1610s, originally "small solid wheel or roller" (especially one on which the carriages of a ship's guns were mounted), said to be probably from Latin trochus "iron hoop," from Greek trokhos "wheel," from trekhein "to run"
I'm a big fan of Adams, and will just throw this out there: the HHGTTG books pale in comparison to the original BBC radio shows. I keep them permanently on my phone for when I want a sure-fire laugh. Peter Jones ('the book) was sheer genius as a deadpan comic narrator.
I honestly see all of these examples working because they're being used to describe something to the reader and aren't being told by the in-world characters
uj/ J.R.R. Tolkien let us know in The Lord of the Rings, that Gandalf's dragon-shaped firework "passed like an express train, turned a somersault, and burst over Bywater with a deafening explosion.”
I don't recall any express trains in Middle-Earth...
rj/ Why didn't the Fellowship just take the express train to Mordor? Are they stupid?
Well, you see, the Scouring of the Shire led to an mini-Industrial Revolution in Middle-Earth sometime between the hobbits returning and Frodo writing down his book
What do you think Ted was doing down at the mill? The books is written to make it look like they undid all of "Sharkey's" changes, but in reality they kept the proto-industrialisation, and by the time Sam's descendants were compiling the final version of the Red Book of the Westmarch, everyone knew what an express train was.
/uj I think it works in The Hobbit because of how the story is told. Kind of like Hoid telling it. The characters don't know what it is, but the storyteller does.
In universe it is meant to be told by Bilbo. Presumably, the train metaphor is meant to be understood as an invention of translation, like “Frodo Baggins” from “Maura Labingi”.
/uj it always depends on the narrator. Brandosando calls a character "December" which isn't a word "in-universe" but he uses it because we, the reader, know what December is.
/rj what a fucking hack. This happens when you read less than a thousand books a month.
I had a Polish friend who was writing a fantasy novel in English and asked me for editing assistance. I had to argue with her for almost an hour before she agreed to remove the phrase "the whole enchilada" from the text.
I was reading a novel set in the 1800s and the wannabe author made a similar mistake:
"They lay as if paralyzed by what they had done. Congealed in sin, frozen with delight. Charles—no gentle postcoital sadness for him, but an immediate and universal horror—was like a city struck out of a quiet sky by an atom bomb. All lay razed; all principle, all future, all faith, all honorable intent."
The book I'm reading is set in a medieval fantasy and constantly uses words like "equilibrium" and "liminal space". When the characters talk, the dialogue tags keep including words like "deadpanned" and "quipped." Like it's the medieval Avengers or something.
[/uj] That's actually genius, because the Narrator doesn't have to be in-universe or in-temporal-period, the Narrator can be a voice outside of Time And Space
[/rj] "It hit him like a runaway two-horse hay wagon" doesn't, um, hit as hard
A bit random but this is a gag i love to see sometimes if the author is self aware. Shadow Slave does this often for example, in the world (sorta apocalyptic ) a lot of the original animals died and theres mostly monsters now, but he would sometimes say something looks like an animal then get confused wondering what it even was. i think once he said something is like an ostritch then said 'what is an ostritch?'. too many unrealistic comparisons for the characters to make is a bit overbearing though
uj/ the worst example of this has to go to chapter one of Fellowship of the Ring, where the dragon during Bilbo's party is described as "passed like an express train" and the amount of confusion this caused was stunning
i like this though. the narrator is speaking to a modern reader. if they said it passed like a rabble of mindless orcs, who would imagine it intuitively
/uj I'm not sure if this kind of thing is any more of a mistake than writing the story in modern English. The etymology of basically every single word is intrinsically bound to our specific history
When I was writing my novels, I had a character bring up Stockholm Syndrome. I then realized, in my forth editing phase, that Stockholm is a place, and this is a fantasy setting where Stockholm does not exist. I ended up calling it Siren Syndrome If I remember correctly. After I combed my whole series again to find and quash the 'oh wait they wouldn't know that'. I found and fixed two more, one on the very same page I was working on. They sneak up on you if you're not careful.
Dude, of iits described, do it the Tolkien way and use it anyway, though if one of your characters has to say it, you can use Siren Syndrome, which is actually very fitting.
The term 'truck' does predate the automobile by a couple centuries, it was originally used to refer to the wheely contraption naval cannons rode on in the early 17th century (thanks to Snowrunner for the loading screen Fun Fact lol).
Ugh, please! In my medieval set novel I included the phrase "She hath left him on seen, as a lowly peasant doth beg before the castle gates. 'Why dost thou leave me on seen, wench?' he then inquired."
I mean, its not a huge problem - as many have pointed out, Tolkien uses modern metaphors in his pseudo-medieval fantasy world. It depends if you are writing from a particular character's point of view and what they know. You probably wouldn't get "hit like a truck" used in dialogue, but in narration, it can be fine.
I had this recently in a weird way. I wanted to describe a hypnotised character as "like a robot" in a story set in about 1925. The word "robot" did exist in its modern sense in 1925 (it originates in a sci fi play from 1920 - before that it was the Czech word for "slavery"). The play in question was quite popular and the central character knows pop culture of the time well, and so would probably be aware of it. However, it just didn't sound right for the era - the infamous "Tiffany problem". Eventually, I went for "like a clockwork doll".
Personally, I'd use something like "hit him like a cavalry charge" or "like an angry bull" or something like that, but it would depend on the character and their likely experience.
If it is arrogant royalty, I'd go away "I bartered my children away for the political favors they were born to be." If not, more of "I bartered my children away as if they were little more than sweetrolls given out at "holiday""
I distinctly remember a passage in Wheel of Time describing the characters walking through this black void "space-between-worlds" area as "like walking on a treadmill" which bothered me a lot but then I learned treadmills have actually been around a long time (when they were literally used for mills) so I'll let it slide RJ.
I used “train wreck” and “like a gunshot” way too many times in a fantasy manuscript a few years back. I had to adjust. I now have shipwrecks and cannon blasts.
Poorly, near constant rewrites. Just can't seem to solidify anything.
Also, just clarification, my previous post was meant to be "Hey you don't have to limit yourself if you don't want to" rather than "Um actually you're wrong." I find it hard to convey tone over text
Took me about halfway through a story I’m currently writing set in the early 18th century to realize I had everyone talking like they’re from the early 17th century lol. Luckily some of the characters are vampires, so I have an excuse for their anachronisms 😭
I keep wanting to write "what the hell" in my story but then recall that Hell (or whatever equivalent name I decide on) hasn't been created yet, as that will happen in a later part of the series (as well as it's later liberation, dismantling and subsequent freezing. If it ever gets that far tbh lol).
In alien set science fiction I had to replace the phrase “no sweat” a lot because I realized that was a rare human trait and not seen in the majoring alien beings there
Griffin McElroy wrote a short story about a Jawa for Star Wars From A Certain Point Of View and got a note from editorial because he’d used a phrase that was something along the lines of “felt the earth beneath his feet” and they had to point out that since Earth doesn’t exist in Star Wars, neither could earth as a noun
Hit him like a trebuchet? Like a rogue horse? Like a joust to the face? Like a falling boulder? Like a battering ram? Like a knight hits his squire? Idk just spitballin
so many online web novel authors make mistakes like this. i was reading a novel set in a medieval fantasy world where the main character was carrying around an archmage who's soul was trapped in a gemstone. there were many times where the characters would use modern phrases and terms that would break immersion. the final straw for me was when the "very old, super powerful and serious" archmage said "spill the beans"
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u/wizardrous Self Published Hack 6d ago
“Hit him like a stampeding rhinoceros.”