Writers' Corner

[Ragnarok]

Assassination attempts are difficult if one wishes to preserve logic- my two favorite solutions are "this is killers initiation and target is better than he looks" and "distraction by something exponentially more important," IE a dragon attacks the town or something.

[Asterales]

Ragnarok, I suppose you are right, although I don't think it'll fit the story. The MC in question really has absolutely no training. Not even in self-defense, seeing as he is a hostage. And I very much doubt anyone in the storyverse would even consider sending someone after a member of the holy family for their initiation. The MC might just be from a traitorous side branch of the family, but he is still considered a political liability important enough to warrant an expert's "handling". Also, I don't think the one paying the assassin (namely the MC's cousin) would be too amused by the suggestion.To top it all off, it has to happen in the enemies palace...

"Exponentially more important distraction". Hmm. I do believe a minor distraction might help, if only to elongate the few seconds that are necessary to kill someone who is unaware. Something bigger feels too much like cheating to me, and the most important point of the whole ordeal is actually the psychological impact. The politics are important, but only insofar that they are important throughout the whole story.

What I need is something preventing the initial killing and then an opportunity to have a proper scuffle. But the assassin simply slipping or tripping just doesn't sit right with me...

[Laufey]

Hmm. Using the element of luck is about the only possibility I can think of, given the specs. Something that came to my mind though was goldsmiths and injuries; when a goldsmith has a serious injury at work it tends to always happen to someone with years and years of experience under their belt, not to someone new to the craft. The worst injuries almost always happen to those for whom the job is such a routine that they get absent-minded for a second and chop. Perhaps the assassin is someone with much experience and (especially if they're aware how easy their target is to kill) just... forgets some important safety detail, thinking they're in for an easy routine task?

[OwlsG0]

What I need is something preventing the initial killing and then an opportunity to have a proper scuffle. But the assassin simply slipping or tripping just doesn't sit right with me...

Hear hear on that. Whenever a deus-ex-machina like that is pulled out at the last second, it makes me roll my eyes. Unless the assassin has already proved themselves to be a little bit clumsy, then what are the odds they will slip up at the most crucial moment of their mission? Lazy writing. Bad characterisation.

I always feel like the solution to the final battle should be introduced, progressed and developed along with the characters towards the start of the story. It doesn't have to be overt- just a simple comment about it will suffice, but unless there has been some comprehensive development, or the solution naturally makes sense in context, the final battle triumph will feel cheap and easily won.

[Asterales]

Hear hear on that. Whenever a deus-ex-machina like that is pulled out at the last second, it makes me roll my eyes. Unless the assassin has already proved themselves to be a little bit clumsy, then what are the odds they will slip up at the most crucial moment of their mission? Lazy writing. Bad characterisation.

I always feel like the solution to the final battle should be introduced, progressed and developed along with the characters towards the start of the story. It doesn't have to be overt- just a simple comment about it will suffice, but unless there has been some comprehensive development, or the solution naturally makes sense in context, the final battle triumph will feel cheap and easily won.

Exactly.
Only I really don't see a way not to have it come down to luck in those crucial first seconds. I have thought of something now, and there are many little things I can mention that will lead up to luck intervening at the right moment (the weather condition, a wrong choice of shoes on the main character's part, the traditional clothing that always seems to get in the way at the worst time - in fact the sleeves will save more than one person's life throughout the story, and drive several generals and warriors mad with anger whenever they have to wear something 'court appropriate').
I'm also thinking that maybe, just maybe, the feeling that it was too easy could be used, to for example, make the MC very paranoid. Because, really, what are the chances?
But the initial thing that has to make the MC turn (some kind of noise)... I don't see how I could eliminate the randomness of that.

Hmm. Using the element of luck is about the only possibility I can think of, given the specs. Something that came to my mind though was goldsmiths and injuries; when a goldsmith has a serious injury at work it tends to always happen to someone with years and years of experience under their belt, not to someone new to the craft. The worst injuries almost always happen to those for whom the job is such a routine that they get absent-minded for a second and chop. Perhaps the assassin is someone with much experience and (especially if they're aware how easy their target is to kill) just... forgets some important safety detail, thinking they're in for an easy routine task?

That's a good point. Sonja Fischer, the German hairdresser world championship winner, seems to have a weakness for cutting off parts of her own fingers, because she gets ahead of herself...
I don't think I'll be able to utilize it in this scenario, but it is something to keep in mind for later!

[Aierdome]

Well, not killing people is sure harder if you want everyone in the story to remain competent. For some random ideas:

Those sleeves, maybe the character could have something hidden in them? (I'm reminded of the fact that Pekingese were bred to hide in sleeves and be used as anti-assassin measure... true story, apparently) It doesn't have to be a weapon - even something like a metal bracelet could surprise an assassin that would, in a scuffle, slash out at the characters. Also, necklaces and all other jewelry. Having once been smacked (by accident) with a pedant, I can tell you it (1) hurts a lot and (2) is certainly sure to slow someone down. Also, a knife could get entangled with a more fancy neckace, and a band-style necklace, if made of metal, could stop a strike meant for lower throat.

Also, how does the assassination happen? I recall (I can't give you the book now) reading about an assassination when the would-be killer was dressed as a palace servant. The reason it failed was because a seasoned guard of the would-be victim remembered all the faces and was on guard when he noticed someone he didn't know. If your character is cornered in a familiar environment, the fact that he doesn't recognize someone could be an alerting factor, giving the MC a second of two more for reaction, which could mean a difference between death and not dying.

If you want to have your assassin be foiled by a noise, you could foreshadow it by mentioning something a floorboard by the entrance creaking, and people expressing annoyance with that. It'll come off as much less random if the attention's already been brought to it in a conversation. If the assassin enters by the window, likewise. Maybe it takes place on a windy day, and the creak makes the character think the wind pushed the window open? He could stand up to close it, which would give him the advantage of not sitting.

A reflection in the mirror? It could be a newly-hanged mirror, as to explain why the assassin didn't plan for this. Weapon would also make for a handy first-grab makeshift shield.

Furniture-as-weaponry? Kicked-over chairs and tables, random objects thrown to the floor, this kind of stuff would make reaching the MC an obstacle course for the assassin. The MC could arm himself with something like chair leg, which beats fighting bare-handed. From other weapons that may be on hand: candlestands, pens (with a nib), keys, letter openers, big books (doubles as a shield!), wooden figurines, large cups, bottles and glasses.

[Róisín]

I used to tell my students that the most useful weapon is the one between your ears. Just about any physical object can be converted into one. And using the terrain is always good.

[Asterales]

[…]

These are all really good ideas!
The character won't get away completely unscathed, but for reasons of further plot development, I can't have him be too recognizable due to a physical disability.
I have actually moved the whole thing outside, into a garden/park the MC usually frequents, to use the terrain, as Róisín, puts it. While I can make use of it as the author, the MC, unfortunately, won't be using it so much as having problems dealing with it, and the character's survival of the attack will largely come down to luck, but I can engineer enough of the conditions that will lead to luck kicking in. With the scenario I have got now (including the noise), I managed to tick off everything I wanted it to contain, plus some neat additional stuff.

Original goals were:
1. Make MC more cautious
2. Make him always carry a weapon (which will at one point incriminate him, because he does so against explicit orders)
3. Show a change in his personal stand within his family, which impacts the character's mind
4. Show a change in political stances, which impacts some following plot points and how he is treated by his captors
5. Foreshadowing (to the MC) the death of somebody he cared about
6. Make the MC's best friend go agains his king's and father's orders to help the MC (giving him a weapon and training him, at least rudimentarily) - which will be foreshadowing for something else. Yay!
7. Change the dynamics of said friendship (not necessarily for the better)
8. Have the MC consciously kill somebody and become aware that while he always believed everything about him was - rightfully - dictated by his family, he actually does have some power of his own. Which is to decide what happens to his own person. And that leads him right into a clash believes. Mental turmoil achieved!

Bonuses of this setup:
1. Reinforcement of the religious/mindset difference between his people and the people he lives with
2. Using the MC's distaste for said people's believes and the slights they thereby commit agains his own for plot facilitation (Festival: occupies others, makes MC wander about early, produces noise - will be used again, a lot later in the story to show MC's changing mindset)
3. Make it all the more significant when something else happens in the same garden
4. Yield a whole trove of symbolical meaning and references to historical incidents, that remain cannon fodder on the political battlefield

All in all, I'm very satisfied!
Congratulate me?

... Of course it now remains to be seen whether I manage to write it convincingly. In a way that distracts from the unfortunate cliches.*sigh* *mutters* At least there are neither stones nor dirt involved.



Thinking about all of this also gave me some good ideas for court conduct. This round of asking was very fruitful .
Thank you all so much for answering and giving me such wonderful ideas!
I appreciate it a lot!

[OwlsG0]

Astarles can I ask what MC's name is? If you have one?

I always have a hard time naming people permanently because I prefer to know the meanings of names and such before I go on to use them. Because of this, one of the MCs of a story under-works ended up with the ridiculous nickname 'Twig' from her surname.

[Asterales]

Astarles can I ask what MC's name is? If you have one?

I always have a hard time naming people permanently because I prefer to know the meanings of names and such before I go on to use them. Because of this, one of the MCs of a story under-works ended up with the ridiculous nickname 'Twig' from her surname.

I do have a name. But it isn't a pre-existing one, because for some reason I just can't handle 'real' names in Fantasy stories. So it doesn't have a meaning per se. At some point I decided it's the name of a weather phenomenon that brings the first rain (as opposed to snow) of the year, but since it won't be brought up in the story, it's a moot point.
What is important for me when deciding a character's name is the sound, as opposed to the meaning.
The MC of this story is called Ferusch. Hmm. English pronunciation guide could be Fehroosh? The second syllable is stressed... actually he has several sets of names, but this is the one I use for narration. I Introduced him and a few characters from his universe in the OC Showcase, if you are interested (p.4, 15 and 17).

It would be a lie to say I didn't prefer Fantasy over other genres also because it gives me this liberty with names.
I'm a bit confused as to why the change of topic happened, though, I must admit. And not a just bit curious. Why are you asking? Do you need help with finding a good name for the MC you mentioned? What is she like? What does she do? (This would be perfect for the OC-S, and it would be a bit more private over there, in case you feel uncomfortable divulging stuff on the internets)
I agree that it can be very difficult to find a suitable name at times! For the longest time one of my characters for this story had to go by K., since the only thing I knew was that I wanted a K. at the start.
What I like to do if I can't come up with a good name is to sing non-words to myself, combine existing names or words into one or to go off a phrase in my village's dialect, that is very difficult to understand and mess it up even more.
I also like to make lists with names that strike my fancy, even if it doesn't seem like I'll be using them anytime soon.
I realize this won't help you if you want to use actual names, with actual meaning...

[OwlsG0]

In answer to Astarles, so I don't de-rail the thread

Spoiler: show

The main reason I asked is because I enjoyed the fleeting image I got of your MC through this last conversational topic. I just wanted a name to put to this vague, sunny impression I had towards the character, and you came through.
Like you do, I enjoy using names which are out of the norm. The methods we use are actually similar- listing and such. I like to pick a theme when naming something. For example, I invent a reason for one family in particular to have names relating to Rome (it came down to a family curse- accidentally angering a Roman god so they had to pay homage by naming every one of their descendants something Roman)
From this, I got three nice, solid names that I can make a lot of nicknames out of. My protagonist MC is actually named Tiberia, Tabi for short, which works with her body type (think 'tubby') and personality type (sunny).

Beyond all that, sometimes it's good to just come up with names without meaning. It's fun! I do that whenever I'm trying to name characters which are from different planets and it's given me some of the weirdest names ever.

[Asterales]

OwlsG0, I don't think it is very easy to de-rail this thread, in particular. All this talk is still related to writing, after all!
And we haven't talked about naming techniques so far!
I like the idea of having a theme for only a small group of people. To be honest, it isn't something I had thought of until now.

So how do you all go about finding a good name? What makes a character name off-putting or ensnaring? Is it even possible to achieve this with a name alone? Do you like to have the name match the personality or do you make a point of it being in stark contrast to each other? What is your stance on apostrophes and the like in Fantasy names? Do you like telling names?
And this doesn't only concern characters, right?
Do you have specialized techniques for naming places or do you just go with whatever pops into your mind first?

For that matter, how long does it take you to find a satisfying name on average?
I think for me that would be about 2-3 Months. "K." was nameless for approaching two years though... And "most changes of the name" goes to Anyoh (the MCs best friend) with over 12 over the course of 5 years. This story is a slow cooking one! *head desk*

[OwlsG0]

To demonstrate, I'll use the case study of one character.

Please bear in mind that I have been world-building since I was a dainty twelve year old, so the names at the beginning are all kinds of stupid

She started off as Beatrice Lake Shakespeare
She then became Johanna Grimm
She then became Jonaen Grimm
She then became Kader Grimm (this was around the time her ethnicity changed from generic lily white to Turkish, with a dash of Kurdish)
She became Tiberia Abijem Grimm
She is now finally  Tiberia Oberona Okmen and I do not intend to change the name any further because it fits her perfectly and I may die if I have to try again.

And as for picking names, I usually just probe around until I find one I like. I test a few out. I sound them out and write them down in-story context to see if it fits with the others. Sometimes I take them from my own family- half of which are Southern, the other half of which are Puerto Rican so, bloody hell, there are a lot of us.
But man, you got me beat with 12 names in five years! Kudos on finally finding the one that felt right! My naming process is usually one of years too- took me years to get to 'Twig'. Before that, in my tweenie days, her name was Dracia and I shudder to think of that period.

And as to naming places? I like using a theme too. Like if I'm naming streets, I pick a kind of imagery. Say there's going to be a violent scene in the town, the street names come out as such: Bloody Creek Lane, Tourniquet Street and, once, on a famously sleep-deprived night where I recorded some mind-numbingly dumb ideas, Punch-up Culdesac
I know, it's not subtle, but I kind of like not being subtle sometimes.

One more thing about place names: a while back, I named a planet and gave it some moons. To name these moons, I took the components of the human eye and changed the spelling
For example: iris= yerisz
And that's about it, I guess?

[Aierdome]

Congratulate me?

Congratulations! 

As for the names, I admit I often start with regular ones and modify them to sound more fantasy-ish. For example, Eric -> Eriac, Sandra -> Sanra, Alice -> Alis (funnily enough, Alis is a guy) Darius -> Darys. Others come from words I heard that sound nice to me - Tristar -> Trisar, Sousa -> Souse, Silan -> Cilane. And finally, a lot of names come from me trying out various sounds and looking for something I'd like. It helps me to say them out-loud.

The longer it took me to name a character was... a week, I think? For a while, he went nameless, then he was Saul, then I realized he's from another world and changed it to Shaul, but after a while I realized that it just doesn't... click with me. It felt weird writing it. In the end, I settled on calling him Souse.

I do have those weird presumptions... regarding names and personality that I wouldn't be really able to explain where they come from. It's a first letter thing. I always feel like characters with names starting with M are calm and stout, Es are more guarding, combat-capable and more likely to be one normal person in a crowd of weirdos, Ss are guile and scientific, As are boisterous and more choleric... I don't know where that comes from, but I couldn't name a street-wise thief with M, and I can't have a nurse with a name starting with A. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When it comes to names, I admit I dislike naming system of "Word Someplace", like "Misty Mountain" or "Black River". I mean, it's fine in moderation, but if everything on the map has such descriptive names, it looks super-unrealistic to me. When I name something, I like to think of the language "theme" of nations near it - for example, the country in the latest thing I'm writing has "French" theme, so there are places like Caderioux, Cadour etc. I like theme naming, too - city of Cadour lies in Caderioux, which in turn lies around river Cado. Any other place in this country which lies in place where a river enters the sea would have -our suffix - Galledour (river Galla), Pexifour (river Pexifeis), Lemmedour (river Lemme) and so on.

[OwlsG0]

How is 'Souse' pronounced? The look of it kind of reminds me of the nickname for the Spanish name Jesus- which is Soos, as any Gravity Falls fan will know.

I don't like the 'this and that place' thing either. Moderation is good, yes, but after a while you just start to wonder how long it took the author to run out of inspiration. Original names for MCs are a big plus for me too. If a character is named Sarah or Matthew, for some reason I can't get into it as easily as I can get into a story where the character is named something weird and outlandish. Off the top of my head, the names Josella (heroine of Day of the Triffids) and all of the names from Watership Down are ones I really enjoyed.

Currently, I'm writing a piece that involves characters named Malene, Nymph, Santi, Little Trout and Siamak.
So that kind of gives some perspective on just how weird names can go when I'm inspired. Not that Siamak is weird- it's Iranian.