calendar, but usually (at least in translation) as "1st Lunar month" or something along those lines- and it comes with a brief description of the weather. So you don't need to know exactly when the 1st lunar month is- but if you do (it is not difficult to know when the year starts), then everything falls into place. This works because the months are not named, they are numbered. By the way- the days of the week are numbered in Hebrew, and if you look at the Bible, usually months are numbered, not named.

On the other hand, I've run into an hour system that I find confusing. When a 24 hour period is divided into 12 "hours", and each has a name, it requires going back and forth to an appendix to recall when "the hour of the horse" is. Of course, in these cases, the original audience knew what it meant.

 

[Marscaleb]

I'm starting to wonder why it isn't more common to just have footnotes in fantasy works.
Why reference an index when you could just have a footnote on the few pages that reference a particular thing?

I can't think of any time I've ever seen this in a fiction novel, but it sounds less obtrusive than weirdly expository dialogue.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I personally think it matters very little. If it bothers you, it's easy to just skip naming months. They come up surprisingly little in everyday conversation, and if it's necessary you can just reference either a season or go with a generic descriptor like harvest month. But as long as you're sticking to 365 day years (give or take 50 or so) and 30-ish day months, then readers will just consider it the regular earth calendar with funny names added.

It's also fine to just use our months and go with the idea that your work is simply a translation of whatever story you're telling and that the translator used our month names simply because that's what people know.

Of course, if you do start with inventing your own names, then start by asking yourself why have 12 months, and 30 day months and 365 days in the first place. There's absolutely no reason for any of that in an alternative world. You can just as easily use one of the weirder earth calendars we've used throughout history. The Aztec one shares some similarities with what you're describing, both in function and in cultural significance for instance.

But why not have 3 moons and a 250 day year. Where there are 3 different types of months that run through each other, each used by a different faction or whatever?

 

[CupofJoe]

The donjon site has [amongst many other things] a Fantasy calendar generator.

 

[Karlin]

I'm starting to wonder why it isn't more common to just have footnotes in fantasy works.
Why reference an index when you could just have a footnote on the few pages that reference a particular thing?

I can't think of any time I've ever seen this in a fiction novel, but it sounds less obtrusive than weirdly expository dialogue.

Terry pratchett does this quite a lot

 

[Gurkhal]

Since it does not tend to be important in my stories I go with the Western calender months to make it easy for myself and the reader

 

[Miles Lacey]

I had a calendar that had 13 months made up of 28 days, divided into four weeks of 7 days and a stand alone day for New Year's Day. Every four years there was a second New Year's Day that was called something along the lines of Leap Day. The day(s) of the New Year was marked by major festivities to honour the God of the Afterworld who oversees the death of the old year and the birth of the new year as well as the dead.

Each month was named after a specific God or Goddess. The days were the same as ours but I used the Tahitian names for them.

In day to day conversation a day would simply be referred to as Day 3 of Maui and, if referring to something like a birthday it would be referred to as Day 3 of Maui, 7-445.

In written form it was written as 03.13.7 - 445 (day/month/millenium/year

No names are used for the days because, unlike our calendar, the 3rd day of the month always falls at the same time.

New Years Day is simply referred to as New Years Day. If referring to New Years Day in 7445 it would be written as 0.0.7-445. If it was a leap year the Leap Day would be written as 1.0.7-444.