Characters

[George Wilder Jr.]

I have long grown tired of tradtional Characters names, therefore, I began naming my characters after states, cities, towns, villages, and suburbs. I found it to be very interesting. My son is named Denver. I was fed-up with scratching my head over massively trying to come up with various names for individual characters. And I love it.

[Pam Robertson]

George that is so neat! I struggle with this too and many times have started writing something and then changed all the names, which made it really hard to proofread! When I was young I knew a family who had named their kids that way and I thought it was neat - Vienna, Florence, and I think there were four or five more.

[Kakie]

Hi George, that is cool. What is your favorite part of the character creation process. How do you start?

-Kakie Fitzsimmons

http://burburandfriendsblog.com

[Jeffrey J. Mariotte]

Most (although by no means all) of my books are horror. Because I know unbelievable things are going to happen to the characters, I strive to make the characters themselves as real and believable as possible, including their names. That isn't to say that some won't have slightly exotic names, but if they do there's got to be a reason behind it.

I get names from phone books (a copy of the NYC white pages is a great resource for a writer), from life, from credits on movies and TV shows--anyplace lots of names are listed, particularly ones I might not have come into contact with myself. Of course first and last names have to be swapped out, and the right name chosen for any given character. I also have a couple of traditional baby name books and one called the "New Age Baby Name Book" that has lots of more exotic names, names from different countries, etc., along with their meanings. Like George, I also use maps.

One thing that's important to me is choosing names that are right for the particular geographic region the characters hail from. The main characters in my forthcoming novel RIVER RUNS RED, for instance, are brother-and-sister Byrd and Molly McCall, and their friend Wade Scheiner. They're all from west Texas or the Texas Hill Country, regions largely settled by emigrants from Britain and Germany (and of course there are Hispanics in the book, and other races represented, all with appropriate and realistic-sounding names). Looking at a map of a given city or region is a good way to see what sorts of names are common there.

Kakie, the first step in character creation for me is figuring out who I need to have in a book to move the plot in the right ways. Then it's a matter of developing characters I enjoy enough to want to spend several months with. I like characters who are people, not "characters"--that is, for my tastes, they shouldn't be a collection of wacky tics and mannerisms, they should be fully rounded human beings, with a little bad in the good guys, a little good in the bad guys, etc. Writing a book can take several months, and I don't want to spend that time with caricatures, I want to spend it with real people.

Jeff

[Kakie]

Thanks Jeff, I agree they have to be real instead of having wacky tips and mannerisms. That is how the reader best identifies with them. I am curious to hear other authors provide their comments as well. Thanks for your insight. :)

-Kakie
http://burburandfriendsblog.com

[Pam Robertson]

Jeff I love the way that you describe the naming, and that your characters are people, not just characters. I too have found that I need to be really able to relate to the characters - otherwise I cannot stand to spend months with them. It's not that I need to like them exactly, although it helps to like the good that's in the bad guy certainly, but I do need them to be realistic in order to have them floating around on the inside of my head :o)

[Shelagh Watkins]

The characters in Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine have names that describe their jobs and positions: Mish Oncontrol, Guy Dewaround, Ann Astronaught... The story is full of characters so it would be difficult for younger readers to remember who was who and keep track of everyone. The instantly recognisable names remove the need to refer back to find out who's who.

The characters for The Power of Persuasion had a complete overhaul. I wrote the story in 1998 and rewrote the final version in 2007-2008. If any of the characters appear to be based on real people, it is purely coincidental because, with all the name changes, their personalities changed. The new names demanded characteristics that reflected the names to keep them real. It was quite an interesting exercise!

[Rainbow]

I have enough trouble keeping up with all my characters as you will see if you check my Close Buddies and Confidants Video on my page on this wonderful site, When I'm there, they're not. When they're, I'm not! Confused? Of course me am, being a megaphrenic ain't easy, but, I am the puppetmaster and occasional Master of the Revels!:-)

http://publishedauthors.ning.com/profile/Rainbow

Enjoy, mind you in my books the names are changed to protect the guilty!

[Padma Narayanswamy]

well i dont think as such as i am an Indian
imy characters are Indian so I chose indian names
if the character is old I will chose old fashion names
if they are modern they have modern names
padma

[Dr. Joe Capista]

Hello George,

Interesting insight into your writings. Keep sharing with us.

Dr. Joe Capista

FREE eBook – Build a Multi Million Dollar Business
http://www.joecapista.com/buildingamultimilliondollar.htm

[Malcolm R. Campbell]

My characters have the last word on their names. I may think I need a guy named Bob, but once I start trying to work with "Bob" he may tell me that "every Tom, Dick and Harry out there can't be named Bob." So, I let him pick his name and unless it's something like "Jack Tater Tots," he might get to keep it.

Malcolm

[mikodragonfly]

Oh hey - that's a cool way to do that. Usually, I just go with whatever name gets stuck in my head - but sometimes I just end up being stumped about it for days.