Tag: Names

Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/27/18: Harry Potter Books

There’s no doubt the Harry Potter series of books is one of the world’s most popular fantasy epics, transcending age, nationality, and socioeconomic status. Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, which I reviewed here, features a similar series called Simon Snow as a plot element, Simon Snow being a boy wizard at an English boarding school for magic. …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/20/18: Gems and Minerals

Gems and jewels often serve as a Macguffin in fantasy stories. Recovery of the myserious gray Arkenstone is what motivates the dwarves on their quest in Tolkien’s The Hobbit, and in his Silmarillion, the Silmarils that embody the light of the great tree. Similarly, the theft of the rose-colored diamond called The Pink Panther motivates …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/13/18: Let’s Talk About Christopher

Christopher is one of those names it’s easier to find modern times than in in the past. There’s Christopher Columbus of course, but since his fall from American grace over racism and slavery concerns, I don’t feel too comfortable giving him publicity, so Christopher Marlowe, whose picture is here, will be my go-to man for …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 6/6/18: Cooking with Magic

Inspired by a thread on the useful AbsoluteWrite Water Cooler forums. Magic can be used for a lot of things, but rarely in a story is it mentioned for cooking… and Medieval cooking often sorely needed it. Here are some randomly-generated food-related items to have fun with. Food-related Magic Items Nose of the Chef: This …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/30/18: Fantasy Villains

When writing fantasy, which is a genre that must be larger than life, your villains should be larger than life, too… and that means an evocative name, something to let the reader know they are, indeed, the villain, in whatever made-up language or naming system you’re using. Let’s look at a few. In the Harry …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/23/18: Eurospy

In the early 1960s James Bond was the coolest fictional character ever. He weathered life-threatening situations with humor and aplomb, handled fisticuffs as well as martinis and expensive suits, and was always able to bed beautiful women. Dr. No, released in 1964, inspired a whole trend of spy movies and parodies of spy movies, like …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/16/18: Plague and Pestilence

Many fantasies are set in a never-never-land of times gone by. Usually it’s Medieval Europe. But the Roman Empire, Bronze Age Britain, and Dynastic Egypt also get their times in the sun. All have one thing in common: the dearth of plagues. Which, admittedly, are hard to incorporate into uplifting adventure stories. They’re depressing, and …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/9/18: The Wild West

Yippee-ki-yay! The Western is a uniquely American form of cinema and literature taking its plot, characters, and setting from the American Old West in the years 1850 to 1900. Cowboys (and cowgirls) ride horses, bear rifles and revolvers, and often live a nomadic life drifting through small towns, ranches, saloons, and military forts in the …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 5/2/18: States of Confusion (New England)

  Imaginary U.S. States are not as widely used in fiction as imaginary countries are, even though their pedigree is longer. Anthony Trollope created one of the first, Mickewa, for his satirical novel The American Senator in 1877, and Vladimir Nabokov the fictional state of Udana for Lolita.  Thomas Wolfe contributed Catawba, based on South …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 4/25/18: Pern

Anne McCaffrey wrote a long-running series of books about the backward planet of Pern and its giant, telepathic dragons used to combat “thread” – an invasive space spore that filtered down from an adjacent orbiting body — by burning from the air with their fiery breath. Pern had a pseudo-Medieval culture and the dragons a …

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