Posted by Ann

Jed Hartman, one of the editors at Strange Horizons, has a blog. Some of it's personal stuff, some of it is slush updates. Sometimes it's useful posts about writing.

It was the seventh day of Rilrak, and Vesnalorm the Mighty, Ess'lor of Nyeang, stood in Yerale Pass by the broad swift-flowing Undh, looking down over Warawe Valley to the golden towers of Soelmwar. "Alas," thought Vesnalorm; "King Dukeko will die this day at the hands of his brother, Lllarod, and his sister, Ightch, and his cousins Nudah and Worler, if my Knights of Banismos do not act quickly."

It's a definite problem in secondary-world fantasy. You want to use cool, made-up names. You need to get your characters and settings introduced so your reader will understand who the players are and where they're playing. But a first paragraph like that is a story-stopper, plain and simple.

My advice? Don't be in such a hurry. Spread your names out. Consider very carefully just what needs names and what doesn't. The above example is extreme, but instructive--does the name of the river matter? Maybe it doesn't, and can just be "the river." Same for the pass the redoubtable Vesnalorm stands in. At the very least, we can name them later. For now, give us Vesnalorm and his distress about the king (does the king need a name? Maybe, maybe not) and maybe a good description of the river, and perhaps the valley Vesnalorm is looking at. And then, you know, you really might want to consider cutting the cast down a bit. Most short stories don't need four villains. If you can threaten the king with just his sister, get rid of the brother and the cousins.

It's essentially an expositional problem, and exposition is, in my personal opinion, one of the biggest, thorniest problems facing writers of fantasy--and of science fiction, and, I'd guess, historical fiction. And coincidentally, Jed wrote an amusing blog post on exposition that's worth reading.