How To Name Fictional Places

hello everyone dan okay and today I'm going to be talking about places and how to name the for your book now it doesn't really apply for books that say in like real life present date because you kind of have the names already made for you of course you can change them if you want alternative reality perhaps and obviously if you write a historic book then it's obviously gonna be named whatever it was named back then but for the future for post apocalyptic for this Toppan for sci-fi for fantasy world building any of that sort of stuff we need to make the actual names of places I will just run you through how I do it now I'm not only touching upon people because although there are similarities with the way I come up with some names for people and also places it doesn't really turn they're kind of about they're in their own sort of things object leave that for another video and just focus primarily on places and stuff for this one so in my book is set in a post-apocalyptic world on earth it could change so the names they use now I've decided that later on not gonna be using them I mean it's set a few hundred years after the apocalypse the events that occurred and the people that live there now don't really know what the places record before and they basically just they've got their own names so I guess you could compare to like The Walking Dead like you've got the Kingdom and the sanctuary actually they're a town called Mulberry they're not I just completely make that but if they were in a town called Mulberry it doesn't have quite the impact as the kingdom or sanctuary so there is reason behind it it sounds caller a little bit of edginess and also it can be sort of descriptive of the actual place itself so the things I consider when looking for a new name is the function of the place is it an industrial place is it a trading place a fishing place on the coast this is just a small village speaking of coasts we have then location though where is it located is it on a mountaintop is it by the sea is it in a forest desert snow add that to the size of the place how big is it is it a town village is it a city I'm from these things you should be able to start building up an image in your head what the town or city or village is like the aesthetics of the place so if for example it's on the eastern side of town or on your map and is in the mountains well Eastern Ridge Mountains have ridges why not each stone bridge that sounds kind of cool and it's factual it's to the east I mean depending on where you are I mean it could be to the west if you were a stove it bow that's besides the bike or if it's on the central part of the map you know where roads cross over and stuff you could just call it cross over I mean you know cross over where they I mean factor so eastern region cross over they're not too edgy they are okay and sometimes it's best if you just don't think about it too much like settle for names like that to begin with and maybe if you want to change your layer do it zombies don't call the things that too edgy I mean a genius is good but too edgy like Satan's playground or blade town it just doesn't for me at least in my world that doesn't fit it may be blade Townley's really good may be blade town this next gun town although if it is I think I'd rather living downtown because it ain't the badlands something like the weaponry is okay but I probably got you know armory cuz it just just sounds better than weaponry to me again subject it's another example I could give you is I made a coastal town on my map and it's a training place by the sea sea brings with it rust they have any metal buildings it's probably going to be orange red no good like all the place rust no I mean I could but that's already a popular game anyway so I don't really want to call it after a popular game um I could but it's just also rust is just rust it needs something else with it something that sounds a little bit more post-apocalyptic so I typed in on the internet got them sweet synonyms and before I know it I landed on the word rusts it Russia sounds a little bit more extra but kind of means like a brownish chestnut he sort of color but it's also related to rust so I went with that Russa it was a rusty trading coastal town I mean you might look at me and be like Rus hair really Russian nice that's kind of lame well one maybe I want it to be kind of lame too I don't think it's battling and three you're free to think what you want but I like it makes a little subjective now when it comes to sci-fi or you've got to name your home solar systems planets heater systems animals races and basically generally make the entire thing up I'd argue that edginess it's probably going to be your friend and I'm looking at the thesaurus and synonyms are going to be probably your best friend because you can have to name an awful lot although one thing I would keep in mind although I haven't done any sci-fi stuff myself um would be just try and keep in theme I mean if they're gonna call a planet pre-owned in Pula really cool name nice and extra don't call the next planet bubble pop or something because the feel of it just won't be the same you know prior neighbors probably full of like predator looking vicious creatures and bubble pop is may be full of more like marshmallow blue bubbly looking soft cuddly creatures but you could still you could still maybe a bit maybe you want that contrast but for me I mean and if you are looking across the entire internet and still can't find any of those relatable words to a certain word then don't limit it English it's plenty of other fancy languages that you could use that will have a word that might actually fit whether it's Spanish French or even Latin although now you're gonna have like several more million words to it look through it's just for me I have to keep in mind wanna do the stuff I can always change it and don't be too picky if it fits well enough I leave it for now and I'll just revisit it later because why I don't want to do is have a name of a town stop you from writing my book which is far more important but yeah this is how I do it I obviously you know my method may not be your method and my method may be a little more off a little more time consuming but it could work it cook you know if you were if you use this and it helps you then that's great let me know if however you don't use this and you think it's a load of nonsense well you can let me know if you want and if you do let me know leave some tips on how I could do it better because you know most of it is subjective and I do understand that I do actually have things you know still yet to learn but yeah either way be sure to leave a comment down in the description below and I'll see you the next video cheers for watching

Channel: Dan Hook

Views: 11,907

Keywords: fictional, novel, development, dystopian, post-apocalyptic, book, dan hook, how to, fantasy, editing, planning, places, names, cities, towns, create, author, writing

Id: QAk9SBzsgaE

Length: 7min 32sec (452 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 17 2018