I just realized that the title of this post needs some explanation. So I give you, the official sub title of The problem with alien monsters post!

Besides the fact that they might be invading our world, eating your brain, mating and probing (err) and being obnoxious in the real world.

You see, this isn’t about real aliens (they’re out there, in one way or another, right?) – rather more fictional beings. One thing I’ve always had the most respect for is the ability to visualize an imaginary creature to the reader. China Mievielle does it brilliantly, which I pointed out in the Pedido Street Station review, and there are others who masters this art as well.

I’m being put to the test with the creation of Orn, the fantasy world I’m developing, as well as with Swedish science fiction role-playing game ARK. Actually, I think that science fiction makes it harder for the writer since the whole genre builds upon our present world. Whenever you’re touching something that have changed, evolved or maybe just don’t exist (but you still need to bring it up for clarity’s sake) you have to make sure that the reader gets your vision.

Tea in your futuristic world might be something entirely different, although brewed and best served in cups, than what your reader is used to.

One take on the whole controversy between real world and fictional objects (and creatures of course) is to name it differently, but then you’ll end up with a bunch of terms that the reader isn’t used to, which takes its toll on readability. I don’t like that approach, although it certainly is necessary in some cases. Thinking about it, how many various types of dragons have you read about? Sometimes they’re lizard, gods among men, artifacts… The point is that by using a fairly vague term as “dragon” you make the text more readable (compare to “fauxelnyzz” for example) without having to battle with too many assumptions on the readers behalf.

Describing the alien objects, monsters and so on is, come to think of it, the smallest part of the problem. A description usually comes pretty naturally the first time the creature/object is touched upon. Making the name of the object to stick, both in the readers head as well as to the description, is the hard part.

Yes, this post ended up becoming something entirely different from what I first had envisioned. Brian Clark of Copyblogger fame would certainly trash me about that…