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Writer's pictureJason Mohler

Words Matter

I recently challenged my followers to write a sc



ene of dialogue without using the word okay. Of course a smart-ass immediately came back with okey-dokey. Yes, technically, he succeeded, but he completely missed (or ignored) the spirit of the challenge; there's nothing that'll throw you out of a fantasy world than the use of modern language. For example, take this passage from The Princess Bride:


“…Every time you said ‘Farm Boy do this’ you thought I was answering ‘As you wish’ but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard, and you never heard (Goldman, 2007).”


Now imagine if William Goldman hadn't been so careful in his language:


“…Every time you said ‘Farm Boy do this’ you thought I was answering ‘Okay’ but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard, and you never heard.”


Or worse:


“…Every time you said ‘Farm Boy do this’ you thought I was answering ‘Okey-dokey’ but that’s only because you were hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard, and you never heard.”


Yeah.


So why am I bringing this up? I’m currently reading (well, listening to) Lindsay Buroker’s Forgotten Ages series. It’s a steampunk series and the first two books, Encrypted and Enigma, are fairly straightforward, without anything more jarring than a reference or two to surfing and poi but, like I said, the series is steampunk, so you can get away with a lot more than straight fantasy. Even the third book, Decrypted, was going pretty well. Until Buroker made a single poor word choice. No, it wasn’t anything as bad as okey-dokey, but, oh, did it ruin the mood.


The word? Quixotic.


Okay, yes, the word dates to the early eighteenth century, which fits in with the steampunk era, but the series takes place on an unnamed planet that is obviously not Earth and the odds of their literature precisely mirroring our own is near zero.


And then, if that weren't enough, she hits us with kludgy. For those not familiar with the word, it's geek-speak for something that was inelegantly slapped together.


Boom! Welcome to the real world.


Now, if all you’re worries about is people buying your book, it’s not a big deal. If, however, you’re hoping they’ll read the whole book and buy any future books you might read, well, you’d better chose your words carefully.


 

Goldman, W. (2007). The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure. HMH Books. Kindle Edition.

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