Chicky McChick here, hello! :) Sorry for replying late; I was trying to come up with a helpful answer while not being an expert on 19th ct. Russia (its art, yes, but as for the wider society... *handwobble*). I think the best thing to do is to get a Russian beta (there are quite a few people here in DW who may well be willing to help out) to catch the really out-there details.
It all really depends on how faithful to the RL world you want to be.
I was pissy at Miéville because he set his pretendyland in the middle of the real here & now and had it interact with the rest of the world, but if he'd set it up as some sort of alternate history or universe I'd have been much happier. There's nothing stopping a country from having a mishmash of SEE features if that's the result of its history, but you can't have that *and* have your book be set in our very real past and present; the cheerful ignorance of a part of RL while at the same time using it as it is forms the core of what's insulting in TC&TC.
So, if your country is inspired by Russian history, folklore, and whatnot else but is not Russia nor set in this reality, I think you've got more leeway than Mr Awardypants does, plus you can explain any foreign elements by the differences in the story's background world. (I'd suggest explaining them explicitly if you can work that in, so as to pre-empt accusations of ignorance and cherrypicking.)
The other important thing is consistency - try choosing one real language or dialect as a base for yours and sticking with its rules, etc. (One particular style of dress, one distinct architecture, or what have you -- that is, if the country is huge then one for each region; but again, if history requires that it looks and sounds eclectic, work out some internal logic of how this came about and make it show.)
Some thoughts I had:
- why would the rightful princess just step back to let some random guy take over?
- if the protagonist is the Imperial Seamstress, is the court structure really so lax as to bend back and forth with the Tsar's moods? I can't see how she could simply be forgotten if she has the royal charter, so to speak, to hold the top position in a certain vocation; these things tend to stay firm while royals come and go
- does the Industrial Revolution have to be imported? This makes it sound like even fantasy!Russia has to lag behind the implied fantasy!West
- "Victorian" and "Punk" are two very, very English things (as is, for that matter, the "Gothic" aesthetic); are they necessary or can they be replaced by something more local?
- the translated names (Witchwood, Foxhill, etc.) also sound very English; I'd suggest leaving names in the original, whether it is Russian or fantasy!Russian
- "the [City] by the [River] of [Some Saint]" doesn't sound dull at all to my ears :) but that could well be because my hometown's full name translates as "the river of St Vitus" (we just call it River though)
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ninetydegrees
man, I'll learn to type eventually... :/
on 2010-06-17 12:43 pm (UTC)It all really depends on how faithful to the RL world you want to be.
I was pissy at Miéville because he set his pretendyland in the middle of the real here & now and had it interact with the rest of the world, but if he'd set it up as some sort of alternate history or universe I'd have been much happier. There's nothing stopping a country from having a mishmash of SEE features if that's the result of its history, but you can't have that *and* have your book be set in our very real past and present; the cheerful ignorance of a part of RL while at the same time using it as it is forms the core of what's insulting in TC&TC.
So, if your country is inspired by Russian history, folklore, and whatnot else but is not Russia nor set in this reality, I think you've got more leeway than Mr Awardypants does, plus you can explain any foreign elements by the differences in the story's background world. (I'd suggest explaining them explicitly if you can work that in, so as to pre-empt accusations of ignorance and cherrypicking.)
The other important thing is consistency - try choosing one real language or dialect as a base for yours and sticking with its rules, etc. (One particular style of dress, one distinct architecture, or what have you -- that is, if the country is huge then one for each region; but again, if history requires that it looks and sounds eclectic, work out some internal logic of how this came about and make it show.)
Some thoughts I had:
- why would the rightful princess just step back to let some random guy take over?
- if the protagonist is the Imperial Seamstress, is the court structure really so lax as to bend back and forth with the Tsar's moods? I can't see how she could simply be forgotten if she has the royal charter, so to speak, to hold the top position in a certain vocation; these things tend to stay firm while royals come and go
- does the Industrial Revolution have to be imported? This makes it sound like even fantasy!Russia has to lag behind the implied fantasy!West
- "Victorian" and "Punk" are two very, very English things (as is, for that matter, the "Gothic" aesthetic); are they necessary or can they be replaced by something more local?
- the translated names (Witchwood, Foxhill, etc.) also sound very English; I'd suggest leaving names in the original, whether it is Russian or fantasy!Russian
- "the [City] by the [River] of [Some Saint]" doesn't sound dull at all to my ears :) but that could well be because my hometown's full name translates as "the river of St Vitus" (we just call it River though)
ETA: I hope I wasn't rude with these!