Creative Writing Question

[chi-o_cat]

I am taking an on-line writing class. It’s pretty much just for fun- it’s not for academic credit, there are no grades, most of the assignments are optional. We mainly will be writing one story to turn in at the end. The story I am thinking of is about a college student who initially is not interested in sororities, but then ends up joining one.

Keeping audience in mind, not everyone reading this would be familiar with Greek life and the logistical procedures of joining a sorority . In fact, I would assume most people are not. I definitely would keep the story realistic- no circling the fat or naked pillow fights or anything like that, but I also would probably want to avoid jargon, such as quota, COB, total, that sort of thing. Which brings me to the next question:

So far, in my draft version, I am using words like rush and pledge, because those are still the words that are most familiar to people. If you were reading a piece of fiction that used the “old terminology,” would you think anything of it? In other words, would you think the author was out-of-the-loop and didn’t even know the correct words, or would you suspect they are using the words that more people know? I have not nailed down the time period where the story takes place. It’s possible it could take place in a time period before the change of terminology, which would make using those words even less of an issue, but as of now, there are no details that “date” the story, so a reader would assume it takes place in the current day.