How to write an fantasy-novel? In archaic language or as an poem?

I have two bizzare ideas for the style in which to write a fantasy-story of mine and I would appriciate your toughts on them and which you find the best/least bad. Both have the potential to be awesome if done right. However. I'm fully aware of my limited skills in writing fiction and how silly both of these genres will be if done wrong...

• The easiest? way would be to write in archaic and flowery language altough we all know how easy it is for the characters to sound ridicilous instead of cool.
  • Also, given the vocabulary I'd use for the story is it not suprising if people would not understand about half the words and expressions...
  • I need to learn this old-fashioned grammar correctly...
• A harder way would be to write the story entirely on verse, to mirror real-life medieval ballads, romances, the Kalevala and the like. However, given my limited skill & experience with poetry...
  • I also think that the fact that the story is written entirely on verse would scare away quite a few potentional readers...
  • I would need to write decent poetry.

I think most people can imagine how "ye archaiche vocabulary" in a story will sound, both when done good and bad. The verse version is harder to imagine however. Here is an short, bad example I've made from The Lord of the Rings describing Merry's & Eowyn's fight with the Witch-king, a scene most of you probably know about... I (atempt and fail) to write it in Knittelvers meter. (Note that English is not my first language and I'll write the story in my first laguage.)

Bold = intonation, / = new syllable.

King has fallen / under wounded steed.

Man and Beast flee / Huscarl and mount.

All abandon the ruler, / as the Gen'''eral

from eastern evil / of Mordor draw close.

Iron crowned and / wearing black cloak.

Riding winged horror, / beast from before the lamps.

Two still def'end king, /Neither part of the muster.

Fullfilling oath and / f'ullfilling legend.

'Woman and Holbylta / Princess and Ringwearers' friend.

Wingbeast is slain / as it attack king.

Eowyn's arm is shattered, / the Maiden earn her name.

The Ursurper of Angmar / seems to stand victorious.

From behind comes Merry / armed with barrow-blade.

Wraith is wailing, / as he feels pain.

Between neck and crown / Eowyn strikes the wraith.

Nazgûl's are now eight. Horrors lesseend.

edited 23rd Jun '17 5:51:40 AM by TheBorderPrince

Literal Epic Poetry is actually built to be easy to remember—a set number of syllables per line and lots of repetition. Before people wrote it down, they had to memorize it from rote and it was a lot easier to do that with Ear Worm poetry.

As for feel of archaic language, I've got a nice basic website about speech patterns from the American SCA. (Technically the SCA focuses on Elizabethan English around the middle/later medieval period, so if you're looking for earlier periods like Dark Ages or later ones like the Renaissance, find the appropriate websites.) Try to find historical documents from the era you're after, where people speak like that normally, and then check out the all-encompassing Tolkien. He's a linguist and The Lord Of The Rings was literally his attempt to build epic poetry for Britain, after all.

There's a book called The Art of Thee-ing and Thou-ing (or something like that) that might be helpful to you as well.

Before you commit to that, though, I'd suggest going back and reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Black Arrow and The Boy's King Arthur. They were both written in a style to mimic Ye Olde English, so see if you can make it all the way through them. Even done well, some readers will find having to decipher archaic English a bit tiresome.

edited 23rd Jun '17 1:22:21 PM by Robbery

I'll write the story in Swedish and not in English, so all those helpful tips for learning Ye Olde English aren't of that much use unfortunately. However, I guess there must be similar hepful tricks for learning oldfashioned Swedish tough... There are a few books in Swedish that are either genuiney old or written in an oldfashioned way that can give me an idea or two

I like what Sharysa wrote about Literal Epic Poetry . These tips ought to work for all, or at least most, languages... I'm allready kind of looking at Tolkien and his work, but thanks for the tip.

What if the "Narrative" should be written like Epic Poetry or like an historical chronicle and the characters speaking old fasioned? Like the "major narrative" is an old text and the characters speaking and "minor narrative" is stuff that "was really there but was omitted in the chronicle/poem/whatever". Something like this hasty little story:

Riding westwards / friends are faring Through forest / the dark and wild. Seldom trod / road is ridden

"I hate rain", he said.

"Thou has said that before. Like at least a score of times within the last hour, so can you plase stop thine whining." Said his friend tiredly. "However I do agree I don' like this thrice damned weather either. He looked at an path leading of from the road. Oh, here comes that turn in the road we should take We are almost in Oldbridge, just two more miles."

"Inn of Oldbridge, brace thyself, we are coming!!! We want thine ale!!!"

They did not see that the worn sign were actually saying...

Forest roads wild / dark and tretcherous,

often leads folk astray. / Heroes wander

for days in wild / no road no way.

edited 24th Jun '17 1:02:14 PM by TheBorderPrince

Personally, in play-by-post RPGs, I will sometimes give my character a distinctive accent or speech pattern, a la Ye Olde Butchered English — and I've found it intensely tiring to write that way for any length of time. After a while, I tend to phase out the speech pattern, and handwave it by saying that the character is losing his accent by his associating with the locals for so long.