June '09 Storms of Vengeance: Ask away

[John]

Feel free to ask me anything you'd like, though I guarantee no answers to questions about future spoilers or current mysteries.

[Leslie Ann]

I always like to know how fellow authors come up with the names for their characters and places.

Also, did the current debate over torture, indefinite detention, and secret prisons influence your creation of the prison in Terne?

[John]

I'm often asked where I got the ideas for my character names, and I really wish I had a fascinating/interesting/original answer, but I'm afraid I more or less plucked them out of the air. Most of the main characters are from when I wrote down my original ideas for this many, MANY years ago (I was in 8th grade. Heh). Calton, Ratel, Faren, Toren, Selen, Durayl and Neredl are all from back then, and I can't recall where I got the names. I think Calton was a slight change on a character from a series of YA fantasy books I loved as a child called "Runesword". The other character names are mostly from friends... names they used in RPGs, for example... or simply names I thought sounded interesting. Terne and Balashad were also from that original draft.

As for the prisons, that was actually a case of life imitating art. I wrote the scene in the Black Prison years ago... well before Guantanamo or any of the other horrors we've heard about. Actually, when I first heard about Guantanamo, my initial thought was, "Wow, the Black Prison comes to life... that's just scary."

[Libby]

I'd like to know about the naming as well. I think I see a theme but maybe not - did you have any requirements or language rules in your mind or did you just make them up as you went?

[John]

Ah, one thing I forgot to mention... I do like names from certain regions in the world to have some consistency... in book two, one character actually comments on Faren, Selen and Calton all obviously being from Terne, as they're not the most creative lot when it comes to names :-).