Hi! I'm just a maraschino cherry living life. I wanted to create a little blog where I just put some of my random thoughts and ideas into something that's relatively coherent. I find it difficult to organize my thoughts sometimes, so hopefully if I consistently post, it'll help me organize them haha. Maybe there'll be some writing exerpts, rants about the random things I’m interested in, who knows?
Anyways, if you're reading this, welcome to the chaos. Maybe we'll have some fun! :) 🍒
its the end of the world. everyone has vanished. genuinely vanished. cars are left suddenly parked in the road. washing left out on the line. you know people are missing but you can't remember who they were. you wandering around trying to figure stuff out. you feel drawn to places an old lady's house, you presume may be your grandmother.
idk somat like that ig dude
The Empty House
The car door hung open like a broken wing, keys still dangling from the ignition. I stood on the sidewalk, staring at the scene that had become sickeningly familiar over the past three days-- evidence of sudden absence, life interrupted mid-motion. A coffee cup sat on the hood, still warm when I'd found it an hour ago.
My footsteps echoed against the empty houses as I walked deeper into the residential maze. The silence pressed against my eardrums, broken only by the distant hum of abandoned appliances and the occasional creak of settling wood. Laundry fluttered on lines like prayer flags in a dead world, clothes that would never be folded, never worn again.
I couldn't remember their faces. That was the cruelest part. I knew with bone-deep certainty that these streets had once been filled with people-- neighbors, strangers, someone's children-- but when I tried to conjure their images, I found only gray spaces where memories should be. Like trying to recall a dream after waking.
The blue house called to me before I understood why. Something about its crooked fence and the roses climbing wild up the porch made my chest tighten with recognition I couldn't name. The front door was unlocked, as all doors seemed to be now.
Inside smelled of lavender and old books. My fingers traced the doilies on the side table, the ceramic cat that sat watching the empty room with painted eyes. In the kitchen, a half-finished crossword lay beside a cold cup of tea. Seven across: "What remains when everything else is gone."
I found myself in the back bedroom, standing before a dresser crowded with photographs. Faces stared back at me-- a young couple, children growing up in progressive frames, celebrations and ordinary moments preserved behind glass. In the center sat a picture of a small child with serious dark eyes, holding an older woman's weathered hand.
The child looked like me. Had been me, maybe. And the woman...
I lifted the frame with trembling fingers. Her face was kind, creased with laugh lines, silver hair pinned back with the same barrette that now lay abandoned on the dresser. Grandmother. The word felt foreign and familiar at once.
Martha, I whispered to the empty room, and somehow knew it was her name.
Outside, the world continued its hollow existence-- cars cooling in the sun, washing swaying in the breeze, the persistent tick of clocks counting time for no one. But in this small bedroom, surrounded by the remnants of a life I couldn't quite remember, I felt less alone.
I tucked the photograph into my jacket pocket and headed back into the strange, emptied world, carrying with me the ghost of lavender and the echo of a name.
You wake up laying on green grass, looking up at a sky free of clouds. The plants feel soft under your hands, and you stretch your ams out wide. A crystal clear lake is just a short walk away from you. You get up and walk over a small hill. There's iron in the air. Looking down below, laying under the same beautiful sky, is a person covered in blood. They cough once, twice, and whisper something to you. You don't hear it. Time is frozen, and the same cold makes it's way into your veins. What is this place, and what is to come?
You open your eyes to the brilliance of a sky so blue it almost hurts. There are no clouds, just an endless gentle azure expanse above. Soft green grass cushions your aching body; you feel the tickle of each blade against your palms as you stretch your arms out wide. For a moment, everything is calm. In the warmth of sunlight and the sweet scent of grass, you almost forget why your heart is pounding.
A subtle, tangy scent of iron hangs in the air. It’s out of place in this idyll, an acrid note that sends a prickle of unease down your spine. You push yourself up to sit and notice, just a short distance away over a small hill, the glint of water-- a crystal clear lake shimmering under the morning sun. Thirst, confusion, and the instinct to find your bearings compel you to stand. You brush stray grass from your clothes and begin walking toward the water, cresting the gentle slope of the hill. That metallic smell grows stronger with each step, and your pulse quickens without knowing why.
As you reach the hill’s ridge, you come to an abrupt halt. Down below, sprawled on the emerald carpet under the same beautiful sky, is a person drenched in red. A man… or a woman? You squint, heart lurching. The figure lies motionless at the base of the hill, dark crimson blood soaked into the ground around them. In the sterile brightness of day, the red is jarring-- too vivid, too real. You inhale sharply; the iron tang in the atmosphere is stronger here, unmistakable as blood. Panic clamps around your chest. For a few seconds you simply stand, unable to will your legs forward or back. Your mind struggles to process the scene..
The person on the ground coughs, a wet, gurgling sound that shatters the silence. The sound jolts you out of your paralysis. They’re alive-- still alive! Adrenaline surges through you, and you half slide, half sprint down the grassy slope toward the injured stranger. Oh God, oh God… The phrase repeats in your head with each frantic step. As you draw closer, you can make out details: it’s a man, mid-aged perhaps, lying on his back. His clothes-- jeans and a once light-colored t-shirt-- are soaked with blood. His chest heaves with effort, each breath shallow and trembling. A crimson froth bubbles at his lips as he coughs again weakly. You drop to your knees beside him, knees dampening in the sanguine-stained grass.
“Hey-- hey! Can you hear me?” you ask, voice high with alarm. Your hands hover uselessly above him; you want to help but you don't know where to touch or how. There’s so much blood. Your stomach twists at the coppery smell and the sight of it pooled under his body. You force yourself to stay calm-- panicking will not help either of you. With trembling fingers, you reach for his shoulder. His skin is clammy and far too cold.
His eyes flutter open at your touch. For a split second, his gaze meets yours—dull, glassy eyes the color of hazel, pupils unfocused. He’s straining to say something. His lips move and a fractured whisper escapes: a single word, maybe your name? You lean closer, desperate to catch it. “What? Please, I’m here, I’m listening,” you urge softly. Your heart hammers against your ribs as if trying to break free. He whispers again, a faint rasp, but it’s too low. You can't make it out over the rush of blood in your ears.
He coughs once... twice... a thin trail of blood runs from the corner of his mouth. Time stretches into a slow-motion crawl. Every sound around you mutes into an eerie hush. It’s as if the world has stopped moving: the breeze dies, the distant sparkle on the lake freezes in place, even the sunlight feels suspended. You become acutely aware of your own heartbeat, thudding slower, heavier. A coldness, subtle and creeping, begins to spread through your veins, numbing your fingers where they grip the man’s shoulder. You are locked in this instant, unable to breathe, unable to blink, as the horrifying realization sets in.
His last breath escapes in a shallow rattle. The tension in his muscles eases; you feel the weight of his body settle limply against the earth. The whisper dies on his lips-- whatever he was trying to tell you is lost. “No, no, no...” you plead in a broken murmur. You press shaking fingers to the side of his neck, searching for a pulse. Nothing. Your trembling hand moves to his chest; it’s still-- no rise, no fall. A suffocating silence engulfs you. He’s gone.
For a long moment, you remain frozen, hunched over the stranger’s lifeless form, hands hovering uselessly. The world remains painfully silent. You become aware that you are holding your own breath and let it out in a shuddering gasp. A cry builds in your chest, but it comes out as a small, choked whimper. Tears blur your vision as the reality sinks in: you were too late. He died right in front of you, and you couldn’t even hear his last words.
“What is this place... and what is happening?” you whisper to the still air, voice trembling. Only the echo of your own words returns. The beautiful day now feels indifferent, almost mocking-- how can the sun shine and the lake gleam while a man just died here on the grass? The contrast is surreal and sickening. You wipe your bloody hands on your pants without thinking, smearing red across the denim. The sight of it makes you dizzy. You force yourself to look away from your stained hands and focus. I have to do something, you think. I can’t just sit here.
Sniffling and shaking, you gently close the man’s eyes with your fingertips. His skin is already cooling. A lump rises in your throat. You still don’t even know who he is... or was. In the rush of panic, it didn’t occur to you that he might not be a stranger at all. You look at his face, really look, trying to see past the pallor and blood. There’s something faintly familiar about the curve of his jaw, the shape of his nose. Do you know him? A foggy intuition tugs at your mind, but you can’t place him. Your memory is frustratingly blank about everything before waking up on the grass.
Come to think of it, you realize with a start that you don’t even clearly remember who you are. The adrenaline and terror pushed that realization aside until now. You know that you are you, you have knowledge of the world-- grass, sky, lakes, calling for help, all those concepts make sense. But your name, your history... it’s like a word on the tip of your tongue that you just can’t spit out. Every time you grasp at a memory, it slithers away like a greased fish. Were you here with this man? Are you hurt as well? You pat your free hand over your body quickly: no obvious pain, no wounds aside from some aches and bruises. Your head throbs dully (when did that start?), and when you touch your temple your fingers come away with a smear of tacky half-dried blood-- your own. Perhaps you hit your head?
You sit back on your heels, dizzy and lost. Taking a slow breath, you try to focus on the facts: You woke up a few minutes ago lying on the grass in this unknown place. You found this dying man but couldn’t save him. You can’t remember how you got here or who he is... or who you are. Fear coils in your stomach. Are you concussed? Or is this some nightmare? You shut your eyes tightly, willing yourself to wake up back in a familiar bed, in your home-- wherever home might be. But when you open your eyes, nothing has changed. The man’s body is still before you, the blood still soaking into the ground, the sky still achingly blue and empty above.
A hot spike of frustration cuts through your fear. “Think!” you admonish yourself aloud, voice echoing across the quiet. How did this happen? There must be some clue around.. You force yourself to stand, legs wobbling. For the first time you take a careful look at the broader surroundings. The lake’s surface glitters to your right, so pristine and calm that it looks like a sheet of glass. To your left, not far from the body, the ground slopes further down to a cluster of rocks and a muddy patch at the lakeshore. Something beyond that catches your eye-- a flash of unnatural color against the earth tones.
You walk a few paces toward the mud, and your breath catches in your throat. Shattered glass glints in the sunlight, scattered near the rocks. There’s more: the twisted frame of something metallic and plastic, half-submerged at the lake’s edge. You take a few hesitant steps closer, the view clearing. It’s the crumpled form of a vehicle-- a car-- its front end nose-down in the shallow water. One of the windows is completely gone, hence the glass shards glittering around. The bright blue paint of the car is what you saw from afar, now scraped and splattered with mud. The realization hits like a hammer: There was an accident. Your accident.
Images flash through your mind in disjointed bursts-- a blinding glare on the road, the sudden swerve of a steering wheel gripped in your hands, the sensation of falling, tumbling, water spraying. You reel, a wave of nausea and memory washing over you. Yes... you remember driving on a road that ran along this lakeshore. Morning light, laughter, music in the car. Who was with me? Your eyes dart to the lifeless man behind you. A fresh ache blooms in your chest as the pieces assemble: His name is Alan. The name floats up from the darkness of your memory, bringing others with it. Alan – your coworker and friend. You had decided to carpool together for a weekend hike by the lake. You see flickers: Alan’s broad smile as he joked during the drive, his hand tapping the rhythm of the song on the dashboard.
Your knees threaten to buckle as guilt and horror crash over you. You spin back to Alan’s body and now you recognize him fully-- his sandy hair matted with blood at the brow, the friendly face now slack and ashen. “Alan,” you croak, voice breaking. This can’t be real. Just an hour ago (or was it longer?) he was alive and well, cracking jokes as you drove. You squeeze your eyes shut and the scene comes in fragments: a deer-- a blur of brown bolting across the road. Alan shouting, “Watch out!” Your hands yanking the wheel reflexively. The car swerving violently to avoid the animal, tires screeching. The gut-punch sensation of the vehicle leaving the pavement, hitting uneven ground. A chaos of motion-- rolling, the seatbelt biting into your shoulder, the world flipping end over end. Then the strike of your head against something hard-- and blackness.
A sob escapes your throat as the memory releases. You stagger back to Alan’s side and collapse there, pressing your hands to your face. He must have been thrown from the car... or crawled out after the crash? The details beyond that initial impact are still hazy. Why can’t it be hazy forever? you think bitterly. Because now the truth is here in front of you: the accident was real. Alan was gravely injured, and you failed to save him.
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, voice hitching on a cry. You reach out and gingerly take Alan’s hand. It’s limp and cool, but you hold it anyway. Hot tears streak down your cheeks as you bow your head. “I’m so sorry, Alan. I-I should have...” You can’t even finish the sentence. Should have what? Seen the deer sooner? Braked instead of swerving? Not decided to take this scenic route at all? A thousand should haves and if only scream through your mind, but none of them can change what’s in front of you. A raw wail of grief and frustration wells up from the pit of your stomach and tears itself from your throat. It echoes across the empty, beautiful landscape-- an ugly, anguished sound that makes the quiet that follows feel even more profound.
You sit like that for what feels like an eternity, hunched over in grief and shock, clutching your friend’s lifeless hand. Eventually the tears run dry, leaving you drained and shivering. The sun has climbed higher, and the day is warming, yet you feel cold to your core. Alan’s last moments replay in your mind on loop: the way his eyes searched for yours, the faint movement of his lips. He knew me, he tried to say something... maybe to tell me I’m not alone, or maybe to forgive me? You torture yourself trying to fill in the blank of his final whisper. Was he trying to say “It’s okay”? Or call your name? Did he even understand what had happened? You realize with a pang that he might have been just as disoriented-- he might have woken up just like you, thrown onto the grass, fatally hurt, and confused at why you weren’t right there. Perhaps he used his last strength to crawl up the hill seeking help, only to find you unconscious. The thought squeezes your heart. Alan was always looking out for others; of course his final act would be trying to get to you, to warn you or make sure you were alive.
A breeze finally stirs, brushing your skin and rustling the grass. It carries the scent of water and pine, and the lingering metallic tinge of blood. The world begins to move again, slowly, hesitantly. The spell of stillness breaks, and you become aware of the gentle lap of the lake on the shore, the distant twitter of a bird in the trees across the water. Life, indifferent but continuing, makes itself known around you. The normalcy of it feels jarring against the unreality of your personal tragedy. How can the birds sing? How can the lake be so peaceful, as if nothing happened? A tear slips down your face as you realize the world will go on, even though Alan will never laugh or speak again.
You know you cannot stay in this moment forever, frozen in time with your friend. What is to come? The question drifts through your mind, and with it, a spark of instinct for survival. There is still the matter of you-- you are alive, dazed and hurt perhaps, but alive. And likely miles from help. The weight of responsibility presses on you: you owe it to Alan now to survive, to carry the memory of what happened, to perhaps tell his family, to not let this be completely in vain. Part of you balks-- how can you leave him here alone, even for a moment? The idea of walking away from his body feels like a betrayal. But if you don’t seek help, no one may ever find you or him.
Sniffling, you gently release Alan’s hand and wipe your face with the back of your sleeve. Your fingers brush against something in your jacket pocket-- could it be your phone? Hope flickers as you pull it out: the screen is cracked spiderweb-thin, but when you mash the power button, it miraculously flickers on. Your heart leaps. No signal. You deflate again, staring at the “No Service” message with a scowl as if sheer willpower could summon a cell tower. Perhaps the valley by the lake is a dead zone, or the phone is too damaged to connect. Either way, it won’t be that easy.
You glance at Alan’s pockets, the thought of his phone crossing your mind. After a moment’s hesitation, you carefully pat down his jeans and jacket, trying not to feel like you’re violating his privacy or dignity. In his jacket, you find a wallet-- Alan’s wallet, confirming his identity with a painfully smiling driver’s license photo-- and in his pants pocket, a smartphone. It’s dented and the screen won’t turn on. Useless. You place his things aside respectfully, voice shaky as you murmur, “I’ll hold onto these, okay? I’ll make sure your family gets them.” The sound of your own voice talking to a corpse sets your teeth on edge, but it also gives a strange comfort, as if part of him might still hear.
You realize you should signal for help in another way. Perhaps someone will drive by eventually. The road wasn’t heavily traveled, but it wasn’t completely remote either. Maybe another hiker or a park ranger will come. Your eyes scan the top of the hill and the road beyond. From here, you can see a guardrail along the road where your car must have smashed through. Twisted metal and splintered wood mark the broken fence. If a passing driver notices that damage, they might stop. But you can’t count on them seeing it soon.
Your gaze drifts back to the car wreck in the lake. It’s partially visible. An idea strikes: maybe you can use something reflective or bright as a signal. The car’s side mirror? Or even starting a fire to create smoke? You don’t have a lighter, at least not that you recall, and you’re wary of wandering too far or wasting energy without a plan. A knot of anxiety forms as you weigh your limited options.
Your head throbs again, reminding you that you might be more injured than you thought. A concussion is likely, given the memory loss and dizziness. That thought scares you-- what if you pass out here, before anyone finds you? No, you can’t let that happen. You need to act while you have strength.
“All right,” you whisper to yourself, trying to summon courage. “One step at a time.” You gently squeeze Alan’s shoulder, a final, silent goodbye for now. “I’ll be back. I promise. I’m going to get help.” Your voice wavers on the promise, but saying it out loud solidifies your resolve. You push yourself up to your feet, swaying for a moment until your balance steadies.
Carefully, you shrug off your jacket and lay it over Alan’s torso, covering the gruesome wound and his still face. It’s not much, but it feels wrong to leave him exposed under the indifferent sky. At least this way he’s a little less cold, a little less... alone. The sight of him now, blanketed and peaceful-looking as if merely asleep, nearly undoes your resolve; fresh tears burn in your eyes. You force yourself to turn away and face the hill.
As you climb back up to the road, each step feels heavy. Your body protests-- bruised ribs, a stiff left ankle--but you grit your teeth and push on. Every few steps you pause to catch your breath, head spinning. The world blurs at the edges when your concussion flares, but sheer willpower keeps you moving. Don’t stop. Just keep going. The broken guardrail is like a beacon drawing you upward: evidence of disaster, but also your way back to the world of the living.
At the hill’s crest, you reach the road. It’s a two-lane country highway, empty in both directions as far as you can see. The asphalt is littered with shards of metal and glass. Seeing the yawning gap in the guardrail and the deep gouges in the roadside dirt where your car veered off, you shudder. The reality that you easily could have died sinks in. Perhaps a few feet or a slightly different angle was the only difference between life and death-- for you, at least. Alan... A sob threatens again, but you choke it down.
You spot a fragment of the car’s side mirror on the roadside, the reflective backing catching the sun. Stooping carefully, you pick it up. It’s about the size of your palm, an irregular shard with sharp edges. You wrap it in a scrap of fabric torn from the car’s lining that had flown out, so you can handle it without cutting yourself. With it, you can try to signal any distant vehicle or even someone across the lake if there are campers.
The next minutes stretch slowly. You limp along the shoulder of the road toward a slight rise, where you’ll be more visible to any approaching cars. Every so often, you pause and listen. The quiet is immense. Just your ragged breathing and the soft crunch of gravel under your shoes. The sun climbs toward noon, making you squint; at least it means your mirror signal will be bright.
At the rise, you stand and periodically angle the mirror shard toward the sun, flashing it in the direction you hope someone might be. You also gather a small pile of dry grass and twigs from near the road. Without a lighter or matches, starting a fire is nearly impossible, but you recall something about focusing sunlight to ignite tinder. The mirror piece might help. You crouch and focus a beam of sunlight on the driest tuft of grass. After several long, painstaking minutes, a thin wisp of smoke curls up. Your heart leaps and you gently blow on it until a tiny flame flickers. Carefully, you add more dry bits until a modest plume of smoke rises from the smoldering pile. It’s not much, but it’s a signal. It’s hope.
Finally, after what feels like hours (but probably only thirty minutes or so), you hear it: the faint but unmistakable hum of an engine in the distance. You spring up, nearly light-headed with relief. Shielding your eyes, you see a dark shape, a car, coming around a distant bend. Frantically, you wave the mirror with one hand to send flashes and use your other arm to flag them down. As the vehicle comes closer, you stumble into the road, risking everything to make sure they see you.
The carr-- a silver pickup truck-- slows, then stops a dozen yards away, wary. You must look a fright: blood on your clothes, wild-eyed, waving broken glass. A man steps out from the driver’s side, his face cautious but concerned. “Are you okay? What happened?” he calls out.
Relief crashes over you in a tidal wave. Help is here. The adrenaline that has been propping you up drains all at once, and your vision sways. You manage to point weakly down toward the lake. “Accident... My friend... please...” you croak out. Before your legs give way, the man rushes forward and catches you under the arms, easing you to sit by the roadside. His voice is kind but urgent as he reassures you and yells back to someone-- his wife, perhaps--to call 911. Everything becomes a blur of motion and sound: the woman from the passenger side wrapping a blanket around your shoulders, the man scrambling down the slope after you direct him to Alan’s location, distant exclamations of alarm when he finds your friend. You just sit there shaking, tears streaming silently, whispering “I’m sorry” over and over-- maybe to the couple, maybe to Alan, maybe just to the uncaring sky.
Time, which had frozen in that terrible moment, lurches forward into chaos. Within what seems like mere moments, the wail of sirens approaches. Paramedics arrive, gentle hands lie you on a stretcher despite your protests that you’re fine. Police officers begin taking notes, a flurry of activity around the crash site. You answer their questions in a numb haze: Yes, just the two of us were in the car. Yes, we swerved to avoid a deer. No, I don’t remember the impact. Yes, he was alive when I found him... but then your voice breaks as you explain he didn’t make it. The medics exchange looks of pity as you choke back sobs. They tell you you’re lucky to be alive, that your injuries seem minor, but they want to take you to the hospital to be safe. You barely register it all, nodding mechanically, mind far away.
As they lift you into the ambulance, your gaze drifts one last time to the hill and the spot by the lake where Alan lies. They’ve covered him with a clean white sheet. Two responders carefully carry his body on a stretcher, and your chest clenches at the sight. It feels wrong--all of this is wrong--and a wave of unreality hits you again. This morning you both were just two friends on a casual trip. Now one of you is dead. How is that possible? How will you ever come to terms with it?
You close your eyes, tears slipping down your temples. In the darkness behind your eyelids, you see Alan’s face as it was before--alive, grinning, full of warmth. A memory floats up: Alan handing you a cup of coffee earlier that morning at the gas station when you stopped to refuel. “Extra cream, just how you like it,” he had said with a laugh. You take a shaky breath, wishing to not think.
A faint voice seems to whisper in your mind, and for a second you hold your breath. It’s not real, just your memory conjuring his voice... but it’s comforting. “It’s not your fault,” you imagine Alan would say, ever reassuring. “It was an accident. You’re okay--that’s what matters.” A tear rolls down your cheek. Maybe that’s what he was trying to tell you with his last breath. You’ll never know for sure, but you decide to believe it anyway. It’s what Alan would say if he could.
As the ambulance doors close and the vehicle starts to move, you feel that cold numbness in your veins slowly give way to a dull ache of grief and the trembling warmth of being alive. You stare at the sliver of sky visible through the back window. It’s still a clear, beautiful blue day out there. Somewhere beyond that sky, you hope Alan’s spirit rests easy.
You turn your head from the window and close your eyes, clutching Alan’s wallet to your chest. Time moves forward again, carrying you with it, into a future shaped by this moment. And as it does, you silently promise to yourself and to Alan’s memory that you won’t waste the life that was spared on this quiet morning under a clear sky.
This post was originally from a FAQ, but since the original link is now defunct, I am re-posting it here.
There are many things to keep in mind when naming the town or city in your novel:
1) Genre/Theme/Tone
It’s very important to consider the genre and theme of your story when choosing a town name. Take these names for example, each of which indicates the genre or theme of the story:
King’s Landing (sounds fantastical)
Cloud City (sounds futuristic)
Silent Hill (sounds scary)
Sweet Valley (sounds happy and upbeat)
Bikini Bottom (sounds funny)
Radiator Springs (sounds car-related)
Halloween Town (sounds Halloween-related)
Storybrooke (sounds fairytale-related)
2) Time/Place
It’s also important to consider the time and place where your story takes place. For example, you wouldn’t use “Vista Gulch” as a name for a town in Victorian England. You probably wouldn’t use it for a town in modern day North Carolina, either. Vista is a Spanish word and would normally be found in places where Spanish names are common, like Spain, Central and South America, the southwest United States (including southern California), Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Florida.
3) Size/Settlement Type
An isolated town of 300 people probably won’t be Valley City, but a sprawling metropolis of 30 million could be called Windyville, because it could have started out as a small town and grew into a large city.
4) Geography
Words like gulch, butte,and bayou tend to be regional terms. You probably wouldn’t find Berle’s Bayou in Idaho, or Windy Butte in Rhode Island.
Words like mount, cape, and valley are dependent upon terrain. Most of the time, you won’t have a town named “mount” something unless there are hills or mountains nearby. You wouldn’t use “cape” unless the town was on a cape, which requires a large body of water.
5) History
Is there a historical person or event that your town might be named after? The Simpsons’ hometown of Springfield is ironically named after its founder, Jebediah Springfield. Chattanooga, Tennessee is named after the Cherokee town that was there first. Nargothrond, in The Lord of the Rings, is an Elvish town with an Elvish name.
6) Combination of Words
person name + geographical term = Smithfield, Smith Creek
group name + geographical term = Pioneer Valley, Settlers’ Ridge
descriptive word + geographical term = Mystic Falls, Smoky Hill
person name + settlement type = Smithton, Claraville
landmark + settlement type = Bridgton, Beaconville
Some helpful, basic guidelines for developing a consistent or thematic approach to naming villages or towns or cities in fiction.
And never forget, you can change it later … in fact, one can almost guarantee that the more village, town, or city names you come up with during the worldbuilding phase, the more likely you’ll change one (or all) of them in due time.
