Xanados
Maester
I'm in the world-building phase of my narrative, and I'd like to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.
How do you, well, world-build, exactly? I am creating a continent in which the main events of the story shall take place, but I only have the mainland plotted out so far. Is this the right way to go?
Something that I haven't really caught on to is the fact that races should have different languages. As writers, do we just forget about that if we don't know how create our own language, like Tolkien? I'm also wondering why on some maps you have names like the "Brown Lands." Wouldn't that be called something entirely different to another species who speaks their own separate language? Most fantasy maps are in English, of course, but they are a mixture of made up names and proper names like, again, the "Brown Lands."
I can't really sum up what I'm trying to ask. It's a simple thing, really, and that makes it harder to describe.
My continent is named "Engwrath." Wouldn't that be called something else entirely by a different race? An empire in my world is called the "Godless Empire", but that is from the perspective of a distant, opressed tribe, which makes things confusing.
I guess I'm trying to ask you, well, is it the person who creates the map that their language comes into it? Tolkien could’ve written his map from the Elves perspective, couldn’t he? You wouldn't have an Orc create a map writing down "Hobbiton", would you? Is it all about the perspective?[/LEFT]
How do you, well, world-build, exactly? I am creating a continent in which the main events of the story shall take place, but I only have the mainland plotted out so far. Is this the right way to go?
Something that I haven't really caught on to is the fact that races should have different languages. As writers, do we just forget about that if we don't know how create our own language, like Tolkien? I'm also wondering why on some maps you have names like the "Brown Lands." Wouldn't that be called something entirely different to another species who speaks their own separate language? Most fantasy maps are in English, of course, but they are a mixture of made up names and proper names like, again, the "Brown Lands."
I can't really sum up what I'm trying to ask. It's a simple thing, really, and that makes it harder to describe.
My continent is named "Engwrath." Wouldn't that be called something else entirely by a different race? An empire in my world is called the "Godless Empire", but that is from the perspective of a distant, opressed tribe, which makes things confusing.
I guess I'm trying to ask you, well, is it the person who creates the map that their language comes into it? Tolkien could’ve written his map from the Elves perspective, couldn’t he? You wouldn't have an Orc create a map writing down "Hobbiton", would you? Is it all about the perspective?[/LEFT]
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