OGone
Troubadour
I'm reading Prince of Thorns at the moment. On one page Mark Lawrence, the author, quotes Nietzsche, a German philosopher who I'm guessing was born way after the novel is meant to take place. In fact, having read it about half the way through I'm still unsure exactly if it's set in a fictional world or not. He constantly references the Romans, Nubans, Sun Tzu and a bunch of other real life empires and figures but I'm sure his world is set in a fictional one.
Maybe I'm wrong and it isn't but I thought that maybe I could actually do this in my writing. Despite being set in a fictional world, I sometimes reference real-life nursery rhymes for easy analogies. I'd like to carry it over and use the same people we have. It saves a lot of world building and explaining to the reader, if I wanted a character to quote, say, Gandhi in dialogue then I'd have to create a new character and give a paragraph of world building just to make the point or the reader will be totally confused.
If I just say Gandhi was a... Tengu... who led the Tengu to independence in the year 173 during the second age then I can reference everything Gandhi said without having to create a character, for the convenience of the readers (and also myself).
Is that... lazy? It's actually really something I want to incorporate. Anybody know any fantasy novels that do this?
Another thing, which is kind of related, is that I've always tried to avoid using words which only came into existence after roughly the time where my fantasy world's technology is at. So for example if I wanted to use "pillbox" in a description then I'd avoid it because it only came into use in the very late 19th century (my technology level is around about the 16th-17th). I'm thinking of scrapping this as well and just using these words. I can then define them as something else in my world.
If the Lizardmen use a pillbox with a gatling gun firing arrows, it's easier to just say that than worry about if the terms pillbox and gatling gun would exist yet in my world. I mean, I have lizard men. It's not really that much of a push.
Is that jarring for a reader? Say if a character in a world resembling the 11th century makes reference to "electricity" in the sky, is that so bad?
Maybe I'm wrong and it isn't but I thought that maybe I could actually do this in my writing. Despite being set in a fictional world, I sometimes reference real-life nursery rhymes for easy analogies. I'd like to carry it over and use the same people we have. It saves a lot of world building and explaining to the reader, if I wanted a character to quote, say, Gandhi in dialogue then I'd have to create a new character and give a paragraph of world building just to make the point or the reader will be totally confused.
If I just say Gandhi was a... Tengu... who led the Tengu to independence in the year 173 during the second age then I can reference everything Gandhi said without having to create a character, for the convenience of the readers (and also myself).
Is that... lazy? It's actually really something I want to incorporate. Anybody know any fantasy novels that do this?
Another thing, which is kind of related, is that I've always tried to avoid using words which only came into existence after roughly the time where my fantasy world's technology is at. So for example if I wanted to use "pillbox" in a description then I'd avoid it because it only came into use in the very late 19th century (my technology level is around about the 16th-17th). I'm thinking of scrapping this as well and just using these words. I can then define them as something else in my world.
If the Lizardmen use a pillbox with a gatling gun firing arrows, it's easier to just say that than worry about if the terms pillbox and gatling gun would exist yet in my world. I mean, I have lizard men. It's not really that much of a push.
Is that jarring for a reader? Say if a character in a world resembling the 11th century makes reference to "electricity" in the sky, is that so bad?
Auror
