Thanks for your patience, everyone. I'm enjoying looking through your work and getting ideas to talk about. I thought I'd start tonight by discussing names, since it's important, but somewhat independent from a lot of other worldbuilding issues. I'm going to try to be in gear on the workshop at this point and say something every day. We'll see how I go - I am traveling to L.A. this weekend for the Nebulas, and I'll try to post about that as well. Let's just say I'll be busy.
So onto names. Some of you have lots of names for people and things, and some have only a few. What I'm looking for is consistency in the sound and feel of the names - if there are to be exceptions, they must have a reason behind them. Here are my thoughts on each piece.
Jeanne: Wrai, Sharista (people), Shelton (place)
Wrai and Sharista feel a bit different from one another, but both are non-English enough that they work just fine. Shelton feels like quite a contrast to this, though - almost too English. The created names establish me as being in a non-Earth setting, but I find myself working hard to counteract a feeling of English-village that I get from the name Shelton. I'll go more into the setting and technology in a forthcoming post.
David: Jasmine Knight, Little Black Riding Hood, Captain Obvious the Masked Wrestler, Cannon Cop, Alaric, Cybergirl (individuals), SoundPod(object), Lingerie Valkyries (band), VoidWatch (group), the Veil
The names Jasmine Knight, Little Black Riding Hood, and Lingerie Valkyries set us in a world that must bear relation to current Earth. Cybergirl makes me think we're probably in some kind of future setting. I get little idea of what the Veil might be (do you the concept of Veils, David? :) ), but I'll ask more about that later. They all fit fine together provided that my assumptions are correct.
Catreona: Cindy, Keith (people), Strlinkmr (aliens), Strlinkmrlad (place)
You've got two types of names, one for humans, and one for aliens (though we don't see any alien individuals). That makes it totally fine for the two to be distinct in their sound systems. Cindy and Keith sound a little too modern-day-Earth to me. Isn't this a far future scenario on a distant planet? I remember you mentioning the Strlinkmr during one of the past workshops, and saying something about how their language was hard to pronounce. Based on these two examples, I'd say they have strange spelling but the language doesn't seem unpronounceable. There are earth languages which use spellings like this where liquids (r, l) take on a syllable value.
Colin: Lanuz, Allen (people)
I found the name Allen normal enough to surprise me when I read your piece. Now, it's possible that Lanuz's home world has different types of names from the world in which he finds himself after the warlock's intervention. I don't think Allen is too totally Earth-normal for a fantasy setting, necessarily, but I don't have much to go on since I have only two examples.
Khajidu: Xodull, Maltur, Tsumw, Tipsy, Zhebvu (individuals), tsu (animal), Orlêzh (place)
There are a lot of names in your piece - maybe more than you need. The ones that work best together sound-wise in my view are Xodull, Maltur, and Orlêzh. Zhebvu could fit into this system, though the "bv" is a surprise. Zhebvu and tsu might work together because of the consonant combinations. Tsumw was hardest for me to pronounce and reconcile with the others. There's also one last issue here: the name Tipsy is what I'd call a translated name - i.e. a name that is a word describing someone/something in English rather than a name that fits into any local language system. You might just want to leave the animal nameless, unless it becomes a critical character later in the story.
I welcome any thoughts you might have. I'll try to take on general setting and technology issues tomorrow.
The names in my story are derived from a language I made (well, I only designed the phonology and phonotactics for the moment) and have meanings in the language. 'Tipsy' in indeed translated, I may change this name to the translation in my language. I don't know yet what will be the exact importance of the animal in my story, but it will be featured.
ReplyDeleteTsumw may be difficult to pronounce because 'w' is the transcription of an unrounded u. Tsumw has ancestors coming from another continent, so his name may sound a little different, although it fits into the phonology of the local language. Moreover, it's derived from 'tsu', the name of the animal species mentioned.
Well, the parallel is half coincidental: the 'brother' (in fact close friend) has been named this way because in his culture children are named after birds (well technically the tsul aren't birds but they're very close to that). But the reference will definitely be brought up during the course of the story: Tsumw thinks as fast as the animals are said to be.
ReplyDeleteJuliette,
ReplyDeleteThe concept I'm working on is that there are multiple alternate timelines/universes. Some look like they could be our future, direct descendents of our own world. Some look very different indeed.
Jasmine comes from one of these could-be-our-future timelines. Some of the other individuals do not. The names that are listed in the excerpt are mostly Jasmine throwing convenient (if slightly insulting) labels at people.
This would have become clearer if I'd sent a (much) longer piece. Jasmine can't remain hidden in mindshadows at any great distance, so at this moment she is being unwillingly dragged to a briefing on the mission she is supposed to be a part of. This would include the real names of her new colleagues, and the nature of this other Earth on which she now finds herself.
Of course, not everything she hears at the briefing is true, either.
Juliette,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the insight into liquids. Someone I asked to read what I had so far said plaintively that she couldn't even begin to pronounce the indigenous (alien) names. The actual personal names need a bit more work, but you won't be seeing those for a while.
As to Cindy and Kieth, well... Cinthia has been used as a given name for thousands of years and Kieth for hundreds. I sort of doubt that they will be going away any time soon. Also, distant, alien planet does not automatically mean far future. Here, in any case, the humans do not have fantastically weird names, but normal ones.
PS The Veil is a convenient way to describe the barrier between one timeline/universe and another. We must have some sort of barrier - we can't just have everything falling through the walls of reality at an inconvenient moment, now can we? :)
ReplyDeleteBtw, Juliette, I hope you have a good time here in LA. I live in the San Fernando valley which is on the other side of the hill from downtown LA. Where exactly is the Nebula Awards being hosted? Is it at UCLA? Is it coincidence that it's the same dates as the LA Times Festival of Books which is also at UCLA? I was considering going to that...
ReplyDeleteTo Colin,
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think the dropping of the "s" only applies to double s's, so it would be Lanuz's. That's my sense of it. :)
All of the Lanuz-related folks have recognizably fantasy names except for Thrall. His name comes across as translated. While that's not necessarily a problem, I'd expect to see a mix of translated and untranslated names in the story as a whole. My instinct in my own work is to pick one or the other.
I think it definitely makes sense to have two groups of names, one for one world and one for the other. If the two worlds are different time periods of the same world, I'd expect them not to be vastly different, just maybe with some systematic sound changes.
I'm struck by your thoughts on Allen. The name is cute, but the Allen wrench is an extremely earth-specific object, and I think bringing that connection in is likely to be distracting from your story rather than helpful.
Steampunk is definitely big right now, so much so that it's becoming its own sub-genre. But my understanding of it is that it's almost like alternate Earth history, and isn't actually directly related to our own Earth. I think that unless you want to go through and figure out what forces and/or catastrophes caused losses of technology, it might be worth your while just to say you're in a Steampunk alternate Earth, and save yourself the trouble. Steampunk alternate Earths can come in many varieties, too - one of my writer friends recently showed me a Steampunk story set in Aztec times. So you've got lots of flexibility there. Make sure, though, that you've thought through what the distinct differences are between Lanuz's era and the "modern" one.
The Reijak stuff seems fine, but it's hard to tell without seeing it "in action," so to speak. I'd watch out for "Jug" as it seems translated.
About the Nebulas: they're held at the Luxe hotel in L.A. proper. Very close to UCLA, as I understand it, but not on the campus.
David,
ReplyDeleteHow you use "veil" was obvious to me, for what it's worth.
Juliette,
ReplyDeleteI'd love for you to get rid of the captia. It is an incredible PITA.
Just saying...
David,
ReplyDeleteI knew what you meant by Veil, inasmuch as I thought she'd been traveling into another dimension or something. In fact I guessed she traveled into our world, since she came back with tequila, but since I imagined her as being in an Earth future I had a tough time understanding the details.
Colin, I really appreciate all the information you've just given me. It's very good stuff, but stuff that isn't currently evident in your scene. I'm taking it into account and I will return to it in a future post. Eventually I hope you can get a lot of it in under the radar...
ReplyDeleteJuliette,
ReplyDeleteLater on in the story Something Very Bad on this Earth takes an interest in what the VoidWatch operatives are doing. I intend to detail the timeline-jumping mechanism at this point, as the VoidWatch try to stop the Something Very Bad from using it to get loose into other timelines.
But I can see that, for the reader, it might be better to make it clear from the start - the setting, and the character's relation to the setting, at least, if not the actual "how does this timeline-jumping device actually work?"
ReplyDeleteAs far as the names being similar, I think that's to be expected. My friends Alan, Mary Beth, Christopher and Eleanor all have pretty different sounding names. Although this novel is about 80% written, the names (except for Wrai) are pretty much open to change.
ReplyDeleteJuliette,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the critique. I'll work out what you mentioned in my piece. Tsumw could mention he was named after the species, or allude to an aspect of his culture.
Jeanne,
ReplyDeleteWhen I say the names are similar, that's a good thing. I think I mentioned in my main post that I'm just expecting them to come from the same language. If they're so similar that they can't be told apart, that becomes another problem - but it's not one that I've seen in any of these excerpts.
Jeanne,
ReplyDeleteI'm right with you on having accessible names that are pronounceable for English speakers. You still have lots of options, though.
I see. So the confusion is then in how to pronounce the name? Or is it just that the reader will automatically read it as the English word? Taking the example of Jug, obviously the Reijak wouldn't intend to nickname someone based on an English word, but because the reader will read it as such it becomes confusing. Yes?
ReplyDelete