{"id":1032,"date":"2019-07-23T16:37:55","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T16:37:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/?p=1032"},"modified":"2022-05-30T15:41:19","modified_gmt":"2022-05-30T15:41:19","slug":"naming-characters","status":"publish","type":"articles","link":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/articles\/naming-characters","title":{"rendered":"The Name of the Prose, Part 1: Naming Characters and Novels"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s a question for you, Dear Reader. What publisher would have taken Bram Stoker seriously if his villain had swept onto the page and said, in sepulchral tones, \u201cI am Count Humperdink. I want to drink your blood\u201d? I am tempted to think that the Count&#8217;s intended victim might have died of extreme mirth, thereby depriving the big bat of a square meal. The same name, though, seems strangely appropriate for the arch-villain of William Goldman\u2019s\u00a0<em>The Princess Bride<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Names are an important element in fiction. From the title of the story, to the characters\u2019 names, to place names, to object handles\u2014these tricky nouns help create the environment in which the reader lives while reading the story.<\/p>\n<p>In this two-part series on names, I aim to address exactly those issues. Part 1 is about titling your stories and naming your characters.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/refiction.com\/articles\/naming-places\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Part 2<\/a>\u00a0covers other items you might need to name, such as the places your stories happen in and the objects they contain.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Story and \u00a0Book Titles<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s said that first impressions linger. The title informs the readers\u2019 first impression of a story and can color the attitude with which they enter the tale. In fact, the title can determine if they read the story at all.<\/p>\n<p>I critiqued a manuscript in a writers&#8217; workshop that was ready to publish, but I and another panelist (an editor) warned that the story might get left in the slush pile at some magazines because the title was hokey: \u201cAliens in Your Garage!\u201d The author was going for a National Enquirer-style headline, but the story departed from the tone of the title from the first word on and struck the editor as clich\u00e9d: \u201cYeah, yeah. The aliens are already here. So what? Big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When choosing a title for a story, I generally\u00a0<strong>avoid names that do the following things<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Give away the farm. I want the title of a story to draw readers in by revealing a tantalizing glimpse of the world within\u2014without giving an unobstructed view of the interior. What should the reader expect from a story entitled \u201cDoomed\u201d or \u201cMan Without a Head\u201d?<\/li>\n<li>Get down and get literal. Both of the above titles also meet this criterion. Here\u2019s another: \u201cPeople Who Didn\u2019t Know They Were Dead.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t work with the tone or substance of the story. \u201cForever Friends\u201d sounds like a nice little story about a couple of kids growing up together, then going their separate ways, right? It\u2019s not. It\u2019s a complex saga of space conquest with rip-roaring action, romance, betrayal, loyalty, and a dire need for a better title.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Some writers hate having to title stories. If you\u2019re one of them, here\u2019s the good and bad news. The title you chose may not be the title the book ends up with. The final decision on this lies with your publisher.<\/p>\n<p>I sent my first Gina Miyoko mystery to Pegasus with the title:\u00a0<em>Tinkerbell and the Fourth God from the Left<\/em>. This is a reference to the protagonist\u2019s nickname and a key element in the plot. I\u2019d envisioned an entire series of Tinkerbell novels with\u00a0<em>Tinkerbell and<\/em>\u00a0titles. But my editor pointed out that naming the book after an existing fictional character from an iconic children\u2019s book might confuse readers. It was also an awful lot to put on a book cover. The story went to press with the more manageable\u00a0<em>The Antiquities Hunter<\/em>.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Naming Characters: What\u2019s in a Name?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Most of us have heard this iconic line of dialogue: \u201dThe name is Bond. James Bond.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ah, but what if the name\u00a0hadn\u2019t been James Bond? What if the name Ian Fleming gave his super-spy had been &#8220;Crane, Ichabod Crane\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, a name that worked for the nebbish, nervous protagonist of\u00a0<em>The Legend of Sleepy Hollow<\/em>\u00a0would not work for the decisive, suave hero of Fleming\u2019s tales of espionage and danger.<\/p>\n<p>Why not? Let\u2019s take a closer look.<\/p>\n<p><strong>James Bond<\/strong>: Neither given name nor surname is flowery or unusual. They are short, simple, strong. Together they give us an impression that the character is a straightforward man of action.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Ichabod Crane<\/strong>: the first name is odd, a bit awkward and contains the sound \u201cick.\u201d The last name is that of a long-legged, ungainly bird. Taken together, they suggest someone who is perhaps both homely and gawky.<\/p>\n<p>A character\u2019s name can set a reader\u2019s expectations of how he or she will behave, and a clever writer can tell volumes about a character, or condition the atmosphere around him, merely through the syllables they choose to label him. Names send subliminal messages about a character, suggesting things about his or her nature that most readers will pick up on.\u00a0<strong>This will happen whether the writer is aware of it or not.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Character names can also tell the reader in what spirit to take the entire story. Douglas Adams gave his\u00a0<em>Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide<\/em>\u00a0characters such oddball names as &#8220;Zaphod Beeblebrox&#8221; and &#8220;Ford Prefect,&#8221; which could leave no doubt in his readers\u2019 minds about how they were to take his tales of intergalactic adventure.<\/p>\n<p>William Goldman, in writing\u00a0<em>The Princess Bride<\/em>, made a running gag of the fact that the hero of his off-kilter fairy tale was named \u201cWestley.\u201d He devotes an extended scene in the book (and the movie) to Westley explaining why he changed his name to the inherited \u201cDread Pirate Roberts,\u201d a far more menacing moniker. After all, who\u2019d shiver in fear of the \u201cDread Pirate Westley\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>In more serious fiction, too, notable successes often involve evocative names. Tolkien, a linguist by profession, was a master at giving things and people names that roll off the tongue in sonorous waves. Gandalf, Saruman, Thranduil, Galadriel. Magical names for magical characters. What name could say more about strength than Thorin Oakenshield? Or what could suggest obsequiousness and conniving better than Smeagol or Grima Worm-tongue?<\/p>\n<p>Even the characters\u2019 secondary names are\u00a0<strong>cunning pieces of shading<\/strong>. Aragorn is also Strider and Elessar. Gandalf the Gray becomes Gandalf the White, but he is also called Stormcrow, Greyhame, The Grey Pilgrim, The White Rider, L\u00e1thspell, and Mithrandir\u2014an elvish name that hints at dimensions of his character that are hidden. Given that he is a Mayar\u2014which is a being somewhere between an Avatar and an archangel\u2014this is appropriate.<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned for a discussion of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/refiction.com\/articles\/naming-places\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">choosing names for places and things<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","categories":[37,7,11],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles\/1032"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/articles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/articles"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/refiction.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}