You can see 'em work!
Jan. 1st, 2006 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyEven though she's an unsympathetic character, I retain a tremendous fondness for the Glass Cat.1 And she seems an appropriate muse to invoke for this post, since I'm going to demonstrate the workings of my own brains.
I'm writing a story2 at the moment in which the two principal settings are a city (old, fabulous, etc. etc.) and--equally old and fabulous--a fortress that is part prison and part tomb. I didn't know about the fortress when I started the story, and named the city Æä out of sheer bloody-minded perversity. But then I discovered the fortress and realized that city and fortress are reflections of each other and that therefore they need complementary names. Æä offered no handholds in that direction, so I scrapped it as a name and started from scratch.
I started by thinking of things that go together in complementary pairs, like yin and yang. The Greek men and de (and just imagine those are Greek letters, okay? I don't feel like hunting out the necessary codes), Freud's Ego and Id ... and then Iphigeneia and Electra, Helen and Clytemnestra, Antigone and Ismene, Ariadne and Phaedra (funny how so many women in Greek mythology come in pairs like that). Of course, the Greek names are all over The Doctrine of Labyrinths3, and while that doesn't exactly make them forbidden, it does suggest that I need to branch out a little. Again out of sheer perversity, I started in on the Shakespearean women: Katharina and Bianca, Isabella and Mariana.
And I looked at the name Bianca and it made me think of Conrad's whited sepulchre (i.e., Brussels) in Heart of Darkness. And I thought about bianca and blanche and after a moment jotted down Bianche.
So if the city is named for whiteness, the fortress must be named for darkness. I started listing the words I could think of: umbra, tenebre, soir, nuit, noir(e). Looked up dark in my French and English Dictionary and added sombre and the idiom for after dark: à la nuit close. Got out the ever-faithful 1936 Roget's and added: darkling, atramentous, nocturnal, penumbra, eclipse. Looked up dark in my Latin and English Dictionary and added: caliginosus, atrox.
Stared at that list for a while and wrote: Atrox Close.
Atrox Close is the name of the fortress, and, yes, the half-echo of Huit Clos is one of the things that sold me on it.
Then back to Bianche, which needed a third syllable.
Bianchever
Bianchelles
Bianchalis
Bianche Alis
Wandered aside into Arthuriana briefly for Gard Bianche and Fata Bianca.
But Helen of Troy was on my mind, possibly because she'd been in the earlier list, possibly because of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
papersky's poem, possibly because if you're looking for old and fabulous cities, Troy is a pretty darn good place to start.
Bianchelen
But that was too ambiguous as to pronunciation and where the stresses ought to fall.
Biancheëlen
Bianche Elen
And then, because (as may already be obvious) this story is toying with a number of conventions of fantasy literature, and because--for once--a contraction would be natural and right,
Bianch'elen
Not quite.
Bianch'Elen
And that's it.4 The city is Bianch'Elen, and the fortress is Atrox Close.
Although, obviously, it doesn't work like that every time, this is a pretty representative sample of the process. Especially with the consultation of multiple foreign language dictionaries and the cross-referencing with a random assortment of literary texts.
And the story begins like this:
Long ago, in a world none of them can remember, the vampires were taught to dance.
And they in turn, as they move through the mirrors from world to world, teach their paramours and prey. And sometimes when they move on--for they are restless creatures, vampires, and do not stay where they are put--they leave behind, not a corpse, but a child.
The vampires' dance is called Spider's Rose; in many worlds, it is also a quilt pattern. The vampire Almegramith taught the dance to a woman of Bianch'Elen, the most ancient city in all the worlds, and thirteen months later, the doctors cut the child from the woman's flesh.
---
1"That's the idea, Scraps," said the Glass Cat, approvingly. "I'm glad to find you have decent brains. Mine are exceptionally good. You can see 'em work; they're pink." (L. Frank Baum, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Chicago: The Reilly & Lee Co., 1913. p. 61)
2elisem, this is "Spider's Rose," which is getting very weird.
3The Doctrine of Labyrinths is my name for the series comprising Mélusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and Summerdown.
4Until I change my mind. Again.
I'm writing a story2 at the moment in which the two principal settings are a city (old, fabulous, etc. etc.) and--equally old and fabulous--a fortress that is part prison and part tomb. I didn't know about the fortress when I started the story, and named the city Æä out of sheer bloody-minded perversity. But then I discovered the fortress and realized that city and fortress are reflections of each other and that therefore they need complementary names. Æä offered no handholds in that direction, so I scrapped it as a name and started from scratch.
I started by thinking of things that go together in complementary pairs, like yin and yang. The Greek men and de (and just imagine those are Greek letters, okay? I don't feel like hunting out the necessary codes), Freud's Ego and Id ... and then Iphigeneia and Electra, Helen and Clytemnestra, Antigone and Ismene, Ariadne and Phaedra (funny how so many women in Greek mythology come in pairs like that). Of course, the Greek names are all over The Doctrine of Labyrinths3, and while that doesn't exactly make them forbidden, it does suggest that I need to branch out a little. Again out of sheer perversity, I started in on the Shakespearean women: Katharina and Bianca, Isabella and Mariana.
And I looked at the name Bianca and it made me think of Conrad's whited sepulchre (i.e., Brussels) in Heart of Darkness. And I thought about bianca and blanche and after a moment jotted down Bianche.
So if the city is named for whiteness, the fortress must be named for darkness. I started listing the words I could think of: umbra, tenebre, soir, nuit, noir(e). Looked up dark in my French and English Dictionary and added sombre and the idiom for after dark: à la nuit close. Got out the ever-faithful 1936 Roget's and added: darkling, atramentous, nocturnal, penumbra, eclipse. Looked up dark in my Latin and English Dictionary and added: caliginosus, atrox.
Stared at that list for a while and wrote: Atrox Close.
Atrox Close is the name of the fortress, and, yes, the half-echo of Huit Clos is one of the things that sold me on it.
Then back to Bianche, which needed a third syllable.
Bianchever
Bianchelles
Bianchalis
Bianche Alis
Wandered aside into Arthuriana briefly for Gard Bianche and Fata Bianca.
But Helen of Troy was on my mind, possibly because she'd been in the earlier list, possibly because of
papersky's poem, possibly because if you're looking for old and fabulous cities, Troy is a pretty darn good place to start.Bianchelen
But that was too ambiguous as to pronunciation and where the stresses ought to fall.
Biancheëlen
Bianche Elen
And then, because (as may already be obvious) this story is toying with a number of conventions of fantasy literature, and because--for once--a contraction would be natural and right,
Bianch'elen
Not quite.
Bianch'Elen
And that's it.4 The city is Bianch'Elen, and the fortress is Atrox Close.
Although, obviously, it doesn't work like that every time, this is a pretty representative sample of the process. Especially with the consultation of multiple foreign language dictionaries and the cross-referencing with a random assortment of literary texts.
And the story begins like this:
Long ago, in a world none of them can remember, the vampires were taught to dance.
And they in turn, as they move through the mirrors from world to world, teach their paramours and prey. And sometimes when they move on--for they are restless creatures, vampires, and do not stay where they are put--they leave behind, not a corpse, but a child.
The vampires' dance is called Spider's Rose; in many worlds, it is also a quilt pattern. The vampire Almegramith taught the dance to a woman of Bianch'Elen, the most ancient city in all the worlds, and thirteen months later, the doctors cut the child from the woman's flesh.
---
1"That's the idea, Scraps," said the Glass Cat, approvingly. "I'm glad to find you have decent brains. Mine are exceptionally good. You can see 'em work; they're pink." (L. Frank Baum, The Patchwork Girl of Oz. Chicago: The Reilly & Lee Co., 1913. p. 61)
2
elisem, this is "Spider's Rose," which is getting very weird.3The Doctrine of Labyrinths is my name for the series comprising Mélusine, The Virtu, The Mirador, and Summerdown.
4Until I change my mind. Again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 07:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 07:56 pm (UTC)In rampant curiosity, which you needn't indulge if you don't want, are the languages used above your usual, or do you have specific languages you turn to for specific stories/ideas?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 08:13 pm (UTC)It does depend on setting, since particular cultures want particular languages. But by and large it's just a magpie process based on whatever happens to be sculling around my brain at the time.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 07:59 pm (UTC)*claps hands in delight*
I am not surprised in the slightest. Delighted, though. As always.
May I link, esteemed one?
no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 08:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 08:12 pm (UTC)*does the dance of delighting in the formal request/permission/action/celebration thing*
no subject
Date: 2006-01-01 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-03 06:24 pm (UTC)Hope the story progresses well.