[alison]

Hi Madeline - how nice to see you here! I'm very glad you enjoyed The Naming.

I like answering questions. I think it's a vice of mine. :D

I started The Naming (as I start practically all my writing) with a completely empty mind - literally, I sat down one day and started writing this story. Before I knew it, I was up to page 80 - a bit of a record for me - and thought, well, maybe this will be a book. So the first book was made up as it went along; after a while I needed a map to keep track of things, and that grew with the story; and I made the Speech up as I went along as well.

As it developed, naturally there was feedback; I'd go back and elaborate details, and started filling out histories, and so on. And now there is a more or less complete world, which I ink in in idle moments, as it were, which has to be taken into account as I write further. But ultimately, I think these novels are basically driven by the characters. I'd be very interested to hear how you go about world building, and what starts you on a story.

Aside from what's in the books, the Speech exists as a number of basic rules - verb declensions and so on, and I think the whole of the verb "to be". It's not as if there's enough for anyone to actually say anything in it - I'm not a linguist at all!

[alison]

CROW CROW CROW CROW CROW CROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we want crow we want crow

Silvia, I will send this on to Penguin to demonstrate what I have to cope with until The Crow actually hits the shops. :D Gad, a whole year - I should get danger money.

And a belated hi to Bubbly!

[Teresa Edgerton]

Yes, I've worked on stories that same way, just letting it all flow out and discovering people and places and events at the same time that the characters do -- it's very exciting, and sometimes the most fortuitous and unexpected things happen. With characters like Saliman and Hem and Ardina -- did you know who they were and how important they were going to be to the story when they first appeared, or were some of them walk-ons who developed history and significance after they arrived?

For The Hidden Stars, I had most of the story scribbled out in a long and fairly detailed synopsis before I started the actual writing. And I used a world left over from a previous project. I still liked that world a lot and felt it had potential, but for this story civilization had to be at a less sophisticated level, so I essentially went back in time a few thousand years, and figured out the origins of things and the truth behind some of the more garbled histories, which was pretty amusing. Still, there have been plenty of surprises along the way.

As for the language, I guess I've done more with that, and earlier, than you did, with a vocabulary of about a thousand words. Probably excessive, but making words was the easy part for me, starting with root words and concepts and building on those. Like you, I'm not a linguist, so all the grammar parts were particularly difficult, and the whole process has convinced me that there is something deeply sinister about verb declensions. Originally, I decided that if the grammar and syntax weren't substantially different from English the result wouldn't be a language but a mere word substitution code. Now I ask myself: And what would be wrong with that? So much trouble over verb tenses and how much use will that be in the long run? But it's too late to back out now. Did you wrestle with that part, or did it come easily for you? And how much did naming your characters influence the language, and vice versa?

And have you developed, or considered developing, an alphabet for the Speech? This is something I keep thinking I should do, but the prospect is rather daunting.

(One doesn't meet many people who have been so brave/foolhardy/demented -- choose one -- as to attempt an invented language, so encountering a kindred spirit has aroused my curiosity.)

[alison]

Hi Madeline

It's fair to say that I had no idea who anybody was when I first met them in The Gift, not even Cadvan and Maerad. And even though the second and third books were much more worked out in advance, mainly because I was very worried about getting lost or writing myself into some impossible corner, people still pop up out of nowhere and demand to be written. But I have a great faith in the subconscious: it works away, making things even though you're not aware of it, and I'm quite sure that's what happened with The Gift/The Naming. I had to work way harder for The Crow, which is set in the South in a city sort of like Ur.

That's interesting, that you had a "post" history already there. I'm sure there's an advantage to writing a story in a pre-existing world. Edil-Amarandh is actually a world I first visited when I was ten (I wrote a story then, which bore an extraordinary similarity to TLOTR, and there were various maps, including an island one rather like the one on your website), though this incarnation is very different. Some of the names date from then - Thorold, Afinil, Norloch, Edil-Amarandh itself. I made up some sort of language around then too, I even wrote a whole poem in it, but I lost it all. I based the structure of the Speech roughly around Latin, which I learned for a few years, but I'm afraid nothing exists past the present tense (!), so I've evaded some of the headaches you've had. Though it also has noun declensions... I've tried to make many of the names etymologically consistent, so the thing hangs together - at least at a glance! - so it at least seems that language has evolved like a real language, though the Speech is a bit different. I have a couple of notebook "dictionaries", English into the Speech and vice versa. Is that what you've done with yours?

I haven't made an alphabet, though I talk about them in the books. I thought about it. But when I really needed one (for the Treesong runes) I asked someone else to design them, because my abilities really don't run that way! There are various other languages in the books - Pilanel and Suderain pop up, for instance - but they exist only as stray words and names.

It's very important to me that the world sounds right. I guess made-up languages always seemed to me to be basic to fantasy. Now, that's definitely the influence of Tolkien! :) As for brave/foolhardy/demented - probably all of the above...!

[Teresa Edgerton]

Will we be seeing more of the Elementals in the future? (Never could resist characters of inhuman race, and the Ice Witch, in particular, intrigues me.)

I apologize if you've already answered the question elsewhere, but I fear to venture too far into any of these threads in case of spoilers.

[alison]

Very wise, Madeline. I am thinking there should be spoiler warnings all over this forum... :rolleyes: But yes, the Elementals are important, and become more important in subsequent books, and the Ice Witch in particular...

[Silvia]

Silvia, I will send this on to Penguin to demonstrate what I have to cope with until The Crow actually hits the shops. :D Gad, a whole year - I should get danger money.

And a belated hi to Bubbly!

I think danger money is a definate must the plots will begin again soon alison...................

[Bridie]

silvia i just signed into msn and i think you where trying to talk to me. unfortunetly my dumbass computer closed the conversation and wont let me talk to you! *kicks the computer* stupid thing... anyway i just thought id let you know i wasnt ignoring you. :)

[Silvia]

Yes it does seem to do that every time i try to talk to you msn has soooo many bugs so annoying!

[Bridie]

yes its very annoying. im trying to come up with a name for a girl about 16 whos orphaned by war (now who does that sound like?like alison i do tend to "steal" ideas from authors) and i was wondering if anyone could help me with it.