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On writing

Writing a fantasy novel: what language do your characters speak?

If you were suddenly transported to another world, as first both Caid and then Scott are in Barrain, what do you think your major difficulty would be?

Once you got over the initial disbelief of being somewhere else, your immediate concern would be communication. What are the chances people in the other world will speak the same language that you do? It’s not likely at all.

Maybe the world you go to has magic, which you can use to understand each other. Maybe it has a universal translator.

Different writers cope with the language issue in different ways.

In Barrain, we have chosen to ignore it.

It’s a calculated risk. We ask readers to believe this is possible, but there is always a chance we will lose them at the start of the book because of it.

It’s a big ask.

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