Guess what? I’ve been doing stuff on social media!
I know as an Indie author, I’m supposed to do stuff on social media, but I’m not one to do what I’m supposed to do, so this will come as a surprise to many of you. Besides which, there’s my age to factor in – two weeks to go to my 63rd birthday – and as we all know, us oldies are still getting used to The Face Book.
But I’ve been trying to improve and so here’s a few things I’ve done this week, mainly on mastodon social(I’m there as @caronallan – pop in and say Hi!)
I’ve discovered the pleasure of online writing groups. On mastodon, there are two I enjoy – writerscoffeeclub and wordweavers. In addition to those, a lovely author lady (@elizabethguilt ) suggested a daily 100 word flash fiction, she calls it a drabble – this is new to me, though I used to regularly write 500 word flash fictions and also haiku – 17 syllable poems in a 5-7-5 format.
These groups plan a daily task or question for those who want to play along, and there are some interesting things on the list that came out at the start of the month. For example, Oct 3 for the Word Weavers was ‘How do you convey a character’s emotion in your work’.
This was my reply (there’s a word limit, much bigger than Twitter’s but still, it confines you.)
Because I write 1930s cozy mysteries, I sometimes like to keep things a little understated. I think less is more in terms of emotional impact sometimes.
Though this is true of my ‘contemporary’ murder Friendship Can Be Murder series, which are written as 1st POV diary entries (yes, I now know no one likes that, but 11-12 years ago, I didn’t realise) So Criss Cross, when her hubs is murdered, MC simply records: ‘Thomas is dead. And I am alone.’
And because I wanted to share more about my Dottie books, as part of my reply, I added this image, which is an extract taken from The Mantle of God: Dottie Manderson mysteries book 2.
Coming back to the Drabble – the task was to share a 100-word limit story. I found this quite tricky, because I tend to think in terms of long fiction, so I’m not sure I’ve really followed the spirit of the idea. On Oct 1st, I uploaded this:
And then on Oct 2nd, I couldn’t stop myself from continuing on from there instead of writing a whole new 100 word story…
But I have to say, it was highly enjoyable and I feel really proud of myself to have written two new (teeny) pieces of work this week, made some new friends and talked about my books a little.
Shakespeare’s suggestion that names are not important is hopelessly wrong for writers. Who hasn’t sat, staring at a blank sheet of paper, agonising over what to call a character? And if it’s your protagonist, that only makes it harder. Without a character, you have no story.
Occasionally a name for a character just comes to me: Meredith Hardew from a book I plan to release next year, A Meeting With Murder: Miss Gascoigne mysteries book 1, and Cressida Barker-Powell from Criss Cross: Friendship can be Murder: Book1 published 2013 (whose name was a deliberate mutation of Parker-Bowles). These are names that sprang fully-formed into my consciousness as I began to write the story. I couldn’t even think of calling any of those people anything else. In fact this whole opening piece came to me in a flash, and I had to run to a stationer’s to buy a notebook to write it down before I forgot it. (Now I just put it into a note app on my phone! Ah technology, I love you so much.)
At forty-six, Meredith Hardew, with her handsome features, trim figure and excellent dress sense, was frequently taken for at least ten years younger than her true age. Not that she was in the habit of seeking out flattery, for she was one of those women who never thinks about herself, what she’s wearing or how she looks. She was far too busy running errands for someone or other.
Coming 2022
But it doesn’t always work out like that. I can spend hours, days even, agonising over the right name for a character. There are times when I have delayed starting a new story because I can’t seem to find the right name for my protagonist. Though equally, when I am writing a first draft, I sometimes can’t remember the names I’ve already given my characters. I have even written several thousand words with varying numbers of capital XXXXs to denote each character, just to avoid abandoning the story and messing up the ‘flow’. But it can get confusing. In these circumstances I often have to write long explanatory notes to myself of who the person is, as well as the XXXXXXs. There’s usually a Mr XX, a Miss XXX and a Jeffrey X, or a Gladys XXXX, so it gets a bit muddled. But it does help me keep writing.
However, I can’t always trust myself when a name does just spring into my head. Like the time I wanted to call my main character Ben, then I needed to give him a surname. Sherman. Hmm, I thought, Ben Sherman sounds really good. It’s as if those two names were meant to go together somehow. What a great, natural-sounding name for a character, I thought. It sounds just like a real person. Which should have been my clue. So I told my daughter about my new hero Ben Sherman. She rolled her eyes heavenward in what can only be described as her ‘For God’s sake, Mother!’ expression. Turns out there is a real person, a famous designer, with that name. I was right, it did sound just like a real person. Oh well. Back to the book of baby names again.
That lightbulb moment when you realise your character has a famous person’s name.
Names can be absorbed by osmosis from society or culture, and we don’t always know where they’ve come from. I usually check my friends’ names on Facebook or for authors on Amazon to be ‘on the safe side’. I don’t want to use a well-known person’s name especially if my character is not a very nice person! I had also written five chapters of the Miss Gascoigne story before I realised that two of the main characters were named Meredith and Edith. Edith had to become Sheila. You need to keep the names quite dissimilar to avoid confusion, unless that is germane to your plot. Never feature, for example, Jack Peters and a Peter Jackson in the same book. I’ve known it happen, and the confusion accidentally created by the author seriously impacts on the enjoyment of the story! You can’t suspend belief if you spend all your time trying to remember who is who. At least, don’t do that if there is no deliberate intention to confuse the reader.
Names go through trends. So if you’re writing historical fiction, don’t give your character a modern name. If in doubt, turn to a census of the time for ‘in’ names or look to the royalty of the day. Equally if you’re writing modern stuff, don’t give young characters the names of your parents’ generation, few little ones these days or for the past 20 or 30 years have been called Barbara, Sandra, Hazel, Nigel, Richard, etc. They have a slightly ‘previous generation’ sound to them. However, go back a bit further to the grandparents’ generation and you’ll hit all the names that are now so ‘on-trend’: Jack, Alice, Freddy, George, Emily, Henry and so on. I hope in the next generation after this one, my name will be back in again!
When it came to creating character names, Dickens was a master. He used names to ridicule his characters, to reveal societal trends and attitudes, and to denote characteristics or personalities. Think of Gradgrind and M’Choakumchild in Hard Times, you can’t imagine them being good people, or warm and caring. These are hard names for hard people. Or think of Uriah Heep, Mr Cheeryble, Squeers. He also used another technique that is still useful for writers today. He used to take names that were ordinary and just slightly change them, creating something different and yet somehow familiar. Thus Philip became Chilip.
it can take a while to work things out…
That always makes me think of Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games heroine, Katniss Everdeen, or of Margaret Attwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale – the woman Offred was the ‘property’ of Fred. Also for fabulous names it is impossible to beat Alistair Reynolds’ Pushing Ice character, Chromis Pasqueflower Bowerbird. So writers, don’t be afraid to play around with names and have fun. Changing one letter or the order of the letters can make a world of difference, and this works especially well with Sci-fi or Fantasy character names. Maybe Isaac can become Istac or Casai, Sophie can be Phosie, Mary can become Maare, John could become Hjon, Dohn, Joon.
In writing fiction, the names of your main characters are essential to the reader’s enjoyment and for creating a convincing world. Just make sure they are not the names of a successful designer.
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