What's In A Name?
A lot, as far as I'm concerned. You see, I'd come to almost the end of plotting my story, but there were a couple of main characters that I had not named yet. I really wanted to begin Chapter 1, but I could not let myself take that step without completing the final steps of the story.
I love baby name books. I discovered these books long before I became a mom. These books give you the first name, the name's origin and its meaning. For me, the meaning of a name matters. Sometimes, the meaning doesn't make sense in relation to my character.
For my current book, I have a villain. I tried to think of all the names that I wasn't fond of, but when I'd think of a name, I'd think of someone in the world I'd heard of that had done something good. Well, that crossed out the use of that particular name. I searched the baby name book and found the first name Holt. Its meaning is "wood."
When I think of "wood" I think of someone trying to drive an axe through it. I think: sturdy. Tough. There are many good things I associate with wood, but for this story, I needed this character to have been around for a long time, to have always been tough and for my hero to become very angry with the character of Holt. Who knows, I may have a scene where my hero is driving an axe through a log of wood. No one would understand that underlying meaning except me, and those of you reading this post. Hmmm... sounds like a possible scene.
What about you... Do you put a lot of thought into choosing a name for your character? What tools do you use? Perhaps if you give me the name of one of your characters I can bring you their meaning in the comments section of this post.
p.s.... My current word count is 4,302! I'm excited that I accomplished more during lunch yesterday and wrote more again this morning. Thank you to all of you for keeping me accountable!
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6 comments:
I really like picking names too, but I'm doing a historical right now, so that limits which names I can actually pick. Although there is always room to play :)
I am still re-editing my wip, I am somewhere around page 95 of 315.
I am adding in much more narrative, since my first draft had lots of dialogue.
I enjoy reading how everyone is doing. Makes writing seem less solitary. And Dianna's post made me smile yesterday - she seemed so happy with her life. Great to hear you enjoying life Dianna :)
I love the name Holt. There was a villain in Angel named Holtz, and he was *terrifyingly* horrible. But it was great. :-)
Anyway, I love naming, too. I'm in the middle of naming my characters in the new wip. Researching and naming. That's a great part.
Still writing, though. I think I'm on 13K now. Lots to do in ten days, though. I said 50K by end of October. So I still have 37K to go. Aaaaahhh.... can I do it, can I do it? :-)
Also, are you doing NaNoWriMo next month? If you are, my username is beck_a_tron. Same as my Twitter name. I'm gonna be writing the new-name wip. :-) (assuming I finish this one.... haha!)
Hope you're well!
Eva Marie, I don't know about being happy with my life, but I figure if I don't give myself a pat on the back for the little things, I'd be overwhelmed in a heartbeat!
Writer's group meeting just went well. Our third. I'm tired but glad the venture is up off the ground and beneficial to those in the area in need of support and encouragement.
Rebecca, enjoy your month of writing torture. I've never been able to force myself to sign up for that because my time is so limited. Plus, if I had to report zero word count I think the discouragement would be too hard to overcome.
Names did you ask? I absolutely cannot start my story without having names for all of my story's major players. The name has to fit not only in meaning but also the personality of my character. Believe it or not, I named my kids the same way. If someone suggests I change a character name (main character), I'm usually kicking and screaming all the way. Which also just happened with my current WIP, and which my critique partner can attest!! However, sometimes I can listen to the voice of reason if it reiterates sane advice often enough.
Usually, my secondary characters get a lot less name attention, but in those cases the names are often changed before I finish the book to reflect more personality. Which also just happened in my WIP.
Okay, did some more writing tonight while monitoring an auction (that I didn't win... but that's okay... saved me $200!).
My new count:
15783/50000
I'm getting there... one word at a time! :-) Hoping for some productive #1k1hr tomorrow!
Yea, Rebecca!!! Keep going.
When it comes to names, I go into my family. My father has done a lot of work on my family's geneology and that is where I look for names. They're really interesting and because of the research he does, I already have a little background on the character that I work with. This helps as my memory isn't the best.
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