Calling of names
Oct. 27th, 2010 01:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateSo, I have a cold-- not the sort that stops one from doing anything much, just the sort that stops one wanting to, particularly. So, I've mostly been doing some sewing, and some sitting around reading books (although I just had to take Sarah Hoyt's Heart of Light back to the library unfinished because the hero was apparently incapable of asking a logical question of anybody and all his assumptions were painfully wrong. His wife wasn't a lot better, so presumably if they ever did start talking they'd be perfect for each other, but I wasn't prepared to wade through the painful Very Proper English wrongness to find out about the interesting secondary characters,) and occasionally poking at something useful.
Among the things useful, two are giving me trouble. I've finally assigned my *cough* potential four book series a notebook for outlining and continuity notes and suchlike, and started off by drawing a map of the northern continent, since book three (this november...) involves trekking across it. And the Great Eastern Empire, and the point of view of someone who doesn't just think of Caroline's kingdom as "the Kingdom"... and all this means that it, and a great many other places, need actual names, which I'm having trouble with. I want things that sound convincingly medieval European and western Asian without actually either being from there, or being something that already exists elsewhere. Thus far, we have the brilliantly named The Church Lands, The Great Eastern Empire, and The Kingdom (which was all very well so long as Caroline is the one talking of it, but even she is about to get a lesson in geography and foreign viewpoints) and real cities with names thus far consist of Hippopolis (profound, I know) and Marmion (which turns out to be some kind of preppie boy's school in the real world.) The map has also got the Northlands, Northport, and The Holy City on it, and if you're sensing a resistance to nomenclatural commitment, there might be a reason for that. Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome.
Also, I'm trying to restrain myself from calling the as-yet-unwritten book "Empire of Apple Trees" in a completely spurious reference to Avalon, to which it is in no way related. (um, it was better than referring to Johnny Appleseed, who is thematically related?) I'm sure a better title will turn up as I write, though.
Then there's the short story I... just gave an ending, although I'm not quite happy with it. At any rate, the other difficulty is that, not knowing where it was going when I started it, I named the heroine Merrin, because it seemed like a nice name. Only then the story ended up taking place on a tropical island, and being very much about names, and as she's the only person we meet who has one, I feel that this is perhaps, not entirely appropriate. Of course, having written several thousand words about the girl, well, in my head that's her name. (I'm not delusional, right? Do other people feel that this would be kind of weird?)
Experimentally cross-posty from dreamwidth. Comment wherever; I like comments.
Among the things useful, two are giving me trouble. I've finally assigned my *cough* potential four book series a notebook for outlining and continuity notes and suchlike, and started off by drawing a map of the northern continent, since book three (this november...) involves trekking across it. And the Great Eastern Empire, and the point of view of someone who doesn't just think of Caroline's kingdom as "the Kingdom"... and all this means that it, and a great many other places, need actual names, which I'm having trouble with. I want things that sound convincingly medieval European and western Asian without actually either being from there, or being something that already exists elsewhere. Thus far, we have the brilliantly named The Church Lands, The Great Eastern Empire, and The Kingdom (which was all very well so long as Caroline is the one talking of it, but even she is about to get a lesson in geography and foreign viewpoints) and real cities with names thus far consist of Hippopolis (profound, I know) and Marmion (which turns out to be some kind of preppie boy's school in the real world.) The map has also got the Northlands, Northport, and The Holy City on it, and if you're sensing a resistance to nomenclatural commitment, there might be a reason for that. Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome.
Also, I'm trying to restrain myself from calling the as-yet-unwritten book "Empire of Apple Trees" in a completely spurious reference to Avalon, to which it is in no way related. (um, it was better than referring to Johnny Appleseed, who is thematically related?) I'm sure a better title will turn up as I write, though.
Then there's the short story I... just gave an ending, although I'm not quite happy with it. At any rate, the other difficulty is that, not knowing where it was going when I started it, I named the heroine Merrin, because it seemed like a nice name. Only then the story ended up taking place on a tropical island, and being very much about names, and as she's the only person we meet who has one, I feel that this is perhaps, not entirely appropriate. Of course, having written several thousand words about the girl, well, in my head that's her name. (I'm not delusional, right? Do other people feel that this would be kind of weird?)
Experimentally cross-posty from dreamwidth. Comment wherever; I like comments.