Why Yans?
November 2nd 2009 02:12
In dealing with my novel and its planet world, Omecka, you may have noticed that I refer to time spans as Yans instead of Years.
Why?
When I began the story, Omecka was a world just like this one. I was 14, and the idea of the Savage Princess, her first story, was far more important to me than the details of the world itself. When I began to create the world I decided to set it as far apart from this one as I possibly could, basically because I wanted to affirm to the readers that basic laws - such as those of physics including gravity - may not apply on Omecka as they do here on Earth. I made her large, 'As large as Earth's Sun' I believe. She does not orbit, she spins. Over the years, these ideas have clarified themselves and can be found in 'Omecka's Ledger'.
Due to her size, I estimated that every time length would be longer than earth. A day is roughly 50 hours, and because of how Om moves, this comprises 5 hours of twilight in both morning and evening, and a day and night of about 20 hours. Given this time length, years would be double what they are here, time wise, and I decided to call them Yans, basically to drive home the fact they are NOT years.
I have a calendar worked out, months are called Enas, and seasons are created by Om's light source - a binary formation of two blazing suns about the size of our moon each - moving away to the vacuum of space, creating Winter, and snapping back through gravitational pull to come close to Om's surface, creating Summer, and Spring and Autumn in between.
To further complicate matters, I have decided that Om's physical entities follow the pattern of Earth. This means that a child will still need to grow for 20 years to become an adult. However, on Om, this process becomes 10 YANS.
Are the people on Om disorientated by this effect? Why should they be? Its their home world, this is all they know.
One of the major ideas for this story was a crossover to Earth. You will notice, in 'Areymathea's' entry to the world diary, she talks about Alexondra's physical shape appearing on all worlds sharing Om's physical plane. Since the very beginning, I have had the image of two of my warriors wandering around Earth searching for Alexondra's double. Most stories begin with a singular strong image that is roughly the middle of the entire story, and this was mine. After creating the world and its major differences, this link now becomes utterly necessary.
When the warriors cross over, they will notice differences. The single sun, the shorter day and night, not to mention technology. When the double is taken back to Om, she too will relate the differences between worlds, but she will be able to relate in a way that the reader can understand. After all, she's an earthling, like us. One of the first major things to notice will be - thus that has plagued fantasy writers since the beginning of the art - Om has no time keeping device!
Days are called Days, but there are no weeks. There are only days counted until the end of the Ena is reached. The only purpose to counting Enas is to discern which season we are in and which is coming next - but some people dont even bother to do that. There is one major festival, called 'Naye' which happens once a year. I have deliberately avoided festivals or holy days as Om is the only deity worshipped at all, and the planet itself is a paradise, a never ending cycle of earthly delights. The people suffer very few hardships.
However, I am unsure how to make this fact clear as the planet is in turmoil at the beginning of the first book. My major problem with book one is that it is colourless, hollow and thus, uninteresting. It is supposed to be, after all, Omecka herself is under attack from apathy itself, and thus all people and life forms fall under a spell of lazy nothingness. The only one not infected is the Savage Princess herself, and the book begins to snowball into lots of action until the last pages are simply action packed. In book 2 we wrap up and conclude issues of book 1, then in 3 and 4 we deal with histories and details of the other continents. Book 5 is by far my favourite, when the reader knows all the places, their histories, and characters, and its the whole lot embroiled in conflict. The hard part is to illustrate the apathy of book one while creating enough hooks to draw the reader into wanting to know more about the world itself.
Why?
When I began the story, Omecka was a world just like this one. I was 14, and the idea of the Savage Princess, her first story, was far more important to me than the details of the world itself. When I began to create the world I decided to set it as far apart from this one as I possibly could, basically because I wanted to affirm to the readers that basic laws - such as those of physics including gravity - may not apply on Omecka as they do here on Earth. I made her large, 'As large as Earth's Sun' I believe. She does not orbit, she spins. Over the years, these ideas have clarified themselves and can be found in 'Omecka's Ledger'.
Due to her size, I estimated that every time length would be longer than earth. A day is roughly 50 hours, and because of how Om moves, this comprises 5 hours of twilight in both morning and evening, and a day and night of about 20 hours. Given this time length, years would be double what they are here, time wise, and I decided to call them Yans, basically to drive home the fact they are NOT years.
I have a calendar worked out, months are called Enas, and seasons are created by Om's light source - a binary formation of two blazing suns about the size of our moon each - moving away to the vacuum of space, creating Winter, and snapping back through gravitational pull to come close to Om's surface, creating Summer, and Spring and Autumn in between.
To further complicate matters, I have decided that Om's physical entities follow the pattern of Earth. This means that a child will still need to grow for 20 years to become an adult. However, on Om, this process becomes 10 YANS.
Are the people on Om disorientated by this effect? Why should they be? Its their home world, this is all they know.
One of the major ideas for this story was a crossover to Earth. You will notice, in 'Areymathea's' entry to the world diary, she talks about Alexondra's physical shape appearing on all worlds sharing Om's physical plane. Since the very beginning, I have had the image of two of my warriors wandering around Earth searching for Alexondra's double. Most stories begin with a singular strong image that is roughly the middle of the entire story, and this was mine. After creating the world and its major differences, this link now becomes utterly necessary.
When the warriors cross over, they will notice differences. The single sun, the shorter day and night, not to mention technology. When the double is taken back to Om, she too will relate the differences between worlds, but she will be able to relate in a way that the reader can understand. After all, she's an earthling, like us. One of the first major things to notice will be - thus that has plagued fantasy writers since the beginning of the art - Om has no time keeping device!
Days are called Days, but there are no weeks. There are only days counted until the end of the Ena is reached. The only purpose to counting Enas is to discern which season we are in and which is coming next - but some people dont even bother to do that. There is one major festival, called 'Naye' which happens once a year. I have deliberately avoided festivals or holy days as Om is the only deity worshipped at all, and the planet itself is a paradise, a never ending cycle of earthly delights. The people suffer very few hardships.
However, I am unsure how to make this fact clear as the planet is in turmoil at the beginning of the first book. My major problem with book one is that it is colourless, hollow and thus, uninteresting. It is supposed to be, after all, Omecka herself is under attack from apathy itself, and thus all people and life forms fall under a spell of lazy nothingness. The only one not infected is the Savage Princess herself, and the book begins to snowball into lots of action until the last pages are simply action packed. In book 2 we wrap up and conclude issues of book 1, then in 3 and 4 we deal with histories and details of the other continents. Book 5 is by far my favourite, when the reader knows all the places, their histories, and characters, and its the whole lot embroiled in conflict. The hard part is to illustrate the apathy of book one while creating enough hooks to draw the reader into wanting to know more about the world itself.
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Comment by Morgan Bell
Deep Pencil
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Movie Train
fantasy/sci-fi is such fertile ground for the imagination, the possibilities are endless
Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis