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Showing posts with label Names. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Names. Show all posts
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Tuesday, 16 March 2010
I'll name that suit in one
Hop over to the Guardian Books Blog for Imogen Russell Williams's thoughts on character names in SF and fantasy fiction. Seems like Imogen agrees with my thoughts here ie if you're going to invent names, don't get silly. And avoid apostrophes at all costs.
Particularly refreshing then to pick up Joe Haldeman's The Forever War (one of those SF classics I never got round to reading, but which has been thoughtfully reprinted in the UK by those nice people at Gollancz). As well as enjoying Joe's clear, descriptive prose, I was delighted to discover that the name he'd decided on for the motion-amplifying fighting suits worn by his future army was ... fighting suits. Nice.
Particularly refreshing then to pick up Joe Haldeman's The Forever War (one of those SF classics I never got round to reading, but which has been thoughtfully reprinted in the UK by those nice people at Gollancz). As well as enjoying Joe's clear, descriptive prose, I was delighted to discover that the name he'd decided on for the motion-amplifying fighting suits worn by his future army was ... fighting suits. Nice.
Thursday, 9 July 2009
Ishi, Ish and Earth Abides
There are a few books I come back to over and over again. One of these is George R. Stewart's Earth Abides. You've probably read it, but if you haven't I can't implore you enough to find a copy. It's probably the best post-apocalypse story you'll read. In it, Californian Isherwood Williams wakes from a snake-bite-induced delirium to discover a plague has all but erased mankind. Stewart does a grand job of chronicling Ish's journey and ultimate ascension to the role of 'the last American', but what sticks with me are the glorious interludes where he tracks the gradual decay of technology, and its absorption back into the natural world.
If you've been following this blog, you'll know by now I have a thing about names. For some reason, the name 'Ish' has always struck me as hauntingly odd. Well, today I discovered why. In 1911 a man from a stone-age culture walked out of the California hills and became famous as the 'last wild Indian'. His name was Ishi, and he experienced a few years of celebrity at the university in San Francisco. David Pringle has written a great piece about all this, including the connection between Ishi and Earth Abides - you can read it here. There's a Wikipedia article too. They say truth is stranger than fiction. In this case, it's at least as fascinating.
If you've been following this blog, you'll know by now I have a thing about names. For some reason, the name 'Ish' has always struck me as hauntingly odd. Well, today I discovered why. In 1911 a man from a stone-age culture walked out of the California hills and became famous as the 'last wild Indian'. His name was Ishi, and he experienced a few years of celebrity at the university in San Francisco. David Pringle has written a great piece about all this, including the connection between Ishi and Earth Abides - you can read it here. There's a Wikipedia article too. They say truth is stranger than fiction. In this case, it's at least as fascinating.
Tuesday, 30 June 2009
Fancy handles
Yes, I'm banging on about names again. I make no apology. I like names. Names have power.
Naming things – characters or worlds or, well, just stuff – can be a thorny problem for the writer of speculative fiction. Do I keep it simple or go off the deep end? Do I invent new words and languages or rely on the old ones? Portmanteau words are a popular option – bolting together two or more everyday words to make an shiny new one. That durable SF building material plasteel springs to mind. If you're not sure whether to go for plain or fancy, you can do both, which has the added advantage of adding texture to your worldbuilding. Hence Frank Herbert's planet Arrakis (fancy), also known as Dune (plain), is inhabited by the monstrous Shai-Hulud, AKA sandworm. You get the picture.
Fancy handles can get silly of course. I've encountered too many doorstop-sized fantasies populated with characters who go by names like Zzpan-ga-molzniuk or Jhsyn-hss. I hate that. Tolkein never made that mistake, sticking mostly to names you could actually pronounce, yet which looked exotic on the page. And, like Herbert, he used the many-languages trick to add depth.
So what's my approach? Whatever I say here, I'm sure to contradict it in the next piece of fiction I write. But by and large I favour plain over fancy. So when I created the huge cast of dragons for Dragoncharm and its sequels, I used down-to-earth names like Fortune, Wood, Gossamer and Wraith. Names are like fishhooks – keep them sharp and simple and you reel the reader in.
And there's this fantasy detective I've written about from time to time. He's starred in six short stories (plus a hot-off-the-press but as-yet-unpublished manuscript for a novel called String City) and his name isn't mentioned once. His anonymity started as a writer's conceit in the first story and just continued from there. Writing in the first person lets you perform stunts like that. He does have a name – I just don't know what it is. Maybe one day he'll tell me. Until then, he's the boss.
Like I said, names have power.
Naming things – characters or worlds or, well, just stuff – can be a thorny problem for the writer of speculative fiction. Do I keep it simple or go off the deep end? Do I invent new words and languages or rely on the old ones? Portmanteau words are a popular option – bolting together two or more everyday words to make an shiny new one. That durable SF building material plasteel springs to mind. If you're not sure whether to go for plain or fancy, you can do both, which has the added advantage of adding texture to your worldbuilding. Hence Frank Herbert's planet Arrakis (fancy), also known as Dune (plain), is inhabited by the monstrous Shai-Hulud, AKA sandworm. You get the picture.
Fancy handles can get silly of course. I've encountered too many doorstop-sized fantasies populated with characters who go by names like Zzpan-ga-molzniuk or Jhsyn-hss. I hate that. Tolkein never made that mistake, sticking mostly to names you could actually pronounce, yet which looked exotic on the page. And, like Herbert, he used the many-languages trick to add depth.
So what's my approach? Whatever I say here, I'm sure to contradict it in the next piece of fiction I write. But by and large I favour plain over fancy. So when I created the huge cast of dragons for Dragoncharm and its sequels, I used down-to-earth names like Fortune, Wood, Gossamer and Wraith. Names are like fishhooks – keep them sharp and simple and you reel the reader in.
And there's this fantasy detective I've written about from time to time. He's starred in six short stories (plus a hot-off-the-press but as-yet-unpublished manuscript for a novel called String City) and his name isn't mentioned once. His anonymity started as a writer's conceit in the first story and just continued from there. Writing in the first person lets you perform stunts like that. He does have a name – I just don't know what it is. Maybe one day he'll tell me. Until then, he's the boss.
Like I said, names have power.
Monday, 29 June 2009
What's in a name? – Thursday Next
Jasper Fforde's love of the language – not to mention his sense of humour – is nowhere more obvious than in his choice of character names in The Eyre Affair. Thursday Next is a fun monicker for a heroine in a novel whose supporting cast includes Colonel Braxton Hicks and Dr Runcible Spoon. And how can you not chuckle at a dark and devious chap called Jack Schitt?
Tuesday, 23 June 2009
What's in a name? – Hiro Protagonist
One of the cheekiest names in speculative literature has to be Hiro Protagonist. Neal Stephenson's arguably the only writer who could pull this off – which indeed he did, in his novel Snow Crash. I just wish I'd thought of it first.
Wednesday, 17 June 2009
What's in a name? – X
The protagonist of Kim Stanley Robinson's sublime Antarctica is called X. It's a nickname actually, but I'm pretty sure his real name's never mentioned. Chapter one puts the book's cards on the table by saying, quite simply: "Call him X."
Names have great power in fiction, and to reduce one's title character to a mere symbol is pretty daring. I'm not sure I'd have the nerve. But it works beautifully, and perfectly represents one the novel's key themes: that there are some environments so alien – even on Earth – that man will always struggle to represent himself there; against Antarctica's uncompromising tableau of ice, rock and sky, he's reduced to just a crude mark on the landscape.
When you think about it, "X" is the perfect everyman name. If you're asking your readers to project themselves into the narrative, what better way than to give them a blank space into which to insert themselves? So why not take it a stage further? How about a literal blank space? Could you read a book where the hero's name is ?
Names have great power in fiction, and to reduce one's title character to a mere symbol is pretty daring. I'm not sure I'd have the nerve. But it works beautifully, and perfectly represents one the novel's key themes: that there are some environments so alien – even on Earth – that man will always struggle to represent himself there; against Antarctica's uncompromising tableau of ice, rock and sky, he's reduced to just a crude mark on the landscape.
When you think about it, "X" is the perfect everyman name. If you're asking your readers to project themselves into the narrative, what better way than to give them a blank space into which to insert themselves? So why not take it a stage further? How about a literal blank space? Could you read a book where the hero's name is ?
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