The Name Game

 Finding the right name for characters involves a number of variables.

*The period the story is set in.  Names must be authentic for the period.  A number of websites are available for different historical periods as well as recent years.  Do your research, and don't have a Medieval heroine named Tiffany. 

Here are a few sites to look at

First names: http://www.behindthename.com/

Surnames: http://surnames.behindthename.com/

Popular first names in recent years:  http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/index.html

*The location of the story and ethnic background of your characters.

Popular first name by state: http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/index.html  

*The current impression the name gives.  Years ago, for example, men were named Leslie, but it has become a woman's name.  Naming your hero Leslie might be authentic for the period, but it will give your reader the wrong impression.

*How hard the name is to type.  I avoid some names because I can't type them.   If you must use a name that's hard to type, pick a simple nonsense string of letters then do a universal search and replace.  Be absolutely sure the letters are nonsense so you don't insert the name in the middle of words that have that string within them.

THE MAIN CHARACTERS' NAMES

The right name for your hero or heroine is one of your most important decisions.  

For major characters, I don't just pick a name I like.  Instead, I wait until I see a name, and a frission goes through me to tell me I've hit the name for my character.  Most of my character names have been gifts of that sort.  Sometimes, the character will tell me his name at a certain point in the creation process.  

The name, in other words, is as much a part of making the character real for the writer as it is for the reader.  

SECONDARY CHARACTERS' NAMES

Try to avoid  a secondary character's name that is similar to your major characters' names.   That includes names that begin with the same letter or look similar (Al, Sal, and Sally).  

Before I start writing and after I have my main characters' names, I make a list of other names I can use in the book which fit the period, etc., as well as being different from the major characters' names.  This allows me to pick a name for that waitress who has a few scenes without having to stop my writing while I think up a name.  

USING SIMILAR NAMES

I have used similar names deliberately in my writing.  In TIME AFTER TIME, my hero remembers all his past lives, and he's trying to convince the heroine they have been reincarnated lovers in each of those lives.  He re-stages and retells their past lives and their loves so I needed different names for them in each time period.  

I decided that I'd use the same first letter or letters of their current names for each past name so that the reader would recognize instantly when I mentioned a name even if they couldn't recall the period that name was from.  Each name would have to fit the historical period as well as the personality of the character.

Justin was earthy Jed in the Old West, and Alexa was Annie.   In the 1940s, Justin was sophisticated Jared and Alexa was Alicia.  Their other names also reflected character and period.

THE GOOGLE TEST

For main characters, particularly villains, it's a good idea to put the name into a search engine to see if someone out there shares the name.  Put the first and last name into quotation marks so you will only receive results with both those words close together.  If you find someone with that name, you may want to consider a different name.  

This is also a good idea for book titles.

THE NAME GAME

As you develop characters and names, you'll discover a new fascination with names and their power, and you'll probably find yourself scanning obituaries and phone books for that unusual name to add to your name list.  Enjoy this.  It's part of the fun of creating characters.

The Minor Character

A minor character is one who makes one or two appearances in a story, or if he has more appearances, he has no real character growth. He can be anything from the stable boy who tends the horses to the best friend’s brother who has a few comic moments.

Here are things to consider when you have minor characters in a scene. 

If all the characters in a scene are minor to the plot, you need to ask yourself whether you need the scene. 

If the scene is only there to tell readers something about the main character, then you should move it to a scene that is necessary with characters who are more important. 

If the person is familiar to the point-of-view character, very little physical description is needed unless the physical description has importance in the scene. 

For example, Jim studies his friends and decides to take Fred with him to meet the bad guy because Fred is built like a linebacker and is good in a physical fight.

However, if it's in the heroine's viewpoint, and she's introduced to the hero's friends, she will pay attention to what they look like and their names so more physical detail is needed.

If the scene needs a waitress who adds nothing to the scene beyond taking the food order, you can use some line like "the waitress took their order and left." 

If the hero is flirting with the waitress to make the heroine jealous, then a bit more of a physical description may be needed and a bit more personality if the character flirts back. 

The Reader and Writer Agreement

Any form of fiction is an agreement between the writer and the reader. The writer says, I will tell you a story, and you will believe it while you are reading it.

The reader agrees that, as long as the story remains true to its own telling and is interesting, he will keep reading and believe what he is reading. This is often called suspension of disbelief.

The writer can create the most bizarre rules imaginable for the way his world works and have creatures that aren't possible in the real world, but there are two rules he can't break.

He must have his humans behave as humans should, and he must not break his own rules. To do either ruins the story.

Real Places with Fictional Names

 QUESTION: I've tried to turn small towns with which I'm familiar into fictional towns or settings--usually for a paranormal world. Each time, I've ended up with a big, confusing, frustrated mess. You have mentioned that you have done this. Do you have any tips or tricks for developing your hometown into a fictional town? 

In my novel, TIME AFER TIME, my heroine’s hometown of Moravia is my hometown with the location of streets, etc.  

The heroine's engagement party is in a country club that's about five miles away from where I live.  I fiddled a bit with the look of the huge room and the patio where she meets the hero, though, to fit the plot.

The hero picks her up in a horse and carriage and takes her to the golf course to the east of the country club.  

I know where the McDonalds is that they stop at for a late snack and the apartment complex where she lives.

In a series set in Moravia, the hero's house is about a block away from where I live. The house is across the street from the Methodist church I went to as a child. 

The hero and his best friend ride on trails I rode as a girl, and the heroine goes to a fictional version of my alma mater.  When she drives there, I know what she passes, and the campus is described accurately. 

If I change some element of the real town for my fictional town, I make a note to myself to that effect although I rarely reuse settings like the country club.

I give the streets different names because I don't want people to make too close a connection between High Point and Moravia, and for the new series, I'm using the High Point of forty years ago because it fits better.  Those riding trails are now housing developments, for example.

Rather than a map, I have an equals list. 

 

Willow Street = Chestnut Drive

Nathanton = Greensboro

Most of my names have a word play involved.  Willow and Chestnut are both trees, and Greensboro is named after Revolutionary War hero, Nathaniel Green.

I never use exact distances, but I know how long it would take to get from the magic equipment storage warehouse to Daniel's house in the middle of the night if you were driving well over the speed limit.  

This information doesn't really change what happens or anything, and I could change the time for my own convenience, but just knowing helps keep the place real for me, and, hopefully, that makes the place more real to the reader.