What's the time in your story?

[killwrites]

I've been wondering about this for some time, so I'd like to know how other fellow authors address this problem hahaha

It's quite simple to come up with your own fictional calendar (days, months, years etc) in a fantasy world, but what about the time? We're all used to having 24 hours in a day, so unless you explicitly dedicate a para to explaining how time works in your world, I think readers (including myself) will assume that its a standard 24 hour day.

For now, I've settled on having my characters reference the time of the day but never the exact time (eg before dawn, noon, at sundown) but I want to establish a proper 'clock' of some sort in my story. So, what are some ways you guys have come up with to tell readers how time works in your world without resorting to a lengthy explaination?

 

[Lorelliad]

One of my stories is locked in a neverending state of nighttime. With the sun never rising, the planet's inhabitants created a different way to ascertain the current time.

It's honestly a pretty vague explanation, but what they do is that they use a certain kind of magic to help discern the state of the stars.

The stars have different "states" they switch between whenever they are affected by light. In this case though, it's light from a star, from another galaxy.

 

[J_Chemist]

MC has never had a clock or interacted with any kind of time keeping device. Thus, he only can tell "time" by referencing the Sun and the Moon. Pre-Adventure life, it wasn't really a big deal. It's probably more important now that he's going to have to travel and such.

However, he currently has not seen the surface in about two-three months and functions explicitly off the cycles of lights strewn up throughout the village he's living in. The lights are meant to mimic the Sun outside but it's not perfect and he has no way to verify if they're exact. So he just goes to bed when they dim and wakes up when they're bright (or whenever he naturally wakes up).

Outside the village in the tunnels themselves where he actually does his "work", there is zero time keeping. It's pitch black for the most part. You go until you're tired and rest, then hope you don't get jumped in your sleep.

 

[Paul_Tromba]

I like to write historical fiction so I can time certain things to historical events by the minute even in some cases. Outside of that, I decide the calendar system based off of whatever solar cycle that I've decided for the world.

 

[Deleted member 54065]

I purposefully wrote a confusing time in the story I'm writing simply because I wanted to portray a confusing time reckoning on the perspective of my MC, who came from a place with proper time reckoning.

The other world he was transported to is one without a 'night', weathers that defy earthly physics and with random season orders and durations. Sleep patterns of the inhabitants is unreliable, too.

 

[Syringe]

My world uses a standard 24 hour clock, and time is naturally told by a global-sized Sun Dial. Basically, there's a floating rock (the Nexus) that casts a shadow along the world. People can tell the time depending on where the shadow is.

Analogue clocks exist, and some people can predict time/events through objects called the Scripts, or are so obsessed with religiously counting each and every passing second that they know their exact moment of time along the 24 hour clock.

Honestly, time can be as simple as the positioning of the sun/moon in the sky, and can just be explained with day/night cycles. If your world has multiple celestial bodies, then I suggest loading up something like a space sim or Space Engine to help you visualize how the days/nights would like.

 

[georgelee5786]

Longer year, longer day, fewer months, longer seasons

 

[melchi]

Unless it does something then making the story more difficult to follow standard time is fine.

In one story it is 3x time scale in game world then in real world.(Most video games do something like this anyway) In the other one it is just the same.

 

[Speedwagon889]

Unless it has a specific purpose in your world/story, just use what people use in real life. I don't remember where I read this but there's a saying that goes something like this: "There's no need to call a common object by any other name. If a sword exists in your story, call it a sword. Don't give it a new name and describe a sword, you've re-invented the wheel and the effort is wasted on both author and reader." I'm probably making it sound more grandiose than it was, but if your worldbuilding doesn't necessitate longer/shorter days, months, years, then use the standard Earth seasons and time.

 

[Forestbear]

Only time you learn the time in my stories is for appointments. Otherwise it's just one of the day changes of morning afternoon, evening, and night.

 

[J_Chemist]

Unless it has a specific purpose in your world/story, just use what people use in real life. I don't remember where I read this but there's a saying that goes something like this: "There's no need to call a common object by any other name. If a sword exists in your story, call it a sword. Don't give it a new name and describe a sword, you've re-invented the wheel and the effort is wasted on both author and reader." I'm probably making it sound more grandiose than it was, but if your worldbuilding doesn't necessitate longer/shorter days, months, years, then use the standard Earth seasons and time.

This is also true for distances/measurement.

 

[AliceShiki]

As Speedwagon said, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. It's fine to use the same terms we use IRL.

If you don't want to specifically refer to the concept of hours though, then positions of the sun work fine. Alternatively, church bells that signify a certain amount of time has passed can also work.

 

[Cipiteca396]

My released story is set on Earth, so it uses Earth time.

I hadn't thought about it, but I'd probably just use Earth time in my fantasy stories as well.

The only reason I'd switch clocks is to make it easier to tell the time. A minute is 100 seconds, an hour is 100 minutes, and a day is 10 or 20 hours. 10 hours a week, 5 weeks a month, 10 months a year. Naturally this only works on artificial worlds.

 

[gaylolis]

I personally just use the standard time like Earth.

But it'd be interesting to see stories where time works like SUPERHOT. Like, time only moves if the MC did something.

 

[proxybaba]

In mine
I used 13 months a year with 28 days each month.
the day and date remain unchanged all the years, its quite easy to write this way.
like mc's birthday is

22 day of the second month,

 

[Aiyoki]

TBH I'm 15 chapters into my story and I haven't established an actual time system yet that the readers can reference.

It is different than Earth, however it's not wholly relevant to what's going on in the story right now though so I've only really referenced generalized time of day such as morning, midday, afternoon, and night.

 

[jimmyanderson2023]

Unless it has a specific purpose in your world/story, just use what people use in real life. I don't remember where I read this but there's a saying that goes something like this: "There's no need to call a common object by any other name. If a sword exists in your story, call it a sword. Don't give it a new name and describe a sword, you've re-invented the wheel and the effort is wasted on both author and reader." I'm probably making it sound more grandiose than it was, but if your worldbuilding doesn't necessitate longer/shorter days, months, years, then use the standard Earth seasons and time.

It is a good impressive one. I agree with you.