I love world-building. One of the reasons why is that I love to do research. While my books are fantasy novels, there are a few real-world elements I research, such as weapons of the time period I am emulating in my writing. Another element I research is words. Words change over time, and some words we use today were not used centuries ago. The Arlin trilogy has some settings that resemble the 16th and 17th centuries, and I wanted to maintain that image by using words and tools of the period. Recently I came across a word in my books that suddenly struck me as potentially out of place. I looped it up and discovered it was not in line with the period my books were inspired by, so I dove in to find out what I should use instead. What word did I change? Science.
It turns out the word “science” wasn’t used until the late 18th and early 19th centuries. That’s right, the word “science” is a relatively new term. Before the late 18th century, scientists were referred to as “natural philosophers.” As scientists do now, these philosophers studied the world around them and recorded what they learned. They did not follow the scientific method, as it had not been developed officially, though I would imagine natural philosophers performed a similar process when testing theories.
As a result of this discovery, I took the word “science” out of my books and replaced it with the term “natural philosopher” or “natural philosophy.” The concept comes up in reference to one particular character who I am excited to introduce you to very soon!
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I look forward to sharing my first novel The Story with you very soon!
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