Don’t call a rabbit a smeerp, and definitely don’t call a solar flare a “space storm.”
An important rule of world building is to only rename things that are somewhat original. If you’re inventing a new animal, give it a new name. But if you just want to write about a planet with cute, tiny, cheese-munching rodents, just have the residents call them mice. Inventing a new name for a thing when you’re not adding any other new details is unnecessary.
Why does it matter? Why can’t you call a mouse a “glorbo” if you want to? Giving an animal a new name makes your readers expect new details to go along with it. If the animal looks and acts much like an Earth mouse, your readers will wonder what exactly what makes it a globo. Your world building will feel lazy and incomplete.
The term for this is “calling a rabbit a smeerp.” The term “smeerp” comes from James Blish, writing a review in the fanzine Sky Hook. “…They look like rabbits, but if you call them smeerps, that makes it science fiction.”
Bruce Sterling says smeerps are “a cheap technique for false exoticism, in which common elements of the real world are re-named for a fantastic milieu without any real alteration in their basic nature or behavior.” Either put the effort in and invent a whole new type of rodent, or just call it a rabbit.
Older sci-fi works would often just add “space” or “galactic” to common Earth things to make them sound exotic and exciting. “Why didn’t the Galactic Weather Service warn us about this space storm? All this astro hail is going to leave cracks in the solar windshield of my cosmic camper van. We should pull under that interstellar overpass!” Sounds ridiculous, right? Renaming an animal that’s obviously a mouse can sound just as cheesy.
Some writers will protest, “But won’t my readers wonder why my alien planet has Earth animals on it? Won’t they be confused?” As long as you have other world building details in place that make it clear it’s an alien world, probably not. If your planet has woffs, splingos, and g’zibbipocks, readers will most likely understand that the “mouse” is an alien creature too.
However, if you or your beta readers are concerned it may be confusing, simply adding a line will make sure your readers know it’s the Martian version of a mouse:
“The worst pest on the colony farms was a mouse-like rodent…”
“It looked much like the mice back home.”
“Captain Jetstream didn’t know what the local name for it was, so he just called it a mouse.”
What about creating new animals? When do we replace rabbits with our original space rodents? Just like any story exposition, world building details should do one of two things: move the plot forward, or reveal character. If including a detail doesn’t affect the plot or reveal something about your character’s personality, goals, or background, it’s probably best to just leave it out.
If your story is about a gardener defending her veggies from pests, or a scientist genetically engineering a new super rodent, by all means, explain how your glorbos have short ears and green fur and glow in the dark. If your antihero needs a pet to make them more relatable, giving them a glorbo to keep in their weapons bag is a perfect way to show their softer side. But if the rodents only appear as a background detail, leaving them as rabbits is probably fine.
Note that this rule isn’t just about animals. Technology, weather, food, and other details that work just like on Earth don’t need renamed, either. Any world building detail needs to be unique enough to earn a name.
Do you have a favorite smeerp? Does your story have a unique bit of world building you’re particularly proud of? Let me know in the comments!
