I studied linguistics to a point, so I do get antsy with books where the language is just randomly scrambled letters. It shows, even to most casual readers. The words don't fit or have morphemes which aren't consistent.
I've seen some absolutely terrible advice on other forums or fb groups, eg "Just take a foreign language you like and change a few letters here and there"-- faceplam. Please, for love of cthulhu, don't do this.
If you can't do it well, can't pay someone to do it, and it's not a significant plot point, then I would avoid. Alternatively, some authors do pay for professionals to conlang or at least edit their conlangs, and there's no shame in doing so. We pay regular editors and proofreaders as a matter of course for the MS in general, or get that done through a press if published already. I would see that as no different.
I do want to have a conlang for one of mine. It's very plot relevant, and some things about it will be easier than normal. It doesn't need to be "imperfect" for example--in fact, it has to be a perfect language--and it can suffer for ease of use and learnability. (Usually, ease of use and imperfections are things to complicating things to put in for conlangs.) It will require an absolutely enormous lexicon.
I've seen some absolutely terrible advice on other forums or fb groups, eg "Just take a foreign language you like and change a few letters here and there"-- faceplam. Please, for love of cthulhu, don't do this.
If you can't do it well, can't pay someone to do it, and it's not a significant plot point, then I would avoid. Alternatively, some authors do pay for professionals to conlang or at least edit their conlangs, and there's no shame in doing so. We pay regular editors and proofreaders as a matter of course for the MS in general, or get that done through a press if published already. I would see that as no different.
I do want to have a conlang for one of mine. It's very plot relevant, and some things about it will be easier than normal. It doesn't need to be "imperfect" for example--in fact, it has to be a perfect language--and it can suffer for ease of use and learnability. (Usually, ease of use and imperfections are things to complicating things to put in for conlangs.) It will require an absolutely enormous lexicon.