Stephanie Leary

Writer and WordPress consultant

  • Books
    • Content Strategy for WordPress (2015)
    • WordPress for Web Developers (2013)
    • Beginning WordPress 3 (2010)
  • Blog
    • Fascism Watch (2016-17)
    • Content Modeling for WordPress series
    • WordPress Hidden Gems series
  • Work
    • Portfolio
    • Services
    • WordPress Plugins
    • WordPress Themes
    • Presentations and Interviews
    • on GitHub →
  • About
    • Press Kit
  • Contact
    • Mailing List

On the (nick)naming of characters

July 6, 2008 Stephanie Leary 1 Comment

Halfway-plus through Sherwood Smith’s delightful Inda, I must pause and bitch: DAW, why O why did you not include the character list in the published book? Because, Christ on a crutch! In addition to the usual firstname-lastname thing, each school-age character gets two more names at the academy: an official name formed from the family name and a word meaning “one” or “two” depending whether they’re the older or younger sibling (e.g. Landred Marlo-Vayir becomes Marlo-Vayir Tvei), as well as a nickname used to the exclusion of the others (Cherry-Stripe). The -Vayir suffix on the family names has its own meaning. Adults are referred to, interchangeably, by their full names and by a title having to do with their place in succession and military role. And? Some of the titles change when the country goes to war.

My head hurts. Memo to publishers: sometimes we don’t get the luxury of consuming a 600-page paperback in one sitting. Sometimes, you know, we have to put the book down for a couple of days at a time. And when the number of characters with three to four names apiece climbs north of, say, twenty… it helps to provide an index. I’m just sayin’.

It has occurred to me, reading some of the Shadow Unit extras this weekend, that newcomers to that world must have the same problem. In the LiveJournals, the characters refer to each other using nicknames that seldom make it into the episodes proper. Fortunately the wiki lists them all. (At least, I think that’s all of them.)

Books, Writing

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fascism Watch

The Fascism Watch is a daily(ish) news roundup. View all the previous Fascism Watch posts »

Latest WordPress Book

Content Strategy for WordPress

A short book for content strategists and managers on implementing a complete content strategy in WordPress: evaluation, analysis, content modeling, editing and workflows, and long-term planning and maintenance.

Read the sample chapter

Kindle Nook iBooks Kobo Smashwords

WordPress for Web Developers

WordPress for Web Developers (9781430258667)

This is a book for professional web designers and developers who already know HTML and CSS, and want to learn to build sites with WordPress. The book begins with a detailed tour of the administration screens and settings, then digs into server-side topics like performance and security. The second half of the book is devoted to development: learning to build WordPress themes and plugins.

This is the second, much-revised and updated edition of Beginning WordPress 3, with a more accurate title. Everything’s been updated for WordPress 3.6.

WordPress for Web Developers is out now. See what's inside...

The best WordPress features you’ve never noticed

  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Screen Options
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Bulk Edit
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Private Status
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Dashboard Feed Readers
  • WordPress Hidden Gems: Options.php

Content Modeling for WordPress series

  • Content modeling for WordPress, part 1: analyze content
  • Content modeling for WordPress, part 2: functional and organizational requirements
  • Content modeling for WordPress, part 3: a sample content model

This is an excerpt from Content Strategy for WordPress.My latest books are Content Strategy for WordPress (2015) and WordPress for Web Developers (2013). Sign up to be notified when I have a new book for you.

Copyright © 2021 Stephanie Leary