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The problem with your average fantasy novel...

Litany

Litany

Active Member
Olan Kedandieal crept stealthily across the plain. The graaar'g was still ignorant of his presence, mindlessly digging at the purple phenafleg roots. He raised his tnekel bow to his shoulder, drew back the string and took aim. With a mighty twang of power he released his shaft (wey hey) into the air and missed. The graaar'g ran off in to the night never to be seen again, blah blah blah.

THE END.

The point being, why do they always have to use such stupid names? How I long for a book about Bob.

(The above work of fiction is entirely fictional. Names have been changed to make it much harder to read.)
 
You didn't even have to go for names to make it harder to read....they're bad enough as is. I wonder why the need to pick outrageous names....at least make it somewhat pronouncable.
 
Could it have something to do with making the world seem more foreign? More fantasy like? I don't know a lot of people called Gro'Balzugg'ax.
Don't really think Bob would be quite the same.
 
Bob The Magnificent then. And his wife Shirley The Well-Endowed. They live in The Castle of Forbidding Darkness and they have three children and a horse-drawn Mondeo estate.

Jeffreys have feelings too, you know. And sometimes Doris wants to scream at the top of her lungs and behead the barbarian war lord with her fiery sword of power and vengence.
 
As Derek scanned the horizon for devil donkeys, he felt a terrible sense of forboding in the pit of his stomach. Gazing down into the trusting eyes of his son, Bernard, who was in turn gazing trustingly back up into the eyes of his father, Derek, he knew he couldn’t back out now. The evil witch Gladys had stolen his favourite midget and by gum he was going to get him back.

Standing high in his stirrups, and only wobbling the tiniest amount, he held aloft his shining sword and called out to his army ‘Lads! This one’s for Fred!’

****
Now was that not stirring and evocative? I think I've proved my point.
 
There's nothing that turns me off more than unpronouncable names - especially ones that involve appostrophies. It disrupts the rythum of my reading if I have to stop and phoneticise (is that a word?) a name ever page.

But there's nothing wrong with having unusual names - just so long as you can pronounce them! For example Turik, Aragorn, Garion, Kahlan, Loren and yes, even Sparhawk are pronuncable. Ra'gukal'thornamplon is less so, and Fvothllyck is just gross (yes, I understand Welsh pronunciation, but really...).
 
I feel that names in Fantasy Novels are generally meant to be exotic, but I agree that it's not necessary to go overboard with barely pronouncable names. As a reader I don't want to have to work too hard. I recently read a Fantasy book where the main character's name is Matthew. Names like Gruss and Lanius (from Dan Chernenko's books) are exotic without being ridiculous.
 
My real name was "muggle not" but everyone always called me "muggle" so I changed it to be accommodating. :)
 
Fantasy authors decide names by mashing the keyboard, its a well known fact :)


vfwguefw - child if I have a boy
gvrwhhgvwu# - and a girl

Makes things so much easier ;)
 
Exotic names had always made fantasy really fantasy for me.

I remembered thinking that for a story that's supposedly set in an otherworldly realm, entirely alien with no inkling of our history and culture would have characters named Raymond or Henry or Thomas or whatever that's bloody common here. I can't help but associate people and history and meanings to names that I'm already familiar, and that affects the story for me.

Generic is fine, but names that are already associated with religious historical figures keep swinging my mind back to the crusades or holy war or whatever.

I agree that they can go overboard.

ds

p.s. Gosh, Litany, what took you so long to get back? :)
 
Litany said:
As Derek scanned the horizon for devil donkeys, he felt a terrible sense of forboding in the pit of his stomach. Gazing down into the trusting eyes of his son, Bernard, who was in turn gazing trustingly back up into the eyes of his father, Derek, he knew he couldn’t back out now. The evil witch Gladys had stolen his favourite midget and by gum he was going to get him back.

Standing high in his stirrups, and only wobbling the tiniest amount, he held aloft his shining sword and called out to his army ‘Lads! This one’s for Fred!’

****
Now was that not stirring and evocative? I think I've proved my point.
Click to expand...
This made me laugh so hard. Thanks, I needed that! :D If you do turn it into a book, I'd read it. --very stirring and evocative. I'm already fearing for Bernard and wondering if Fred will be avenged if the devil donkeys attack! :D :eek:
 
lorrekarloff said:
If you do turn it into a book, I'd read it.
Click to expand...

How about if I turned it into 27 books, not including prequels, and kept you guessing about Fred's fate for at least 15 of them?
 
I think long silly names for both characters and places in fantasy make it difficult to read. I much prefer books with smaller names, and it can be done, there are plenty of examples.
 
Litany said:
How about if I turned it into 27 books, not including prequels, and kept you guessing about Fred's fate for at least 15 of them?
Click to expand...
Ummmm....27 may be more suspense than I can handle. Maybe 10 if Bob and Shirley and their Castle of Forbidding Darkness were a part of it!

I did read The Hobbit/LOTR/Silmarillion, and several of the names I just made up my own easy pronounciation-otherwise I get tired of trying and stop reading.

I keep picturing devil donkeys :eek: :)
 
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