Worldbuilding 10: the name of the rose, and other things
Magazine
There are more things in the world than folk, and there are more things in a novel than characters. The world you build for a fantasy setting should give the reader a sense of completeness, and consistency; this means that you should pay attention to the smaller, peripheral elements as well as the main characters and events. In this article I'll look at some of those other elements and how to set them in context.
There are two main themes here: what other elements you include (animals and monsters, plants and herbs, geographical features); and what you call them, which might seem a trivial detail but is equally important. In both cases, plausibility and comprehension are central.
Take animals, for instance. You have a set of choices here: use the regular generic repertoire of fantasy beasts; use the familiar fauna from our environment; or invent a bestiary to suit your novel world. The first two are easier on the writer and reader alike; the last is a creative goldmine or an elephant trap, depending on how you handle it.
And that set of choices extends to all the secondary features of your world. You can employ the familiar or plump for pure invention; but you should bear in mind the relative risks to the plausibility of your story. Do readers get bored of seeing the same animals, forests, herbs and potions in different books? Some, perhaps; but I'd wager most are happier on familiar ground where the story takes centre stage. Do readers struggle with invented animals and monsters? Probably more than you think.
Good quality fantasy writing tends to lean on familiar (either generic or real-world) elements but occasionally customise them. I generally recommend this approach to new writers; there is less temptation to reinvent the wheel (or dragon, or tree) but there is still space for creativity. In some respects, this is the quintessence of good fantasy; it is our world but altered in subtle and crucial ways.
Another common approach is to preserve most of the regular elements but add a creative outlier; all the animals, say, are recognisable except one. If you adopt this approach, make sure there is a good reason for the existence of your oddball; perhaps it (and its novel traits) plays a pivotal role in the story, or it offers comic opportunities, or even commentary on the narrative. Also, take care to make your outlier plausible, viable (three-legged animals are hard to justify) and describe it well enough that the reader can see it in their mind's eye.
There is one significant qualifier here; your plot may require, even demand, an unfamiliar element. A magical herb, or fatal poison; a fabulous beast on which the story resolves; a mountain with a mind of its own; any or all of these may play a vital role in the narrative. If so, I think you should still abide by the general principles laid out here and add the eldritch ingredient(s) to the mix with appropriate caution and care.
Now you have your landscape, your plants and your bestiary, what do you call them? In an earlier article I looked at the pitfalls one can encounter in naming characters. Those same pitfalls can occur here; after all, you could argue that some of these elements are tantamount to characters in their own right. And if they are important features of the story the reader is going to see a lot of them. So naming them in a consistent and believable way is fundamental.
Equally, you can make things easier for yourself by following a few simple principles. The key here is overall consistency. If your human characters have names with a Celtic ring to them, it would be passing strange if the names of the things around them sound Norse, or Chinese. Incidentally, Celtic (and especially Welsh) names and terms have become something of a fetish among new fantasy writers; if you want to avoid cliché, consider using another language base.
I think the most efficient method here is to employ less common terms from your own language, bearing in mind that they should resonate with character names. For instance, if I write this:
Tor Valiant loomed over the city, a vast granite cone crowned in sheer, luminous ice. Tor Craven brooded in its shadow.
I think the average reader will readily assume that ‘tor' is a generic term for mountain, followed by a specific identifier. And the identifier offers hints of something more.
With plants, consider using their characteristics to identify them. Again, use uncommon but known terms. A common herb, say rosemary, might sound more exotic with a little addendum, or an epithet: diviner's rosemary, healer's bitters, may-blue. Again, I have stayed in the regular bandwidth of English but expanded my naming options.
Anyone interested in toponymy (the study of place names) will know that most geographical features are named for their characteristics, whatever language they are expressed in. The same is true for plants and, ultimately, animals. This means that names, traditionally, are descriptive more than expressive; and that is a tradition that you would do well to remember before inventing a flying three-legged tiger and calling it a sneckledarg.
This is a rather brief excursion into a veritable jungle of possibilities but I think we have established a few basic principles. I would encapsulate these as: give the reader a chance; don't go out on a creative limb just for the sake of it; and keep it consistent. You are aiming to keep the story, the plot, front and centre; everything else you do is supporting that aim. Sneckledargs are cute, in a lethal, drool-laden kind of way but they are no substitute for a good story, well told.
When he isn't editing, Noel Rooney writes a regular column for Fortean Times magazine, and wilfully obscure poetry. He lives in South London with his family and rather too many animals.
Worldbuilding 1: character names in fantasy novels
Worldbuilding 2: the basics of writing fantasy fiction
Worldbuilding 3: geography and physical location
Worldbuilding 7: it's a kind of magic
Worldbuilding 8: non-human characters
