Potential confusion: referring to home planet as "Earth"
I'm writing a science fiction story and it's based in another galaxy, colonised by humans originally on a geographically equivalent "Earth".
My current usage refers to it as "Earth" and provides a short description of why. Specifically:
The sun was shining high in the sky, not quite as warm as a summer on Earth but the temperature was inviting none the less. Earth of course, referred to the geographical equivalent planet colonised in the Sicilian galaxy, originally known as Messier 33. The planet was initially titled New Earth however the prefix was dropped in the fourth century following a public vote as many believed it was clear that with two and a half million light years distance between them, it was hard to confuse the two, not to mention that many people called it "Earth" by default.
Earth in the Sicilian galaxy was only two percent larger than Earth in the Milky Way and was mostly equivalent in geography, flora and fauna, affording the settlers an unexpected sense of familiarity when they first arrived.
(bear in mind I haven't revised anything yet, this is first draft material)
My question is, do you think in this and possibly other circumstances, it could be confusing to call it "Earth", despite the reason why?
UPDATE: I ended up revising the names, both to latin words which have something to do with them at least. Not only that, but I've removed the info dump in favour of a briefer, more character sensitive passage of information.
The sun was shining high in the sky, not quite as warm as a summer on the home world of Solum however the temperature was inviting none the less. Pexus, literally name after the Latin word for “new”, was smaller and lighter than Solum, about eighty five percent of its mass. This made all the difference when it came to the size of the flora and fauna on the planet. Trees grew metres taller than similar trees on Solum and leaves were significantly larger, attributed to the relatively cooler climate. The few animal species that had been studied were sizable compared to that of Solum. It was like he’d stepped out into a different era.
I've also revised my idea of the relation to original Earth. The issues facing Earth (that we currently observe... and debate) have been overcome through some means, and at the present time, it has become the intergalactic capital. Being both the original human world and the capital of Mankind, it's reverred. As such, when colonisers settled "New Earth", they decided to use the Latin word for "earth", both to distinguish it but also to pay homage to our Earth, given it was essentially the "homeworld" of this new galaxy, not to mention being very similar to Earth (within 95% of it's geography and ecosystem).
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Just from the information you've provided, it seems you're creating a convoluted and potentially confusing situation for no good reason. If, however, this is important to the story, you can always refer to "Earth" (formerly "New Earth") and to "Old Earth".
Using a slightly different version of the word would work, but I believe that's already been done: Gene Wolfe's "Urth", and possibly elsewhere. I'd rename the new planet to something else if possible.
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I think it might be confusing if the original Earth ever appears in the story. If the citizens of the new Earth never have any contact with the old earth, it should be OK.
This post was sourced from https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/2481. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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Rule of thumb: you want to avoid confusing the reader. A confused reader is not enjoying your story.
But, that doesn't mean "never do anything that might confuse the reader." It means, "if you want to do something that might confuse the reader, make sure to take steps to make sure it's not confusing."
It sounds as though, in your particular case, the name choice wasn't particularly crucial to your world-building, so just changing the name is a perfectly easy and simple solution. I'd like to talk for a moment about the more interesting case - where referring to the planet as "Earth" is important in some way, and the author is interested in keeping that.
First of all, there's a lot of examples in SF of appropriating words like "Earth" or "human" for other planets and races. This can be done for various reasons; I think most common is to get across that these people see themselves as normal. Aliens from planet Glooglag won't think of themselves as exotic "Glooglagians," as far as they're concerned, they're just people. They might even call themselves "Glooglagians," but that word, to them, means what "human" means to us.
My experience with such stories is that this kind of substitution can definitely work. It creates a certain dissonance, but it's really not a tough concept for a reader to wrap his head around, so as long as the dissonance is clearly the author's intention, and he makes it clear pretty much upfront that "Earth" isn't our Earth, this is definitely workable. SF readers are particularly open to unusual world-building and re-definition of common concepts; if you tell them the planet's called "Earth," then they'll usually take that in stride - particularly if the unusual naming serves some purpose which, by the end of the story, they'll come to appreciate.
So, in summary:
- If you're not trying to achieve any particular effect by the "confusing" naming, it's simpler to avoid it. Just like you wouldn't arbitrarily decide to name two characters "Bob," even though in real life that'd be pretty plausible.
- If you are trying to achieve a particular effect, go for it. This isn't something so confusing that it should stop you. Just make sure the reader understands what you want to be clear.
- If there are interactions between "New Earth" and "Old Earth," the double-naming can actually do some pretty awesome things - much in the same way that a time story where present-time Bob meets future Bob, or a family drama where Bob Jr. faces off with his dad. In this case, you've got to work harder to make sure your readers always understand exactly who you're referring to - but, with some effort, that's usually quite possible to achieve by attention to context, additional tags that are specific to one or the other, etc. So you can decide for yourself whether the trade-off is worthwhile.
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