Using day of week names in other worlds

[allmywires]

Something I'm just considering - how normal is it to refer to the days of the week by name in a fantasy world with no correlation to earth? Logically it makes no sense for another world to follow the exact same naming conventions as ours...but I also don't want to make up a whole new calendar to add unnecessary complexity to the world building.

How do you guys approach this in your works?

 

[The Judge]

By hitting my head against the laptop an awful lot...

In my first fantasy WIP I've got a main religion so I can ascribe one day as the Lord's Day, which also gives me Lord's Eve, and I've not named any other days and gone to great lengths to avoid having to give them names. In my second one I've given the Lord's Day a specific name based on the religion and then numbered the other days from it (eg Firstday) only I've used Breton numbers. I've still avoided using the names as much as possible, though -- and the one numbered day I've had to use looks much the same as the religious-named day, so I doubt anyone but me would know the difference anyway!

 

[allmywires]

Gahhhh. Can't believe I've only just come across this little bureaucratic problem! Might have to do some research into how different languages ascribe their days...

 

[Cathbad]

Hmmm... one of the first things I do in world creation (either for writing or gaming) is create a calendar (and measurement standards). I never could stand reading a novel where the action takes place on another world, and get told "It's Tuesday, the 17th of May."

 

[Brian G Turner]

I ended up making up my own calendar, but used that of Republican Rome as an inspiration for structure. I use my own terms, though, but don't name days of the week as I figured in the ancient world these would have generally been irrelevant except for special festival days - in my notes days of the "week" are simply "First day", "Second day", etc. I avoid mentioning dates as much as possible - unless, of course, they really are important.

 

[Cathbad]

When I relate events occurring "out in the country", I too forgo naming the days. As @Brian Turner says, they'd be irrelevant there. In the major cities, however, I feel they become more relevant.

And it helps me keep my timeline straight.

 

[HareBrain]

In two long novels, I've managed to avoid naming a single weekday or month so far. There's nothing wrong at all with making up your own calendar (and I admire those who do), but I just can't be arsed.

 

[Venusian Broon]

In two long novels, I've managed to avoid naming a single weekday or month so far. There's nothing wrong at all with making up your own calendar (and I admire those who do), but I just can't be arsed.

I know, I'm pretty detailed on worldbuilding...but even I baulked at trying to give even one planet I was writing for day names (the length of days and years were all different anyway on all of them, so it rapidly would have spun out of control)

And then at some point, the characters on one of my worlds decided to divide the day into sixteenths instead of twenty-four hours.

I felt it was best just not to mention it.

 

[Cathbad]

I felt it was best just not to mention it.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Depends how far you want to go with this; even mentioning 'days' is relating back to how we refer to time periods, as would 'week', 'hour' or 'minute'- would such terms be used on another planet? Even speaking in an English language is unlikely, so do you invent an entire language - and then expect your reader to learn that language before reading the book?

It's a fine balance between suspending the reader's disbelief and making the book a chore to read. Unless it's absolutely necessary, probably best stick to understandable terminology such as 'cycles' or 'days'.

'We'll meet up in 10 days" is understandable and is more 'realistic' on an alien planet than 'We'll meet again next Wednesday'

 

[Cathbad]

Depends how far you want to go with this; even mentioning 'days' is relating back to how we refer to time periods, as would 'week', 'hour' or 'minute'- would such terms be used on another planet? Even speaking in an English language is unlikely, so do you invent an entire language - and then expect your reader to learn that language before reading the book?

Oddly enough I did create a language for my world. I wrote in "English", with the understanding it was a translation of their language (and threw in some of their language as spice). I hope to go back and republish the novel in their own tongue!

It's a fine balance between suspending the reader's disbelief and making the book a chore to read. Unless it's absolutely necessary, probably best stick to understandable terminology such as 'cycles' or 'days'.

The "natives" have their own terms for these, but yes... I translate (normally, grin) to English terms.

IMO, an alien world should feel alien to the reader.

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'd probably use a word to replace the suffix of 'day' and maybe the local planets (contractions or corruptions thereof) for the prefix.

pH

 

[allmywires]

Depends how far you want to go with this; even mentioning 'days' is relating back to how we refer to time periods, as would 'week', 'hour' or 'minute'- would such terms be used on another planet?

Oh god...Don't give me more to worry about

The current problem I'm having is to translate that ubiquitous 'Monday-ness' to my world without, erm, mentioning Monday - yes, it's a throwaway line I could easily cut, but I like the vibe of it and want to keep it in a way that makes sense in my world. The plot's mainly set in cities so days are likely to be a problem, unless I do some creative circumventing (religion isn't a big focus in this world, although it does exist, it's all a bit pan-theological and messy).

 

[Ray McCarthy]

"Monday" is Sunday in Israel. It's the first work day after a rest day, on any world.

A week is the number days that includes the regular repeat of one or two rest days. Or you might only have Moons/Months.

A day is a rotation, and can be logically changed / incremented at dawn, dusk (common here), noon or Midnight (Roman invention?)

If there is a Moon, days might be numbered from the new moon or a full moon. (Month actually comes from Moon).

The Year is the orbital period, which depends mostly on the mass of the star and your distance from it (unless it's a small star and the planet is like Jupiter, then you want the sum). It's a proven formula, that I forget. Seasons can be from axial tilt, OR from a more elliptical orbit, or both.

Tides need a decent moon, or a less decent one closer ... the orbital period of the moon, is related to masses of planet and moon (so basically usually the planet) and distance from it.

Ultimately it's all mechanics and arithmetic. Wikipedia gives Kepler's equation for orbital period.

There is even a rough mathematical explanation for hours and minutes. Different societies here have had "weeks" other than 7 days and an amazing variety of "months" and systems to correct lunar & solar discrepancies.

 

[Mirannan]

Well... The absolutely basic time periods on any world even remotely like Earth would be days and years. (Either might be redundant, for highly unusual worlds; for example, imagine a tide-locked world with effectively zero orbital eccentricity and axial tilt.) If the world has seasons, then some formalisation of seasons might well become part of the calendar.

If there is a moon big enough to have significant effects (enough light for its phase to be significant, enough mass to have an effect on the tides) then months might also be part of the calendar.

But the relationship between all these on your fictional world is entirely up to you. Even on Earth, some aspects of timekeeping are arbitrary and based on (arguably out of date) religious constraints; for example, calendars would be a lot simpler if there was a day every year with no numerical date or day of the week, and leap days were a second one of the same - but all three of the Abrahamic religions insist on a sabbath every seven days, like clockwork, so such suggestions have never got off the ground.


One last thing; Even months are inconveniently long in an Earthlike situation; this might well mean subdivisions are used for convenience. And all of this only works at all for a planet at least somewhat like Earth. Imagine, for example, the timekeeping problem on a world that is actually a big moon of a gas giant in a star's Goldilocks zone.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

But the relationship between all these on your fictional world is entirely up to you

Absolutely. A spreadsheet helps too.
Tolkien had fun with a multiplicity of systems for the one book.

Imagine, for example, the timekeeping problem on a world that is actually a big moon of a gas giant in a star's Goldilocks zone.

I really must stick one of these in a story ... They might even exist IRL with life.
A "month" would be your orbit of the gas giant. About one sixth of the month would be increasing twilight (maybe only 20 hours eclipse), then 1/6th decreasing twilight and a bit more than half a month quite bright (much more light from the gas giant than from a moon). Due to tidal drag, the day on the moon could be very long and slowly getting longer (over a geological time scale), could even the order of a week! Some part of time scale could be from the rotation of the host gas giant.

Interesting!

 

[EJ Heijnis]

Something I'm just considering - how normal is it to refer to the days of the week by name in a fantasy world with no correlation to earth? Logically it makes no sense for another world to follow the exact same naming conventions as ours...but I also don't want to make up a whole new calendar to add unnecessary complexity to the world building.

How do you guys approach this in your works?

but I just can't be arsed.

I felt it was best just not to mention it.

Unless it's absolutely necessary, probably best stick to understandable terminology such as 'cycles' or 'days'.

All that, for me. For my first fantasy novel, I designed everything. Flora, fauna (although there were a few instances of "a horse by any other name...") named the months, the days of the week, everything. Then I ended up using only a fraction of it in the story, and I found that the only way to include those details was to force-feed them to the reader in the form of character comments that weren't relevant to the story. I... don't do that anymore.

I think a lot depends on your style of storytelling and your target audience. Some readers adore intricate worldbuilding and reading about all the details that remind them the story is set in a different world. These are the people that study appendices and glossaries to make sure they get the full picture. Others aren't interested in the details as much as the story itself, and only want to know what they need to to understand what's going on.

 

[Cathbad]

All that, for me. For my first fantasy novel, I designed everything. Flora, fauna (although there were a few instances of "a horse by any other name...") named the months, the days of the week, everything. Then I ended up using only a fraction of it in the story, and I found that the only way to include those details was to force-feed them to the reader in the form of character comments that weren't relevant to the story. I... don't do that anymore.

It's only logical to do all that if you plan to write multiple stories based in that world. Or if, like me, it became habit from your RPG gaming days.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I designed everything. Flora, fauna (although there were a few instances of "a horse by any other name...") named the months, the days of the week, everything. Then I ended up using only a fraction of it in the story, and I found that the only way to include those details was to force-feed them to the reader in the form of character comments that weren't relevant to the story.

It does no harm to have stuff you imagined and wrote down BUT don't put in the book. Helps with making the story real to author and descriptions, realism, action, characters, dialogue. I use separate text files and then paste to a Wiki. You can install the same SW that Wikipedia uses locally.

 

[Tim Murray]

Something I'm just considering - how normal is it to refer to the days of the week by name in a fantasy world with no correlation to earth? Logically it makes no sense for another world to follow the exact same naming conventions as ours...but I also don't want to make up a whole new calendar to add unnecessary complexity to the world building.

How do you guys approach this in your works?

I use eight day weeks and twenty eight hour days. Alien cultures probably won't have 24/7 schedules.