Creating a sense of perspective and scale with measurements in fantasy

AmericanaPrime · Jan 1, 2019

Hello all, let me preface this by saying I've done a search and read a great deal on the matter, but I still have a few questions. I am writing a high fantasy story and I am struggling with the sense of scale. I've tried to resist the temptation to use normal, real world measurements, and I've succeeded in many ways except the sense of scale.

So far, I'm using a mix of archaic and real world such as:

Time: Day: moon cycle, mid of day, mid of night, position of sun, Moments or heartbeats, blink
Season: Seasons
Year: Lunar
Weight: Stone, skull, large rock, normal things.
Length: Hand or Foot or arm, handbreadth, sword length, staff length
Distance: paces, stones throw, X day journey, steps
Liquid: Thimble, flask, barrel, cauldron
Week: Firstday, SecondDay, ThirdDay, Etc

Here's where I'm struggling. My book is set on a forest world where things are generally gigantic, and I want to communicate that. Unfortunately, size is relative, so my elves can be ten foot tall, but they might as well be dwarves if I cannot communicate a baseline that people are familiar with. In other words, if I say a particular leaf is as big as an elf, that means nothing if people don't know how tall the elf is.

I'd also be interested in advice regarding the above list. I'm really trying to stay away from real world measurements, although I would like to leave open the possibility that the world I'm creating could theoretically be in the distant past or future of our own, something I want the reader to ponder over.

Thanks for any advice you might have, and Happy New Year!

TSJohnson · Jan 1, 2019

These are often the most fascinating stages of creating a world. I'd say you could take a little step back here. What level of mathematical understanding do the cultures in your world have? What is their technological level? Any sufficiently technologically advanced civilization, or a civilization that has governance, requires a system of calculation and numbers to make things possible. And they need to be standardized! This is what defines your system of time, weight, volume, length, and so on. Sometimes these systems might be anachronistic (as in the case of imperial measurements used in a select few countries today which derives from ancient Egypt, or the way we tell time and do trigonometry, which is based on the Babylonian number system with a 60-base) and not truly the best suited for calculations, though. However, the key point here is, that even with the imperial system, there has always been (before advanced physics) a set of defined standard measurements held somewhere. For the SI system, these were the physical meter, and kilogram in Paris. For the imperial system it was from 1485 onward a bushel and some copper weights held in in Winchester, the Royal Cubit that was a rod made by measuring the length from the Pharaoh's elbow to the tip of his middle finger - and so on. Interestingly, the standardized system of measurement is commonly credited to allow equal taxing, rather than relating to scientific progress. I guess governments through the history of the world have had their priorities...

That said, it is quite interesting if you read up on the history of measurements in Western societies and in Eastern societies. In China the measurement system developed originally with a decimal system, but by the whim of the emperor (whose number was six) some relations were changed to six. As detailed above, in the West it was mostly standardized from measurements found on the human body. Interestingly, volume was based on the size of a grain, which also worked as the basis of the conversion between volume and mass. In China, the system was decided. Period. It's unknown what all the units were based on, if any, but they changed a bit with the dynasties. The history of these units will give you plenty of ideas on what to use.

But for the sense of scale:
IMO, if the population of your main character is huge, it doesn't really matter if you can communicate this to the reader, because what matters is the relative size of the character to the environment. If there is a leaf that is as big as the character, then that's impressive to the reader no matter the size the character.

AmericanaPrime · Jan 1, 2019

TSJohnson said:
These are often the most fascinating stages of creating a world. I'd say you could take a little step back here. What level of mathematical understanding do the cultures in your world have? What is their technological level? Any sufficiently technologically advanced civilization, or a civilization that has governance, requires a system of calculation and numbers to make things possible. And they need to be standardized! This is what defines your system of time, weight, volume, length, and so on. Sometimes these systems might be anachronistic (as in the case of imperial measurements used in a select few countries today which derives from ancient Egypt, or the way we tell time and do trigonometry, which is based on the Babylonian number system with a 60-base) and not truly the best suited for calculations, though. However, the key point here is, that even with the imperial system, there has always been (before advanced physics) a set of defined standard measurements held somewhere. For the SI system, these were the physical meter, and kilogram in Paris. For the imperial system it was from 1485 onward a bushel and some copper weights held in in Winchester, the Royal Cubit that was a rod made by measuring the length from the Pharaoh's elbow to the tip of his middle finger - and so on. Interestingly, the standardized system of measurement is commonly credited to allow equal taxing, rather than relating to scientific progress. I guess governments through the history of the world have had their priorities...

That said, it is quite interesting if you read up on the history of measurements in Western societies and in Eastern societies. In China the measurement system developed originally with a decimal system, but by the whim of the emperor (whose number was six) some relations were changed to six. As detailed above, in the West it was mostly standardized from measurements found on the human body. Interestingly, volume was based on the size of a grain, which also worked as the basis of the conversion between volume and mass. In China, the system was decided. Period. It's unknown what all the units were based on, if any, but they changed a bit with the dynasties. The history of these units will give you plenty of ideas on what to use.

But for the sense of scale:
IMO, if the population of your main character is huge, it doesn't really matter if you can communicate this to the reader, because what matters is the relative size of the character to the environment. If there is a leaf that is as big as the character, then that's impressive to the reader no matter the size the character.

Thanks, great stuff here. Very minimal, if not zero technology for the race in question, although there are races in the world that do have more advanced tech, but only marginally. It is a world that is fairly young in general, to the inhabitants at least. They have a basic rune set similar to Elder Futhark of the Norse, the problem is, I don't want to invent a fictional measurement set, as it will likely appear unrelatable to the reader. I do like your comment about scale being relative, Ill have to give that some thought.

frimble3 · Jan 1, 2019

You have dwarfs and elves, but to humans exist? If so, can you use humans as the 'base model' and compare the other races to them?
'A sack of grain, as much as a man could carry. A dwarf could carry twice as much, if he could see around it. An elf could carry one over each shoulder, with room for a dwarf to stand beneath.

AmericanaPrime · Jan 2, 2019

frimble3 said:
You have dwarfs and elves, but to humans exist? If so, can you use humans as the 'base model' and compare the other races to them?
'A sack of grain, as much as a man could carry. A dwarf could carry twice as much, if he could see around it. An elf could carry one over each shoulder, with room for a dwarf to stand beneath.

All of my races are derivations of elves. There is one race that evolved differently to be more like what we would consider humans, where the primary race would be far bigger and stronger. I suppose I could name drop the more "human" race early to establish scale that way. In addition, there is also another race that is smaller, so I could add more world building early on to establish the sizes.

Thanks that is good advice.

Brightdreamer · Jan 2, 2019

Agreeing that scale is relative to your world and characters, and should be established as such. Comparing things to humans in a world without humans is like comparing things on Earth to green nerblicks. Nobody here knows what a nerblick is, let alone a green one, so comparing anything to them is pointless. On Nerblick Prime, however, that tree-fungus towers over Glorbaz, so tall it seems it must scrape the lower moons, and the little bittnickbeasts are so small he could crush a dozen with one step. (Of course, the purple nerblicks could say the same about Glorbaz, and they might trip over that tree-fungus in the process...) But if a human arrived on Nerblick Prime, the human would probably say the tree-fungus is as tall as a Chicago skyscraper, or the bittnickbeasts were like mammoth/beetle hybrids so small that he could hold one in the palm of his hand.

The trick is to make the scene clear to the reader (as seen through the POV character), but not to confuse them. If you find yourself dancing too much and inventing too many random measurements and words to do that, dial it back a bit; the "translation convention" is your friend. (This is the unspoken agreement that you, the author, are serving as translator for the reader; green nerblicks don't speak English, but the reader does, so you're allowed to use English words to relate the story of Glorbaz's adventure.)

BethS · Jan 4, 2019

AmericanaPrime said:
Here's where I'm struggling. My book is set on a forest world where things are generally gigantic, and I want to communicate that. Unfortunately, size is relative, so my elves can be ten foot tall, but they might as well be dwarves if I cannot communicate a baseline that people are familiar with. In other words, if I say a particular leaf is as big as an elf, that means nothing if people don't know how tall the elf is.

Depending on how tall these trees actually are--

Maybe describe the tree as being so tall that a character can't actually see the top. Or so big around it takes fifty elves holding hands to encircle it. Or describe a fallen tree that's as long as twenty (longhouses?) set end to end.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if the reader knows exactly how tall the trees are in real-world terms; all that matters is how tall they seem to the characters.

AmericanaPrime · Jan 4, 2019

BethS said:
Depending on how tall these trees actually are--

Maybe describe the tree as being so tall that a character can't actually see the top. Or so big around it takes fifty elves holding hands to encircle it. Or describe a fallen tree that's as long as twenty (longhouses?) set end to end.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if the reader knows exactly how tall the trees are in real-world terms; all that matters is how tall they seem to the characters.

Great advice, thank you!

benbenberi · Jan 7, 2019

If everything in your world is scaled to the size of the elves, does it really matter that an elf is 10 feet tall? They gauge everything relative to their own normal, not ours. If there is no human perspective in the story the human perspective is irrelevant. If you really want readers to grasp the gigantic (to our eyes) size of things in your world, you'll have to put someone human-sized into the story and show the world through their eyes.

Or else show the scale of things in action. I think for instance of the "mountain trees" in Martha Wells' Raksura books, which are large enough for an entire colony of flying shape changers to live comfortably inside, with rooms and flowing water within the trunk and farmland on the branches. Those are *really big* trees, and we see them being big.

Charke · Jan 8, 2019

I would introduce one fantasy unit of measurement. Perhaps it could be as tall as an elf. When you introduce the term, spend a lot of time explaining how tall that is, in terms that anyone can understand. That means you must measure it against something that exists in our world. Several more times in the book, and at least once in each sequel I would explain the term. People could be 1 unit tall, or 3/4 as tall with kids 1/2 as tall. Trees could be a hundred units tall. The sea could be a thousand units to the horizon.

- Mark Charke

AmericanaPrime · Jan 10, 2019

Charke said:
I would introduce one fantasy unit of measurement. Perhaps it could be as tall as an elf. When you introduce the term, spend a lot of time explaining how tall that is, in terms that anyone can understand. That means you must measure it against something that exists in our world. Several more times in the book, and at least once in each sequel I would explain the term. People could be 1 unit tall, or 3/4 as tall with kids 1/2 as tall. Trees could be a hundred units tall. The sea could be a thousand units to the horizon.

- Mark Charke

Thank you, I like this. I just talked to Gareth Powell on Twitter and he suggested basically the same, like using the term leagues and gernerating it by the size of X number of a persons feet. Or use x number of “strides” to equal miles.

Creating a sense of perspective and scale with measurements in fantasy

AmericanaPrime

TSJohnson

AmericanaPrime

frimble3

Heckuva good sport

AmericanaPrime

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist

BethS

AmericanaPrime

benbenberi

practical experience, FTW

Charke

AmericanaPrime