On naming epic fantasies
Aug. 16th, 2012 08:15 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethWe can't all be Tolkien. I haven't studied any language sufficiently well to go lalala constructed language! Another constructed language! And one over here! Tada, worldbuilding! I mean, I could try, but it would be awful. That doesn't put enough people off. But I think made up words detract from most worlds rather than add to them.
So, naming gets to be a bit of a bugger. Because any name, for anything or anyone, carries a whole history of language around with it. So does English for that matter, the amount of effect you can get from the difference between sort-of-Latin words and basically-anglo-saxon is ridiculous, I did an essay on it in the first year and I've forgotten almost all of it already. Well, I did an essay on a poem that used it extensively, you could go through with an etymological dictionary and color code it and it shifted from Latinish to tother thing and you'd almost certainly not consciously notice but there was a whole effect built in. English has a fractured history right in the word choice. One that tends to read as 'posh' vs regional, kind of sort of. ... I need to dig out my old notes or re-read that book because now i'm trying to write it down and it's fallen out of my head. Anyways, we're working with a language that has been through the wars, and we actually vaguely notice who won in the word choice. So how does that translate when you're writing some epic fantasy land that didn't have the same wars? And then there's the rhythm of the speeches, metre, alliteration, rhyme schemes even. Tolkien used it different in different kingdoms, but again, most of us just aren't that good. And while we can, on the whole, go sod it and just write stuff the way our brain throws it, I personally still get stuck on the names. Because if I start out with one sort of Spanish and one kind of Turkish and one vaguely Russian, what on Earth have I done to the history?
Using ordinary bits and squishing them together works pretty good for places. But then I end up thinking Northfolk and Southfolk make perfectly good names for kingdoms. And then I have to sell readers on the epic conflict between the county I live in and the county next door. We haven't been particularly epic recently. We haven't been particularly epic since Vikings were an issue. And geographically speaking we're rather small. I always think globetrotting fantasy is rather underestimating how huge the world used to be when measured purely in travel time, but there it is, everyone's used to thinking of the world as a certain size, if you try and keep your conflict a few hours drive time apart it won't feel very big any more even if it does take weeks to walk it. Weeks might not be proper epic either. Can you do proper epic just in Britain? Do you need to wander off to Europe or China or something? I know nothing about China but it's quite a lot big. Britain, not so much. Yet we do seem to have quite a lot of history. I sat through loads of it. So is that enough to put your endless wars and huge quests in? Or do you need a few months walking walking walking in between battles?
(Speaking of walking, why does Google maps try and get you to walk to Belfast if you want to walk from Lands End to, well, practically anywhere, I was trying Castletown because google knows where that is. There's a slight problem with walking to Belfast that Google does not seem to have noticed. Also, Google is an inadequate resource for figuring out how long it takes to go places before people invent the roads. I had a link to a place that did Roman Empire travel times, where did I put it?)
Blackpool sounds proper epic unless you have actually been there. I mean, anything could live in a black pool. But once the association you have with Blackpool and castles is the bloody Norbreck, it don't quite work.
I could use place names that sound strange and mysterious rather than just being words. Like Wymondham. Which is said Win-Dem, we just spells it that way to be sure to know outsiders. But if you look up the bits of that it's a straightforward name that means battle protector home. Well, as much as names mean anything, there's always much disagreeing. Mostly names have a decided meaning that don't get very complicated.
Also, whatever name I pick, it's always going to be somebody's version of Blackpool. Nothing's exotic to everyone. Unless you muck around with language until you have one nobody has connotations for yet, which, as stated, much harder than it looks.
Names is difficult. You can change one letter and totally change the impressions. Highlander K names vs C names being the major case there. (I think it's because English uses C names, and pretty much everyone else uses the K names, because really, C sounds like K, get over it. So it's instant Foreign. So they use them for bad guys. *facepalm* )
Most of this wittering brought to you by trying to name three cities, and rename Tony and Clint. Clint isn't a name you can put anywhere else. Clint is American. Even Francis travels better and that means French, more or less. It's also a word for truthful, so it'll travel fine. If I don't mind him sounding like an old man. Plus they were spearmen, not archers. Which only matters in my head, but, my head is going to be full of something, it may as well be this.
*big sigh*
Every name has a history and a geography and a set of connotations, unless I throw syllables at a page and pick what I can pronounce.
Some people just use the first name that comes into their heads.
How?
Also, my first occurring name would invariably reveal my sources, and unless I mark it as AU fic (where it would always be BAD AU fic) I probably don't want to do that.
So, naming gets to be a bit of a bugger. Because any name, for anything or anyone, carries a whole history of language around with it. So does English for that matter, the amount of effect you can get from the difference between sort-of-Latin words and basically-anglo-saxon is ridiculous, I did an essay on it in the first year and I've forgotten almost all of it already. Well, I did an essay on a poem that used it extensively, you could go through with an etymological dictionary and color code it and it shifted from Latinish to tother thing and you'd almost certainly not consciously notice but there was a whole effect built in. English has a fractured history right in the word choice. One that tends to read as 'posh' vs regional, kind of sort of. ... I need to dig out my old notes or re-read that book because now i'm trying to write it down and it's fallen out of my head. Anyways, we're working with a language that has been through the wars, and we actually vaguely notice who won in the word choice. So how does that translate when you're writing some epic fantasy land that didn't have the same wars? And then there's the rhythm of the speeches, metre, alliteration, rhyme schemes even. Tolkien used it different in different kingdoms, but again, most of us just aren't that good. And while we can, on the whole, go sod it and just write stuff the way our brain throws it, I personally still get stuck on the names. Because if I start out with one sort of Spanish and one kind of Turkish and one vaguely Russian, what on Earth have I done to the history?
Using ordinary bits and squishing them together works pretty good for places. But then I end up thinking Northfolk and Southfolk make perfectly good names for kingdoms. And then I have to sell readers on the epic conflict between the county I live in and the county next door. We haven't been particularly epic recently. We haven't been particularly epic since Vikings were an issue. And geographically speaking we're rather small. I always think globetrotting fantasy is rather underestimating how huge the world used to be when measured purely in travel time, but there it is, everyone's used to thinking of the world as a certain size, if you try and keep your conflict a few hours drive time apart it won't feel very big any more even if it does take weeks to walk it. Weeks might not be proper epic either. Can you do proper epic just in Britain? Do you need to wander off to Europe or China or something? I know nothing about China but it's quite a lot big. Britain, not so much. Yet we do seem to have quite a lot of history. I sat through loads of it. So is that enough to put your endless wars and huge quests in? Or do you need a few months walking walking walking in between battles?
(Speaking of walking, why does Google maps try and get you to walk to Belfast if you want to walk from Lands End to, well, practically anywhere, I was trying Castletown because google knows where that is. There's a slight problem with walking to Belfast that Google does not seem to have noticed. Also, Google is an inadequate resource for figuring out how long it takes to go places before people invent the roads. I had a link to a place that did Roman Empire travel times, where did I put it?)
Blackpool sounds proper epic unless you have actually been there. I mean, anything could live in a black pool. But once the association you have with Blackpool and castles is the bloody Norbreck, it don't quite work.
I could use place names that sound strange and mysterious rather than just being words. Like Wymondham. Which is said Win-Dem, we just spells it that way to be sure to know outsiders. But if you look up the bits of that it's a straightforward name that means battle protector home. Well, as much as names mean anything, there's always much disagreeing. Mostly names have a decided meaning that don't get very complicated.
Also, whatever name I pick, it's always going to be somebody's version of Blackpool. Nothing's exotic to everyone. Unless you muck around with language until you have one nobody has connotations for yet, which, as stated, much harder than it looks.
Names is difficult. You can change one letter and totally change the impressions. Highlander K names vs C names being the major case there. (I think it's because English uses C names, and pretty much everyone else uses the K names, because really, C sounds like K, get over it. So it's instant Foreign. So they use them for bad guys. *facepalm* )
Most of this wittering brought to you by trying to name three cities, and rename Tony and Clint. Clint isn't a name you can put anywhere else. Clint is American. Even Francis travels better and that means French, more or less. It's also a word for truthful, so it'll travel fine. If I don't mind him sounding like an old man. Plus they were spearmen, not archers. Which only matters in my head, but, my head is going to be full of something, it may as well be this.
*big sigh*
Every name has a history and a geography and a set of connotations, unless I throw syllables at a page and pick what I can pronounce.
Some people just use the first name that comes into their heads.
How?
Also, my first occurring name would invariably reveal my sources, and unless I mark it as AU fic (where it would always be BAD AU fic) I probably don't want to do that.