Young Writers Society

I'm writing a short story where characters from the past, present and future meet.

I find it easy to indicate people from the past and present mainly from the way they are dressed or their dialogue. But I'm stuck on expressing a person from the future. I don't want the person wearing a silver jumpsuit or moonboots to fly around the place, so what can I do?

Help!

Hi Myth,


In general, I would say it depends on how futuristic it is. Every five hundred years or so, we've seen revolutions in (at least) the English language. The last time this happened was in the 16th and 17th century, with Shakespeare--Shakespeare and his contemporaries formed neologisms that are used today. If your character is from far enough in the future, I would say his vernacular would probably be equipped with foreign expressions and combinations thereof.

As backgroundbob said, references to present events in the past tense would be excessively telling of of who is speaking, and, taking this one step further, referring to events that have not yet occurred in the present. I think if we were all transported back a century or two, we would all be whining about how there is (1) no A/C, (2) no television, (3) no cell phones, (4) no computers/internet, and so on and so forth. So you might want to make this character whine about not being in the environment he's used to, while the character from past may be more grateful. Who knows--it's ultimately your decision (perhaps people in the future will not be as fortunate as we are). I hope this helped.


Best,
Brad

Again, dialogue - making up slang and technical terms that have never been used before; references to current events as if they were in the past (things like "we learned about 9/11 in history classes" or "you can't imagine the effect the Iraq War had on the economy"). Clothes can just be in weird styles, if you want, and gadgets don't have to be really flash things - items like a hair-styling comb, or a holographic TV watch, things that are possible but slightly futuristic.

Hope that helps you a little

r

A giudeline to keep in mind is that the future is probobly going to be as strange to us as the past is. Even withoutout a great deal of knowledge, we should be able to understand what's happening, even if we don't understand the science behind it. Just make sure there is a science behind it, even if you don't understand it. Don't go to any kind of exteme.

Things like, say, tiny earpieces having completely replaced cell phones; sunglasses or visors that can show a wealth of information on them like screens, and are still transparent and moderatly fashionable; other meaningful and logical little gizmos we'd find convieniant but havn't invented yrt.

As to fashion, well, fashion's fashion. I can't really help you much there I think. Again, look at the past, see the styles that have come, gone, and are still here, then think about what they may be. Again, try not to do anything to extreme.

I like the mannerism idea. Not only have our current events history to them, but have them make references of things that are current to them but the past have present havn't experianced yet. This may lead to a "what?" "Never mind" scenario a lot, but it can be worked in there. In the end, it's also a matter of feeling and istinct on your part. Hope this helps and good luck with that project.

Of course, don't forget that a lot of this depends what time you set it in - if it's *in* the future, you'll probably have a lot of those things that RS mentions - if it's in the present, though, they'll only have the gadgets and so on that function independantly of any other system, since they'll be outside their own time.

Thanks Brad, RS and Bob!

You have pointed out things I was wondering about and a few others I hadn't yet thought of.

Things like, say, tiny earpieces having completely replaced cell phones; sunglasses or visors that can show a wealth of information on them like screens, and are still transparent and moderatly fashionable; other meaningful and logical little gizmos we'd find convieniant but havn't invented yrt.

This is one of the ideas I'm going for.

Now I'll get brainstorming and writing up a brief draft.

you could always make it a social differences, not a technology difference.

like, they're real privacy concerned and don't speak their opinions because of the futuristic society. Or certain things like animals that may have gone extinct, old hulking computers and street lights (lol) could surprise them. You never know.

Thank you for your suggestion, Claudette.