Posted August 16, 2025 by Thaliarchus
#alliterative verse #name conventions #writing
One passage in Spearhand Faring requires names for a bunch of armours (giant robots).
As long-time readers will know, I think the best way to go about a task like this is to come up with a system to generate names for you; the system will then guarantee some feeling of consistency between them.
In SF I resurrect the system for armour names used in Cosmic Warlord Kin-Bright, producing names like:
As for the rules behind these names, they work like this. Armours have names which alliterate, and often include nature (e.g. Wildwood), pastoral (Thresher), or temporal (Evenstar) elements. The primary lexical stresses in words, not necessarily the first sounds, determine alliteration—Adept alliterates on d, Attacks alliterates on t—and all vowels alliterate with each other (thus Ask My Ire). The name must include at least a pair of alliterating elements, but can extend to more (as in No Tulk Attacks Me Twice).
If you take on these rules, you've also taken on the rules for alliteration in Old English alliterative verse: match primary lexical stresses, which aren't always the first syllable, and match all vowels with each other. (In fact what we may be matching when we alliterate all vowels is the absence of a consonant onset.) Conveniently these rules also apply to all the alliterative verse dialogue in Spearhand Faring.
In other news, I have a rough edited version of the first half of Spearhand Faring ready. I still need to edit the second half and do some audio refinements, but I'm closing in on finishing!