: Re: Should I avoid modern words/phrases in fantasy writing? When writing, I tend to want to use words or phrases that have meaning in the real world, but wouldn't necessarily have meaning in the

@Mendez196

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Using modern terms generally isn't an issue in fantasy, because people don't want to have to spend their time translating in their head from whatever ancient English or colloquial dialect you made up for your story. However, there are a few things to be avoided. Religious terms, for example, should be avoided unless you're setting your story on Earth. A person in a fantasy world isn't going to say "Jesus Christ" as an exclamation unless they're Christian or live in a world where Christianity is predominant. They wouldn't use proper nouns from our history that we might take for granted unless they lived on earth. A suspect wouldn't be Mirandized unless they lived in America. This can still work, though, and be understandable. In Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series, they say "Crows" instead of "God" as an exclamation. Terms that have a clear historical basis should probably be avoided, but otherwise, there shouldn't be much of an issue.

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