I'm reading another volume in O'Brian's historical series about Captain Jack Aubrey. He is a masterful writer and here's an example. A new admiral has taken command of the fleet and meets with his officers. O'Brian describes him listening stone-faced, giving nothing away, patient, "... a man thoroughly used to committees."
Now, that's a wonderfully compact phrase. Alas, it is just the sort of phrase we who write epic fantasy (and its many cousins) cannot use precisely because of its strength. The phrase depends on us having certain preconceptions about committees and so is very much of this world and is rather modern. Used in an epic fantasy, it pulls the reader right out of the moment.
I've encountered this many times. Much of what makes the prose of, say, Raymond Chandler so marvelous is its deep connections with 20thc sensibilities. Many times I've had a scene detail or a bit of dialog that would be so much better if I could just use a modern turn. One that we have mentioned here in Scribes is the use of "fire an arrow" versus "loose an arrow."
It just struck me today (the idea, not the arrow) that people often talk about how fantasy writers have so much freedom--we can create whole worlds, and have the people in them behave as we please. This is true, but the cruel fact is, the vocabulary available to us to describe that world is modern, and the further we deviate from that--whether through made-up words or through anachronistic phrasing--the more we risk losing our readers.
Boo hoo. Poor us.
Now, that's a wonderfully compact phrase. Alas, it is just the sort of phrase we who write epic fantasy (and its many cousins) cannot use precisely because of its strength. The phrase depends on us having certain preconceptions about committees and so is very much of this world and is rather modern. Used in an epic fantasy, it pulls the reader right out of the moment.
I've encountered this many times. Much of what makes the prose of, say, Raymond Chandler so marvelous is its deep connections with 20thc sensibilities. Many times I've had a scene detail or a bit of dialog that would be so much better if I could just use a modern turn. One that we have mentioned here in Scribes is the use of "fire an arrow" versus "loose an arrow."
It just struck me today (the idea, not the arrow) that people often talk about how fantasy writers have so much freedom--we can create whole worlds, and have the people in them behave as we please. This is true, but the cruel fact is, the vocabulary available to us to describe that world is modern, and the further we deviate from that--whether through made-up words or through anachronistic phrasing--the more we risk losing our readers.
Boo hoo. Poor us.