Fantasy with Friends – hosted by Pages Unbound – poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.
I was on hiatus last month, however this Fantasy with Friends prompt really caught my eye, and I was very keen to write something about it.
Fantasy with Friends:
Anachronisms
Do anachronisms in fantasy bother you? Should fantasy be “similar” to the time period it’s based on, either in terms of language used or things like invention, fashion, customs, etc.?
They don’t, as long as they’re not too clearly anachronisms! It also depends on the fantasy – if it’s lighter in some way, if it’s a comedy or parody, then I can accept it. Especially if the anachronism is used in a clever way using a modern term for a fantastical concept. But if I’m supposed to be taking the story more seriously, I don’t want to be taken out of it too much by coming across something that is clearly 2020s slang or a 20th century phrase.
Something I think is more important than where or when the actual words are from is – does it sound right for this setting? I think authors should consider where certain words or phrases came from, and whether it fits with the world they’re trying to build. Fantasy is, well, fantastic, because realistically you can merge different time periods and cultures together to create something new. But if a particular sport doesn’t exist in your world (as an example), then any phrases that derive from that sport shouldn’t exist, unless there’s another meaning you can draw out of it.
There’s also The Tiffany Problem, something writers of fantasy and historical fiction should absolutely be aware of. If you don’t know about The Tiffany Problem, it essentially refers to names, phrases, objects, terms – pretty much anything! – that is perceived to have much newer roots than it actually does. If you were reading a fantasy set clearly in a medieval era world, and a character was called Tiffany, you might consider it an anachronism and be taken out of the setting. The issue is that Tiffany is a much, much older name than most of us realise, so it could be perfectly historically accurate, but as most fiction can’t write “Princess Tiffany – and yes, Tiffany is a period accurate name!”, the reader doesn’t realise it’s an accurate name, and might then question other elements of the book, or be generally distracted from the reading experience.
Fantasy writers have an advantage with anachronisms that historical writers do not have – their worlds do not have to be accurate to our own! They can create totally different phrases, taking inspiration from what already exists and combining it with the world they’ve created. Or even tilt a phrase so it fits their world – social media wouldn’t exist in the forms of phones or computers outside of Urban Fantasy, but maybe talking birds are used to ‘tweet’ and announce news. Maybe their fantasy world features a renowned, popular bard who takes her stage name from her father’s clothes-based business and her favourite bird. I do like when writers are able to do this sort of thing and pull it off, slipping in nods and references that acts as little easter eggs to some folks (*cough*GRRM*cough*), or even are able to take a modern concept and slip it into a fantasy world as part of their worldbuilding, and make something entertaining from it.
So, in short – if done well, if used carefully and consciously by the writer, anachronisms don’t bother me. However, if it’s something that is clearly an anachronism because the writer hasn’t actually done research or checked it during editing, then I’m going to be taken out of the story and wonder what else they may have got wrong!
Unwrapping Words 