"Drink to the Caid, the leader of the band!"

This is a major thread for the historical fantasy novel I'm drafting, meant to be a response to the 1926 musical The Desert Song (the Broadway musical theatre geeks on here will know what I'm talking about. The one with a bandit leader who goes by "The Red Shadow." And if you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up).

First question: What's the difference between "YA character who sounds mature, but like an approximation of a person who might have lived in a particular historical period" and "YA character who sounds like an adult."

A young North African Caid of a semi-nomadic Saharan desert tribe of Riffs (which is basically who the Red Shadow is) in the 1920s or era equivalent to then is going to express himself very differently to a boy living in Morocco or in Australia in 2013. What (to you) makes a YA character sound "too old?" or "like an old person?"

edited 10th Sep '13 5:56:16 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

The older you get, the slower you think. Older people also become more self questioning. So they take longer to explaun their conclusions. They also rely less on passionate emotion to justify an opinion.

I meant more in terms of language and words, but that's a good point.

A lack of contractions is always a good thing to make characters seem older. Maybe also ramp up the comma count in their dialogue, subtle, but might help.

Longer words as well, but that intersects with class differences.

I'm actually planning to avoid that. This guy's meant to be fourteen/fifteen years old.

edited 10th Sep '13 7:43:52 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

Here's a short passage from the story, written as a diary from the perspective of the 14-year-old tribal chieftain in question (the Red Shadow). Does it work or does it sound too adult and mature? Does it sound like a historical fantasy?

edited 10th Sep '13 10:38:19 PM by MorwenEdhelwen

"There’re some things you don’t want your old wet nurse to know."

That sounds awkward. Not the sentiment, just the phrasing. Maybe find a more direct way to say it?

Sounds alright to me.

The 'as you know...' bit is clunky, though.

It doesn't feel right that he'd put that in a diary. Would a Western schoolchild write 'it's a tradition that teenagers have to sit a series of written tests based on what they've learned in school. If they succeed they may go on to university'?

edited 11th Sep '13 9:18:25 AM by imadinosaur

I see what you mean.

Have you got suggestions on how to rephrase it better? (This is very rough).

edited 12th Sep '13 2:03:01 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

Second question: How do I manage the use of language? I'm planning to use French, Spanish, and Moroccan and Hassaniya Arabic in the story. Not whole passages, just a few words here and there. The problem is that while I know about French and Spanish (I can speak French and I know what some Spanish words mean) I don't know much about any form of Arabic, let alone Moroccan. I know there are some books with Fantasy Counterpart Culture which don't use much of the base culture's language, but I want to make this realistic. Does anyone know how to deal with this?

Also, when you describe a traumatic incident (like your protagonist's father dying) should you give the reader a detailed impression of the father, so they'll feel sad when he dies?

I would rewrite this along the lines of:

...and then work the rest of the exposition in at other places. Establish that Asim is an older man, and that perhaps he's bitter at being beaten by a fourteen-year-old (or perhaps he's a staunch traditionalist and becomes unusually loyal because of it). Feed details of the world to the reader a bit at a time.

The father dies before the events of the story, right? That's how the protagonist becomes the Caid, I presume. I would have the protagonist constantly comparing himself to his father ('what would he do in this situation?', 'He'd never make such a stupid mistake!') which would gradually lessen as he proves himself as a leader. Have him invoke his father's name at a crucial moment to get some old timers to do what he says. Have him and other characters repeat little snippets of advice that his father told them, and have the older members of the band reminisce about That One Time...

For the story you seem to want to tell, I think you need to give some idea as to who the father is, mostly for the protagonist to step out of his shadow eventually. But don't go for it too quickly, this stuff can be spaced out through the story.

Thanks, imadinosaur. Yes, the father died before the story starts. He dies when the protagonist is four, and then the protagonist goes to live in his father's best friend's tent. This friend represents the Desert Song character of Sid El Kar, the Red Shadow's lieutenant. Which gives a whole new meaning to this song, since normally Sid El Kar is played by an actor about the same age as the Red Shadow, as are the members of the Riff band. In the 1929 movie the actor playing Sid was four years younger than John Boles who played the Red Shadow.

edited 12th Sep '13 6:50:12 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

Also, how would I give my characters names that reflect the characters which inspired them?