Dragons, dragons and-you guessed it, dragons! discussion

Righto, wordsmiths, to work please! I am drafting part 2 of Aranya and am hunting for good words to substitute for the phrase "like a dragon" - dragonish? Dragonlike? Draconian (connotations of 'harsh' or 'strict')? Any other wonderful words you have up your collective authorial sleeves?

I also came up with draconic - somewhat unusual, would you use that in a book? - or draconid (any of several unrelated meteor showers whose radiants are in the constellation Draco - just for fun :-) )

You could venture into other animalistic terminology: crocodilian, serpentine, wormlike, ETC. I feel like that's what's so rich about dragons; they are a perfected blend of many different kinds of animals in one apex-predator form, allowing substitutions of other animal characterization to give reader a more defined picture.
-opinion of another dragon book writer

Thanks C! That's helpful - I love the way you described them as well as "apex predators". But what would/could possibly prey on a dragon? A (magical) dragon parasite? I'm exploring that idea in my The Pygmy Dragon at the moment.

The other question a friend (I love friends who read books and come out with detailed questions) threw at me yesterday, has to do with shapeshifter dragons (ie., human - dragon and back). What would carry over during such a transformation? What if the dragon was pregnant, or what happens for example to bacteria in the gut or mites beneath the scales? Does everything inside the dragon hide transform at the same time? Does the baby in the womb 'shift' as well between their forms?

Just my 2 cents worth. I suggest that pregnant dragons don't shape-shift because there is a small danger. Needing to shift, but being unwilling to could add some tension to the story line.

I ran into probems with clothes. Can't have the dragons shift and they're naked humans.

Oh, man, now you've headed into some head scratching territory... I would think that only a few dragons (mythologically speaking) would be able to master human transformation. Trying to look at it from molecular rearrangement perspective (scientifically based as opposed to just "magically") said dragon would consciously shift and condense their molecular make-up (frequency of vibration of molecular building blocks -- strings in string theory Etc.) into an alternate form. Having such mastery would assume a refined enough ability that they would seemingly also be able to manifest clothes and appearance specifics to present as wished to human perceptions. Clothes would be dragon molecules rearranged at differing frequency for appearance and not actual clothes. I agree with C.A. above that Pregnant dragons would not willingly make said change without fear of altering/damaging the egg/eggs. Forced to do so could add very cool dilemma and repercussions... Problem here is that if such a dragon had this refined a mastery of cellular structure -- they would be able to cleanse themselves or incorporate parasitic bacteria/mites/Etc. as needed?
I have touched upon this approach a bit in a dragon book I wrote - though clearly not so dry and blatant in actual text.
That was some of the best nerding out I've done in a while - Thank you!

I had a lot of fun with the dragons shifting to naked human form. Typically mine have a rider and carry clothing in their saddlebags, but there are embarrassing moments aplenty, all in the spirit of good, clean fun.

Thanks for the thoughts on the dangers of shifting. I need to figure out how that'll work in the world I've built for this story, but it's a great way of creating tension. Currently I have shifting demanding magical power, so too many shifts in a period of time or trying to 'force' a shift could lead to problems.

Love the physics! It's definitely a mind-stretcher. I don't like just 'waving a magical wand' to make it happen, I'd rather understand how it might work in actuality. So, in my case - also not this bald on paper - I have 3 races, human, dragon and shapeshifter. Shifters can breed either way, but typically the relationship between human and dragon would be platonic or dragon/rider. Genetics then becomes interesting. For example, what if a female human married a shifter but had a non-shifter baby?

And you're right, if a dragon could consciously manipulate the physical world at a cellular level, that opens up the possibility not only of cleansing, but of all sorts of other manipulations as well - changing colour, abilities, size, changing other dragons and humans ... now there's a dangerous power!