Barbara Ankrum: Naming Characters

As an author, I get a lot of questions about process. How do I start? What’s the first thing I come up with? Plot? Conflict? Characters?

Yes.

That’s my answer. All of the above. Because all of those things are so interconnected, I usually have all three in my head as I’m thinking up a new book. Characters and character arcs factor in heavily, because I have to know where these two people are going and what they’re going to learn along the way. What’s in the way of that journey is the conflict.

But before I can start the actual writing, I need the H & H’s names. How characters look is often secondary. Names are essential to me to get a handle on character.  Sometimes, I just know them immediately. Other times, I go through lists. After I pick a name, I will scroll through photos and Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB—a movie geek site) for faces until I find the right look (that fits the name.) Mind you, this might seem like surface stuff, but it’s not. It’s all connected to character and conflict and back story and how I feel about the character.

This rule, however, can backfire on me. In a recent book I was forced to change the names of both characters three times, which—not coincidentally—also entailed rewriting the entire beginning as many times, because the name can essentially change how I think about a character and a character’s voice. And the characters (and story) were just not working for me. Oy!

Then there was the time, a couple of books ago, (I won’t divulge which one…) when I was about three-quarters of the way through, merrily typing away, and I looked at my hero’s name (as one does) and suddenly felt my heart sink. I’d been writing his name for a few months and never once did I recall that I’d actually used his name once before for another hero. (Wha—??) It was an old book, written a long time ago, granted, but still.  Two heroes with the same name would be…wrong.
For a whole day, I froze, horrified at the prospect that this guy I’d been writing all along would need a new name and the thought of changing it mid-stream is just…just…I can’t even. It was like giving my heroine a whole new guy! Not only that, I felt it might essentially change the tone of the story I was telling if I changed it then. Go on, you can think I’m crazy. I don’t mind.

I knew it would be easier for my readers to accept a different name for my hero (from the start) than it would for me to change it, mid-stream, so I decided to finish the book using the original name rather than try to change it as I was just getting to the black moment. That would allow me to continue with him emotionally without disruption. So when I finished the book, I did a soul search for a name I could fall for and after a long day of rejecting possibilities, I found one. I did a global search and replaced his name.

Moral of the story: everyone loved his name. No one thought he was weird or wrong. I even loved his name in the end and felt it added something unique to him. But I was glad I didn’t mess with him in the telling of the story. Who knows what might have happened?

But that just goes to show how delicate the process of creation is. Or the craziness of the creators! (Eh-hem…speaking only for myself, of course.)

I can still remember the names some of my favorite heroes and heroines from books I read years ago. My keepers. What are some of your all time faves?


Barbara Ankrum’s brand new historical romance, THE RUINATION OF ESSIE SPARKS—Book #2 of her Wild Western Rogues Series—hits the stands April 2, 2016!

A Rose by Any Other Name . . . or Who's Your Heroine? :: Anne McAllister

I need you!  Again!

A couple of years ago I was scouting around for names for characters and I tossed out a challenge to readers of this blog and another one I was writing for at the time, and said, "I need a name for a heroine" because for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what this woman's name was.

I knew lots about her, but I didn't know her name. And she wasn't inclined to tell me.

Well, here I am again -- same problem.  So if you wouldn't mind, could you put on your thinking caps or your 'name the baby' caps and give me some more suggestions.

This heroine now lives in small town Montana, but she grew up in New Mexico. She is half-Navajo and something else.  Not sure what.

She's close to thirty, and she has yet to tell me if she's been married or not.  (Close-mouthed, wouldn't you say?).  She is a weaver, both loom and hand -- a fabric artist who has made a name for herself in the art world.

And once upon a time she may have had a thing for my hero. They seem to have a bit of history. At least I know that much.  He may have been a friend of her brother's way back in their high school or early college days. Now he's a widower with two young children,  home from the big city to make a life in the area where he grew up, the one place he was sure he'd never live again.

He's Clint McCullough, brother of the hero of my book, Last Year's Bride, which was out this past summer. I know a lot about Clint, but he isn't telling me this woman's name, either.

I suppose I could just put "Heroine" in when I start to think about her. But having a name really helps.  So if you have a suggestion -- or three or four -- I'd be very grateful.  If one of them resonates with me -- and with my heroine -- you can count on a dedication (and a copy of the book in e-format when it comes out next year.)




illustration credits:
1) red rose: wikimedia commons: creative commons license
2) Bridger Mountains: via Wikimedia Commons http://www.flickr.com/photos/23165290@N00/9315591779/ |Author =Tim Evanson |Date =2013-07-07 |Permission granted under C.C. License]
3. Last Year's Bride: WishngTreeStudio: Marie Schenck. [used with permission]

What's in a Name? -- Anne McAllister

We've all heard the "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet," maxim. And no doubt it would.

But the problem for writers is rarely roses. It's usually what to name our heroine or our hero.

Is a Charles the same as a Charley or a Chuck? I don't think so.

Is a Sarah no different from a Sally or a Sadie? Not the ones I know.

Even spelling counts in my world. I just wrote about a Sara in One-Night Love Child who is quite different from a Sarah I have in mind for a future book. And there was no similarity between my Cait and my Kate. None at all.

Are all writers as obsessed with names as I am?

Did they all have their children named when they were in fifth grade? I did. Though I won't tell you what I intended to name them -- and I certainly won't tell them because they'd be horrified.

Still, it mattered.

And why did I need to wait until the last one was born to decide if he was an Ian or a James? Looking at him, both my husband and I knew instantly which he was.

Ask any writer and chances are good she will tell you that without a name, the character won't come to life. And woe betide the author who uses "search and replace" and discovers that as soon as she does, the character dies on the page. Some don't, but it's a chance I wouldn't dare take.

The only time I would dare to do it is if I were the one who got the name wrong to begin with. It happens. Sometimes the character comes along and tells me that I'm wrong. Sometimes my fingers know I'm wrong before I do.

There is a heroine taking shape in my head right now and I wrote about her, calling her Sylvie. At least I've been trying to call her Sylvie. My fingers, however, have been typing Sophy every time they write her name.

Her name is still (I think) up for debate, but I'm beginning to suspect my fingers are going to win.

Suffice to say, for me, naming characters is incredibly important. Knowing their names somehow helps shape the book. And I realized this importance even more clearly when I began to write more linked books.

When I knew ahead of time they were going to be linked, I was careful. But once, writing about a hero named Jack and a heroine named Frances, I gave them friends named Carter and Annabel. They sounded like good supporting-cast names.

How was I to know that Carter and Annabel would start demanding their own book? Worse, that they would demand a book together! I had no idea what an Annabel was like -- but boy, did I find out. And Carter took three books to grow into heroism (in the first all he did was drink beer and eat junk food and make crap out of the hero, in the second, he proposed to the heroine and she said no, and finally, with hard-won maturity he carried the day and got the girl). In the end, he turned into one of my favorites, but it was tricky. And Annabel was no picnic, either!

Lots of authors have stacks of "name" books they pour through for names. I have a few. But mostly I find myself looking in phone books and old census records and diaries and newspaper and magazine articles. Names in lists with meanings don't seem to have much context. I like reading them, but I don't often get a sense of who a person is from a list.

I like it best when names -- and their people -- come in context for me. Then they speak to me, tease me with just enough tantalizing information that I want to know more about.

But it doesn't always happen that way. Originally I began writing books because I wanted to name a son Brendan and my husband, The Prof, didn't.

After enough sons to be convinced I wasn't ever going to budge The Prof on that point, I decided if I was ever going to get a Brendan, I'd have to have him in a book.

I figure I probably owe my career to that Brendan -- and I never had to put up with him as a teenager or put him through college. What a deal!

Do you have favorite names that you picked for kids long before you had any? Or do you now if you're still anticipating?

What about names for characters? Do you have characters in search of names or names in search of characters?