On February 3, 2010 Inkquisitive wrote, I noticed that in Ella Enchanted your characters’ vocabulary isn’t as flowery as what we might find in, say, Shakespeare. I am writing a book for young readers and it is set in a small, fictional kingdom. I tend to think of kingdoms as “way back when” because the monarchy system has fallen out of vogue. So I see my book as a (sort of) period piece and I want the vernacular to reflect that and be believable. However, if this is really going to be a kids\u2019 book, how do I get that “not this day and age” feel without going over the kiddos’ heads? How did you handle this\/what was your rationale in Ella?<\/i><\/p>\n
I used the word wench<\/i> in Ella Enchanted<\/i> and Fairest<\/i>, but I\u2019ve abandoned it, possibly because one of my teachers didn\u2019t like it, possibly because it has a bit of a fake Ye Olde Sweete Shoppe feel to it. She didn\u2019t like lass<\/i> either, felt it sounded Scottish. Lately I\u2019ve substituted girl. Simple. Timeless.<\/p>\n
Timeless is what I\u2019m going for in my fantasies. Nobody is going to say LOL<\/i> or even laugh out loud<\/i>, dude. Even the phrase going for<\/i> sounds too modern in my mind\u2019s ear, although the expression may have been around in Chaucer\u2019s day.<\/p>\n
Timeless doesn\u2019t mean formal. I\u2019m copacetic (not a word I would use in a fantasy fairy tale) with short sentences and even sentence fragments. I want my characters to feel real, to have thoughts that we can understand today, although most people in actual distant history may not have had inner lives much like ours. I was particularly aware of this when I wrote Ever<\/i>, which is set in a fantasy version of ancient Mesopotamia. I did a fair amount of research, and the lives of people then were vastly different from ours. If you or I could time travel back then and were imbued with the language, we would still be likely to misunderstand events, actions, meaning, intention at every turn. Mesopotamian medicine, for example, makes clear that ancient Mesopotamians lacked a modern notion of causality. On the other hand, they were marvelous mathematicians.<\/p>\n
Now take a deep breath and prepare to enter the wonderful world of word geeks. Some of you may already live here. I invite all of you to pitch a tent.<\/p>\n
When a word seems too modern for a middle ages sort of world, I look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary<\/i>, the OED<\/i>, which is expensive but which might be in your local library. The OED<\/i> is the authority on etymology, the history of a word. It provides the first-known written appearance of the word and a selection of later appearances – for each meaning of the word. I just looked up the word blue and was astonished at all the subtleties of meaning. Blue as a color first showed up in writing in 1300. Blue in the sense of feeling unhappy, to my surprise, goes all the way back to 1550.<\/p>\n
In an age of general illiteracy, a word may have been used long before anyone wrote it down. Today, on the other hand, a word could appear in print before anyone spoke it.<\/p>\n
I cannot find a really old word for funny<\/i>. Ha-ha funny (as opposed to peculiar funny) dates from 1756. The earliest synonyms for funny<\/i> began to be used in the sixteenth century, which isn\u2019t yesterday but isn\u2019t medieval either. I\u2019m sure people had senses of humor then, but whatever they called it isn\u2019t in use anymore, or I missed it. Of course I use the word funny<\/i>, and any of the others, because they don\u2019t ring new in my ears.<\/p>\n
The OED<\/i> has come out with a thesaurus, which I\u2019m salivating over, but it\u2019s not in CD form yet. It\u2019s in two huge volumes, and I\u2019d guess the print is as tiny as bacteria.<\/p>\n
If you don\u2019t have easy access to the OED<\/i>, your ordinary paper dictionary won\u2019t have space for etymology, but there are pretty good free online alternatives. This site is very good: http:\/\/dictionary.reference.com\/<\/a>. Once you\u2019re there, ignore the ad and type in the word you\u2019re interested in and you\u2019ll get to a new screen with the definitions. Below them you\u2019ll find word origins for various meanings of the word. There\u2019s also this online etymology dictionary: http:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/<\/a>, which doesn\u2019t have every word but is still helpful.<\/p>\n Please don\u2019t think I check the age of every word I use. I only look when a word feels too recent. Sometimes I\u2019m right. Often I\u2019m wrong and astonished.<\/p>\n As far as reading level goes, I don\u2019t worry much about that. We are doing kids a kindness when we introduce unfamiliar words. As a child my vocabulary grew through reading (still does). If I came across a word I didn\u2019t know, I asked a parent or looked it up or, most often, guessed at the meaning through context. By the time I\u2019d seem a hard word several times in different books I\u2019d sussed out a working meaning.<\/p>\n Of course you don\u2019t want your writing to be impenetrable, so don\u2019t pack your sentences with abstruse, recondite, cryptic, esoteric morphemes! (I had to go to the dictionary for some of those.) Anyway, the excitement in a story is more important than vocabulary level. If your story has hooked your reader, he will persevere even if you lob a few morphemes his way. Ella Enchanted was recommended as a book for reluctant readers despite its sometimes tough vocabulary.<\/p>\n You also don\u2019t want to throw in anachronistic (not of the time) technology. Obviously no cell phones in the middle ages. Messengers undoubtedly, but what else? For example, when did people start to use carrier pigeons? I don\u2019t know the answer, but I\u2019m sure I could find out online in a minute or two.<\/p>\n There are daily-life books that cover just about every period. For my mystery novel, I primarily used three sources: Life in a Medieval City<\/i> by Joseph and Frances Gies; Daily Life in the Middle Ages<\/i> by Paul B. Newman; Castle<\/i> by David Macaulay, a kids\u2019 book and the best of the three in its limited topic, the construction and architecture of a thirteenth century castle. All of these are fine (if not fascinating) for readers from upper elementary on up. Anything I couldn\u2019t find in my books I supplemented with online searches. And, since I was writing fantasy and not historical fiction, I felt free to invent when I couldn\u2019t discover a fact or when the fact didn\u2019t please me or suit the story. Still, it is quite wonderful to have enough of a sense of a long-ago place to be able to imagine dressing for the day, walking down a street, entering a house, shopping at a market.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a prompt:<\/p>\n Without much research, maybe just online sources, write a scene at a meal that includes family and guests. Include description and dialogue. The topic of conversation can be love or politics or duty of a child to a parent or anything else. Write a scene from two or more of the choices below. You can introduce fantasy elements, but set the scene during these time periods:<\/p>\n \u2022 pre-history or the very beginning of written history;<\/p>\n \u2022 ancient Egypt;<\/p>\n \u2022 a non-Western society before Europeans arrive;<\/p>\n \u2022 before the sixteenth century;<\/p>\n \u2022 during the late nineteenth century;<\/p>\n \u2022 the 1950s;<\/p>\n \u2022 today.<\/p>\n Notice how your language changes as you time travel. Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n On February 3, 2010 Inkquisitive wrote, I noticed that in Ella Enchanted your characters’ vocabulary isn’t as flowery as what we might find in, say, Shakespeare. I am writing a book for young readers and it is set in a small, fictional kingdom. 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