As an author-to-be I'm trying my best to document my writing journey without boring readers with all the details. In my last post about writing, I discussed my struggle with analysis paralysis. Since then, I granted myself some serious working sessions and forced myself to dive into revising my novel and tackling all the notes I had left myself.
As I analyzed the categories I had created, I realized I had the most questions about the words and language I was going to use throughout the novel. For example, should there be special names for the different roles honeybees have in the hive? And what words or terms did I need to make up to include more originality into my world building?
After I wrote my novel, I reread one of my favorite anthropomorphic fantasies, Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies. I took notes as I read, and one of my biggest takeaways that I wanted to implement in my novel was the creation of new words, new terms that the bees would use to help define their world. One of the most important things that I needed a different word for was "royal jelly" which is a substance that worker bees secrete to feed the queen. Queen honeybees live exclusively on royal jelly. In my novel it plays a much bigger role than just the queen bee's diet, but every time I read that term, I cringed. Sometimes the words humans give to the natural world are just....weird. I needed to find a different word that carried with it more reverence for how special a substance it truly is. I also liked in Fire Bringer the terms for significant life events in deer lives, so I came up with words for various moments in the lives of a honeybee.
As I worked through all the terms I had flagged to think about and create, I found myself thinking through a lot of the bigger questions I had left for myself to figure out about some of the magic and the new hive roles I had created. Finally giving myself--and my characters--special words to describe their world, I found that the necessary world building that my first draft lacked was coming much more easily than it had before.
As a lover of languages and linguistics, this revelation should not have surprised me. When I took a second to marvel at the progress I was making in just a few hours of writing and defining terminology, I recalled a conversation I had with David J. Peterson, the creator of the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBO's Game of Thrones television series. Years ago, I was lucky enough to meet him at a fantasy convention, and I asked him about the importance of culture in creating a new language. He said considering the culture of group of people is incredibly important. For example, he could not just simply create words in Dothraki to match what words we have in English, or what words other people have in that world. For example, in order to have a word for "book," you need to have a written language. You need to have time to write out stories. And you need time to be able to read the book. You need to find value in what a book provides, whether that is knowledge or entertainment. The Dothraki are a nomadic people with no written language. It does not make sense to have a word for "book."
I am by no means creating a new language for my novel. In fact, I'm borrowing quite a bit from Latin to go along with the scientific names I'm using for the bees and other animal characters. But even still, I needed to consider what was important to the bees so that they would have words for everything. And to consider what they would not have the words for. I have bees that are wild and bees that are raised in human-built apiaries. Their cultures and worldviews are different. What could I do with the words they use to reflect those differences and the messages I'm trying to relay through my story? Thinking critically about the words my characters used for their world helped me find more structure and purpose in the story itself, and it has helped me have renewed excitement and vision for draft number two.
As I analyzed the categories I had created, I realized I had the most questions about the words and language I was going to use throughout the novel. For example, should there be special names for the different roles honeybees have in the hive? And what words or terms did I need to make up to include more originality into my world building?
After I wrote my novel, I reread one of my favorite anthropomorphic fantasies, Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies. I took notes as I read, and one of my biggest takeaways that I wanted to implement in my novel was the creation of new words, new terms that the bees would use to help define their world. One of the most important things that I needed a different word for was "royal jelly" which is a substance that worker bees secrete to feed the queen. Queen honeybees live exclusively on royal jelly. In my novel it plays a much bigger role than just the queen bee's diet, but every time I read that term, I cringed. Sometimes the words humans give to the natural world are just....weird. I needed to find a different word that carried with it more reverence for how special a substance it truly is. I also liked in Fire Bringer the terms for significant life events in deer lives, so I came up with words for various moments in the lives of a honeybee.
As I worked through all the terms I had flagged to think about and create, I found myself thinking through a lot of the bigger questions I had left for myself to figure out about some of the magic and the new hive roles I had created. Finally giving myself--and my characters--special words to describe their world, I found that the necessary world building that my first draft lacked was coming much more easily than it had before.
As a lover of languages and linguistics, this revelation should not have surprised me. When I took a second to marvel at the progress I was making in just a few hours of writing and defining terminology, I recalled a conversation I had with David J. Peterson, the creator of the Dothraki and Valyrian languages for HBO's Game of Thrones television series. Years ago, I was lucky enough to meet him at a fantasy convention, and I asked him about the importance of culture in creating a new language. He said considering the culture of group of people is incredibly important. For example, he could not just simply create words in Dothraki to match what words we have in English, or what words other people have in that world. For example, in order to have a word for "book," you need to have a written language. You need to have time to write out stories. And you need time to be able to read the book. You need to find value in what a book provides, whether that is knowledge or entertainment. The Dothraki are a nomadic people with no written language. It does not make sense to have a word for "book."
I am by no means creating a new language for my novel. In fact, I'm borrowing quite a bit from Latin to go along with the scientific names I'm using for the bees and other animal characters. But even still, I needed to consider what was important to the bees so that they would have words for everything. And to consider what they would not have the words for. I have bees that are wild and bees that are raised in human-built apiaries. Their cultures and worldviews are different. What could I do with the words they use to reflect those differences and the messages I'm trying to relay through my story? Thinking critically about the words my characters used for their world helped me find more structure and purpose in the story itself, and it has helped me have renewed excitement and vision for draft number two.
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