Fantasy writing presents a writer with various challenges that other authors don’t face. Inventing a whole world is a big task. You’ll probably need a map of your fantasy setting, for one thing, and creating one can be intimidating. Get far enough into the mapmaking process and you’ll find you need place names, and that’s just the beginning.
Creating a fantasy world means you’ll have to design whole cultures—a scary amount of work at the best of times. As I’ve struggled with many tasks inherent in fantasy writing, I want to help other writers as best I can. Therefore, I have written a number of resources for writers who are currently struggling as I did.
Languages in Fantasy Writing
Whether you’re creating a few character and place names or inventing a whole language, a passing knowledge of linguistics will allow you to craft memorable, realistic character names. Naming characters in fantasy writing is a skill, and you can get better at it. With some practice, it can become second-nature.
To help you on the path to great character names, I’ve written several articles on linguistics as it relates to fantasy writing. You’ll learn not only the basics of the International Phonetic Alphabet and some of the linguistic theory behind it, but also how to create a simple naming language.
In addition, I’ll talk about some of the shortcuts you can take—and how best to take them. You can actually start with almost any name or word and just tweak it till it sounds right. But to do this properly, one needs a basic understanding of what phonemes are and how they relate to each other. You’ll learn that here.
Fantasy Names
One aspect of fantasy writing that many people struggle with is the task of creating names for characters and places. It’s certainly something I’ve found difficult in the past. When I was just starting out writing fantasy, I relied mostly on Google Translate for character names. I’ve since learned that there’s a trick to creating believable fantasy names.
My article on creating fantasy names will walk you through the basics of creating an inventory of sounds, which you can then use to make up believable words. From that point onward, it’s easy to produce as many fantasy names as you need. You can even take a placeholder name and tweak it till it sounds right.
Using the International Phonetic Alphabet
If you want to create believable character names, you should learn at least the basics of how to transcribe sounds using the International Phonetic Alphabet. The IPA is a standardized way of writing the sounds of language, and it’s perfectly suited to creating languages for fantasy writing.
With the International Phonetic Alphabet at your disposal, you’ll no longer have to create your own systems of phonetic transcription for pronunciation guides. This means less ambiguity and fewer confused readers.
In this article, I go into some detail concerning how the International Phonetic Alphabet works, as well as its advantages and how this all applies to fantasy writing. Afterwards, I look at an example of how you can use real phonological principles to make up words and names.
Fantasy Name Spellings – Orthography for Writers
Deciding how to spell your character names is often tricky, but it’s another skill you’ll want to master. If you’ve read my articles on using the International Phonetic Alphabet and creating fantasy names, you’ll know more-or-less how to invent names for characters. Next, you need to decide on how to spell the names in your story.
Contrary to what some writers believe, character names don’t need to look cool on the page. In my experience, the best fantasy name spellings are the spellings that tell the reader how to pronounce the name. This article will teach you some basic principles that will keep your character and place names from confusing your readers.
How to Make a Fantasy Map: A Writer’s Guide to Otherworldly Cartography
Maps and fantasy writing are, to a large extent, intertwined. If your story spans any area larger than a single city, you’re going to get lost without a map. Of course, most fantasy stories do involve characters travelling across whole kingdoms—or even a continent! Since the process of fantasy mapmaking is complex, I’ve published a book to help you through it.
In How to Make a Fantasy Map, I go into detail about building a map from scratch in Inkscape, with chapters ranging from drawing continents to making icons to represent your towns and cities. With Inkscape—a free and open source software—in your hands, making a beautiful fantasy map is easier than ever!
Making a fantasy map can be a daunting task, but I hope my book will make it less so. Using the techniques in my book, you’ll be able to create a map that you can export at any size you want without loss of quality. You’ll also be able to edit it with ease if you realize you’ve done something wrong.
You’ll also be able to download a set of free vector icons, which you can use for any map. These include icons for trees, mountains, castles, and many more!
Parchment Effect in GIMP
I’ve written an article on how you can create a parchment effect in GIMP, a free and open source photo editing software. Once you’ve made a map in Inkscape, you could publish it as-is. But if you want your maps to have an older feel, you’ll want to bring it over to GIMP.
This article will explain how I create the texture of old-fashioned parchment in photo editing software. GIMP is particularly well-suited to this task, as its noise filters are extremely versatile even when compared to paid software. I’ll also talk about some of the ways you can apply this texture to your maps.
