Ursula K. Le Guin, a master of idea-driven sci-fi and fantasy, once said in a Guardian review1:

When everything in a story is imaginary and much is unfamiliar, there’s far too much to explain and describe, so one of the virtuosities of SF is the invention of box-words that the reader must open to discover a trove of meaning and implication. The imaginative leaps involved in decoding such inventions and appreciating their wit can give a reader much pleasure.

I have to admit to love her choice of “box-word” as a definition. It emphasises what neology is at its core: a puzzle box the reader has to decipher to fully grasp the themes, the setting, and the novel that contains it… but it also implies complexity. After all, although deciphering a neologism can often be an intuitive process—for example, the famous stormlight from Brandon Sanderson’s series—more often than not, a reader is asked to mull over it until the meaning becomes clear. This ‘mulling’ can lead, in equal parts, to immersion or estrangement.

The reason?

Neology is more than a pretty combination of epic-sounding words—they carry meaning and represent the world the author created. Therefore, their craft must be precise and intentional: enough for the new word to be understandable on its own or—at the very least—inferable from the context.

So how do we craft useful neologisms? How do we introduce them? How much is too much?

Those are great questions, and this essay aims to answer them—or, for the last one, provide guidelines you can apply in your own writing. I’ll explore what makes neologisms such powerful storytelling tools, dive into fascinating examples from specific books, and finish with some guidelines.

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In a first-world narrative (e.g., when the story happens in the real world) that perspective can clue the reader about what’s important to the narrator-character. In a secondary-world story (i.e., a story set in a fictional world) what the narrating-character perceives becomes the writer’s more fundamental tool to introduce the readers into that secondary world.

However, it is not just what the narrator sees or encounters that matters—the order in which they think about things can add layers of meaning at the expense of no words. This is because a narrator’s thought sequence can reveal culture, priorities, and even hidden tensions in the setting.

I have a quaint example for you today…

—and it is one paragraph from my upcoming book, The Omens of War.

I chose to bring this particular example because I caught my own “mistake” while self-editing a chapter before sending it to the developmental editor. I thought that the difference between the “original” and the “edited” paragraph that went to the editor (and finally made it into the book) was a cool example.

Therefore, this essay will cover:

• The original (and now discarded) paragraph.

• The final paragraph.

• My train of thoughts and reasoning as to change the order, and

• …the world-building details that led me to enact the changes.

The paragraph I bring does not contain spoilers, and at the end—as usual—I’ll have some homework for you to practice as well.

Let’s get this undone!

Introducing the Excerpt

My book, The Omens of War, is multi-pov and happens in a secondary world. The paragraph in question happens in the character’s second chapter, which is about ~6,000 words into the story. This is important because:

• In secondary-world stories, the first 20% of the story tends to be more heavy in world-building.

• The reader is very fresh to the new setting—this is the first book in the series—so I had to write with world-building in mind. Causing “the wrong impression” (in terms of world-building) could lead to “costly” problems later in the story—where “costly” here means that the reader failed to understand the world because of how I had misrepresented it.

Before we dive in, allow me to give you some context; I will purposefully limit myself to context the reader has gathered from the first chapter of the same character:

• The narrating character is Legate Dante Praeto—a political leader and strategist from a nation called Firard. The narrator is a limited third person in past-tense, which alternates between narration and the character’s thoughts1.

• Firard has five Legions: Eastern, Northern, Western, Southern, Central. Dante belongs to the Eastern Legions

• The neighbouring nations are Sestel—with whom they share the ravine—and Orenos—which has attacked them over and over during the past decade or so.

Without further ado, the original paragraph…

—without the rework, was as follows:

Dante lifted a hand, demanding the spyglass. Elixane pressed it into his open palm, and he expanded the barrels to search for the distant silhouettes; the ravine’s sinuous walls hindered his sight, but he searched nonetheless. A coup, perhaps? From the Northern Legion, on Centurion Petra’s command? It would explain why Decanus Ler didn’t inform me. His tongue clicked, rejecting that last thought. No, the Legions inculcate honour and service; we have centuries of indoctrination. He noticed some shapes before a turn in the cliff’s walls, barely distinguishable under the dust raining from the mountains. They seemed to disregard the quake, continuing the War Games. The Sestelii, then? Or the Orenians?

The ground bellowed again, its cry distorted by the ravine into a deep, resonant wail. Dante’s frown secured the spyglass to his face while he observed the fissures sneaking upwards like capricious veins tracing the cliff’s iron markings. […]

What if I told you there is a blatant contradiction in that original paragraph? Look closely, and focus only on Dante’s thoughts—he rebukes himself! In order, he thinks:

A coup, perhaps? From the Northern Legion, on Centurion Petra’s command? It would explain why Decanus Ler didn’t inform me.

But immediately after, he gives a very sensible reason as to why this cannot be the case:

No, the Legions inculcate honour and service; we have centuries of indoctrination.

Thus, if the Legions have “centuries of indoctrination” about “honour and service”… why is a coup the first thought he has?

If before this paragraph I had taken time to have Dante think about a “internal tensions” or “conflicting political interests”, then this sequence of thoughts would have actually made sense… except I did not. Add to it that Dante is not a minor strategist: he owns an entire fortress, is considered the second-in-command in that region, and he knows some behind-the-scenes inner quarrels (which I took care of mentioning on his first chapter)… so why is he thinking of a coup first?

The problem we can see in that first paragraph was an order-induced plot-hole! In other words: the order in which Dante—a politician and strategist—was implying an internal instability (a world-building detail) which contradicted what I introduced before and what I had planned for the book.

But that’s not all! Let me show you the first line of the book’s blurb (which you can double-check in Goodreads, and perhaps add the book to your shelf):

The peace between Firard and Sestel teeters on the edge of collapse.

If I am literally selling the book by appealing to the feeble peace between Firard—Dante’s nation—and Sestel, the neighbouring nation, then Dante’s thoughts should align to that key worldbuilding piece, aren’t they?

Let me show you the reworked paragraph.

This is what I self edited, and I’m using the version before I sent it to the developmental editor.

Dante lifted a hand, demanding the spyglass. Elixane pressed it into his open palm, and he expanded the barrels to search for the distant silhouettes; the ravine’s sinuous walls hindered his sight, but he searched nonetheless. Could this be a Sestelii attack? Lady Seve has sacrificed troops before… His tongue clicked, rejecting that last thought. No; she’s not that reckless. He noticed some shapes before a turn in the cliffs’ walls, barely distinguishable under the dust raining from the mountains. They seemed to disregard the quake, continuing the War Games. The Orenians, then? Trying to ignite a war between Sestel and Firard?

The ground bellowed again, its cry distorted by the ravine into a deep, resonant wail. Could it be a coup? Or something to weaken Strategos Gora’s standing? Dante’s frown secured the spyglass to his face while he observed the fissures sneaking upwards like capricious veins tracing the iron markings on the cliffs. No; it seems… unworkable. […]

If you compare this to the original version, you can see that the narrator’s text (what’s written in regular, not in italics) remained mostly unchanged. What did change, though, is the order of the thoughts.

What was my rationale for the changes?

Let’s go thought-by-thought, so we can compare it to the original version, the blurb, and my goals with this single paragraph.

The first thought is now the following:

Could this be a Sestelii attack? Lady Seve has sacrificed troops before…

At first glance, you can see that Dante’s first worry matches the book’s blurb: “Could this be a Sestelii attack?” This simple change reinforces the setting as I presented it on the blurb: the political tension is between Firard and Sestel, and not internal to Firard (as the first version implied).

That first thought also relies on the book’s blurb: the other point-of-view (with alternating chapters) is Lady Calya Seve, a political leader in Sestel. She’s also mentioned explicitly in the book’s blurb. However, this thought is building a relationship between both characters, because Dante thinks: “Lady Seve has sacrificed troops before…” which means that: (a) they have faced each other before, enough that (b) Dante is aware of her tactics, and (c) he may have opinions about it.

The above—Dante’s and Calya’s political “relationship”—is now also further strengthened by the next thought:

No; she’s not that reckless.

Reader-facing, this is hinting that Calya is quite a pragmatic strategist—sacrifice troops when needed, but only when needed. It also keeps building up Dante’s opinion of her.

Writer-facing, though, I needed Dante to be able to move between possible “suspects”. If his suspicion of Calya was enough for him not to consider other options, then that was it, I could not have him think of anything else without introducing another order-induced contradiction.

After that, because Dante was not satisfied with his own suspicion, he was able to consider another possible suspect. This is the third thought:

The Orenians, then? Trying to ignite a war between Sestel and Firard?

By this point, the reader knows that Orenos is a northerner nation that has a frontier against both Sestel and Firard. Neither of them—Sestel or Firard—is, or has been, allied with Orenos. However, the reader knows that Firard is not keen on warring Sestel, and vice versa.

With that knowledge, this thought does a double-duty in terms of world-building. It tells the reader that:

• After Sestel’s intentions, the second most problematic thing is Orenos’ intentions.

• Orenos may not want to face neither Sestel nor Firard—the would rather just pitch them against each other, which

• …speaks of Orenos’ political nature: sow discord between your enemies, let them finish each other, arrive and loot what remains.

The combination between first and third thought sets the geopolitical landscape Dante is facing: war looms close, two nations could attack him, and something very odd just happened.

These are key world-building elements reintroduced simply by tweaking the order in which Dante—the narrating character—thought about possible culprits/suspects!

However, at this point I needed more space for thoughts, so I expanded them into the next paragraph. If you compare it to the original, the reworked version features Dante still interrupting the narrative throughout the second paragraph.

Thus, after Dante ruled out the actual threats (Sestel’s and Orenos’ intentions) he finally is able to—logically and consistently—think about inner threats:

Could it be a coup? Or something to weaken Strategos Gora’s standing?

The first question: “Could it be a coup?” is reminiscent of the original, but it is far shorter. The vagueness and shortness was intended simply because two reasons: (a) if there are no blatant tensions between the Legions, (b) why would Dante pinpoint one participant (Decanus Ler) and his boss (Centurion Petra) instead of the many other people participating or watching the War Games? It was a plot-hole!

In this case, the vagueness makes more sense. He considers the possibility of a coup, but doesn’t have enough information as to pinpoint a specific rebellious person? Had I kept the names, I’d be forced to somehow explain why and how he knew one person could be the culprit. Instead, the short “Could it be a coup?” means that: (a) Dante is actually covering all angles, (b) even if this angle does not make particular sense.

The other fragment of that thought: “Or something to weaken Strategos Gora’s standing?” actually connects to a thought he had in the first chapter:

It is always politics. This time it was Marshal-Strategos Gora Rachen vying for more power within the Emerald Council, and the next time it’ll be another Marshal.

Thus, by adding that “Or something to weaken Strategos Gora’s standing?” question, I was actually creating continuity of thoughts, and building up the Strategos’ name—for Gora was mentioned in the first chapter, now in the second again, and both times around questions of power, politics, and standing. I really needed, due to things I shall not spoil, for the reader to remember Gora’s name, and this was a great opportunity to keep building him up.

Some general considerations…

There is a catch here: I was able to pull this off because of how I set up the characters. Legate Dante Praeto is in a position of power, he deals in military strategies and geopolitical movements—he knows the setting enough to allow me (the author) to leverage the character’s knowledge to “teach the world” to the reader.

This means that, in this type of limited narration, you can only introduce what your character knows about. If Dante had no clue about geopolitics, there would’ve been no reason for him to have these thoughts—on the contrary, the thoughts would’ve introduced a plot-hole/weakness. As it stands, it also allowed me to build up his character: I’m not telling you he’s clever, I’m showing you his thoughts that demonstrate he’s very aware of the political tensions.

There is also another advantage: cramming world-building information in a way relevant to the plot events. If you pay attention, Dante is not sitting idly and ruminating about the geopolitical tensions—something just happened and, using that event as an excuse, he’s thinking who could’ve done it. The world-building (the thoughts) stem from the event and are intrinsically related to it (i.e., it is Dante’s job to preoccupy himself with geopolitics). This is something you, as a writer, can pull off in any context: just think about what the character knows and what he can think of in a given moment that relates to what is happening (or about to happen).

What should you consider?

Here is a handy checklist of things to consider:

1. Define, exactly, what the character knows about the world.

2. For a given situation and/or event, narrow down the character’s knowledge to what is extremely fundamental to that moment. You can leverage things such as: the character’s profession and/or interests, their goals at that moment, their order of priorities.

3. One you have the above, just jot down the information you need to give to the reader. Notice that I am not saying “the character thoughts” but “the information you need to give the reader”, and that’s because there is a difference:

   1. At this stage, you do not need to write it in “the character’s voice”.

   2. At this stage, you may also jot down a sentence that actually spoils something you don’t want to spoil—this is excellent, especially because you can use this extra information to foreshadow things.

   3. What matters here is that the information you selected to present is coherent in an of itself.

4. One the above is ensured, you can finally—finally—carefully word-smith these sentences until they are: (a) thought in the character’s voice, (b) do not contradict each other, and (c) do not spoil more than they had to.

Does it take time? For sure! Fixing that single paragraph literally took me about ~1.5 hours of work because I had to carefully think what were my goals as a writer. I wanted—and needed—to simultaneously world-build, and character-build. In my opinion, though, it paid off.

Over to you!

As I always said, practice makes perfect. If you don’t practice, you won’t improve. In this case, I have two tasks for you:

• Narrate one paragraph, in which ever world, from the point-of-view of a character with overarching knowledge. For example: a king, a Noble, Tywyn Lannister, any one that—by thinking about the situation—can introduce the readers to the larger world’s stakes.

  • This will likely force you to be mindful about not spoiling the plot, while being careful not make the character look like they’re purposefully avoiding a topic because the writer needed that topic to be avoided.

• Now narrate another paragraph, in which ever world, from the point-of-view of a character with limited knowledge. For example: a servant who only has gossip to share, a stable-hand, an urchin.

  • This will force you to be unreliable. The narrator doesn’t have enough information at hand, or they may even have contradictory information. How do you present that? Allow me to give you two options: (a) someone (a character) actually points out to the contradiction—thus flagging its intentionality to the reader—or (b) you hint at the narrator’s uncertainty about the information. The former would be more explicit, the later subtler and more easy to miss.

Before we leave, allow me to tease you a bit further.

Lovecraft meets George R.R. Martin meets Marcus Aurelius and Jean-Paul Sartre in this genre-blending cosmic horror fantasy. You can bookmark it in Goodreads, or you can go to Amazon and preorder it.

That said, I hope you found this useful, and happy writing!

Livia~

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I’m not referring only to the way characters speak, but the structure, rhythm, and roots of the words they use; what they call home, love, war, and sky—and why they call it like so.

Constructed languages—conlangs1—are more than linguistic curiosities. They’re acts of creation that reflect the bones of a culture. Whether it's Tolkien’s Elvish or the clipped tones of Belter Creole in The Expanse, these languages do more than decorate a setting. They reveal how people in that world think, relate, and dream.

I touched on this before in my World-Building Series, since naming and language creation is not straightforward, and while a poorly chosen word can add unintended complexity, a well-selected one can make the world shimmer to life:

An Invited Author

However, for today’s essay I will hand over to fellow author , author of the Galacticide series. I previously interviewed him in my podcast and, truth be told, his way of naming everything in the series made the world shine with life.

Therefore, Bert-Oliver’s essay explores how conlangs can be used as narrative tools: to give depth to fictional societies, to hint at the character’s qualities, and even to tease the history of a fictional universe that is—quite often—to large to fit in a single book.

As usual, you will find a practical guide with key considerations, for you to apply in your next book.

Let’s dive in!

On Naming & More

(By for Books Undone)

My last name used to have a German umlaut. The oe (formerly ö) is a tough phoneme for contemporary Anglo-Saxons to pronounce—despite the fact that we share a fairly close cultural foundation, 99.9% of our genome, and the same birth planet.

So how hard would it be to properly pronounce the names given by a species that evolved entirely differently, on another planet—or even in a different galaxy?

As part of my world-building quest to make my aliens as alien as possible, their names and languages needed to reflect that radical otherness.

But my own name is not just a phonetic speed bump—it also reveals the historic roots of my paternal ancestors, hailing from Bohemia. “What’s in a name?” Shakespeare’s Juliet asks. Quite a bit, it turns out, especially when you're building entire societies from scratch. With phonetic clustering and societal origins jotted down on my requirements list, I initially tried creating a language cloud around my various characters—but that proved to be the wrong approach.

Characters are born into a place, a culture, a caste, class, belief system, tradition. As good novel characters, they will eventually forge their own destiny—but they are born into a world that forms them. Names them.

So, I reversed the process and dove headfirst into the world of conlang (CONstructed LANGuage) generation. Weeks later, I resurfaced with three languages—each with its own grammar, phonology, and roughly 5,000-word vocabulary. Overkill? Absolutely. But it laid the groundwork for the Galacticide universe (now featuring five languages). Everything, everyone, and every place has a name. And each name is based on the phonemes the faction or species can produce—and the conceptual patterns it can think in.

Humans can be alien, too. To someone living 3,000 years ago, we would be just as incomprehensible as a silicon-based lifeform from the galaxy's edge. So in Galacticide, human languages reflect regional dialects, social standing, ancestry, and whether someone is part of the “old-core nobility” or an upstart frontier colonist.

Names have meaning.

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How to Create Meaningful, World-Building Names

If you’re a writer or world-builder, here are a few principles I’ve found useful when building believable naming systems. They’re presented in a logical sequence from phonetic foundations to cultural layering. You don’t have to follow them step by step. Feel free to dip in, borrow what serves your world, and ignore what doesn’t. You can use it like a builder’s kit, not a checklist.

1. Start with Abilities and Phonology

Different species should have different concepts of speech.

• The silicate Traaz characters use hissy sibilants, long vowels, and voiceless stops: Zihriik, Raar, Ssuw. Their telepathic “language” works with (thought) patterns, rather than sounds.

• The Artificial Intelligence race Me-Ruu chooses a human-palatable compression of its 125-digit numerical identity.

2. Encode Status into Structure

Name length, complexity, and rhythm can indicate class or rank.

• Kel Chaada: Clipped and utilitarian—befitting a citizen-soldier.

• Pyaavuu Shiirde Prarrbo: Formal, weighty, triple name—just what you'd expect from an Assembly member with ceremonial duties.

• Vriifaach Deegb: Dense consonant clusters, with difficult endings. If the ch hasn’t tripped you, the gb will. A complex name for a difficult-to-deal-with side character.

Rule of thumb: short names serve the plot; long names serve the world.

3. Let Language Mirror Culture

Each political or planetary entity should show linguistic divergence.

• In the human empire’s spiritual center, Aloo Dash, names like Sya Omga or Vnaas “the Cruel” Omga reflect both tradition and dread.

• In the outer colonial democracies, you get denser names like Lotnuuk Rrupteemaa or Drrem Rrunsash—still Old Galactic, but no longer rolling off the tongue. These are people who had to work their way up.

Group names by vowel texture, consonant rhythm, and pacing. Don’t mix your linguistics unless the cultures or classes are mixing, too.

4. Build Naming Rules (Then Occasionally Break Them)

Create internal logic:

• Are names gendered?

• Are family names inherited or earned?

• Are honorifics visible?

• Are names ever changed due to status, rank, exile, or rebirth?

For instance:

• Raar, heir to the Traaz throne, bears a mythically short name.

• Taawa Nyiitsats, a secret agent, uses a cover name that still fits the cultural style of Aloo Dash but hints at hidden intent.

• Sya Omga inherits her last name from her father, breaking the custom that females carry their mother’s name—because he is the ruler, and eventually passes his title to Sya.

5. Consistency

Names don’t have to be realistic to feel real. They just need internal consistency. When you see:

• Vyoz Vyooma

• Vye Kyokp

• Vriifaach Deegb
  …you can tell these characters likely come from similar phonetic traditions. These patterns help anchor your reader—even if they can’t recite the rules.

Readers love patterns—even when they don’t consciously notice them.

6. Think in Soundscapes

Read your names aloud. Do they hiss, boom, purr, or hum?

The EsChii elite have semi-musical names like:

• Ahma Zhanyza (a scientist from the central academy)

• Daaw Krrua (an archaeologist from the capital)

Their cadence reflects controlled, hierarchical thought—precise, melodic, but a little rigid. In contrast, Gameny Tswosna sounds casual, loose, almost indie—a space freighter pilot without aristocratic roots.

Bonus: Sample Blueprint for Naming Design

The following are element/considerations pairs—for every point, what should you consider:

• Phoneme palette: What sounds are possible to pronounce for this species or culture?

• Syllable patterns: Is there a preferred rhythm? (e.g., CVCV, CCVVC)

• Name length: What does length imply? Simplicity? Nobility?

• Prefixes/suffixes: Are there honorifics, clan markers, or roles?

• Written vs spoken: Do AIs, nobles, or soldiers use different modes?

• Exceptions: Who gets special naming treatment—and why?

Names in Galacticide are not decorations. They’re architecture. They help build the reality of a vast, messy galaxy where everyone—from warlords to whispering priests to AI minds with 125-digit identities—has a place, a voice, and a reason for being hard to pronounce.

Go alien. Go meaningful. Just don’t go random.

To Close Off

Livia here, again! I hope you enjoyed this invited post, and if you are interested on learning more about the Galacticide series (perfect for classic sci-fi fans), you can listen to my interview with and even check his Substack.

It may be a word they keep repeating without knowing its origin. It may be something they encounter—a painting, a ritual, a piece of text, an object. It may be something immaterial: a ceremony, a pattern of behavior, a piece of machinery with a mystical flair.

In all those cases, the character describes it using the only language they have, then shrug and move on—because to them, it meant nothing.

But does that detail mean nothing for the story?

What if we can leverage that dissonance to show the reader a crucial detail about the world? Something the character has no way of understanding?

That gap—between what the character thinks and what the reader can think—is fertile ground for worldbuilding.

At the end of the day, as a writer, you are world-building both for your characters and your readers… but that doesn’t mean both of them will have the same interpretation of the things they see. More often than not, what makes a world feel truly lived-in is not what the characters explain, but what they accept without question… and the reasons as to why this happen can reveal a lot about the secondary world you crafted.

As usual, I’ve brought an excerpt from a well-known novel. We’ll walk through what the character is describing, the subtle clues embedded in his words, and how easy it is to overlook their true meaning… until something clicks. When that, what was once a shrug becomes something far more haunting.

Let’s dive in.

PS: This post contains spoilers for The Book of the New Sun.

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Overall, world-building is the process of constructing an secondary world or setting, sometimes associated with a fictional universe. The Merriam-Webster dictionary has an article on world-building where it explains that it:

“[…] is most often used to describe a component of a work of fiction, much like plot or character; unlike the word setting, world-building emphasizes that the world being created is entirely new”1.

According to this definition, world-building implies creating an entirely new world, with its geography and biomes, with its cultures and languages, its remnants of past times, its social constructs, and even its magic systems. Yet after that creative adventure is done, a writer must distill that information to the minimum needed for the reader at a point in the story, and present it in creative ways.

This is not a small feat; done wrong is what everyone knows as infodumping: “the practice of giving too much information at the same time”2 Infodumping refers to sharing a large amount of details—often related to world-building—in a way that breaks the immersion, interrupts the plot’s flow, and leaves the reader wondering whether it was truly necessary. More often than note, infodumping comes across as a plain description that is not woven with the plot.

One way to prevent this, is to consider the world-building a 100,000 pieces puzzle—one that we, as authors, do not give all at once to the reader. Instead, we should carefully pick which pieces are more relevant at a given moment (hints, foreshadows) and scatter them through the narrative. This can be a passing comment a character utters, an object someone sees, clothing and customs, or even specific words.

Yet this translation—from the totality known by the author, to the puzzle pieces presented to the reader—is not a minor task. And neither is reading to discover the world-building. I have a free podcast episode/essay on it.

Yet to scatter that puzzle, a writer is not only choosing what to say and how—all while testing the limits of how succinct and engaging the presentation can be. We are also deciding the cognitive load of a reader at a given moment within a book. Ultimately, scattering world-building bits throughout a narrative implicitly demands the reader infers what an in-book concept is, how, or why it is relevant for a scene.

This series of articles will delve into different elements surrounding the presentation of world-building elements.

Everything begins with a name…

—and it is not unknown that a writer’s biggest pain can be naming anything within the world. We are often prone to imagine non-existent or custom words, naming even the flora and fauna in an attempt to create a vast setting. There is a reason for that: names can reflect the in-book cultures, the source of inspiration (e.g., Roman names may hint at a Roman-esque or Roman-inspired setting), the language, the style, the book’s genre…

Yet custom names are a crucial part of the cognitive load authors demand from readers.

A poorly-chosen word can make it very difficult to follow a piece of text, while a perfectly-crafted selection can simplify the task of reading yet add that layer of otherworldliness we love so much of SFF.

Let us revisit some examples, each from different books and genres (science fiction and fantasy) to learn by example.

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