Worldbuilding: when is it too much?

[serria]

I, along with a couple other members of this community, absolutely love world building. In stories that take place in non-Earth settings, I love developing cultures, religions, ecosystems - you name it. Part of the appeal is the freedom to be god without worrying about mucking up details, but mostly I just love the opportunity to be creative.

But as I write "original world" stories, I find myself struggling with a lexicon that's realistic to my world without being annoying. Here's an example: if characters in a fantasy world have a concept of named days/weeks, should they use Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc.? How about January, February, and so forth? It would be strange for a culture that had no Roman or Germanic history to use names blatantly rooted in such, just as it might be for these characters to celebrate Christmas. Is it therefore more helpful to invent new named days and months, or does simply confuse the readers unnecessarily, and it is permissible to "translate" a fantasy world into common vernacular?

When does "changing names" go from being world building, to falling under "Call A Rabbit A 'Smeerp'" territory?

In the same ballpark, but more extreme, should the words that characters use, or I use in my narration, be subject to world realism? Is it strange to use the word "maudlin" when the word comes from Mary Magdalene? Okay, that's a radical example, but I think most readers would be thrown out of a story if a character stubbed his toe and shouted "Jesus Christ!", even though the expression is better understood than perhaps a fantasy counterpart - so where is the line between making language and the world understandable to readers, and retaining world realism?

Comments

[mk10]

I don't really think having named days of the week would bother me, as a reader, or break the immersion.

As for the words that the characters use - things like "maudlin" wouldn't distract me at all. In fact, I often think it's more distracting when characters use made-up words in a fantasy setting. It sort of draws attention to the fact that it's a story.

If the story is told well then, as a reader, I can accept almost anything as long as the world works consistently.

But that's just my two cents.

[serria]

Maudlin was kind of an extreme example (though I admit it did cross my mind when I used it). But I don't know. The days of the week thing, I feel like it would depend on the atmosphere of the story. If it is a very similar world to Earth (modern day, or a historic society that actually used those names), it'd probably be more jarring to rename them. But if I were reading about a fantasy world that has no connection at all to those named days or months, or is based off of a historic society that would not have used them - I don't know, I think it might strike me as a little off. It might have to do with my love and academic interest in history, but I get thrown off by things I see as inauthentic.

Granted, if it is your fantasy world or alternate universe, it's really up to you to decide what names you use, and maybe your characters actually do have Mondays. But I feel like, for me, as a reader, I like authenticity - but at the same time, if your people have a seven day week, and those days have names, is it worth it to rename them when they essentially have the same meaning? Or is that just "calling a rabbit a smeerp" and obnoxious?

Another example in my own story that I am uncertain about is political titles. Rather than use things like "duke" or "earl", I created my own titles for lords of different ranks - I think at the time, I mostly wanted to show off the flavor of my world's language when they are, obviously, speaking in English (but not really). And I wanted to create a concise political system that was much more simplified than real life titles. I chiseled out a system that worked for my world, but looking back, I wonder how obnoxious it comes across, or even unnecessarily confusing.

I think I might go overboard with world building. lol

[lunabee34]

I think having different names for months and days of the week and different words that reflect the culture you're building are fine, but I also think it's okay to use words like maudlin in this fantasy world.

[serria]

Thanks for the input. I am sure that second guessing vocabulary origins is going too far - I generally think we should, after all, use words that are best suited to meaning. Then again, apparently Tolkien went so far as to only use origin appropriate vocabulary, though I'm no linguist and maybe that is going a bit too far.

[lunabee34]

LOL Maybe so. :)

[agilebrit]

I draw the line at the point it starts distracting my beta readers, frankly.

I am also deliberately vague, but I can probably get away with this easier in short fiction than someone can in novels and series. I'm reading the second book in the Kingkiller Chronicles by Pat Rothfuss, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't name his days of the week or his months. You don't have to.

[serria]

That's not a bad idea - to just avoid referencing them. Definitely avoids the problem all together.

[inkdust]

In that vein, it seems very common for fantasy works to only reference seasons.

[serria]

That's also true! I find that I want to default to using named days and months, because of course, that's how I speak in real life. :P With clever wording, I suppose it's possible to avoid the issue completely without the reader even considering how the world approaches the calendar.

[sarillia]

I have this fuzzy line where if I feel like there are a lot of people who probably don't know the origins of the word then I'll go ahead and use it. The days of the week would be a borderline one. I'm like you and tend to question a lot and I tend to do what agilebrit said and not use any labels for the days of the week. After all, who says every society will organize the year and months into weeks with regular days? Maybe they have a different system for tracking the calendar.

But then there are things like "Herculean" where the origin is pretty obvious so I would avoid that. Also words for ideologies like "feminism" are things that I avoid. Although now I'm finding it very interesting that the oppressive systems in place feel universal enough to be put into a fantasy story without comment but the movements to shut them down feel too much a part of our world. I'll have to think more about this.

[inkdust]

that the oppressive systems in place feel universal enough to be put into a fantasy story without comment but the movements to shut them down feel too much a part of our world

Wow, yeah, that is VERY interesting to consider.

[serria]

I actually put a lot of thought into my world's calendar when I was doing the world building. I did think about weeks, days, months, years - how would it be different? Then I figured a month is essentially a moon's cycle - that's where the term "month" comes from, anyway. A week could theoretically be a different number of days, presumably fitting into the month in an order, more or less. But adjusting those times too much makes two problems that I see: one, opens a possibility that a year in the fantasy world is different from a year on Earth, which I wouldn't care to touch unless I was writing science fiction, and two, I couldn't see it as necessary unless it reflected an important number or other significance in my culture (such as, Splintered Star mentioned below, the Discworld series using eight days instead of seven). I didn't see that as necessary for my world, and certainly not worth the explanation. So I did use typical weeks and months, but I gave the weekdays new names - named after gods, as our real week is. I even thought about including a Sun Day and a Moon Day (after Sunday and Monday) but stuck with god days. I thought I was pretty clever at first, but then was second guessing how necessarily or obnoxious it was, hence this post. XD

Haha, your example of Herculean - another real example from my writing is, I wanted to describe a particular room as "Spartan", and then had to double-take. Though it's a word that has a meaning, the root is too obvious, and didn't feel appropriate for a world that didn't have Sparta.

I don't think I'd ever use any -ism word in a premodern fantasy world - I guess it's possible, but those just seem like really modern concepts (as an organized ideology, I mean). Despite the fact that I am interested in feminism in the fantasy genre, and absolutely interested in fantasy that tackles modern day issues like sexism, racism, homophobia, etc within its own setting, I'd be a little skeptical of flat out using those terms. If I think about it, I suppose it could be done, I guess I'd just have to see it done well.

[splinteredstar]

Well, the way I look at it.... (Having had this whole line of thought before, in reference to lines of Japanese in fanfiction that is otherwise written in English) When writing fantasy, the author is already translating the prose and dialogue from whatever language it was originally into whatever language the author is writing in. Leaving things in the original language, in most cases, is pointless.

However, there are things that are untranslatable, or where straight translation would strip out meaning. Like, to use a fandom example: L calling Light "Light-kun" expresses information about the characterization and relationship those characters that taking the suffix out would remove.

As for the days of the week thing, I don't know. I guess it might be another "If it adds to the world" kind of thing. Like in Discworld they have an Eight day week because Eight is a magical number (the eight is named Octday). Hm. I tend to go with urban fantasy, so that I haven't thought about.

[serria]

That's true, and it is a good point. I'm often annoyed by authors who don't just translate to English when they write stories from foreign countries. That being said, I'm not opposed to some "flavoring" of the story, just to capture a bit more of the atmosphere. It didn't bother me if people didn't use "-kun" in Death Note, for example, but it didn't bother me if they did, either.

[inkdust]

Here's a specific thought that's sort of out of left field, but one possibility for a story that really needs to reference days of the week or months of the year could be to use the Quaker plain calendar: First Day, Second Day, Third Day / First Month, Second Month, etc. It's very simple, but it could fit into a certain kind of world, and it wouldn't be completely invented.

Edit: and "out of left field" is another one of those phrases you have to consider, haha. I faced a similar issue when I was writing ghosts from the Civil War and Prohibition times, always looking up when idioms came into use.

[serria]

If I remember correctly, I want to say Anne McCaffrey use day names like that - something along the lines of First Day, Second Day, etc. It's been a long time since I read the Pern books, but that seems to stick out to me.

I haven't bothered naming my months. I've been doing something similar - referring to "the first moon of spring" or "the second moon of winter" and so on. I did name the days, which is one of the things that inspired this post. I named them after the gods of my world, similar to our week (Thursday = Thor's Day and so on). The pattern was similar so I thought it was a good idea, now I wonder if it's taking things a bit too far. I don't really like explaining things in my narrative to avoid dreaded exposition, I prefer to write exactly as I would if I were writing about an Earth setting. But if it's to the point where your readers don't know what the heck you're talking about?

Ahh, I love historical fiction, but I'd be so nervous about actually writing it. Little idioms, words, phrases - in addition to all the research! If I ever dared to write historical, I'd do something medieval or earlier - where some level of "translation" is generally acceptable.

[inkdust]

It seems to me in terms of detailed worldbuilding, like using new names for timekeeping, it works best when the details are sprinkled in but not necessary for comprehension - like having a character mention that they'll be leaving on [Thor's Day equivalent], but not making it essential for the reader to know/remember that [Thor's Day] follows [Odin's Day]. That gives the impression of cultural depth without throwing the reader out of the story with the technicalities. And I'd say the best test for that is to write it the way you would naturally and then find good beta readers.

I did give myself a little leeway with my historical bits because I put my ghosts in a present-day setting (minimizing the need for setting research) and had them already observing/interacting with people over the years, so they were allowed to pick up a few anachronisms here and there. Full-on historical fiction, that would be a lot to take on.