Metric vs. English measure for US fantasy novel

Over here in England we call them the Metric and Imperial measuring systems (and we use both, seemingly at random).

In regards to your story, I'd ask how important it is for the readers to find any measurements you give easily relatable? As both systems are post mediaeval I would have thought it might not sound right to use either. Would it work using cubits, spans, hands or some other biblical/ancient systems? Certainly feels more poetic to me.

Is this fictitious world Earth? Which continent? It should make sense culturally in the context of the story.

I think I'd try to avoid measures as much as possible if I were writing in any sort of medievalish setting. Weights and measures had then, I think, a rather different place in society than they do now. That is, there weren't mass produced scales or rulers, the vast majority of people would never need (I wonder if most ever even saw) a map, and long distances were difficult to measure.

And in addition to all that, things weren't at all standardized--what people understood to be a mile in one area might be much longer or shorter than what people understood to be a mile in another area. Same with pounds or meters or what-have-you.

There are some sites that deal with things like this, for example (found with a quick google search for 'medieval weights and measures'): http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/whyread/weight.htm

I'd imagine there are a number of scholarly texts that deal with it as well. Here's a possible example.

I'd either read up on it as much as I could or, if it wasn't a terribly important thing, make up some system and use it as infrequently as possible.

It's in a future world. Use whatever. Just be consistent.

Most people in the US actually understand metric. It's partially used here: medical profession or manufacturing, for example. We boy liters of Coke, not gallons. Food labels list both measurements.

I use metric in science fiction for universality (well...sort of. Let's call it Earth-ality).

When exactly was metric invented? Twentieth century?

If this is a future Earth which has fallen back to a medieval level of technology, metric would work for me because it makes sense that people would still use metric.

If this is a time period set before the invention of the metric system, using metric measurements would yank me right out of the story.

A bloke called Mouton in france in 1670 or thereabouts invented it based on one minute of the Earth's arc. It was adopted by France in Napoleon's time.

I think it depends on your readers. If I wrote for pensioners in UK, I'd possibly use Imperial. Writing for youngsters in Australia, where metrics came in in 1966, I'd definitely not use Imperial. But I'd still say "It seemed he walked miles..." and such like popular sayings.

Write it in metric and let the publishing house tell you whether you need to change it to fit house style. (I'm assuming the future-Earth part is upfront; if it's revealed during the course of the book, you'll want to make sure you're using the measurements in a way that looks deliberate and not like a failure of worldbuilding.)

As an American reader, metric doesn't throw me at all.

Mumut said:

A bloke called Mouton in france in 1670 or thereabouts invented it based on one minute of the Earth's arc.

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Actually it's (or was originally but it's still close enough for most uses) based on 1/10,000 the distance from the Equator to the North Pole. One minute of arc would be 1/(90*60) or 1/5,400 the distance.

Sharon Mock said:

Write it in metric and let the publishing house tell you whether you need to change it to fit house style. (I'm assuming the future-Earth part is upfront; if it's revealed during the course of the book, you'll want to make sure you're using the measurements in a way that looks deliberate and not like a failure of worldbuilding.)

As an American reader, metric doesn't throw me at all.

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I'm wondering about this "future" - if it's set in the USA and hundreds of years in the future, I'd be tempted to use Metric and perhaps mention something like "The US finally followed the rest of the world and converted to Metric in the year 2198, just a few decades before The Great Fall..." but then that might be more detail and current-era "commentary" than you might want in a fantasy novel.

Worst case, you can use cubits and maybe other Biblical measures, and give the speeds of running animals in furlongs per fortnight.

I recall the mid '70's when some President or someone had signed into law some ten-year plan to convert the US to the Metric system and TV weather forecasters were giving temperatures in both Fahrenheit and Celsius (or was it still called Centigrade back then?). That didn't last long, but time/temperature signs at banks still show temperature in both F and C.

As a budding scientist/engineer I could see the great advantage of the Metric System where all quantities are related by powers of ten, making it so much easier and faster to see the ratio between a centimeter and a kilometer, vs. an inch and a mile. It was disappointing the Metric conversion effort petered out.

Circa 1986 the liquor industry converted to Metric measurements, but everyone thought of that as nothing but a way to increase prices.

Are they actually going to have the technology to measure anything? If not, they'd probably revert to measurements like paces, "A hour's hard walk", handspan, etc. If the milemarkers on the highways still exist they'd use them even if walking. So things may not be so consistent.

Clifton Hill said:

So I've got a follow up questions for some of you: Has anyone had a publisher/agent request them to change their measurement system?

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I can't see why they would, unless the measuring system doesn't fit the world or time: say, you're using metric in a story set in a small Texas town in 1962. That would be inappropriate and your agent would probably ask you to change it.

Otherwise, don't worry now. Write it. Focus on the story and characters. The rest will fall into place.

Clifton, As maestrowork says above, I can see where there might be some difficulty. You stated above that the work was fantasy with medieval technology. That right away suggests to me that the measurement systems would be medieval in nature - furlongs, leagues, rods, stadia, etc., etc. rather than meters, liters, etc.

Remember your audience. Most people here in the states, while they're familiar with the metric system, are taught to think from childhood in US Imperial (which is different from English Imperial). Science students have to be retaught how to think in metric, but most people in your reading audience probably aren't going to be science students or scientists.

In addition, most people read fantasy to escape from their day-to-day realities. I'm afraid that if I picked up a fantasy novel and started reading metric measurements, my suspension of disbelief would fly out the window along with the book itself perhaps. I use metric measurements and calculations every day. I really don't want to read about them in a novel though.

One last thing, and this is rather pretentious of me perhaps, but you also stated that you dislike the fact that the US is not on the metric scale and you wanted to help the cause. Perhaps, just perhaps, there's the slightest bit of condescension on your part in your writing. If that's perhaps the case, and I'm not saying it is, talking down to your audience is the kiss of death in a novel. Your readers will see it, recognize it, and that book's going to fly right out the window or sail across the room again. Do NOT alienate your readers by talking down to them or letting them know you're on some kind of bandwagon if you can possibly help yourself.

Do some research. Find out what measurement systems were in use during your target medieval period. Use those. It'll give your story more of an air of authenticity and show your editor and your readers that you know at least a little bit of what you're writing about.

I have a degree in Engineering, and a lot of knowledge about medicine, so I'm comfortable using metric in those contexts. But when you talk about day to day life, talk metric and you will turn me right off. I was raised learning recipes in cups, sewing in yards, temperatures in Fahrenheit, and distances in inches, feet and miles. For these matters, metric will yank me out of the story and make me "translate" in my head, and that is not good. So if you are marketing to anything like traditional mainstream Americans, might want to follow what we're used to, or invent your own fictional system. Nothing will turn me off faster than feeling like you're trying to "teach" me to convert to metric.

FOTSGreg said:

Clifton, As maestrowork says above, I can see where there might be some difficulty. You stated above that the work was fantasy with medieval technology. That right away suggests to me that the measurement systems would be medieval in nature - furlongs, leagues, rods, stadia, etc., etc. rather than meters, liters, etc.

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From the first post, I understand that it's not actually set in Medieval Europe, but a far future (America?) that had regressed. As that's the case, I'd find actual Medieval units of measure a big flashing anachronism.

To me it all depends on your world's history. If it's set in Europe, I'd expect them to use metric, or a system that was invented subsequent to technological civilisational collapse. If it's America, I guess it would depend on the time of that collapse. Say it happened 2020, I could see either Metric or Imperial lasting, or both. But if it happened 2100? Do you really see Imperial dominating that long?

Write for your intended audience.

That, and you can always change it later.

The metric system isn't new at all. It dates back hundreds of years before it was adopted here in the seventies. 1791 or something, I think it was, when France adopted it.

Just use the metric system. It's fine, and if our society is going to be so stuck on making things obsolete, like real human contact and good music, why should a confusing, impractical measuring system be exempt?

Hell, I just read a high fantasy novel that used metres. It was no big deal. It's not something anyone should care about.

To clarify for some: One of the hidden fun parts of the book is that it won't be obvious to anyone that this is the future...yet. Later it will come into play. Great points by some that even in the future they will likely revert to something less precise in a society that doesn't need the precision of metric.

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What I see, based on your clarification, is that you have three choices:

1. Use the metric system, because it's a clue to your readers this is, in fact, the future. Personally I like little clues like this, but it all depends how you write it (see #3). It's possible to make something like this invisible based on our preconceptions of our day-to-day, but difficult.

2. Don't use the metric system, because it is a clue that will give the future reveal away.

3. Don't use the metric system, because people will think you're making a very big mistake and are an incompetent author.

So, my advice -- go with #1 if you can pull it off. Otherwise you're gambling a lot if you're trying to hoodwink your readers.

It's also unlikely that a fully regressed society would go back to authentic medieval measurements that everybody has forgotten. Either use whatever system had been in place previously (metric in Europe, Imperial in the States, either in Canada...) or invent a new system that would make sense in their context. Whatever you do, remember the all-important rule to not confuse the readers. Make sure they can figure things out in context whichever system you use. I read one book in which the time measurement was wingbeats, which made a lot of sense for a flying species and was intuitively easy for the rest of us to grasp.

Clifton Hill said:

So I've got a follow up questions for some of you: Has anyone had a publisher/agent request them to change their measurement system?

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In a supplement I wrote for a scifi game system, the publisher asked that I change time from the Terran system of 24 hours per day, 60 minutes per hour, etc, into Galactic Relative Time. GRT was basically a 'metric' system for time where a day had 10 hours and an hour had 100 minutes.

I argued against this, but they insisted.

When it came time for them to read the first drafts, they complained that the timing of certain events and plans didn't make sense. That was precisely why I had argued against GRT. The military of the far future might use a different time scale than our modern conventions, but their readers are not from the far future.

In the end, they let me change things back to normal.

It's a hard call - my issue with using metric (I can use both interchangeably and have guess-timated sizes as "somewhere between 2cm and an inch") is that while it's very good for precision measurements it's not as good for a low tech society.

Take length - nobody actually uses decimetres - they just jump from centimetre to metre and sometimes those two orders of magnitude are just too much. I don't know how practical that would make metric for a low-tech society.

Still, if it's part of your setting, fly with it.

I was thinking, and it was difficult because it was very hot out today. I think the temperature was around 106 liters. But, the metric system, I don't know. Maybe not enough people would know it.

We know what a liter is. It's a quart. A meter is a yard, which is three feet. A kilometer, uh, is shorter than a mile some. I always remember that 88 kmh = 55 mph. But that doesn't help me if a bomb drops 78 km through the Frognian atmosphere or anything.

But, like Sharon said up there, do what you want and the agent/editor will iron out what is the true and righteous thing to do.

I admire your effort to improve our awareness of the metric system. I don't believe your novel is the place to do it. Someone once said "If you want to send a message go to Western Union" It doesn't belong in a novel.

After reading all this information about medieval measuring systems, It gives me an idea for a great short story, where a math teacher from today, travels back in time and tries to teach the locals the metric system, using the tools available at that time.