Using old fashioned language in your writing

[Morgan Morrow]

A lot the writing advice I've read recently has advised against using too many long words, or words that are too archaic. But I love books that have an old fashioned feel to them, and when I write that is the direction my voice tends to lean in.

Opinions on old fashioned sounding language? Is it really too alienating for young audiences?

 

[Chris P]

These old eyes saw your title as "old fashioned luggage in your writing" and I just had to click to see what the sam hill that was all about.

As with anything, it depends. I love love love good wordplays and the occasional non-standard vocab, but using it for the sole purpose of sounding more literary is a definite turn off for me. There's having fun with language (or luggage) then there is being pretentious.

Others have more knowledge than I do about this, but with older works it's not so much the vocab that makes it sound old, but the tone, the voice, the pacing, and the distance between the narrators and the characters. There is nothing challenging from a vocab standpoint about Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson, Mary Shelley, Charles Dickens, etc. It's the way the stories are told and thoughts expressed that dates it.

ETA: As for being popular, even with younger readers, Jane Austen was hugely popular 10 or 15 years ago, and probably will hit her stride again.

 

[Morgan Morrow]

As with anything, it depends. I love love love good wordplays and the occasional non-standard vocab, but using it for the sole purpose of sounding more literary is a definite turn off for me. There's having fun with language (or luggage) then there is being pretentious.

I think my problem might be that I spent more time reading than talking with people during my formative years, and so I tend to come off as pretentious when I'm really just trying to express myself as accurately as I can.

So now I self-edit with an eye for simplifying language as much as possible, but I sometimes wonder if that is sapping the strength of my writing voice. I guess I just have to write more and get feedback to find the happy medium between indulging in my word-nerd tendencies and keeping my writing relatable and not pretentious.

 

[J.W.]

If my MC is a kid, I'll use words like "tummy" instead of "stomach" in my prose. If my MC were Sherlock Holmes, I'd definitely use some old fashion language.

It's all about setting mood and tone.

Could you post an example? I would love to read it.

 

[Autumn Leaves]

I think my problem might be that I spent more time reading than talking with people during my formative years, and so I tend to come off as pretentious when I'm really just trying to express myself as accurately as I can.

Same with me I remember that my readers on fanfiction.net, where I was active 10-11 years ago, didn’t know what “radiculitis” or “rancorous” meant, but since then I haven’t had any problems with any audiences.

(Sorry, didn’t mean for that to sound elitist. Of course, fanfiction.net is gigantic and there are tens of thousands of different readers there )

I think you should write in a way that feels natural to you. I’ve seen, for example, older-generation writers trying to purposefully “simplify” and “modernise” the language in stories aimed at teenagers — it looked horribly forced. It’s better to have the text beta-read by someone else afterwards if you’re not sure about the style and choice of words.

 

[Morgan Morrow]

Could you post an example? I would love to read it.

I'd love to post an example! One of my worries is that my MC is 12 and his language is probably a bit too aged up to be fitting, I might have to work hard on adjusting things so they sound more 'right'.

Here's a snippet from my first chapter:

Sauntering into the open, he kept his eyes on the far side of the crowd as if he had a place to be. Casually passing by the woman he reached up. He felt soft leather and weight of coins in his hand, a swell of excitement rose in his chest. A hand closed over his wrist and the thrill turned to panic. He tried to pull away but the grip was like iron. He twisted and kicked and pulled, visions of dire punishment blooming in his mind.

 

[mccardey]

I'd love to post an example! One of my worries is that my MC is 12 and his language is probably a bit too aged up to be fitting, I might have to work hard on adjusting things so they sound more 'right'.

Here's a snippet from my first chapter:

Sauntering into the open, he kept his eyes on the far side of the crowd as if he had a place to be. Casually passing by the woman he reached up. He felt soft leather and weight of coins in his hand, a swell of excitement rose in his chest. A hand closed over his wrist and the thrill turned to panic. He tried to pull away but the grip was like iron. He twisted and kicked and pulled, visions of dire punishment blooming in his mind.

I'm not seeing any archaic words here, or any that a 12-year-old reader might struggle with, and you have a very nice way with pacing towards the end but I felt there was a blush of purple in the time it took for you to get there. So - a little wordy perhaps, but its not the words themselves; it's the pace that you might want to look at. Unless, of course, you're perfectly happy with it, in which case hooray and well done.

ETA: Thank you for "word-nerd" I love it

 

[J.W.]

I'd love to post an example! One of my worries is that my MC is 12 and his language is probably a bit too aged up to be fitting, I might have to work hard on adjusting things so they sound more 'right'.

Here's a snippet from my first chapter:

Sauntering into the open, he kept his eyes on the far side of the crowd as if he had a place to be. Casually passing by the woman he reached up. He felt soft leather and weight of coins in his hand, a swell of excitement rose in his chest. A hand closed over his wrist and the thrill turned to panic. He tried to pull away but the grip was like iron. He twisted and kicked and pulled, visions of dire punishment blooming in his mind.

"Sauntering" is a fun, playful word, and "swell," "dire," and "blooming," gives you a unique voice.

I like it.

 

[Chris P]

I agree with McCardey, your snippit isn't for an older audience due to the words, but the pace. I would expect to see this in a book about a child character in a book for adults with an adult narrator. Since this is in 3rd person, the narrator is not necessarily the same age as the character, nor does the narrator need to be. I noticed some filtering "he felt soft leather" (ha! I filtered that and didn't mean to!--"I noticed") and more describing what he felt rather than putting his feelings right there in the narrative. Again, this is more what I would expect to see in a book for adults, and it does have the feel of what was being written years ago.

As others have said, write how you feel like writing, but keep in mind (as I had to learn) that certain styles of writing are harder to sell to certain audiences, and that what sold 50 years ago (shoot, even five or ten years ago) won't necessarily sell today. If you want to write to sell in a certain market to certain audiences, it will help to read widely in what is selling in that market.

 

[ChaseJxyz]

Sauntering into the open, he kept his eyes on the far side of the crowd as if he had a place to be. Casually passing by the woman he reached up. He felt soft leather and weight of coins in his hand, a swell of excitement rose in his chest. A hand closed over his wrist and the thrill turned to panic. He tried to pull away but the grip was like iron. He twisted and kicked and pulled, visions of dire punishment blooming in his mind.

There's no problem here IMO.

The thing that gets me is when people use SAT words/so archaic no one really uses them anymore words because they right click>thesaurus'd. If I'm lucky, they actually opened up a dictionary and looked up what the word meant or what sorta situations it's used in, but that's usually not the case. It's a real punch in the gut when someone's writing suddenly has this big word in it when...nothing else ever used it. It comes across as weird and really artificial.

I'm a weirdo and use words like phenotype and vernacular and gesticulate along with "thing" and "stuff" because I just can't remember stuff sometimes. Or think of the right word. I just did it! I read a lot as a kid and the vocab tests in English and on the SAT were never an issue for me, so these words honestly do bounce around my head, but I feel that I use them enough and naturally that it doesn't come off as "he's just using a thesaurus!" But editing makes it much less stupid. Also beta readers will help you if a word feels out of place in your style (or what a character would use), so there's that.

 

[Morgan Morrow]

I agree with McCardey, your snippit isn't for an older audience due to the words, but the pace. I would expect to see this in a book about a child character in a book for adults with an adult narrator.
If you want to write to sell in a certain market to certain audiences, it will help to read widely in what is selling in that market.

I originally conceived of the idea as an adult book, but then was advised to change to upper middle grade because of the age of the MC, so I've been struggling with that. I have read only adult books for such a long time I lost touch with what middle grade books sound like, so I started reading books for younger audiences again but I obviously need to read a lot more.

I'm stuck in a place where I'm trying to 'write the book of my heart' but also trying to make that book fit other people's expectations. And I'm having a crisis of confidence about the quality of my prose, so that's really helping my productivity a lot...

In the past I've abandoned projects at or before this stage because I felt like they just weren't working, but I really want to complete this one so I have a completion under my belt. It's really challenging to not go off chasing shiny new ideas when this one has become so unwieldy, but I've put in so much work that not finishing it would be a real bummer.

 

[Woollybear]

These old eyes saw your title as "old fashioned luggage in your writing" and I just had to click to see what the sam hill that was all about.

On this writing retreat, which ends today, I've been drinking from a coffee cup all week that says "I like my candidates like I like my coffee. Strong."

Except I keep seeing it as: "I like my candidiasis like I like my coffee. Strong."

So weird.

To the OP: I like old timey language but I'm old. What I've noticed is that the old timey language I use in early drafts hits my ears wrong in later drafts. So write however you like but revise to your 'ear' and trust yourself.

 

[Chris P]

I originally conceived of the idea as an adult book, but then was advised to change to upper middle grade because of the age of the MC, so I've been struggling with that.

Then don't write an upper middle grade novel. Nothing anywhere says adults only want to read about adults, or that the reading level of the book must match the MC. If you want old-timey, some of the best parts of Dickens's David Copperfield are when David is a child. The narrator (an older David in this case, and the novel is largely autobiographical) is obviously an adult and has an adult perspective, and that's what makes the book work. Adults will read about child characters just fine, but they would likely (at least I do) expect the narrator to have some adult perspective on the character.

 

[Lakey]

Sauntering into the open, he kept his eyes on the far side of the crowd as if he had a place to be. Casually passing by the woman he reached up. He felt soft leather and weight of coins in his hand, a swell of excitement rose in his chest. A hand closed over his wrist and the thrill turned to panic. He tried to pull away but the grip was like iron. He twisted and kicked and pulled, visions of dire punishment blooming in his mind.

I agree with the others that this is not old-timey writing either in style or in vocabulary. It is somewhat overwritten, perhaps a bit plodding for what is likely supposed to be a tense, suspenseful moment. For that, what I suggest is that you continue participating here until you reach 50 substantive posts, and then post a longer excerpt in the Share Your Work section for some more feedback.

What might be happening here is that you are detecting something off in the passage, but are not quite right in articulating what that something is. It doesn’t have the right feel to you, it’s not getting across what you want it to get across, but you can’t quite put your finger on why. Getting feedback on a longer excerpt will help. It’s definitely not the vocabulary, though, at least not in this short passage. There isn’t a single word in there that is old-fashioned or that would be unfamiliar to a 12-year-old reader.

 

[Morgan Morrow]

For that, what I suggest is that you continue participating here until you reach 50 substantive posts, and then post a longer excerpt in the Share Your Work section for some more feedback.

That is my goal, but I'm taking my time getting to 50 posts because I don't want to get overwhelmed and/or overstimulated and burn out the way I tend to do when I dive headfirst into a new thing

I tend to feel like there is always something off with all of my passages, but I never know what the problem is. I suppose I'll just have to keep practicing and seeking feedback until I get a better sense of what is good and what isn't, but being patient with myself is always a struggle.

 

[J.W.]

I don't think you have a language problem; I think its a confidence issue. Keep writing. Share your work. Write what you've always wanted to read.

Cheers!

 

[Woollybear]

@Morgan Morrow

A decent strategy in the meantime is to take a successful passage and use it as a template. This is an approach advocated by renowned writers such as LeGuin and others. The goal is not plagiarism, obviously, but to practice structure and rhythm. This approach is used in other areas of art, such as painting masterpieces in painting classes. LeGuin argues it is valid with prose as well.

EX: Chap 1 of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code:

Robert Langdon awoke slowly.

A telephone was ringing in the darkness-a tinny, unfamiliar ring. He fumbled for the bedside lamp and turned it on. Squinting at his surroundings he saw a plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis XVI furniture, hand-frescoed walls, and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed. Where the hell am I?

The jacquard bathrobe hanging on his bedpost bore the monogram: HOTEL RITZ PARIS. Slowly, the fog began to lift.

Templating off that (about five minutes of effort):

Ingrid made a mad dash through the market.

Carts jostled at her passage, fruit rolling underfoot. She stumbled, found a path and kept on. Throwing a glance down one side alley after another, she spotted what she needed. An open alley door, no doubt into a brothel, but she'd hidden in worse places. Still, how could she get to that door without her pursuers seeing?

The cart to her right, a tall, top-heavy one with watermelons, sparked a thought. She grabbed it and tipped, and in the ruckus that followed, escaped down the alley.

The practice is intended to train our minds to rhythm, pacing, connectivity of plot and so on. Simply reading will also accomplish this to some extent, but practicing like this is a decent exercise as well. And then you can compare and decide what parts you like and what needs work and go from there.

 

[mccardey]

I originally conceived of the idea as an adult book, but then was advised to change to upper middle grade because of the age of the MC, so I've been struggling with that. I have read only adult books for such a long time I lost touch with what middle grade books sound like, so I started reading books for younger audiences again but I obviously need to read a lot more.

I'm stuck in a place where I'm trying to 'write the book of my heart' but also trying to make that book fit other people's expectations. And I'm having a crisis of confidence about the quality of my prose, so that's really helping my productivity a lot...

In the past I've abandoned projects at or before this stage because I felt like they just weren't working, but I really want to complete this one so I have a completion under my belt. It's really challenging to not go off chasing shiny new ideas when this one has become so unwieldy, but I've put in so much work that not finishing it would be a real bummer.

I agree with everyone who says write the adult book, if that's what calls you. Adult readers will happily read young people and children - it's children and young people who often prefer to stay in their own age-group (or slightly older).

Secondly - never put work up for crit too early. It's your job to protect the book and your characters and your process during the early days. Live with the fear a bit longer

Thirdly - although your pacing at the start of this is lacking (it's just a bit flabby, that's all. You haven't created a strong rhythm with your words, so they draw attention to themselves in a way that is - awkward) by the end of the excerpt, as I mentioned, you've caught exactly what you wanted to catch in the paragraph - you've got your pacing exactly right, and it is in terrific counterpoint to the beginning of the piece. It's taut, sharp and suspenseful. (Your instincts were perfect in having the first few sentences slower and more meandering - it's just that to my mind you let them meander a teensy bit more than you needed, which meant I wasn't quite trusting your control.)

You have a really good way with painting the picture and pulling us into it. You just need to be very disciplined about keeping your eye on the process.

Trust yourself - you're good! But don't show work that isn't ready. Some people can learn a lot by doing that, but some people (from what you say, you; also, me) need to keep their cards close and do the bulk of the work themselves so that everything that works is secure before they start polishing.

Good luck!

 

[CathleenT]

I have another suggestion since you're struggling with voice. Consider not writing any novel at all right now. Maybe try writing twenty short stories instead.

Voice is huge. It's a central attribute, one so key that for some readers, it's the voice that makes the story. In the realm of fantasy, McKillip had a remarkably consistent voice, as did DW Jones. So did Rowling if you take into account that her genre aged along with her protag.

At any rate, several years ago when I was staring at some very wordy novel drafts, I tried short stories to make myself consider my words more carefully. I never expected to write very many of them.

And I discovered something. It's easy to get critique on shorts--just post in SYW. In what became a novella-length collection, I got multiple critiques on each story--not just the first chapter. Writing shorts honed my voice, my verb choices, my description, opening hooks...the works.

My advice would be: Do yourself a favor--don't try to do too much at once. Maintaining pacing, plot, and characterization over an entire novel is really hard enough by itself. Nailing down some of the other stuff first might be smart.

As always, YMMV. : )

 

[llyralen]

I'd love to post an example! One of my worries is that my MC is 12 and his language is probably a bit too aged up to be fitting, I might have to work hard on adjusting things so they sound more 'right'.

Here's a snippet from my first chapter:

Sauntering into the open, he kept his eyes on the far side of the crowd as if he had a place to be. Casually passing by the woman he reached up. He felt soft leather and weight of coins in his hand, a swell of excitement rose in his chest. A hand closed over his wrist and the thrill turned to panic. He tried to pull away but the grip was like iron. He twisted and kicked and pulled, visions of dire punishment blooming in his mind.

Note: I wrote this last night when my phone needed charging. The discussion has moved on, but I still wanted to send it.

Have you thought about making it into a period piece? If it is already a period piece, then this works.

Whether or not you can use English the way it used to be used depends on what time period you’re going for, country or culture, characters, and about the type of narrative voice you are creating.

Right here you aren’t writing from the 12 year old’s mind. These are words from your narrator’s mind. Your narrator has a voice and your narrator sounds like she (they) are from the 1800’s.

Growing up I pretty much always went for authors from the 1800’s— I still do. But it’s very important to adapt for accuracy. When I write about Vikings in English then I have to watch out about using big words (too latin, too English) and modern concepts too— if I’m going to use concepts I had better take them right from Old Norse. Otherwise it’s not going to have the right feel— even if I have a narrative voice, I wouldn’t make the narrator feel like they are from a future time and different place. That would be kind of jarring. I want to be able to sink into a certain period.

I don’t think it would be right to use English the way we do now in a 1800’s piece.

I want to encourage you because if you keep writing you’ll find the right time periods and ways of doing things to suit your thoughts and style and you’ll also learn to adapt to the style the story needs.

 

[Jeff N.]

A lot the writing advice I've read recently has advised against using too many long words, or words that are too archaic. But I love books that have an old fashioned feel to them, and when I write that is the direction my voice tends to lean in.

Opinions on old fashioned sounding language? Is it really too alienating for young audiences?

In my opinion, it is like spices in cooking. Adding a little can really improve things. Adding too much can be overpowering and ruin the taste.

 

[Morgan Morrow]

Have you thought about making it into a period piece? If it is already a period piece, then this works.

It's a sword and sorcery style fantasy, so not really a period piece but similar in a way

 

[AW Admin]

None of that language is archaic; it is instead written in a more formal register.

Archaic language is often retained in local dialects, but it is in general language from c. 100 years or earlier that is rarely or never used in the current era.

An example would be the word ken instead of know. It's preserved in some dialects, particularly Scots and some American dialects influenced by Scots. It's archaic, but still used.

Another example of archaic language, in this instance vocabulary preserved in an idiom, kith and kin, as in "and all your kith and kin."

Both of these examples are often familiar to people because they have been preserved by use in spoken English, and in literary contexts.

A better example of a genuinely archaic expression would be the verb fain. It's generally only used now in a literary context, in deliberate attempts to mimic 16th and 17th century English.

 

[Jeff N.]

My novel is set in a fantasy approximation of 1250AD Europe.

As I write, I do a truckload of research of, "What words existed back then?"

I spend two weeks researching 'time'. I wanted to write, "Just a second" or "I'll be with you in a minute."

It turns out the concept of "minute" didn't exist until the 1500's and "second" until the 1700's.

I gimped it with, "Just a moment" and "I'll be right with you." (Researching "Moment" is a whole 'nother cup of worms.

Then I had lines like, "She inched forward." Inches didn't exist back then.

I was really trying to stick to the language of the time.

Then I wanted to say something like, "That was really weird." I researched the word. "Weird." It turns out it did exist back then, but it had a totally different meaning. It was a noun referring to, "someone that used magic to view the future."

So I made the choice... I can either write this in Old English... Or I can write this to my audience.

I try to keep the language to the time where I can, and I bend the rules where I need to.

 

[H.L.Dyer]

It really depends with what time period my story takes place, but even then if I'm doing a present-day novel I'm not going to be inclined to throw in dialogue like "This hits differently" or "That's totally sus." For several reasons. Mostly because I die a little inside even thinking about including it in anything literary, but also because it can severely date the work.
Not to mention the fact that I'd rather make the assumption that quite a bit of my target audience wouldn't even know what a "finsta" is than to include something like that and leave people scratching their heads.

If I'm doing a historical piece though like the WIP I'm currently on, I'll write in an "educated/classy" tone, such as this example in one of my early paragraphs.

The conversations were very much on the majority of Mr. Murdoch and father, fitting in as many chances to flatter as possible. It’s any wonder the dinner didn’t taste of the leather from Murdoch’s feet.

Noting the formal metaphor for his father licking Mr. Murdoch's boots.
Another example that shows a bit more of that sophisticated periodic tone:

I met Abi while attending University, I remembered her to be a beautiful sight and an equally beautiful mind. She was attending to study for a secretary in nursing. When she inquired about my enrollment, I was expected to be greeted with ridicule as others had before her.

To my surprise, she only smiled. “That sounds intriguing, I find it commendable for you to help the lost souls imprisoned in those asylums. The world is indeed changing, and with those methods of your study, I well believe they are changing for the better.” She was a woman ahead of her time, and it gave me solace that I could come to her in need.

Here, I peppered in some words like "inquired" "ridicule" "commendable" and "solace". All simplistic words that sets the tone while giving the reader something easier to chew on. (Feel free to help me out if I overused some of these too).
The rule of thumb I try to go with is that if the target audience has to look the word up in a dictionary, I should try to dial it back a bit.
Afterall, there's a difference between "She captured her constituents with her glib, vowing to increase the budget for wind energy." and "She captured her constituents with her persuasion, vowing to increase the budget for wind energy."

or even using words such as nudiustertian when you could just as easily say the day before yesterday or the other day.