: Re: What word would people with outdated technology make up for a plane? In my story, my characters live in the wilderness, and they have no modern technology. They do see ruins from the past

@Ann1701686

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Rather than give a fish…

Tie it into the culture, make it do double duty

Everything in your story should do more than one job. The name you pick doesn’t have to be obvious to a contemporary human in our world. If you tie it into their culture, practices, and beliefs, it becomes more meaningful that you’re putting this plane “on screen” and having a scene or scenes with characters thinking or talking about it.

The Greeks thought the sun was carried by a chariot pulled by horses, and named him Apollo. He’s an incredibly complex god tied deep into the culture of Ancient Greece.

We humans didn’t name mysterious, possibly divine things without elaborate stories to more fully explain them to ourselves.

We site users don’t know anything, really, about your culture. We can’t name their perception of this plane in a cultural vacuum except in a superficial, comical way. And we can’t create your culture for you.

To be fair, you might not even know anything relevant to naming this phenomenon through their eyes… yet! This is an opportunity to invent, though. Perhaps it is the Tear of Sallen, and the mythology of Sallen is more important than this thing in the heavens associated with her. Perhaps there is a curse upon a snake that dooms it to hiss across the sky for eternity, and your reader learns the name first in a parable told near the hero about the follies of [insert foreshadowing of plot obstacle/character arc here].

It’s your world. Make this thing count!

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