Naming Names in Epic Fiction Pt 2

In my last blogging twitch I revealed how I didn't like the name my parents gave me but gradually accepted it for tax purposes and more. I believe the consternation at my own name has influenced how carefully I name characters in my books. Especially in stories set on other worlds or fantasy lands where the usual English names should not apply. There, a name unfamiliar to us may yet carry some weight, be loaded with symbolism, and annoy its bearer to no end...right?

You would think coming up with names in a fantasy story would be easy: just throw some letters together and voila a character is born! You could do that, but does the name sound like that character's name? Does it make the reader believe this character will act a certain way? speak in a particular dialect? think in strange ways? Who can say? That is what makes naming more difficult for fantasy and science fiction. 

The easiest way to choose names is look at drugs. Xanax is a powerful commander of the Prilosec fleet of intergalactic warships. Or try choosing a "normal" name and changing a letter or two. Tom, Dick, and Harry could become Tam, Wick, and Darry - three Hobbits in a new fantasy tale. Back to THE DREAM LAND Trilogy: I made my own formal rules for "alien" names, partly to keep them straight in my head, whereby male names ended with consonants and female names with vowel sounds. For example, Samot and Aisa, two legendary figures in Sekuatean mythology. (Did you see what I did there? I reversed two letters so it is not Asia, the continent, but Aisa ["Eye-zuh"] the girl.)

Even in EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS names are important to the characters. Our hero is Corlan, a name I toyed with and finally settled on as something a rough and tough hero might be called. Surname? I hesitated for several chapters, then in a flash of inspiration I "unwhited" him. Or so I thought. Diversity being all the rage these days, I thought to make him "Asian" in a make-believe world with no Asia. I let him bear the family name of Tang. It sounds like a Chinese name and yet on an invented setting it could be anything. His auburn hair wouldn't exactly fit an Asian name, however, but that would just add to the mystery, eh? His name is eventually explained in the story - and makes perfect sense, of course.

I stayed with that scheme for the city of Covin, an all-women city where the few men allowed there are either slaves, dinner, or sometimes briefly a sire. At that point in my writing of the novel, the setting had shifted from something completely invented, like a slightly less Middle Earth, to a futuristic American landscape. So there was definitely no Asian anything - except as may have been "left over" from the world we know today. Who can say for sure? The Queen of Covin is named Hiro Ka, which sounds Japanese. All part of the story. Later we learn that these "trendy" names are just corruptions of longer names. For example, we learn that the Queen of Covin's original name was Hillary Kavanaugh. Make of that twist as you will, perhaps the "white" person wishing to be more exotic? Another twist, another mystery. And Covin is clearly meant to be the old Covington, Kentucky, right? Everyone can see that, true?

At one point in the tale, our band of heroes encounters the manly men city of Luval where they persuade the local regent to form a flotilla to go down the river to kill dragons. What is needed most besides ships are river pilots. And important river pilots must be given names. As they had limited yet crucial scenes, I needed to imbue them with a sense of personality with just a name and barely a sentence of description. My head was stuck on two-syllable names at that point in the writing so I decided on single-syllable names just for expediency: Bant, Durk, and Lond. During revisions, they grew on me and so I awarded them a second syllable, so they became Bantun, Durkin, and Londrel. As I put the names together I envisioned how each man would appear. For Bantun, I saw a shorter, chunkier man with a beard yet a bald head, a serious type. Durkin was livelier, a jester, while Londrel was tall with a hooked nose, and much too serious - and cowardly. 

There is a running commentary throughout the novel recounting the history of the age before the one in the story, called the Age of the Five Princes. This feature actually was to be a sub-story weaving through a much longer novel. Instead, it became a mere mention here and there. But the five princes "long ago" are instrumental in setting the context of the present story. In the medieval-themed novel I had planned as a teen, the princes were Terrens, Nicholas, Dellus, Ulrich, and Argus - and I have no idea why I chose those particular names. However, in transforming them to a make-believe world, I could not use "Nicholas" or "Ulrich" which are perfectly good Earth names. So I shifted them to Teran, Nilas, Darus, Urix, and Agor, which sound more exotic. It seems Urix made the greatest impression as our hero Corlan finds many people since that time named their sons after Urix  - to our hero's constant annoyance. 

And even our hero Corlan's sidekick, the boy from the palace kitchen named Tam, has a longer, more official name: Tamondarus!

“Who were the other princes?” asked the boy.

“There was Teran, the eldest, a half-brother only. And Urix, and Agor. Teran was the poet, the artist. Urix was the power broker, the mediator—alas, unsuccessful in the end. Agor was the general of the army of Nilas. Agor escaped from Inati during the trials. They all died in the end. Nilas lived the longest yet always in pain.”

“Oh.” Tam frowned.

“My grandfather and his grandfather were both named Urix after that ancient prince,” said Corlan automatically.

“I’m named after my mother’s grandfather!” sang the boy.

“Tam is a good name,” said Corlan.

“No, it’s really Tamondarus!”

Corlan laughed at the boy’s boisterous declaration. “You’re right. Tam is much better.”

“You can call me Tamondarus if you want to.”

“No, I’ll call you Tam. Or just boy.”

“It’s like that other Darus, the prince who died.”

“He was the evil one, you know,” said Joragus. “That’s the story. Stole Nilas’ betrothed, he did, then made a union with her, the poor maiden. That’ll start a war, all right!”

“Then what happened?” asked Tam.

“Nilas asked for her back. Darus refused.”

Corlan was ready to stop yet the glow on the boy’s face said he wanted to hear more. 

Every epic fantasy must have a wizard or a mage or, better yet, a magus! The one in my novel is named by little better a method than flipping cards into a hat: Joragus. As the chapters unfolded, however, his name began to have other associations. Being more than three-hundred years old, he can remember a lot. He recalls the way people in his past called him. Instead of Joragus, he is actually Jorge of the U.S. - with the name being pronounced as the Hispanic name "Hor-hay".

And then there are place names. In realistic fiction, we simply check a map. In a fantasy setting we throw some letters together - but again, does the name reflect the characteristics of the place? But sometimes there are places which are not shown on maps - big places which no god or goddess has needed to have mapped. In the novel, the interludes together tell the story of a little princess who flees her island home. Eventually she comes to understand through her lessons the true nature of . . . well, of literally everything. Using the egg-shaped "birthstone" - a magic object which every epic fantasy story must include - the goddess reveals the places only a goddess would understand:

She knew that nations were made of cities, and worlds were made of nations. Furthermore, the worlds she knew and worlds she did not know were all wrapped around things called planets, and they all spun around things called stars, which all surged within a mighty maelstrom called galaxies, which floated in a thing called universe, which balanced on the tip of a thing called O, which was kept locked away inside a small treasure chest called...what was it called? She suddenly forgot, and Hidel [her dragon] shifted awkwardly beneath her as if he sensed her distress.

There were other goddesses, of course, so she did not have to do everything herself. Yet it was quite clear that this land over which she soared was meant to be cared for by her. The goddess Sei Bo had told her so, and when a goddess tells you something, you believe it and you remember it—

Ah! The treasure chest is called Ah! And every person carried a piece of it inside themselves, said the birthstone in a strange new language she was still learning, full of squiggles and dots and checks and lines cut into pieces. They filled her head, made her want to sleep, even though she knew there would never be any sleep for her. The days extended for ages and the nights even longer.

Did you see what she did there? The universe is something sitting on the tip of something larger, vaster - which is contained in something very, very small. Thereby adding mystery to the story - and perhaps a new religion. Who can say? Epic fantasy is all about names, putting the right name to the right character, place, or object, thus bringing it into existence for the first time. Epic fantasy has a way of starting things, at least for those who can subtly sense its finer nuances. And understand the meanings of names given surreptitiously between sips of coffee on a Sunday morning. That's how the O turns sometimes. You know? 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(C) Copyright 2010-2017 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

The Quest for Magical Realism

The quest is everything. Each morning to arise and seek fortune in whatever form it may be found - that is a quest, is it not? To make hay while the sun shineth! That, too, is a quest. To live life in the fullest, if you can, and if not then to strive for such as best you can. For it is the quest which drives us on each day, not the petty amusements of good friends sharing jokes or poor road food we pretend is gourmet fare. Everything comes down to the quest. The quest is real. The quest for magical realism, however, takes more effort.

When I was challenged (yes, challenged, I say!) to write an epic fantasy with further stipulation that it must include dragons, my first thought was of a desert canyon where someone much like a gamekeeper in a park was tasked with culling the herd. That seemed suitable as an opening scene. 

Then, a few paragraphs down the page, my hero needed to move, so I typed 'horse' and immediately stopped. I thought to myself: 'Why does he ride a horse?' Everyone rides horses in fantasy! In fantasy worlds there must be more interesting animals to ride, so I imagined a stockier sort of beast and in my mind's eyes a hippopotamus appeared. I envisioned Mongo riding an ox from Blazing Saddles. All right, I said, let us go with that for now and see how it develops. Later, when the fantasy world that was blossoming slowly transformed into a far-futuristic America (though I would never have admitted it at that time), the hippo became the product of the "Clona Arts". There were no more horses to ride. For an epic fantasy, the stipulation to include magic was automatic.

And here our tale turns from fantasy to...well, something a bit more scientific. Is that allowed in an epic fantasy? In my less-than-humble opinion, if the persons at hand believe it is magic, then it is magic; for what is magic but science which has yet to be fully understood as science? Purists will disagree, yet allow us to inquire of a true magus. Joragus, the magus of Metta, explains how he does what he does magically by describing the nature of things in layman's jargon. Because magic nevertheless relies on rules which a magician would understand innately, it could be explained to anyone and thereby understood. It would be similar to a scientist explaining something complex to a simpleton - or a child. To whit:

“You must understand the workings of everything—everything seen and unseen in the world—before you can learn magic.” [said Joragus]

“Teach me, Joragus!” the boy shouted.

“As you wish.” The magus gave an annoyed glance at Corlan [the dragonslayer] who was happy to grin like a thief. “Everything is made of dust—very tiny dust, so small you cannot see it. The dust of the earth is solid so you can see it when it comes together in large enough piles. The dust of the air is thin so you can see through it even when it comes together in large piles. It is these tiny particles of dust which magic can move.”

“How does playing with dust stop a spear that’s thrown at you?” Corlan asked, a little more curious.

“Ah! I see your plan. You also want to know how to stop a sharp spear amidst the air.”

“That would be a good thing to know,” said Corlan with a nod at the boy. “Wouldn’t it?”

“Oh, yes,” said Tam.

“Have you ever seen lightning strike down from the sky?” asked Joragus. “That is the same fire-root that runs through every living thing. People, too.”

“If that’s true, how are we not destroyed by it?” asked Corlan.

“What is inside us is much smaller, not enough to hurt us. And yet, some people—a trained magus, for example—can draw together all of that fire within him and send it out just like lightning.”

“But I didn’t see anything like lightning when you held up your hand to stop the spear.”

“No, it is still invisible. Just as the air is invisible.”

“I think your magic is all in your words, old man,” said Corlan.

“I told you there is an ocean of tiny particles, like dust, that make up all the air around us. When I use my magic power to gather all the fire within me, I charge those particles with the fire. It’s like black and white. Everything is either black or white. The particles in the air are white—you can see through them and throw spears through them. When I send my inner fire out to those particles, they turn black—although they are still invisible to our eyes.”

“So these tiny dust specks turn colors....”

“No, it is merely a tale to explain to you what happens, to show you. A magic lesson for the boy...as you suggested.” He turned to Tam. “You follow my tale, don’t you?”

Tam nodded eagerly.

“When those particles turn black,” the magus continued, “they become tight to each other and nothing can come through them. They become like a shield, even though you cannot see it with your eyes. You must remember that our eyes do not see most of the things in the world—and what we do see is most often a mere trick of light. There is much more we do not see than what we do see.”

“So that’s what you did back there to stop the spear?”

“Yes, in brief.”

“Though not quick enough to keep the speartip from cutting your palm, eh?”

“As we say in magus school, it is better to be late than to never be ready at all.”

The goal in writing anything of the fantastic is to make it seem accurate and true, plausible at worst. The reader must believe in the possibility of the magic actually occurring. And in the extreme nature of a dragon attack, a good magus is good to have. You see, no matter how brave the dragonslayer may be, no matter how strong his will, how tight his belly, there may come a moment when nothing more can be done to ward off death. It is at this moment when a magus, even one in his fourth iteration, might step forward to save the day - and thereby be rewarded with yet another day. Another quest. For each day is a new quest, seeking forever the horizon, a new meal, and ultimately the final chapter.

For more pearls of wisdom, read on!

EPIC FANTASY *WITH DRAGONS 

The Paper Version
The Kindle Version

For a different view, check out my interview on author Connie Jasperson's blog.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(C) Copyright 2010-2017 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.

A Question of Quests

A little more than a year ago, I set out on a quest, pushed by fellow writers who encouraged me to try my hand at writing an epic fantasy. Well, good folks, I did that. I typed every day of the year with a story firmly in mind. On good days in the summer I wrote for a full eight hours. I actually wrote a novel following a hero's quest. Then I wrote a novella about a little princess in another part of the realm. Then I merged the two stories. The result is a 235,000 word tale of daring-do chocked full of all the epic wisdom I could stuff into it--which, I am learning, may be relevant in our heated political season.*

By "quest" I mean a journey of some kind--a hero's journey, in Joseph Campbell parlance. However, in writing an epic fantasy, a quest could be a hero going in search of something of value, or a hero simply trying to travel home from far away, perhaps from a place of tribulation. A quest could mean a bubbly travelogue, much like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Or, a quest could be a hero going to a particular place where he intends to do something important. This last option is the pattern I adopted for my epic fantasy. (e.g., A man with a plan, out getting a tan, and learning to pan the jokes of his sidekick Tam.) My model for a quest was Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, although I bent over backwards to avoid borrowing anything from it. Likewise, I started reading George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones, but I deliberately avoided any dragon references which my readers might tease were similar to Martin's use of dragons.

Then, much to my chagrin, I discovered a problem. A fatal flaw. An underlying faux pas. A fundamental error. So...what to do with a 235,000-word tale of rousing adventure that falls short of being an epic fantasy? Maybe call it epic sci-fi? That just might be crazy enough to work! You see, there are some rules....


Rule #1. The setting of the epic fantasy must be a world of non-existence to the world of both author and reader; hence, a totally fabricated landscape. If we dare suggest it is here on Earth, we lose. 

The "present" of my epic fantasy is about A.D. 8000.

I beg a waiver. Initially, I invented a world, true, but as I laid out the plot, the series of happenings our hero would experience, I marked them out on a map of a known location here on Earth. By then I had decided this epic would be a behemoth comprising five separate interweaving story lines and one of them would be from a novel I had started long ago in my youth. That early novel idea was set in a futuristic America. As I started writing my epic fantasy, that futuristic America was slated to be the mythological history underlying the present story. As the manuscript grew tremendously, I scaled back that "backstory" to only the mentions my cast of characters would speak once in a while. However, I kept the setting of a future America.

My waiver is because the setting is so different from the world we know today that it might as well be some other place purely of my imagination.


Rule #2. An epic fantasy must have a large cast of characters which includes certain ones in stereotype roles. 

I deliberately tried to achieve that large cast but, going on a quest, our hero and his sidekick are not likely to come upon very many people. In fact, after a couple chapters of just traveling down the valley, I thought I better introduce some new quirky character to liven up the story. Hence, the magus appears. More people to talk. And the magus, being old, can impart some of the backstory. Also, a trek down a valley can only entertain for so long. At some point they would come upon a city, and what would they find there? More people.

My eyes fell upon an infographic, not long after I started writing my epic fantasy, which stated that an epic fantasy needed I needed 20 characters. Besides my hero and sidekick, there would be others playing important roles: the evil prince, the jealous rivals, ordinary townsfolk with devious agendas, warrior tribes in the wilderness, corrupt judges, executioners, crowds of biased citizens, trinket dealers, stable boys, and so on. There would be a love interest for our hero, of course, and maybe temptations down the road. The one character I did not have was a clear antagonist. 

In English teacher lingo, the protagonist is the character that moves the story forward, no matter if that person is good or evil. Usually, moving the story is what causes us to set the story on that character's shoulders, as narrator or our main focus. The antagonist is not necessarily the villain, though he/she may be. Rather, the antagonist is that character (or force of nature) which seeks to thwart the advance of the protagonist, preventing the achievement of his/her goals. In the case of my epic fantasy, the antagonist is chiefly all the dragons of the world and assorted rogues along the way.

So, in the end, I have 20 characters that play some significant role in the plot--not just walk-on roles for color but say or do something that pushes the plot forward, regardless how much "screen" time they get. I'm particularly fond of the hunchback and the river pilots.


Rule #3. The average "bestselling" novel (at least in the fantasy and sci-fi genre) have 15 obstacles to achieving the goals of the quest. 

No problem, I thought. I had a map and I knew how to use it. Something would happen about every half-inch on the trail I had drawn on the map. I pretty much kept to that plan. Later in the story, as new ideas developed from the current writing, I switched out some of the events happening. However, making sure our hero had to deal with 15 (or more) episodes, each a danger, distraction, or detour to overcome, was the reason this epic fantasy reached 235,000 words.


Rule #4. The epic fantasy requires lavish description, flowery language, quirks of speech (including made-up words for things), to better envelope the reader in a strange world far from our own here on Earth. 

Well, I did write a science fiction trilogy involving interdimensional travel to another world, so I did invent other languages for that world. However, in our present day and time, when my college students have such aversion to reading even the shortest, simplest texts, I find myself skipping over large paragraphs of description. All right, it's a room in a castle, and there are pieces of furniture. I don't see how the colors or textures matter unless it somehow influences the plot. Becoming jaded, I suppose; I have read some of the longest novels ever written (e.g., War and Peace, Shogun, The Well at the World's End) and did not skip any portions of them--but that was then.

Therefore, I swore to keep it lean, to concentrate on action, dialog, and offer enough description to paint the scene. I swore to keep scenes manageable in length and chapters at the size to read in an hour or less. I promised myself to get to the core of the action or present information or backstory in colorful ways (usually through dialog) that were fun to read in themselves. I was aiming for an epic fantasy length story, of course, so the leanness of the initial writing was not a concern. I knew I could flesh in a scene where needed after I'd finished the draft. And I did. 


Rule #5. Things happen in fantasy places, both impossibly wonderful and just as likely amazingly cruel. Unconstrained by modern law or sensibilities, an epic fantasy can be quite open with regard to the particular incidents that occur.

I also had in mind to keep this book clean; that is, morally sound, suitable for at least the New Adult category. I accepted that I could not keep it at a Young Adult level because there would be dragon slaying about every chapter. There got to be more violence, and some sexual episodes downstream but I had the camera turn to the window so we could watch the sunset. I feel good about keeping it less graphic than my other novels. As it turned out, I would even let my mother read it. My father, however, is a different case.

I think I can save my book by calling it an epic science fiction fantasy adventure and leave it at that. Hard to put all that on a title page, of course, but then I have maps this time--maps of a place not quite our own landscape. After all, our hero was born only 4800 years from now, give or take a few days. A lot happens between now and then.


NEXT: I shall further explicate the amazing episodes that comprise the greatest epic fantasy (or similar genre) that I have ever written on a computer! 


*"political season": I started to believe from my "inhabiting" wise characters that I could be a fair alternative to the presidential candidate options and so I began the Bunny Party. Unfortunately, we only achieved 12 votes, half of them from my relatives.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
(C) Copyright 2010-2017 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.