Random Writing Tips – Using common words for weird things

Over a year ago, I wrote a post on why writers should Chill on the weird words.  The basic idea, is if you jump right into a story and have characters drinking regilum and eating roasted glarthen all in celebration of Clathenmas Eve, you’ll end up with a lot of readers who are more confused than engrossed in the story.  Using weird words isn’t bad, it’s pretty standard in fantasy and science fiction after all, but if you use too many of them too quickly, you run the risk of the readers not knowing what is going on in the story, which is generally a bad thing.  You can use glossaries so you don’t have characters explaining the meaning of words they should likely already know, but there is a difference between learning a few weird words and learning a weird language.  Like most things in writing and life, there are balances that need to be found.

Anyway, I was thinking about this the other day and realized you can have the opposite issue: using common words for weird things.  I was able to think of an example, but it wasn’t that great of an example.  So instead, I came up with this extreme, hypothetical example to show what I mean.

Imagine a book where in Chapter 1 we’re introduced to Queen Whoever.  You would naturally assume that Whoever was the ruler of some kingdom.  But in Chapter 2, the Queen receives an order from some Emperor.  Well, maybe this empire conquered the kingdom, and in return for bending the knee the royal family was allowed to remain in charge of this area of the empire.  Then in Chapter 3 we learn that Queen is just the title of the head of the Emperor’s Dragon Guard.  Okay, so maybe this conquered kingdom was known for their dragon riders, and the royal bloodline was allowed to remain as the head.  But in Chapter 4 we learn anyone can work their way up through the ranks of the Dragon Guard to become Queen.  At this point we wonder why didn’t the author come up with some other word, maybe Clethex or something, to be the title for the head of the Dragon Guard in honor of Clethex the Brave, the first Dragon Rider. 

Sometimes, misleading terms can be used to set up a joke, or as a red herring, or whatever.  Like, if you’re writing a post-apocalypse story, I’m sure there will be plenty of current terms and slang that will have their meanings warp in their world.  Like, maybe they use netflix to mean die, because they found something about “Netflix and chill,” and they know that after you die, your body grows cold.  That may seem convoluted, but explain how “Netflix and chill” came about.  In other types of stories, if you use a common word for something weird, the readers will either be confused wondering what they’re missing, or waiting for a punchline.  And if you don’t deliver on either, it can leave a bad taste. 

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Image from Pixabay.