When I had the first chapter of my novella critiqued at my last writing workshop meeting, one of the issues that was brought up was the discrepancy between my use of measurements; I had used metres at one point, only to refer to inches a paragraph or two later. Obviously keeping this consistent is important, so I'm going to have to pick one or the other, but my main issue is this; which system do I use? My novella, Dark and Silent Waters, is set in a medieval fantasy world; so far I haven't given it an exact time period, but it would closely parallel 900-1200AD in our own medieval European history. The Exile trilogy (my other major project) is also set in a medieval fantasy realm, though probably at a slightly more advanced level than in Dark and Silent Waters (perhaps 1200-1500AD).
Imperial terms - inches, feet, miles etc - are generally shorter. They are faster to write and they seem to flow better in a sentence. And they seem to be the norm, for I can't recall seeing the metric system used in any fantasy book that I've read (apart from the Australian urban/steampunk fantasy subgenres, which I don't think can really be counted in this case since it's completely different to the medieval subgenre. But I could be wrong.).
However, I am used to the metric system. Probably because I live in Australia and have been raised to think in terms of centimetres and kilometres and so on. Also, being Australian, I feel a sort of grammatical obligation (is that even a proper phrase?) to use the metric system.
What do people think? Will the story still feel natural if I use my preferred metric system? Or should I stick to convention and go with imperial?
I'd go with imperial honestly. Metric is a relatively new system and I just can't see it working in a medieval style world.
ReplyDeleteI think in the context of your story, imperial makes more sense - and it's kinda fun - a bushel, a peck, a dram, a cubit...(okay maybe not cubits.) Measurements for board feet, all fun stuff. Another option - going Well into world-building, is inventing your own system that makes sense with that world, if Imperial feels too foreign. I'd personally not because any names I came up with for anything would sound goofy. Good luck, let us know what you decide on!
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