Personally, I try to stick with modern forms without resorting to colloquialisms. If I write dialoguye from amedieval perspective, I will research the hell out of it until I CAN write natural dialogue in that form. You won’t find any ‘thou’s in my world, because—guess what?— the people in my world never spoke English. I assume (and will p[robably have a foreword explaining) that all dialogue and English words (like proper nouns, pronouns etc) in the book are meant to be read as if they were a translation from the native language of the characters, and that at no point has any of the characters spoken English.

That being said, I’m comfortable enough with the old style to use it in poetry, just not in prose.

@ sansafro: Bast Wars! Where did Cheetor make that reference? (sadly, I’ve only seen the first 5 episodes of season 2, and the first half of the pilot.)

Yeah, I tend to avoid modern referencs unless I’m writing a story set concretely in modernity (and in a specific geographic/cultural/linguistic area, as well… East Melbourne slang is different to West Melbourne slang, over here. Got to be careful about such things…

I wonder, would people have cussed in the olden days? Swear words have always sounded very modern to me for some reason.

@ Brandon: Oh, definitely. The words would be different, but there would definitely have been swearing back then. I’m called to remember “zounds” in particular (“God’s wounds!”), as well as Gadzooks and pox. It was popular to swear and curse people/things by calling down a pox on them. (“a plague on both your houses!”) “damn” as we know it today was used in the verb form as early as 1431, when records indicate that Joan of Arc refrred to “Goddem” English solders. “leg”, “belly”, “stink”, and “shit” have all historically been taboo swears at some point, usually during the Victorian era, but some of them much earlier than that.

What I do hate hate hate, though, is when words that did not exist back then are used in a supposedly Middle-Ages-esque setting… such as foreign words (kamikaze [Japanese], cannibal [Carib]), words inappropriate for the situation (you do not “shoot” an arrow, you loose it), or words common in modern English that were not used in the same sense back then (“explode”, for example, only gained its modern meaning in the late 1700s).

Heh heh, oops. I don’t really pay that much attention to where words come from and when they were used. Obvious things (like kamikaze) won’t end up, but less obvious examples are probably sprinkled in a lot in my writing.

“Ther saugh I pleyen iogelours, magiciens and tregetours and phitonesses, chermeresses, olde wiches, sorceresses, that use exorsisaciouns and eek thise fumigaciouns”, it’s a bit too much.

Wassy-hoohah?

Haha, where’s that quote from? I’m sure I’ve heard it before…

Well, on using historically accurate language, for the most part using modern equivalents for words is fine. It’s only when something had no equivalent word back then (like… atoms. They did not know about atoms in the Dark Ages. Yes, the Greeks posited that they existed, but the average farmer had no clue what an atom was) that it really annoys me.

Guess it all depends on how you implement it, since it’s not like you can just say “<X italics are cool, but >X italics are too much.” I’ve been meaning to read your IW thread anyway, so once I do, I’ll give a more informed opinion.

Thread related: I often worry my dialogue is too decompressed

Thanks but I’m not sure the italics formatting even showed up there, actually. I’ll have to check on that.

Crap, you are probably right x_x

Do you mean compressed (ie too little said)? In any case, like you said it requires a reading in context.

No, I worry they talk too much.

Thanks, bro. That’s actually pretty reassuring.

Question: how do you guys keep your dialogue from getting dry? Honestly, it’s not a huge problem of mine, but I’d like to know some of your solutions nonetheless. :)

Dry as in boring?

Or emotionless.

Yeah, I don’t think you should deliberately try to make everything more emotional, because then you’ll end up with contrived melodrama.

Personally, I try to stick with modern forms without resorting to colloquialisms. If I write dialoguye from amedieval perspective, I will research the hell out of it until I CAN write natural dialogue in that form. You won’t find any ‘thou’s in my world, because—guess what?— the people in my world never spoke English. I assume (and will p[robably have a foreword explaining) that all dialogue and English words (like proper nouns, pronouns etc) in the book are meant to be read as if they were a translation from the native language of the characters, and that at no point has any of the characters spoken English.

This ^^

That was my exact thought for my fantasy series. That all dialogue is a translation. Though if there is some word that cannot be translated then it obviously wouldnt be. But how do you tell the reader they’re speaking in another language all the time?

Now I am having problem with filler words like geez, man, god, etc. I can’t find any that seem right to the setting of my story but without the filler word it feels stiff. Suggestions?

Yeah, it’s a lower-class character. ‘Man’ was the substitution I used but it still felt a little bit too modern. I’ll have to look into that. I didn’t want to create a filler word of my own specific to the universe because I worried it would look stupid as I haven’t done anything else linguistically, but might it be a good idea in this case?

I find that ‘mate’ works well, because it’s a word that, in english, largely transcends time and place. Sure, there’s the Aussie cliche of calleing everyone and their dog ‘mate’, but then the British say ‘mate’, the Greeks say ‘mate’, the Irish say ‘matey’ (according to that one old-timey movie I saw), sailors say ‘mate’, and even New Zealanders say ‘meet’. It depends on the application, I suppose. Americans tend to say ‘buddy’ more than ‘mate’ (in popular media), but that too isn’t isolated only to parts of the US.

Making up your own thing can be fun, but it has to fit within the culture you’re developing, and it should sound natural for thye character to say it. Things that relate to the character’s occupation (“The bread that rises fastest is eaten first”, or “The wonky vase is often ignored”) or a shared cultural vision or popular story (“Stuck like Br’er Rabbit and the tar-baby!”) are best, rather than generic sayings that don’t build on and explore the characterisation and locality (or draw an effective metaphor).

If your character is a hunter, for example, they might talk about “a broken spear catching no prey”, whereas if they are a builder, they’d be more likely to say “the nail that sticks up highest is first knocked down”. If they are a weaver, they might talk about “weaving the strands of fate” or “the fabric of reality”. (but ONLY if it fits the culture’s philosophical and scientific worldviews). A fletcher (arrowsmith), on the other hand, might refer to something that is difficult or fiddly as “like peeling a feather”. One’s occupation has a definite impact on the expressions and comparisons that a character uses, and the expressions a character uses breathes life into dialogue and characterisation (and, by extension, the world).

Yeah, I’d probably just wait if I were you, for the time being at least. If I see something good you could potentially use while I’m reading it, I’ll let you know.