nomenclature riddles 🪶
or, naming the cast of Riddlers
Hello, thanks, and welcome to anyone reading. I’m Maxine S. Charles, author of the forthcoming Riddlers of the Thorn Wood—a fantasy novel about the estranged heiress of a magical crime syndicate that grants wishes in exchange for payments of equal measure.
I’ve admitted to myself in recent years that I am a little superstitious about names. According to my Google doc, I began writing Riddlers on September 16, 2021. Between then and a few weeks ago, the only people who I personally told the full title of the book have been three writing partners, my editor Julia, and my agent Victoria (thank you my champions). And even then, most of this telling was over email or dm. It still feels weird in my mouth when I say it aloud.
The fact that the contents of my wee Google doc will be on shelves alongside the work of people I admire in about 12 months, the idea that someone might pick it up—whether just to feel the jacket’s texture, to buy it, or to… read it 👁️👄👁️—still feels weird. Riddlers will be, like, a piece of literature. With a name. Soon to be italicized by reviewers and hashtagged and acronymed by readers. Saying that name aloud before this point has felt like a combination of hubris, swearing, and cringe, as if cosmic lightning might strike every time I did so in vain.
So for now she is still my humble and beloved Google doc. I have such a distinct memory of creating it. It was sunny and I was sitting in my backyard, revising a project I might speak about another day, when a throwaway line I’d forgotten I wrote spawned a book-sized idea that became Riddlers.
I’m not the sort of writer to change my characters’ names midway or to push through a draft with placeholders in brackets. I’ve tried. Alas, I am the sort of writer who’s had a few names sworn off for my theoretical children since I was learning times tables, who fantasized including my middle initial “S.” in my byline as early as eleventh grade, who names laptops and seashells. For me, names are graven in stone before things need naming, not least of these things being characters. And the premise of Riddlers in particular demanded its specific cast of characters at once. This was to be my take on the Crime Family—spotlighting revenge and jealousy and ruthlessly enforced turf lines, willpower and drive, and a nesting doll of siblings and parents. Its characters all needed weighty, defining names worthy of the ordeal I planned to put them through. Enter my narrators:
KASSE MEYON (CASS-ee MAY-on) came almost instantly. Her name is an homage to two pet interests of mine: constellations and myths. I was in middle or high school when I heard the Greek myth of Cassiopeia, a queen cursed by Poseidon to eternally sit on her throne as punishment for her vanity. The five stars that form her constellation create either an M or W depending on your earthly perspective. She’s both and neither, suspended from the throne and chained to it. I’ve sympathized strongly with this ambiguous precarity since it was first explained to me, and I can think of no name more fitting for my leading riddler.
The surname Meyon is my invention, but the suffix “-on” appears a lot in names of characters in the play Antigone. Recovering English majors such as myself may notice that Riddlers borrows a few character names, among other things, from Antigone and Shakespeare plays (mostly Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra). Shout out to Will for introducing me to tragedy—you’re like a father to me!
ARINNA PHORSO (Ah-RIN-uh FOUR-so) is named for the Hittite sun goddess, which is not quite as on the nose as Kasse’s name but still fitting I think. Much more than Kasse, Arinna is characterized by things I associate with warmth—irreverence, impulse, movement.
Phorso is a play on Phorcys, the father of Medusa and the Gorgons. This is for reasons I’ll omit here. 🐍
OLENY PHORSO (ALL-en-ee) (or Oly, rhymes with “dolly,” for short) is just a few letters off from the name of the mathematician and astronomer Ptolemy. I’ve always liked the rhythm of this name. Both spoken and on the page, it’s a bit counterintuitive to those of us who are native English speakers. A wonderful namesake for my awkward scholar <3
RYBER MEYON (RYE-burr)’s naming process was the least intellectual, which feels right. As a kid, Quest for Camelot was one of maybe thirty animated movies I owned physically and thus watched religiously from the ages of, say, four to eleven. None of my friends had watched it because it wasn’t Disney, and no adult on Earth today seems to like it. It is nonetheless irrevocably imprinted on my brain as my entry-point into Arthuriana (recall the myth obsession). There’s a guy named Ruber in it who really couldn’t pertain less to my character Ryber—or, for that matter, Riddlers whatsoever—except for the unifying factor of my taste.
I have a list of maybe a dozen more characters whose names I could explain, which I’ll save for if and when someone cares more than me to know. For now, I will make a riddle (xo) of a few more names Fathers Sophocles and Shakespeare have generously loaned me: A*****, A*****, C****, H*****, I***, R******. Maybe I will reveal the answer someday, or maybe I will give something special to the first person who guesses correctly. In the meantime: in the (very likely, of course) case that anyone involved in the making of Battlestar Galactica (2004) is reading this, first of all hi! Are you by chance free on Thursday, when I am also free? Secondly, thank you for the names Vesta and Galen, which I borrowed for Arinna and Oly’s parents.
In the spirit of naming things, I’ll close by once again forcing myself to type out my novel’s full government name: Riddlers of the Thorn Wood. Not only is she real, she’s going to college. I’ve already been so pleasantly surprised and grateful for the warm reception Riddlers has received. Thank you thank you thank you. I know this is not the case for everyone who pursues publication. In the immortal words of Lemony Snicket, welcome to the world, little baby!
msc
🐍🐇🫀🌹⚔🔥