Writers' Workshop: Made Up Terms

[KONGO]

What I'm going to do in this thread is pretty simple. I want to field a question that maybe guys with writing inclinations have questions about or thoughts on, just to get some discussion bouncing around. I'm personally very interested in prose and conveyance and I think that side of writing is not discussed often enough. What this is NOT is a writing/feedback exchange, though obviously if people want to set those up, I'm not against it. Also, I don't expect us to all come to some sort of consensus where we all agree that "this is how we'll all handle it." I just would like to get some perspectives from other people, both as writers and as readers, as even if you don't take on board every suggestion, just knowing how people perceive what you're writing is helpful.

Now, as for the first question: How do you handle made up terms in your writing?

I suppose this mostly matters for fantasy or science-fiction writers, but I think it's useful for people working with various jargons, or just as a thought experiment. I have heard in a lot of feedback that you shouldn't load the text with a lot of made up terms because you either need to waste a lot of space defining them or you leave your readers in the dark. Personally, I've always felt that for a lot of things (such as measurement units), context brings across everything I need. If it's "10 jarbleks to get from here to the next system," to me it doesn't strictly matter if you can imagine exactly what a jarblek is, you know it takes this distance to get from here to there. Everything else that's important about it to the story -- whether it is far to the characters, primarily -- can be told from their reactions or other actions, or just through description.

But like I said, those are just my thoughts on it. There's no answer to writing, and further, I'm not really convinced about my answer. Main thing is that I don't know if people read the same way I do, if context is enough to bring all that across. And also, when is context alone not enough? All knots I haven't unraveled for myself yet.

Feel free to weigh in as a writer, a reader, or both.

[Maxx]

Just make sure they embiggen the story.

[Sweet Holy Moses]

I pretty much have a simple rule: if a word already exists in the language you're writing in for whatever it is you're describing, use it. The only time I stray much from this rule is for flavour, and only for small things. For example, I might have one character refer to another by his official title, even if the title is a direct translation of King, or First Citizen. I might have characters greet each other in their language. Two French-speakers would say <<Bonjour.>> Limiting your foreign phrases to these small instances reminds your reader that you're discussing a different world/planet/country/whatever, but doesn't overly confuse them.

[KONGO]

Well, I suppose what I'm asking is what if there isn't already a word? What if I'm talking about a super-advanced alloy of a metal or a magic object whose function has no mirror in common life, like something that steals souls? Am I restricted to simply calling it a soulstealer, or could I get away with calling it an "incanter" or something?

[Dr. Rated-R]

I'd go with "incanter".

It's better to create a lush, living, breathing world with its own culture and terms and concepts to hook your audience than it is to ball-and-chain yourself to the notion of simplicity for their sake. They'll understand what an incanter is the second you tell them an incantee is running about incanting with her incanter and the wretched thing is sucking people's souls out through their eye sockets. The custom nomenclature can only help because it enriches the world you're creating and helps to separate it from the litany of other sci-fi/fantasy stories out there. Just try and evenly distribute the expository text needed to explain all your worlds' eccentricities between dialogue, narration, and description so it never seems clunky and you shouldn't have a problem -- people who are reading sci-fi or fantasy want to feel like they've been taken somewhere else.

[KONGO]

So then I'd have to ask, as a reader, is there a point where you feel like new concepts can be overwhelming? I can't say it's something I've really experienced too much, but it's also a criticism I've often received. When do you start feeling like there's too much information?

[GA!]

Introducing all sorts of unique terms and concepts is great for world building but like I said in my feedback to you Kong, I personally wouldn't do it to such a great extent as the story begins, as your primary job at that point is to ease the reader into the story through plot and characterisation. Once the reader is hooked, then begin the terms/concepts. Start right away and you're asking the reader to take a huge leap of faith that the story will become intelligible to them eventually.

[apsham]

I never seem to have problems with made up terms/words in stories, I seem to be able to wrap my head around that pretty easily.

But names on the other hand? Fantasy and sci-fi... I can't read a lot of times due to this.

[Colly]

I've yet to see/read The Hunger Games yet, but those names are fucking horrendous. They sound like a Family Guy parody of fantasy names.

[Skummy]

It depends on the context. If you're telling your story from the perspective of someone who lives in your sci-fi/fantasy universe, that character is not logically going to stop and explain every concept, as they would be perfectly normal to them and not require explaining.

It's why a lot of fantasy/sci-fi stories rely on an "every man", either the "fish out of water" protagonist, or the Doctor's Assistant style character, who exists to ask questions, to give other characters reason to explain what all these words and concepts mean.

Mostly, though, it's the same as if you come across an English word that you're unfamiliar with...you can usually hazard a guess as to what it means from the context.

One of my favourite sci-fi stories is Alan Moore's "Ballad Of Halo Jones". For the first couple of books (it's a comic series), Halo and her friends are teenage girls in a space-age city, so they speak in a lot of invented slang. At some points, it seems like every other word is invented - but, from the way they're used, it's not unreadable.

[KONGO]

On fantasy/sci-fi names, I think ultimately shutting your mind off to weird names is a bad attitude to have. My name is Obinna, and if I thought people were going "Fuck I don't want to say Obinna I've never heard a name like that before" every time they had to talk to me, I'd be offended. The whole idea is that they are foreign names. Sometimes, names are slapped together without any regard for sound and I think that's bad. But just being irritated that their names aren't derivations of John, Charles, Sarah, and Amanda is not the way to read.

As for putting new terms in the beginning of the story or not, personally, my thought is if they are easy to understand, should it matter? If I say "incanter" without context in the beginning of the story I can see that being a problem, but if I say "He made the incanter's eyes light up and it yanked Rob's soul out of his body," that seems to describe just what the incanter is or at least enough of its relevant function to be understood. At this point, is it only that it's a foreign term that's a problem? I don't see myself getting too tripped up about this personally, but I'm not sure if others do, though most who have weighed in so far seem not to have a problem with new terms.