: Re: Time measures in fantasy worlds I wonder, what could be a good way to provide time measures in a fantasy universe. I don't mean the calendar which is covered in the question: Out of this

@Annie587

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How much do you suppose that your fantasy world resembles our own world? And how much do you want to deal with made-up units of measure?

I don't suppose that the people in a fantasy world would speak English, but fantasy novels written for an English-speaking audience normally have all dialog in English. Perhaps you could explain that by saying that the dialog is translated, but I think most readers and writers don't even think about the issue.

Likewise, you could simply have the characters talk about time in hours, minutes, and seconds, and if anyone questions it, say, yes yes, the time units are translated from whatever units these people use, just like the language is. I suspect most readers wouldn't even notice it.

If you do invent your own units of time, you then have to explain them to the reader. Like if a character says, "The knights from King Throbnar will arrive in 20 framnians" ... is that a few minutes? Hours? Months? You could include some narrative to explain the time unit, but that seems like it would be an awkward interruption in the flow of a story. You could include some dialog where one character explains the units of time to another, but that is likely to be awkward. You either get that lame "as you know" dialog -- when was the last time someone said to you, "I'll be back in an hour -- you know, that's one twenty-fourth of a day, or about 3000 heartbeats" -- or some obviously contrived scene where you suddenly introduce a teacher explaining time-keeping to a group of children or some such. If I felt it necessary to use made-up time units, I'd try to find a way to introduce them naturally, to give some context where it's clear at least roughly how long the time unit is, without unduly calling attention to it. Like, "I'll be there in a framnian! she cried, as she raced down the stairs." I think the reader would get the idea that a "framnian" is a small unit of time, in the same ballpark as a second. Or, "Well son, you're ten lamnings old now. You're a man." The reader would presumably guess that "ten lamnings" must be what we'd call somewhere in the mid to late teens.

Don't suppose that ancient or medieval people did not understand precise time-keeping. "Minutes" and "seconds" were invented by the ancient Babylonians circa 2000 BC. Ancient people used sundials and water clocks to measure time fairly precisely. While I'm not familiar with the Mercedes Lackey story someone here mentions where her characters measure time by making marks on candles, she didn't invent that: it was a method used by ancient people. The main catch to time-keeping back then was not being able to keep track of time in general -- they could do that -- it was being able to keep track of time while moving. The various mechanical devices people had for measuring time didn't work if you moved them around. Tip your hour glass or your water clock over and it quits working. It wasn't until the late 1700's that portable time keeping devices were invented.

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