On the Use of XX, an essay
This came to me as I was leaving English, on my way to McKeldin as usual. It's a little rant/essay on using xx to define your year.
Many times in stories, comics, movies, or such, you will see the year given as something-xx. For example, 19xx, or the ever popular 20xx that has become so prevalent in sci-fi works. I myself have set my current story, Grey Snow, in the year 18xx, because the setting is in a sort of pseudo-Victorian England.
Now notice it's a pseudo-Victorian England and not the real Victorian England, which I why I choose so ambiguous a year. The way I see it, using the suffix -xx is a means of breaking from reality. When you give a year, say 1987, you are now confined to the established world and dynamics of the late 80s, and of that year even, unless you make it specifically that your story is not plausible in the real world of that year. So maybe you go up a level, and now the story is set in 198x, which means, anywhere in the 80s. That's a little better, but unless you know you want your story to be set in the 80s, it won't cut it. A setting only related to the real world in certain features, with a mostly fictional environment, cannot be tied to a slice of time like that and still remain ambiguous.
So that's when you zoom out again. When you list the exact year, you are bound to that year, and when you list the decade, you have a little more freedom, but are still trapped. But once you list only the century, then you're practically free! You have an entire stretch of 100 years to work with, and so many things can happen in that time, no one can argue any supposed historical inaccuracies. With such a wide time period, you can mix and match features from all parts of your chosen century (within reason), and still have your story seem semi-realistic. For example, I don't need to know the exact year a certain improvement on the printing press came about, as long as I know it happened in the 19th century. It seems like cheating, I know, but it frees your creativity to work more on character development than world-building, and it's the characters that make the story, as I see it.
Of course, there are problems with this ambiguity. For one, the use of 1987, or even the 20th century at all, perhaps was not the best example. The 19xxs were such a volatile time, with each decade being so different from the next and the previous, that it is difficult to widen a setting window to more than a stretch of a decade or two. However, when you move out of the 20th century, that problem all but dissolves. For example, the 20xxs have yet to come, really, and since we can't predict the future, an number of things could happen in this century. Then, of course, there's my focus, the 18xxs. While it is true that the 1850s were different from, say, the 1890s, they weren't so dramatically different that it would completely jar a story to move it from one decade to the next (unless of course the story relies on real historical events and settings of that decade, in which case the device of -xx couldn't be used anyway).
Once you get around that issue, there still lies the problem of implementation. Sure it's all good and well to give the year as 18xx in your narration, but what about within the story? Doesn't anyone at all care what year it is? That is the major issue of -xx, as I see it. One thing you can do is just never have it brought up. If characters need to talk about the year, they can do it on their own time. And if needs be, they can simply mention the century, as for them to try to give an exact year is something like, "And I claim the land, in the name of our benevolent Queen, in the year 18-*mumble**mumble*..." which, though amusing, may not be the tone you're looking for.
Then, course, there's the implementation of -xx in writing. Say your character receives a letter that has the date written in the corner. Surely the person who sent it to them has not written "August 30, 18xx," as that would seem quite strange to someone who does know what year it is. The way to get around this is to simply mention, "The date was written in the corner, above his address. Was he really living on Kendall Street now?" or perhaps a bit sillier, "She guessed that he had written the date in the corner, though it had been penned in the same smudgy, scrawling handwriting as the rest of the letter. With such writing, it would take her quite a while to read through the three-page note." (Note that I just made up these examples, and so have no idea of what they could refer to...)
So that solves that problem... maybe. I realised the other day, that at some point I wanted one or two characters to visit a graveyard. Now unless I'm mistaken, graveyards are typically full of tombstones and other such grave markers, which typically have years of birth and death engraved on them. So how do you get around the year then? Sure you could mention some random year, but then that automatically means that your story is set during or after that year, which detracts from the ambiguity. Then, of course, you could always have the gravestones be weathered to the point where you can read the year, but then again, would you even be able to read the name? And unless it's an old, unkept graveyard, there would have to be some newer, more legible tombstones. My solution to this lies solely on the characters. First off, at least half of my major characters do not have even a basic school education, and so cannot read much, and can do little more than simple math. Even if they do manage to identify the correct grave marker, they are more likely to ignore the year in favor of the moment (unless the year becomes a plot point, which I doubt it will). In this way, the exact year can be ignored at this time as well.
And so, that's what I think of the -xx extension. It's a real pain in the ass to make it work, but when it does work, it does your story more good than harm. Without being constrained by your setting, you, as a writer, have more breathing room, and can play around more in a real world-type setting without being defined by it, and can put more effort into the character and the story than the actual world. This is not to say that you still don't have to research, as I do a lot of that, to keep my story as accurate, at least technologically, as it can be. However, I don't limit my story by linking it to true history, and because of that, I believe it's turned out for the better.
Many times in stories, comics, movies, or such, you will see the year given as something-xx. For example, 19xx, or the ever popular 20xx that has become so prevalent in sci-fi works. I myself have set my current story, Grey Snow, in the year 18xx, because the setting is in a sort of pseudo-Victorian England.
Now notice it's a pseudo-Victorian England and not the real Victorian England, which I why I choose so ambiguous a year. The way I see it, using the suffix -xx is a means of breaking from reality. When you give a year, say 1987, you are now confined to the established world and dynamics of the late 80s, and of that year even, unless you make it specifically that your story is not plausible in the real world of that year. So maybe you go up a level, and now the story is set in 198x, which means, anywhere in the 80s. That's a little better, but unless you know you want your story to be set in the 80s, it won't cut it. A setting only related to the real world in certain features, with a mostly fictional environment, cannot be tied to a slice of time like that and still remain ambiguous.
So that's when you zoom out again. When you list the exact year, you are bound to that year, and when you list the decade, you have a little more freedom, but are still trapped. But once you list only the century, then you're practically free! You have an entire stretch of 100 years to work with, and so many things can happen in that time, no one can argue any supposed historical inaccuracies. With such a wide time period, you can mix and match features from all parts of your chosen century (within reason), and still have your story seem semi-realistic. For example, I don't need to know the exact year a certain improvement on the printing press came about, as long as I know it happened in the 19th century. It seems like cheating, I know, but it frees your creativity to work more on character development than world-building, and it's the characters that make the story, as I see it.
Of course, there are problems with this ambiguity. For one, the use of 1987, or even the 20th century at all, perhaps was not the best example. The 19xxs were such a volatile time, with each decade being so different from the next and the previous, that it is difficult to widen a setting window to more than a stretch of a decade or two. However, when you move out of the 20th century, that problem all but dissolves. For example, the 20xxs have yet to come, really, and since we can't predict the future, an number of things could happen in this century. Then, of course, there's my focus, the 18xxs. While it is true that the 1850s were different from, say, the 1890s, they weren't so dramatically different that it would completely jar a story to move it from one decade to the next (unless of course the story relies on real historical events and settings of that decade, in which case the device of -xx couldn't be used anyway).
Once you get around that issue, there still lies the problem of implementation. Sure it's all good and well to give the year as 18xx in your narration, but what about within the story? Doesn't anyone at all care what year it is? That is the major issue of -xx, as I see it. One thing you can do is just never have it brought up. If characters need to talk about the year, they can do it on their own time. And if needs be, they can simply mention the century, as for them to try to give an exact year is something like, "And I claim the land, in the name of our benevolent Queen, in the year 18-*mumble**mumble*..." which, though amusing, may not be the tone you're looking for.
Then, course, there's the implementation of -xx in writing. Say your character receives a letter that has the date written in the corner. Surely the person who sent it to them has not written "August 30, 18xx," as that would seem quite strange to someone who does know what year it is. The way to get around this is to simply mention, "The date was written in the corner, above his address. Was he really living on Kendall Street now?" or perhaps a bit sillier, "She guessed that he had written the date in the corner, though it had been penned in the same smudgy, scrawling handwriting as the rest of the letter. With such writing, it would take her quite a while to read through the three-page note." (Note that I just made up these examples, and so have no idea of what they could refer to...)
So that solves that problem... maybe. I realised the other day, that at some point I wanted one or two characters to visit a graveyard. Now unless I'm mistaken, graveyards are typically full of tombstones and other such grave markers, which typically have years of birth and death engraved on them. So how do you get around the year then? Sure you could mention some random year, but then that automatically means that your story is set during or after that year, which detracts from the ambiguity. Then, of course, you could always have the gravestones be weathered to the point where you can read the year, but then again, would you even be able to read the name? And unless it's an old, unkept graveyard, there would have to be some newer, more legible tombstones. My solution to this lies solely on the characters. First off, at least half of my major characters do not have even a basic school education, and so cannot read much, and can do little more than simple math. Even if they do manage to identify the correct grave marker, they are more likely to ignore the year in favor of the moment (unless the year becomes a plot point, which I doubt it will). In this way, the exact year can be ignored at this time as well.
And so, that's what I think of the -xx extension. It's a real pain in the ass to make it work, but when it does work, it does your story more good than harm. Without being constrained by your setting, you, as a writer, have more breathing room, and can play around more in a real world-type setting without being defined by it, and can put more effort into the character and the story than the actual world. This is not to say that you still don't have to research, as I do a lot of that, to keep my story as accurate, at least technologically, as it can be. However, I don't limit my story by linking it to true history, and because of that, I believe it's turned out for the better.