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xenithToday I have a guest post! So sit back and enjoy.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I wrote a novel that, fortunately, never went anywhere near publication. At the time, I couldn't get the plot to work to my satisfaction, but as it turned out, this was a blessing in disguise.
Why?
Well, the novel was a naming disaster.
When I start a project in a different world, I work out a naming system. This means nothing other than that all character and place names from a certain locality or time period have the same feel. There is nothing more annoying than coming across an anachronistic or otherwise out-of-place name a couple of times on every page of the book.
A name should also be memorable for the reader, and be relatively easy to pronounce. But there are a few other things to consider when making up names. If you're writing speculative fiction, you can use naming to suggest connotations with existing cultures. For example in my fantasy trilogy, I have names that hint at a Roman influence, and this was done deliberately.
Names can denote status or level of development of the society. Do characters have family names as we know them, or do they have names that describe the person's attributes, such as Bignose? Do they have more than one last name and if so, where do those names come from? Both mother and father, or something different altogether? In one of my worlds a major culture passes a mother's clan name onto any sons and a father's clan name onto any daughters.
How are names inherited and what does this inheritance system say about the society? Is it patriarchal or matriarchal or achievement-based, for example, in my story Where the Plains Merge with the Sky (Scapezine 2) a name needs to have been earned.
Also, are names conjugated with their owners' gender, like Russian and Icelandic names? Or are there entirely different names for genders? What happens to names when characters, male or female or neutral, go into a long-term officially-sanctioned relationship?
Within your society, all names need to have a similar ring to them. In real life, we can determine what is a French name, what an English name and what a German name simply by sound. Could you replicate something like this in your world so that your readers do not need to be told the character's origin when they read a name?
OK, in the ill-fated novel, I did all these things. Where did I go wrong?
Well, when you've made up all your names, you should always google them to see if the made-up words have any unexpected meanings. It could be that the word means something in another language. Or that the term has somehow stuck in the back of your subconscious mind, but was originally used in a famous book, or a movie. I didn't do this. Bad writer! And there were some clunkers. I'm too embarrassed to mention them. Needless to say, if this book ever sees the light of day, it will be with different names.
Bio:
Patty Jansen lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. She publishes in both traditional and indie venues. Her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest. Her futuristic space travel story Survival in Shades of Orange will appear in Analog Science Fiction and Fact.
Her novels (available at ebook venues, such as the Kindle store) include Watcher's Web (soft SF), The Far Horizon for younger readers), Charlotte's Army (military SF) and books 1 and 2 of the Icefire Trilogy Fire & Ice and Dust & Rain (post-apocalyptic steampunk fantasy).
Patty is a member of SFWA, and the cooperative that makes up Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and she has also written non-fiction.
Patty is on Twitter (@pattyjansen), Facebook, LinkedIn, goodreads, LibraryThing, google+ and blogs at: http://pattyjansen.com/
Once upon a time, a long time ago, I wrote a novel that, fortunately, never went anywhere near publication. At the time, I couldn't get the plot to work to my satisfaction, but as it turned out, this was a blessing in disguise.
Why?
Well, the novel was a naming disaster.
When I start a project in a different world, I work out a naming system. This means nothing other than that all character and place names from a certain locality or time period have the same feel. There is nothing more annoying than coming across an anachronistic or otherwise out-of-place name a couple of times on every page of the book.
A name should also be memorable for the reader, and be relatively easy to pronounce. But there are a few other things to consider when making up names. If you're writing speculative fiction, you can use naming to suggest connotations with existing cultures. For example in my fantasy trilogy, I have names that hint at a Roman influence, and this was done deliberately.
Names can denote status or level of development of the society. Do characters have family names as we know them, or do they have names that describe the person's attributes, such as Bignose? Do they have more than one last name and if so, where do those names come from? Both mother and father, or something different altogether? In one of my worlds a major culture passes a mother's clan name onto any sons and a father's clan name onto any daughters.
How are names inherited and what does this inheritance system say about the society? Is it patriarchal or matriarchal or achievement-based, for example, in my story Where the Plains Merge with the Sky (Scapezine 2) a name needs to have been earned.
Also, are names conjugated with their owners' gender, like Russian and Icelandic names? Or are there entirely different names for genders? What happens to names when characters, male or female or neutral, go into a long-term officially-sanctioned relationship?
Within your society, all names need to have a similar ring to them. In real life, we can determine what is a French name, what an English name and what a German name simply by sound. Could you replicate something like this in your world so that your readers do not need to be told the character's origin when they read a name?
OK, in the ill-fated novel, I did all these things. Where did I go wrong?
Well, when you've made up all your names, you should always google them to see if the made-up words have any unexpected meanings. It could be that the word means something in another language. Or that the term has somehow stuck in the back of your subconscious mind, but was originally used in a famous book, or a movie. I didn't do this. Bad writer! And there were some clunkers. I'm too embarrassed to mention them. Needless to say, if this book ever sees the light of day, it will be with different names.
Bio:
Patty Jansen lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. She publishes in both traditional and indie venues. Her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest. Her futuristic space travel story Survival in Shades of Orange will appear in Analog Science Fiction and Fact.
Her novels (available at ebook venues, such as the Kindle store) include Watcher's Web (soft SF), The Far Horizon for younger readers), Charlotte's Army (military SF) and books 1 and 2 of the Icefire Trilogy Fire & Ice and Dust & Rain (post-apocalyptic steampunk fantasy).
Patty is a member of SFWA, and the cooperative that makes up Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and she has also written non-fiction.
Patty is on Twitter (@pattyjansen), Facebook, LinkedIn, goodreads, LibraryThing, google+ and blogs at: http://pattyjansen.com/
