Anachronistic Dialogue in Fantasy

This Friday I wrote a short piece of fantasy flash fiction where a number of commenters raised an interesting issue. They noted that my dialogue pulled them out of the story because it was too modern. But, at the same time we can't be using period authentic dialogue and still get our point across. Now, with fantasy you have a little more leeway because the period the story is based off is a little more ambiguous, but even writers of historical fiction can't be 100% true to the language.


Imagine a historical fiction about the signing of the Magna Carta (assuming they talk in English vs. Latin.) Now you can argue that even the Old English that they would use is a completely different language, but in the end, our modern English is evolved from that, just so that our modern 21st century English is evolved from 17th century English. Not only are the definitions of the words different, but the metaphors will make absolutely no sense to the modern reader. This is probably why even the Canterbury tales (late 1300's and technically Middle English) is published often with the original text and a modern translation along with it.


So, unless you are one of those stubborn purists, I've probably convinced you that dialogue for fantasy and even historical fiction needs to be modernized. But that does not give writers a licence (if they want people to read what they write) to have the dialogue of their fantasy roughly based on the middle ages to include, "Dude, I'm trying to celebrate and chill, but you're harshing my buzz. What's going on?" This is where we now get to the interesting point of this article. We can't take modern dialogue and stick it in the story, but you also can't be authentic. What are you to do?


First, that example ("Dude, I'm trying to celebrate and chill, but you're harshing my buzz. What's going on?") is my rough, modern translation of this line from Chaucer, "What fold been ye, that at myn hom-comynge perturben so my feste with criynge?" Neither works, but we can do better, right?


The first problem with my version (if this was going into a fantasy of historical fiction piece) is obviously the slang. "Dude, chill, and harshing my buzz." We need to take that out and replace it with something perhaps a little more appropriate. How about:


"Sir, I'm trying to celebrate and relax, but your spirit is without cheer. What's going on?"


Now there's an interesting thing here as well. I've got some contractions in there. I'm sure people back in the day used them just as we do today, but there seems to be a prejudice in our media (movies, plays, books, etc.) about the people back in the day speaking in nice, crisp, proper English...without contractions. And especially somebody would would bother addressing anybody as 'sir.' So, taking those out, we have:


"Sir, I am trying to celebrate and relax, but your spirit is without cheer. What is going on?"


I'm still not happy with "What is going on?" and I think there needs to be a better way. It still sounds too modern (even though, as we saw from Chaucer, everything about my sentence is 'modern.'). So what I'm going to do is just take a phrase that, again, would make no sense in the 14th century, and see what happens:


"Sir, I am trying to celebrate and relax, but your spirit is without cheer. Please, tell me what is the matter?"


All I did was take a phrase that is not used all that often and put it in there instead. This and the other things I put in there alert the reader to know that this is definitely not taking place right this day, because just about nobody they encounter on a daily basis talks like that. From there you are free to use the setting to give your reader a more accurate sense of time.


You don't really want to create authentic period dialogue, but instead what you want is transparent dialogue that gets the character voice across and keeps the plot moving forward. Don't use it for creating setting, let your descriptions do that.


So in summary, what I would recommend at this moment would be the following:


1) Get rid of all slang (contemporary or otherwise unless it is native to the period you are working with)


2) Understand that formality and manners can be useful for some characters to highlight that we are not in our modern time period


3) Use uncommon phrases that seemingly transcend time to allow your setting to pin point the time period.


4) Don't use the 'thee, thou, thine' stuff unless you know what you are doing and the rest of your dialogue is going to be very close to authentic. And even the, I feel it takes away from the clarity and becomes less than transparent.


Hopefully my little rant was helpful, and props go to those who pointed out this issue of anachronistic dialogue in my flash. Without you, I never would have sat down to think about this. Thanks.


What do you think? How should dialogue be handled in Fantasy (and Historical Fiction.)

Reading

As a writer, you need to read in order to write. It’s just one of those truths out there. I personally can’t stand when I talk with somebody and they say “I’m writing a novel.” or “I’m thinking about starting a novel.” My next question then is usually “What kind of book are you writing.” They then start to sputter because their book is far too complicated to be stuck in a single genre and be summed up in a mear couple sentences. So then I follow up with, “What do you read?” And let me tell you, it is incredibly sad when the response I get is “I don’t really read all that much.”

Seriously?

If you want to be a painter, you need to be immersed in paintings. If you want to be a musician, you need to immersed in music. If you want to be a writer…I guess that’s all you need. No! You need to be immersed in books. The question then is, what should you, as an author, read?

I think there are about four levels that an author has in their reading list. The first level is the most crucial for them to read. It’s their genre and where they will get a lot of their voice from. The second level are the classics. They help immerse the author in truly great works in the art. The third level is the out-of-genre modern books. These, if time requires, should be sacrificed, but are important none the less. Finally, we come to the non-fiction aspect. Here you can gain incredible insights into how the world, mind, people, organizations, etc. work. Reading non-fiction, while it won’t necessarily help much with your prose and story telling, it will give your writing a real sense of legitimacy.

So obviously reading in your genre is the first thing you want to do. You need to know what types of things fans of your genre like and expect. You need to know whether or not certain themes have been done to death and become cliched. You need to figure out what things have not been done and would make your work new and unique. You also will find that a lot of descriptions are shared throughout genres. Romance will describe love making pretty frequently. If you write romance you better have lots of ways to describe that. Fantasy will describe new and interesting characters/worlds. You had better be able to do that if you write fantasy. And so on and so on. So I’ll stop here since I shouldn’t have to convince any of you on this point.

With respect to the classics, you might say that it’s a waste of time to read those. You might say that “people don’t write like that anymore.” or “That style sounds so dated.” But there is a lot you can learn. First, each writer will have at least one fundamental aspect of story telling down right mastered. Be it plot, voice, dialogue, characterization. No matter the time period, those aspects never go away as requirements for a good story. So learn from them because they are classics for a reason.

Imagine you read the ten greatest books published each year (as defined by Professor Smith’s 2134 Literature 435 class at Yale) How would those books on rank overall on average? Perhaps the top book might crack the top 200 of all time, once in a while. The 10th greatest book that year, probably in the 1000’s. So to hammer this point even further. Even if you read (regardless of genere) the best books each year, chances are they still won’t match up to the classics in terms of greatness. So since you emulate what you read, read great books.

Now onto those out of genre books. They will provide you with a good round backing for the rest of your story. There are some things that certain genre books do quite well. For instance those a fore mentioned romance books. If you read some of those, I will guarantee you that the next little romantic encounter you throw into your thriller novel will be written much better. Similarly for the romance writer: If you read more thrillers, you will be more apt to put a compelling bit of suspense and action to spice up your romance.

The same thing goes for all the other genres. Literary fiction will teach you characterization and good symbolism/theming. Fantasy/Scifi will teach you how to really create a compelling setting. Mystery will teach you how to create suspense and good puzzles. Even childrens books will teach you how to convey a message in as few words as possible.

Finally, as for non-fiction, reading those types of books will give your books that last little touch of legitimacy that can change something from good to great. Reading a book on psychology will make your characters more believable in their actions and emotions. They can give you insights into family situations you don’t have personal experience with. They can teach you just how far a person can go in terms of mental illness. Other books can teach you just how the inner functions of government work. Another might give you some great perspective on the life of a police officer. These books might not be relevant for whatever you’re working on now, but you never know when this knowledge will come in handy and help you craft the perfect scene and or book.

So keep reading, read wide, and read often.

Please let me know if I forgot anything.