Whether it’s Elvish, Klingon, or Dothraki, one big thing that people love about fantasy and science fiction settings is the array of fictional languages that exist in these settings. Tolkien was a linguist, so he was able to use his vast education on the subject to craft the languages in Middle Earth. Professional linguists also crafted the Klingon language from the Star Trek series, but I would argue that you don’t need to be a professional linguist to craft a fictional language for your world.

One of the most common problems that authors, especially new authors, complain about is how difficult it is to come up with good names for their characters. Over my many years of writing, I’ve developed a few ways to name characters in stories. Here are a few. Bear in mind, some of these pieces of advice are genre-specific.