A different vocabulary

 I'm continuing on with writing my fantasy novella this week.  My word count is now up to around 20,000, and I'm finding it easy to write.  Which surprises me, given that I rarely write anything with such a formal vocabulary.

One of the interesting challenges of writing this novella has been choosing the right 'period sounding' words for essentially modern concepts.  My starting point was deciding which level of technology my fantasy world has.  Because I wanted my dwarves to sail a square rigger, I opted for a period just before the Industrial Revolution.  There are no steam engines in my world.

I found that I naturally adopted a more formal writing style, but that still left the challenges of translating modern concepts into period language.  I want to use the story as an exploration of sexism and racism, but phrases like 'sexual orientation' are far too modern for the period.  I faced a similar problem when trying to describe who has black skin and who has white.

I'm quite pleased with some of the solutions I've come up with.  For example, the way I've described the difference in colour of my two main characters.  "Danetha's complexion was as white as the winter moon  Palemon, but Sammol's features were black as the moonless night.". I really like that one.

Later, Danetha is disinherited and her mother plans to marry her off to a middle-aged but rich merchant.  Danetha refuses, and even in formal language her fury comes across: "How dare you try to force me to provide pleasures of the flesh for that fat slob!" she snarls.  

i needed to get across the idea that she is a childfree by choice asexual.  I chose to do that by having Danetha comment on her mother's belief in romance and the way it influenced her garden.  "Danetha's mother spent much time there... tending her overblown loveflowers.  If she were one day to inherit the house, [Danetha's] first act would be to rip up those loveflowers by their roots."  I think we get the idea that Danetha does not approve of them, or the idea they represent.

Later I have a pair of female dwarves who are in a relationship, and I needed to get that across too.  I did that in one sentence: "And there are too many merchants who are prejudiced against our love for each other.". Because of that prejudice, the women are out of work.  Danetha takes them on as crew of her new ship, along with her black best friend.

In some places it was a challenge to find formal words, and phrasing appropriate to the setting, to describe contemporary notions of sexuality and diversity.  But after a little thought I've always managed to find the ones I needed.

Sexuality and diversity issues are at the heart of the story, and I had to meet the challenge of finding a different vocabulary to describe them in order to write the story I wanted.