Jacob Hayes
asked
John Gwynne:
Hi John, I'm a young writer. I've been creating a story line and character universe for a few months now. I began reading your books, and I love them. But I'm curious, can you give any tips for multi-perspective writing such as the ones in your books? Also, I'm wondering, can you give any tips on how you named places, characters?, and objects etc.?
John Gwynne
Hi Jacob,
It's great to hear from you. Thank you so much for your kind words, I'm so pleased that your enjoying the Faithful and the Fallen so far. It's wonderful to hear that you're a writer. I've never been very good at giving tips, mostly because I think I came to be published by a large dose of good fortune as much as anything else. You ask about tips for naming characters, places and so on. I turned to ancient history and mythology for most of that. My Banished Lands is my version of an alternative myth-historical ancient Europe, roughly starting from around the time of Boudicca and up to Arthur. If you look at my realms they loosely correspond to Briton, Gaul, Germania and Italy. I used ancient languages for a lot of my names, both people and places. For example Veradis means Faithful/True in Latin, Dun Carreg in Ardan is Welsh for Fortress of Stone. Forn (as in Forn Forest) means Ancient in Norse. Pretty much all of the ames in the series have some kind of historical root. I did that for a few reasons. First of all I didn't want to just make names. Secondly I wanted the series to feel like it had a historical depth to it, and using ancient languages seemed like a good way to do that. Also, I think it gives a subconscious frame of reference to the reader, which helps in the world building.
I hope that helps to answer your question. If you'd like to read more on the subject I've written a couple of guest blog posts about my writing process and using history in fantasy. I'll link them below for you, incase you're interested.
http://www.iwillreadbooks.com/2013/04...
http://fantasy-faction.com/2015/the-h...
All the best,
John
It's great to hear from you. Thank you so much for your kind words, I'm so pleased that your enjoying the Faithful and the Fallen so far. It's wonderful to hear that you're a writer. I've never been very good at giving tips, mostly because I think I came to be published by a large dose of good fortune as much as anything else. You ask about tips for naming characters, places and so on. I turned to ancient history and mythology for most of that. My Banished Lands is my version of an alternative myth-historical ancient Europe, roughly starting from around the time of Boudicca and up to Arthur. If you look at my realms they loosely correspond to Briton, Gaul, Germania and Italy. I used ancient languages for a lot of my names, both people and places. For example Veradis means Faithful/True in Latin, Dun Carreg in Ardan is Welsh for Fortress of Stone. Forn (as in Forn Forest) means Ancient in Norse. Pretty much all of the ames in the series have some kind of historical root. I did that for a few reasons. First of all I didn't want to just make names. Secondly I wanted the series to feel like it had a historical depth to it, and using ancient languages seemed like a good way to do that. Also, I think it gives a subconscious frame of reference to the reader, which helps in the world building.
I hope that helps to answer your question. If you'd like to read more on the subject I've written a couple of guest blog posts about my writing process and using history in fantasy. I'll link them below for you, incase you're interested.
http://www.iwillreadbooks.com/2013/04...
http://fantasy-faction.com/2015/the-h...
All the best,
John
More Answered Questions
James Hunt
asked
John Gwynne:
Huge fan, I am so happy people like you can create such amazing books. I look forward to reading any an all of your future books. You have made a dedicated reader out of me from your first three books in the faithful and the fallen series. I hope Wrath will also be release as an audiobook? I have thoroughly enjoyed the first three so far!!
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