Category: The Process of Writing
-
On Names: Imaginary Worlds
So what exactly lured me down this rabbit hole of names and their political implications?
-
On Names: A take on taxonomy
So here’s a question: why are animals called what they are? I’m not talking about the big categorical names– things like ‘dog’ and ‘cat’ and ‘horse’ go back for hundreds of years, according to etymology. But when you want to get more specific than that, things get a little wonky. …
-
On Names: Politics of Place
How do you refer to the island nation in the Pacific Ocean, roughly around 41* S, 175* E?
-
On the Map
I’m one of those proud nerds who loves looking at a map when I open a book. So when I created the world of Koleth, of course I wanted to include maps.
-
A Worldbuilding Balancing Act, or: my beef with Beau Brummell
I’ve talked a little bit about the research that goes into writing fantasy stories. Even if the world you’re writing in is not at all the one we live in, I tend to think it’s safe to pull at least a little bit from our world’s history. Would people with…
-
Down the research rabbit hole
Even when you’re writing fiction, there’s a whole lot of research involved, and a simple question can send you down into some really weird places.
-
Conlangs into Culture: A naming of names
Okay, so now you have your list of words in an invented language. Now what? How do you actually go about naming stuff?
-
Turning Conlangs into Culture: Worldbuilding through constructed languages
This past weekend I gave a presentation at InConJunction in Indianapolis, and one of the attendees requested that I make it available online later on. So let’s give it a go! First of all: What is a Conlang? Conlang is short for “Constructed Language”, meaning any kind of artificially and…
-
On Gargoyles
We’ve been seeing a lot of gargoyles recently, haven’t we? The beasts in I, Frankenstein, the heroes (mostly) in the 90s animated series, the living stone Constable Downspout from Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. But this is actually a relatively new monster: an often-winged demonic-looking creature that is strongly associated with…
-
Character Creation: Face Blindness
Since I started doing author panels at conventions, I’ve gotten one question thrown at me a few times: “How do you come up with characters?” And inevitably, my process is just a little bit different from the other authors at those panels, because mine plays a lot into my face…
JWTroemner.com 