When I started reading fantasy novels in my teen years back in the 1980s, I struggled with the pronunciation of some of the far-out names authors had given their characters. To get through these stories, I turned names such as Gorggegx in George in my mind and kept reading.
Why fantasy authors feel the need to create strange names always confused me. It came off as part of the genre, I think. When I started writing fantasy stories, I thought about using similar names, but I quickly put it to rest and stuck with names I could pronounce.
Since then, I’ve encountered many odd names in the genre, and I continue to do the same thing: turn them into simple names.
In the silent reading of stories, these names – Llewyllnyx – are easy to ignore. However, a few weeks ago, I read an online discussion by audiobook narrators who cursed such names. It was their job to get the pronunciation correct. When it came to some names, particularly made-up names, they had no references, so they had to create the pronunciation.
Whether the author and the reader were happy with it was another matter.
When writing stories, fantasy in particularly, keep audiobook narrators in mind. If you can’t say the made-up name you created, how do you expect them to?
Until I read this discussion, I hadn’t thought about the trouble narrators would have with strange names, both for characters and places. Have you thought about it before this?
[…] Tips for Choosing Character Names […]
Excellent advice, thanks Diane 🙂 Oh, did your books get moved over to KDP. I finally got the pop up invite. It seemed to go effortlessly. 🙂
Thanks, Debby. I’ve been so busy this past week, that I forgot to check CreateSpace. I just did, and the pop-up window appeared. I’m in the process of moving them as I type.
Actually, it just finished. That was fast. I’ll have to check out the details of it later as my day is busy, but everything looks great at a glance.
Yes, it did happen it seems within seconds! Hope our books are all in tact. That move seemed almost too easy, lol. 😉
Too easy — yes. It did. I’ll have time to look at the possible damage at the end of the week. My paperbacks were already linked to my eBooks, and this may have made the transition smoother. All my keywords and descriptions were the same for each book, too.
Good to hear. Mine were linked too, so you could be right. 🙂 We shall keep our fingers crossed!
I like reading characters names that I can pronounce because it makes them more real to me.
I agree, Donna. If you can say the name, it solidifies the character in the brain.