[Resources] Q&A for Writers

[Aethera]

Q&A Rules There are no stupid questions. If you don't know or aren't sure, ask. That's why we're here. No flaming/trolling will be tolerated. The whole point is to give useful feedback on those questions that your peers need answered, regardless of what level their writing may be. All stories and story materials belong to the author. If you make a suggestion that the author doesn't agree with, that is his/her prerogative. Don't be offended that your vision doesn't match theirs. Please post a topic or question first thing in your post, or indicate which/whose topic you are responding to, before going into detail. The title field is useful for this. Kindly post extended snippets of prose in spoilerbuttons so we don't clog the thread. Enjoy!

Many of us write, but not everyone writes as well as they'd like. Having spent a good deal of time working on my own writing, I'd like to offer to help anyone who feels stuck, whether on a minor grammar issue or an involved plot crisis. To quote Klazzform's old thread, "Maybe you have a question about how to write dialogue effectively, or perhaps you are just stuck and would like a hand to decide where you should go next in your story. Maybe you need help researching a certain topic or implementing it into your plotline or maybe you are having trouble with an unruly character. Whatever the case may be, this is the place to post those questions and hopefully receive some input."

Quick Find List:
Page One: has some great ideas for fantasy and sci-fi naming of towns and establishments (taverns or corporations alike)

If you want me to, I can also continue writing some writing guides such as this one I wrote a few years back. I had a giving/receiving feedback, inspiration, narration, point of view, plot, characters, setting, proofreading, editing/revising, audience, genrelist of topics planned, but got quite sick and never went back. If you want them, tell me and I'll start writing them again.

[akaczism]

I have one minor roadblock I hit a lot that I would appreciate any advice or tips for at all from anyone. Character names never seem to trip me up, but any other names just... don't come to me, either for cities/towns (unless I go the obvious route and just name one -ton, -ville, etc), or for buildings (taverns, inns, should a blacksmith have a name for his shop besides just a sign with his name and occupation) or especially large entities (like corporations/businesses, religious factions, should a military group have a special name, would the king's boydguards have a unique title). In fact, I've only had two names I like in my life -- the town of Rheavall, and The Roc's Wing Inn & Brewery there.

Where do other people look for inspiration or sources to name these kinds of things? Everything I try just seems out of place in my settings or, perhaps worse, unimaginative (although I'm pretty sure every tavern is supposed to sound a bit cliché, but still :p).

[Aethera]

I can only offer my thoughts on how I name things, hope it helps. I write fantasy and science fiction, and I use some themes that work for either, but I'm kinda assuming you're talking fantasy if you're naming a tavern "The Roc's Wing".

I generally pick a culture other than English/Western for a place to pull some of my thematic stuff. For instance, my first novel (neither complete nor published, 'first' only in creation date) has a main character whose first name is Tatyana, going by Tania. This is straight from Russian first name/use-name traditions. I also named the main city Hejje, which is more or less turning a fun consonant in the Russian language ('zh' like the last 'ge' in 'garage') into a word that will never be repeated anywhere else, practically guaranteed.

The same novel has an inn in the capital city called "The Crowned Griffin", which refers to the crest of the royal family, a griffin. I have named inns in both writing and here on the forum things like "The Black Dog" which is an actual place on Martha's Vineyard (an island off the coast of Massachusetts), and then made fun of it by calling it "The Squatty Dog". Your raven reference is good, animals are good for common area type places, as 'dog' and 'raven'/'roc' are more down to earth than 'griffin' or 'dragon', which would probably be places of high enough quality to draw nobility, or (as in the Crowned Griffin example) nearby noble-hangouts, such as a capital city or ducal capital/estate.

Depending on your setting, you can look at history. Sure, there are places in England which are simply -town, -ton, -ville, -vale, -dale... etc. There's also Aber-X in Wales, which I believe translates to river-something. You can use these in your stories, making early fantasy villages named for a river or particular geographical feature like a cliff. The easy reference list for such names is actually street names these days. Everything from Cliffside Ave, Park Circle, Abbott Street, Highland Road... they're all based on a main feature: a cliff, a park, a church, a highland. I search various countries for their smaller towns for quick names... I'd never name a place Paris, but I might name somewhere Aberdeen.

Hope that ramble helped.

[lukedk987]

I agree with Aethera, a quick search into some county's history will inevevitably turn up some good town names. In fact, you'll find that the best fantasy writers (in my opinion) have an excellent grasp of history and etymology. This is why they can "dream up" names of people and places and have them sound so genuine (Tolkien was great at this: "ent" for example, was actually an Old English word meaning "giant").

Here's a bit of what I've gleaned from studying medieval/Renaissance history, for what it's worth:

1.) Town names were commonly named after a characteristic, landmark, or influential founder (Lark Rise, West Bend, Jameston). The -ton, -burg, -polis, etc. endings were commonly used because they all roughly translated to "town" or "city." e.g: Jameston = town of James

2.) If you're looking for a medieval'fantasy name and don't want to delve into old vernacular languages, name your town in Latin. It was a widely used language for much of the MIddle Ages.

3.) I admittedly don't know much about corporations, but they focus their names on marketability, so anything that rolls of the tongue could be acceptable.

4.) Medieval artisans (smiths, tailors, etc.) rarely had names for their businesses. They would simply hang a symbol of their trade outside their doors, such as an anvil for a blacksmith.

5.) I actually don't know much about historical taverns or inns, but I know most fantasy genres portray them more like modern businesses. It always helps to evoke the image of something unruly or mildly revolting when naming a seedy inn, and most inns follow a three-word structure (The Hog's Head, The Prancing Pony, etc.)

6.) Bodyguards rarely had a name, and were almost always hired privately (KIng Henry's bodyguards wouldn't have a special name, they'd just be "The King's Guard" or :"The Palace Guard"), but later on in the Renaissance mercenary guilds became very prominent, and they did have names based on religious themes or other lofty ideals. The Friefechters, the Marxbruder, and the Landsknecht are excellent examples.

Hope this helps!

[Darkshard]

The Royal Oak, in the Shambles , is a pub in the centre of in the town I live in, in the UK. (Nice little place; though just currently going into new management.) It's well-known as the oldest pub in the area. The building itself is eight hundred years old; it used to be a lodge for the Knights Templar and ended up becoming an inn.

I mention this because, as far as I know it naming pubs after monarchs, or body parts of monarchs, is traditional; also after animals or famous nearby events.

As well as those suffixes and prefixes Aethera mentioned (-ville is not really very English though) you also have -thorpe, also -throp or -trop (small hamlet/village), -field (self-explanatory), -thwaite (forest clearing), -wick (from the Latin 'wicus', meaning 'place'), -stead (steadding, enclosure), -ham (farmstead), -ley (woodland clearing), -ing ('the people of'), 'ford' (again self-explanatory)... you can find a lot more here.

Sometimes I will blatantly make up a placename from smodged-together syllables that sound right; most of the rest of the time though, I will generally work placenames as I've observed them here, a prefix describing a location and a suffix describing the type. (The above few I picked out are just the ones I've seen more often.)

Most places were generally described this way; so 'in the woodland clearing over eastward' is 'Eastleigh', 'the camp in the field yonder' became Chesterfield, 'where the tribe of Haeste live' is 'Hastings', 'the western church where the priest ministers' became 'Westminster' and so on. Generally, imagine what your place was like from scratch; when it was just being built. Why did people start building houses there, and how did they describe the place to others? For example, maybe your fantasy city was started up by a noble with a market charter. You might consider '-cheap' or even just '-market'. Maybe it sold really good pottery, because there's good clay nearby. Crockmarket, then. Building up a place historically is often a good idea, if you can be bothered with it. (The basic questions; where it's water comes from, where it's food comes from, what draws people to live here, who runs it.)

Of course, this all works mostly for English or Western settings, so whatever works for you!

[Nocturnal]

I also have a lot of trouble with naming things so I plagiarize relentlessly. Mostly from literature.

The main two cities in my game are: Loulan is named after an actual historic Chinese city (and oasis, and surrounding kingdom) on the Silk Road, and Perelin is named after the forest Perilin from Michael Ende's The Neverending Story. Yes, maybe a little out of place for the setting, but the places from which I stole the names fit very well with what I want these locations to represent in the game.

Most tavern names take the form of "The [Adjective] [Noun]" or "The [Noun] and [Noun]" or "The [Person]'s [Noun]." Experiment with the Mad Libs until you find ones you like: "The Royal Goose," "The Hammer and Cup," "The Duke's Pig." Make up the story of the name after the fact. Or plagiarize; "The Malthouse" was stolen from inspired by Thomas Hardy's Far from the Madding Crowd.

[akaczism]

Mostly fantasy stuff, yeah. Although I do occasionally poke at science fiction (hence asking about corporations and such, which I've concluded it's probably best to just use the surname of somebody important) it's not really what I focus on at all.

As for all the advice, you have all been tremendously helpful. I wasn't expecting so much detail or as many replies. A lot of it sounds pretty obvious once it's all laid out like that (describe the place, or again with names of important figures, etc.), but until somebody actually put it out like that it jsut didn't quite occur to me on my own. I especially appreciate all the historical examples and the referece link! I even have a name for a mocking tavern or pub now in a less pleasant part of a town, ha.

It's all both helped me think more about the history of Rheavall (I might change the exact name as I work on it more, but definitely developing the idea of once being Rheav Hall and the H eventually being dropped over time) and also assured me that if I do just make up a couple things that sound right, it'll probably pass well enough Thank you much guys!

[Aethera]

That's what we're here for. You're welcome. (I too, am pleased that so many replied, in my role as facilitator here... kudos to you all.)

For science fiction, I would also include scientific terms or something resembling them (double interesting consonants like Xs, Vs, etc, eg: Axxis) like gets done for corporations today. A good resource, not necessarily for ready-made words, but for ideas, is the pharmaceutical industry. Brand-names for drugs are usually part of the chemical name, turned into something sounding positive ("Bene"fiber, "Well"butrin, Allegra [allegro]). If you spend some time looking into those, you can build on your naming. It's also kinda fun.

[Nocturnal]

Note that real words can't be trademarked anymore so a lot of corporations take a word (or a number of words) they want associated with their business and intentionally misspell it (them) to generate their names. (Google is a misspelling of googol.) You might consider that too. Less applicable to a fantasy setting, but there you actually should have an easier time simply naming things "The [professionals] Guild".

[akaczism]

Is that really where Wellbutrin's name came from? I always assumed it was, well, random I guess. The more you know! Double thanks for the multi-genre help, Nocturnal and Aethera. Definitely makes it a lot easier to think of ideas.

[Aethera]

It's not random... it's PR. >.<

[MadMaaxi]

SO how many of you here actually write fantasy!? I mean more than a little snippet here and there? Anyone else trying to create that next "great american fantasy" novel? Currently working on a story that I'd like to get to the length of a novel because the whole thing id quite a unique twist on the typical/cliche "END OF THE WORLD/Cataclysm" scenarios that are constantly played out. Always cool to read others material as it either inspires or jump starts my creative juices. If any of you feel like sharing I can and will return the favor as mine progresses as well!

[Aethera]

Hey, MadMaaxi, this thread is just for Q&A and writing tips, not discussion of your writing. I'm gonna have to delete your post to keep the thread clear for writing help questions. This folder is for the Short Story Competition in particular, you'll want to try the main "The Library" forum for posting novel chapters.

[thattripletguy]

How do you come up with interesting names for characters?

[Aethera]

Honestly it depends on what you want in a name. Sound cool? Try a name generator. Babynames.com is great since you can choose gender and nationality if you like. Places like seventhsanctum.com have more targeted generators, like evil names, elven names, and so on. If you want to hint at some kind of meaning, figure out what that meaning is and either search for it on babynames.com or find a character in mainstream literature that has that role innn the story. (Romeo might be a little cliche, but it certainly means lover to most people.) Hope that helps!