Fantasy readers will be familiar with the sensation. Happily absorbed in a faraway land, tales of magic and mayhem. Then suddenly, jarring, the protagonist describes a solution to a problem as a silver bullet. Problem is, in this particular world, guns don’t exist. Or in other stories, perhaps modern foodstuffs and modes of transport slip in unchallenged: I’ve previously discussed the lack of cocktails in fantasy.
Fantasy authors have different approaches to such anachronisms. First, there are those who do some hand waving and say that all this is translated from elvish/ancient Fae languages/gobbledegook from ye olden days of Yore, so of course that’s not what the protagonist actually said, but that’s the closest approximation in modern English. Second, those who understand that it couldn’t possibly be that a sandwich exists in their Middle Ages inspired epic adventure, so instead devote three paragraphs to describing a layered baked product, with seasoned slices of smoked meat from the wild hog, leaves that were harvested from the ground in the local forest, and gleaming red berries that burst in an explosion of flavour and seeds when they are bitten. Or a BLT, as it could be called. Yet another set of authors will mention an unusual creature called a blerg (or whatever) - whereupon checking the, usually extensive, glossary at the back of the book, it becomes apparent that the blerg is for all intents and purposes… a horse.
I’ll be honest, I love each and every one of these approaches for different reasons, which made it difficult to select my own approach when writing A Quartz Storm. In the end, I was led by the story and what it needed to feel right. But it’s not always a straightforward choice: some things feel out of place, even when they’re not. This is known as the Tiffany Problem: Tiffany feels like a modern name, one that therefore isn’t much used in traditional fantasy settings. Tiffany is actually a 12th century name, and is the anglicisation of the Greek name Theophania - therefore a beautifully appropriate name. The steam engine is another example: often credited to British engineers in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was actually invented in Alexandria in the 1st century AD. An alternate history could easily imagine many usages in a much earlier period, particularly in a tale with steampunk vibes.
Reality is often unrealistic, yet as authors we don’t always have the ability to demand the suspension of disbelief. The Coconut Effect is well known in audio/visual media - that despite, for example, horses hooves sounding muffled on most surfaces, the sound of two coconut halves slapping together has become so ubiquitous that anything else sounds wrong. Likewise, rap battles - that famous Viking invention? Turns out, yes. But it would take a skilled writer to insert flyting into a Norse-inspired tale and not face criticism of unbelievable tale-weavings. True stories, like when John Dillinger tricked seventeen or more guards into imprisoning themselves to aid his prison escape, allegedly armed with just a carved wooden replica gun, are toned down to a more believable three when converted to entertainment.
Writing, then, is not just about crafting an absorbing tale where readers are willing to suspend disbelief, but about adjusting those elements to an audience who might not give credence to a work of fiction that feels unbelievable, even when it’s based on a true story. And fantasy is no exception.