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Q&A Time measures in fantasy worlds

One additional thought: Maybe the way you give time should depend on whether it is done by the narrator or by one of the protagonists. The narrator is telling the story to a present-day reader, so...

posted 11y ago by celtschk‭  ·  edited 4y ago by celtschk‭

Answer
#5: Post edited by user avatar celtschk‭ · 2020-11-18T07:00:19Z (about 4 years ago)
Introduced paragraph breaks, added a sentence about third-person limited narrators
  • One additional thought: Maybe the way you give time should depend on whether it is done by the narrator or by one of the protagonists. The narrator is telling the story to a present-day reader, so unless the narrator is supposed to be a person of that fantasy world, it would be natural if he tells times the way he expects the audience to understand. So if the narrator tells us "they only needed about five minutes" that seems normal to me, even if the concept of a minute is not known in that world. On the other hand, if some protagonist said "I'll be back in five minutes" in a world where you'd not expect minutes to be known, it would sound strange.
  • One additional thought: Maybe the way you give time should depend on whether it is done by the narrator or by one of the protagonists.
  • The narrator is telling the story to a present-day reader, so unless the narrator is supposed to be a person of that fantasy world, it would be natural if he tells times the way he expects the audience to understand. So if the narrator tells us "they only needed about five minutes" that seems normal to me, even if the concept of a minute is not known in that world.
  • On the other hand, if some protagonist said "I'll be back in five minutes" in a world where you'd not expect minutes to be known, it would sound strange.
  • However a third-person limited narrator should probably be handled as if it were the current PoV character.
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-13T09:04:46Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/7998
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T02:53:38Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/7998
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T02:53:38Z (almost 5 years ago)
One additional thought: Maybe the way you give time should depend on whether it is done by the narrator or by one of the protagonists. The narrator is telling the story to a present-day reader, so unless the narrator is supposed to be a person of that fantasy world, it would be natural if he tells times the way he expects the audience to understand. So if the narrator tells us "they only needed about five minutes" that seems normal to me, even if the concept of a minute is not known in that world. On the other hand, if some protagonist said "I'll be back in five minutes" in a world where you'd not expect minutes to be known, it would sound strange.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-05-31T20:07:35Z (over 11 years ago)
Original score: 1