Guest blog post on cussing in secondary world fantasy
I have a guest post up at Unleashing Readers today.
http://www.unleashingreaders.com/?p=11759
Here's the first couple of paragraphs:
When you write a story set in a made-up or secondary world, one of the small but significant problems you run into is giving characters a good way to call on their god(s). They could be cursing, invoking a deity as witness, or maybe asking for a god’s help.
This is challenging because in a secondary-world story, the author makes up things like the god(s), the cultural notions of the afterlife, and what kind of supernatural creatures might be around to tempt or help a character. A character can’t say “hell” if the culture doesn’t believe in such a place, or “she looked like an evil cherub” if the world doesn’t have cherubs.
http://www.unleashingreaders.com/?p=11759
Here's the first couple of paragraphs:
When you write a story set in a made-up or secondary world, one of the small but significant problems you run into is giving characters a good way to call on their god(s). They could be cursing, invoking a deity as witness, or maybe asking for a god’s help.
This is challenging because in a secondary-world story, the author makes up things like the god(s), the cultural notions of the afterlife, and what kind of supernatural creatures might be around to tempt or help a character. A character can’t say “hell” if the culture doesn’t believe in such a place, or “she looked like an evil cherub” if the world doesn’t have cherubs.