The value of anachronism
Posted by T J Pontious on October 1, 2009
Anachronism: -noun; something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, esp. a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time (or a later time)
I started thinking about anachronisms this week. I was walking near a military facility, and I overheard a guy behind me complaining, “It doesn’t rain IN the Army, it rains ON the Army, so you better just learn to deal with it!” From his strident tone (and yes, it was raining) I was expecting some young person, probably in uniform and walking with a colleague. I slowed down and adjusted my umbrella because I wanted to see if my hunch was correct.
Yes, I do odd things like that sometimes… But I was very incorrect. Both men were in their 50s, a bit rotund, and obviously reminiscing about having to endure rain while in the service years ago. Neither one had a jacket and it was quite chilly.
While this wasn’t exactly an anachronism, it got me thinking about timelines. If you’re stuck on a story line, maybe it would be more interesting in a different time. Let’s look at some modern trends and see if we can jazz things up.
Vampires. Teens eat these stories for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Goth is still quite popular, and the entertainment industry is sucking it for all it’s worth. But let’s face it, the urban fiction angles have been about played out haven’t they? Why not think about your vampire story as set on a space station or planetary outpost. Or better yet, how would Neanderthal tribes have dealt with vampires? Would they have figured it out or would they just be free food? Is that what wiped out the Neanderthals?
If your book deals with politics, why stay with today’s headlines? Why not move everything back 200 years? Or better yet, find a nice timeline of maybe the Hundred Years War and set it ahead to maybe 2015.
I started a novel once that set a couple of modern guys back to an age that was somewhere between high fantasy and steampunk. I never finished it because it got too wierd (yeah, even for me). It was a hidden area where some magic still lingered, but steam power was used as well. I think about that setting often, and wonder sometimes if I shouldn’t dust it off.
What I’m trying to say is – no matter what you’re writing, if you are stuck just throw it into a different time and see what you end up with.
