Shard Twenty-one - Getting The Fires Started

The whole storyline process for Fragmented Infinity is starting to feel more like a buildup than a rolling start, but hey, even an illusion of progress is better than nothing at all, right.

More and more details are getting fleshed out, but as before, the story itself is still in the starting gates. Something's bound to burst soon, either the metaphorical gate, or my head. I'm hoping for the former.

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As I add more and more to the story, I've been finding the naming process to be especially intricate; while it's easy enough to just start naming everything, if you do it without regard for the setting, you lose so much of the understory.
Especially in Fragmented Infinity, keeping a common theme for each seperate Shard (world) is proving difficult, but surprisingly rewarding. One particular one is quite recent; the world itself is still unnamed (until recently, it's mostly been centered around one of the characters, with the world more of an afterthought). With a new character finding his way into this world, I found a lot of pieces falling into place; suddenly the art direction seemed a little more solid, and the "feel" of the world got a bit more flavor to it.

My naming conventions have always been centered around foreign languages, and generally involve some butchering - the more the better - ranging from my first names, created using "engrish" (Jioruji Derako, Anjiru Deruku), to my Vynaiocc world (this one was based on Greek, "translating" Greek letters to similar-shaped romanizations). As I've added more and more worlds to Fragmented Infinity, I've found myself needing to get more and more creative; for example, the world of Thera is party based on the latin "Terra", and also happens to be an anagram of "Earth" (fitting, for a world that is essentially a parallel version of our Earth).

I suppose I should give this rambling a point; some advice for the aspiring gods and goddesses of their own fantasy worlds.
Don't discount a name for being "too strange"; you'll often find these to be the best of the bunch. Even if you don't use a name like this, it can lay the foundation for a more fitting name.
One thing I've read (a bit of advice for writers) is, don't underestimate your readers. The world today is a smarter and smarter place; give your readers some credit, they probably can wrap their heads around even the most unwieldy names.
Certainly, if it's something nobody can feasibly pronounce, it'll be less memorable; if I could go back and change one part of my storyline, I'd probably work harder on my character names (Jioruji Derako is already a little too well-defined for me to change now, though). But if the name fits, wear it. I mean, keep it.

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