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Hey Saxon Scribes!

Last week I missed our theme discussion because I got buried in research on the topic. Since then, I compiled all my thoughts into an article which I plan to submit to SE. First though, I’d like to share it with you and get your feedback. 🙂

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There I was, gobbling up page after page of Out of the Silent Planet. Was the plot giving me an adrenaline rush? Was I a C.S.Lewis fanatic?

While Out of the Silent Planet is a great book on many fronts, the part the sticks with me years later is not the plot, or the characters, or even the themes. I remember the words. Words are magic and a new word is almost more enchanting than a new world. As the story progressed, Lewis gradually fed me the language of his extraterrestrial race. New words flew at me fast, but just within my ability to keep up. I was addicted.

Like me, countless authors are enchanted by the magic of languages. Yet few of us have the energy to invent Elvish with its twenty-some dialects. Inventing just enough of a language to write a few phrases and name people and places is doable, but still tough. Also, for all the work you put into it, you’ll only get to use it a few times.

Speculative authors need an easier solution to create otherworldly experiences that sound real. The solution? Slang.

How to create your own slang and dialects:

Slang is omnipresent. Even words that are commonplace now were often slang only years ago. For instance, ‘okay’ is only about 150 years old. Even ‘uptight’ is fairly recent, first used by drug addicts to describe withdrawl distress when denied drugs.

In your stories, it will be nearly impossible to distance yourself entirely from modern slang (“Oops! Just wrote ‘veggies’ instead of ‘vegetables’”). However, all you need to do is give your characters mostly unique slang to sound authentic. Let’s explore how slang words evolve so we can convincingly craft our own.

Similes and metaphors. Hopefully, we’re all familiar with these. Writers invent them all the time, like, “cold as a coffin” to describe someone unfriendly. These metaphors can get picked up by the popular culture.

Irony. Irony is just a subcategory of similes and metaphors, but it bears mentioning because it’s popular. If a phrase is ironic, it’s more likely to “stick” with the public. In keeping with my goal of using examples fitting of a fantasy or sci-fi novel, we could invent the term, “real as VR”.

Original application of prefixes or suffixes onto words. As an example, nanoboy could mean someone who is insignificant. Nano, of course, means small, and small can metaphorically mean insignificant. It would not do to have nanoboy mean a literally small boy because that would sound meaninglessly obtuse. However, the meaning of someone who is insignificant is creative enough to be trendy.

Abbreviation. In our modern world, a good example is ‘US’ to mean The United States. As an example of how this could be used in a fantasy novel, dogs could refer to a people group known as the ‘Damned of God’. This example would work well because it not only makes “Damned of God” easier to spit out, but adds style and connotation by comparing this group to dogs.

Clipping. Clipping is when a part of a word is clipped off such as devils turning into devs. It can also be when words are clipped from a phrase such as dragon rider turning into rider.

Combining multiple words into one. A good example of this comes from my current WIP where a race of swamp dwellers are called “frogmen” as a prejudicial insult. We can also invent entirely new terms this way. For instance melandipity, a combination of melancholy and serendipity, could mean: the surreal occurrence of bittersweet fortune.

Distortion. A real-world example would be the distortion of Christ to cripes. Distortions are where many of our euphemisms come from. In a fantasy world, governor could be distorted to govins or dark lord to durkold.

Elevation and degeneration. Elevation is when a word takes on a new (and more civilized) meaning. Degeneration is the opposite. As an example, the archaic meaning of ‘wench’ is a prostitute, but it has elevated to mean any girl or woman. However, in a fantasy novel, that process could easily be reversed and ‘wench’ could degenerate to meaning a prostitute.

Metonymy. Metonymy is “the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant.” A good fantasy example would be ‘broom’ as a metonymy of ‘witch’.

Rhymes that paint a picture. Let’s say you’re writing a sci-fi novel and you want to use this technique to describe a spaceship. You might get stuck trying to rhyme spaceship with “long trip” (because they travel mindboggling distances) or “arrow tip” (because they fly gracefully), but neither of these feels right. However, suppose all the spaceships look like the Millnnium Falcon. In that case, “potato chip” could easily become the slang word for spaceship because the imagery is obvious (and it’s funny). Just rhyming is not enough. It has to paint a believable picture or otherwise be catchy.

Generalization. This is when a word that has been used in a specific sense takes on a broad sense. For instance, in your world, perhaps laffiti was the name of a notorious bandit group and has now generalized to refer to any bandit.

Specialization. This is when a word that has broad usage comes to assume a narrow definition. For instance, in a sci-fi novel, ‘alien’ which means foreign could be used as a slang term for malware. “Hey, boss! There’s a lethal alien on this thing.” “Detonate the computer! I’m not taking any chances.”

Random inventions. Some words are invented on a whim. You can do so too. Hey, who says dufumbo can’t be a slang term for a mentor with a long grey beard?

Patterns of Slang Evolution:

Ideally, you don’t want to just create a few slang words, but a whole system of slang. Knowing a bit about the evolution of slang can help you do this stunningly. There are five things you outta know.

1. Slang normally develops in a subculture before spreading to the general culture. If you’re not sure where to start in your journey of inventing slang, write down a list of your world’s subcultures. Every trade will likely contribute its own slang. And then there are the drug addicts, the political zealots, the orphans, the feminists, the superstitious, the Islanders, etc. What slang might they come up with that could catch on with the rest of the world? (Keep in mind, some words won’t leave a subculture and when one of your characters uses the word, it can be a sign that he’s “in”.)

2.  Slang has to be catchy. As I’ve tried to emphasize throughout this article, just because a slang word follows the “rules” prescribed above, does not mean it will get picked up by the public.

3.  There are three main factors that influence the type of slang your character will speak: his rank, his geographic location, and his level of interaction with people of different geographic locations. Rank is obvious — those of higher social standing will use less slang, and of the more refined type. As far as geography goes, you’ll ideally want to create different slang for different areas of the country/world. For instance, Westerners say, “it came to me out of the blue” while Easterners say “it pigeondunged me”. Isolation is also a factor. For instance, a remote mountain village in a western province might not say “it came to me out of the blue” but “it came to me out of the heavens”.

4.  Slang builds upon slang. For instance, in your world, the phrase, “fiery as a dragon” may catch on as a way to describe orators. Then, it might shorten to, “he’s a dragon.” Finally, orators might start getting called dragons.

5.  However, you probably shouldn’t call orators dragons in your story because that could confuse readers. Slang should exist to delight readers and make them feel like they belong to a secret club by reading your book. Whenever you introduce a new slang word, make sure it can be understood. Also, only feed readers a few new slang terms at a time.

Conclusion:

Well, inkniters, watchye hey-daddling for? Gopher it! Abracadabra ‘dem words up! Your page-turners are going to just murder you when you teach them your word-gang magic. You’re a tolkiey, sure as stardust. I #faith you.

And if I kerblubbered any slang trick, share it below so all the other SE pens can know about it.

 

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