{"id":32950,"date":"2016-08-15T06:30:11","date_gmt":"2016-08-14T18:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=32950"},"modified":"2016-08-14T20:08:03","modified_gmt":"2016-08-14T08:08:03","slug":"use-of-names-worldbuilding-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2016\/08\/15\/use-of-names-worldbuilding-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Use Of Names: Worldbuilding, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Thornspell<\/a>Last week I explored the use of names<\/a> as an important aspect of worldbuilding in The Wall of Night<\/a> series.<\/p>\n

This week, I am again exploring the contribution of names to worldbuilding, this time in the context of Thornspell<\/em><\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Thornspell<\/em><\/strong> is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty<\/em> from the perspective of the prince and the story began for me in one of those classic creative ‘flashpoint’ moments that simultaneously revealed the story arc and the essential character of the world. I was at a performance of the Tchaikovsky ballet, Sleeping Beauty<\/em>, and recall sitting up in my seat when the prince first came leaping onto the stage. \u201cWhat about<\/em> the prince?” I demanded—silently!—of myself, “What\u2019s his<\/em> story?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>

A small castle…<\/p><\/div>\n

Almost immediately, I also had a vision of a boy, around age eleven, growing up in a small castle next to a mysterious and dangerous forest, and knew that his name was “Sigismund”\u2014a name which instantly linked me into a world that was very “Holy Roman Empire” in feel.<\/p>\n

\"...songbirds<\/a>

…songbirds as harbingers…<\/p><\/div>\n

As the world and the cast of characters evolved, all the names retained that same Holy Roman Empire flavour, but also opened doors into a mythological backdrop for the story.<\/p>\n

This backdrop was grounded in the Middle European legends of Parsifal, in particular von Eschenbach’s Parzival,<\/em> and the slightly later Lohengrin<\/em> by “Nouhuwius.” It also drew on the European traditions of the Arthurian cycle, and the Grail quest in particular, via such works as Chretien de Troyes’ Le Roman de Perceval ou le Conte de Graal <\/em>(ca. 1175.)<\/p>\n

\"...&<\/a>

…& here, too, be dragons!<\/p><\/div>\n

Some stories and worlds build slowly over time—but I think this is a compelling example of how a single moment and a single name can define the worldbuilding for a book.<\/p>\n

It’s also a great example of how art begets further art, but that’s such a large topic I feel it deserves a post or post series of its own.<\/p>\n

Part 3 will follow next week.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

This post is adapted from one I wrote for Abhinav Jain's \"Names\" \r\nseries, a few years back now.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week I explored the use of names as an important aspect of worldbuilding in The Wall of Night series. This week, I am again exploring the contribution of names to worldbuilding, this time in the context of Thornspell. Thornspell is a retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of the prince and the story […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-about-my-books","category-epicfantasy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32950"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32954,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32950\/revisions\/32954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}