The Writer's Toolbox: Character Names

Welcome (again) to the Writer's Toolbox! In this blog series, I'm talking about nitty-gritty writing craft stuff. Today's subject is character names.

Juliet famously stood on her balcony and proclaimed that names are meaningless and a rose would smell as sweet if it were called "skunk cabbage" or "baboon." And then she died because she was totally wrong. Also, unable to use the postal service in an effective way, but that's beside the point.  Point is that names are an important tool in the Writer's Toolbox.

Name a character Ebenezer Scrooge or Darth Maul or Elizabeth Bennett or Her Majesty Queen Silverhoof of the Lakeside Unicorn Clan, and you set up certain reader expectations for their personality and their fate.  It's then your choice whether to fulfill or subvert those expectations.

So... how to name a character.

I decided when I was ten years old that I wanted to be a writer, and one of the first things I did was read the phone book.  (I'll pause for you to tilt your head in befuddlement and contemplate what an odd child I must have been.  I'll wait.  Done?  Good.  Let's move on.)  I did it to find character names, and I wrote each name down on its own index card and then assigned them magical powers and talking animal friends. And really, that's not a terrible way to find names. In fact I'm going to go with that as resource #1: the phone book.

Resource #2 didn't exist when I was ten years old, and it's the one I use most often when writing stories set in our world (or a variant of): the Social Security Administration website.  It has a database of all the first names in the United States, ranked by popularity and searchable by year of birth.  It allows you to find common names from a particular era. Very useful if you want to hint at a character's age without investing a lot of words describing them -- you can choose a name that was popular in a particular time period and not in others.

Resource #3 is baby name books.  There are tons of them out there, and they boast names ranging from common to obscure.  Often they list their origin and meaning.  Only downside of these is if you have them in the house, your relatives and friends will start wondering about what's coming in nine months.

If you wish to avoid questions about that, a better resource is #4: baby name websites.  There are TONS of them out there, nicely searchable, often including name origin and meaning. These let you find names whose meaning matches themes in your story or personality quirks you want your character to have (or not have). (For example, in Drink, Slay, Love, I named my vampire girl Pearl because she's the opposite of that name.)

And last but not least is resource #5: children.  If you're looking for exotic names for characters in a fantasy world, ask a little kid to invent some names.  They excel at stringing together nonsense syllables that sometimes end up sounding pretty darn good, and they aren't burdened by years of experience in what a name should be.

Next: when to name a character.

Really, whenever you want. Sometimes I choose the name first and then shape the personality to fit. Other times, I have a firm sense of the character's voice and need a name to match it. Usually, it's somewhere in the middle: I have a vague sense of the character but he/she doesn't gel until I have the "right" name. And then there was the one time when I wrote an entire novel and then changed the main character's name several drafts later.  (This was Lily in Enchanted Ivy.  She was Ivy until nearly the final draft, when I decided that Ivy wasn't exactly subtle for a girl who wants to go to an Ivy League school.)

How do you know when a name is the "right" name?

Um... I really don't know the answer to that.  When the name is right it just kind of clicks in your brain, like when a puzzle piece fits neatly into a puzzle.  Once you have the name, the rest of the picture should get a little clearer.  The name should, hopefully, lead to a clearer vision of the character's voice and/or lead to more revelations about the character. And by the end of writing about a character, it should feel like he or she never had any other name. 

Especially not Skunk Cabbage or Baboon.

Know of any other good resources for naming characters?  Where do you find your names?  Please share!

The Writer's Toolbox: First Lines

Hi!  I'd like to introduce a new blog series today: the Writer's Toolbox.  In these posts, I want to talk about (and hear your thoughts on) nitty-gritty writing stuff, the tools and techniques of the craft of writing.

So let's dive right in...  First topic: first lines!

Everyone knows the opening line of a story or novel is important.  Every writer agonizes over it.  Some can't even start until they have it.

Okay, yes.  *raises hand*  That's me.  I have to be in love with my first line before I can write the rest of the book.  Sometimes it comes to me quickly; sometimes I have to write a bajillion openings until I find one that feels right.  But I need to have that sentence (or two or three) before I can proceed.

There are lots of great first lines out there.  And there are lots of different kinds of great first lines.  For me personally, the ones that work best do one of four things:

1. Establish what's normal
 
"Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife." -- L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
 
In this one sentence, we know instantly where we are and what kind of people we're with.  This is both an important and appropriate opening for this novel: We have to know what's normal for Dorothy, i.e. what her sepia-toned world is, so that we can appreciate the contrast when we're swept away into technicolor.

"Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen." -- Philip Pullman, The Golden Compass
 
We may not know what a "daemon" is, but we know instantly that Lyra knows.  The simple word "her" does all the work here.  She's with "her daemon."  This establishes right away that what's normal for Lyra isn't normal for us.
 
2. Set up expectations

"Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.  If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now.  Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life." -- Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

Setting up the right expectations is crucial.  You can write the best mystery in the world, but if a reader thinks you're going to deliver a romance, then odds are he or she will be disappointed.  This opening sets us up to expect a dangerous, out-of-the-ordinary adventure.  And that's exactly what we get.

"Human girls cry when they're sad and laugh when they're happy.  They have a single fixed shape rather than shifting with their whims like wind-blown smoke.  They have their very own parents, whom they love.  They don't go around stealing other girls' mothers.  At least that's what Kaye thought human girls were like.  She wouldn't really know.  After all, she wasn't human." -- Holly Black, Ironside

With this opening, we expect magic in the real world.  We expect to see it (and us) through the eyes of a nonhuman.  Also, we expect some parent issues.

3. Start the action

"Alanna the Lioness, the King's Champion, could hardly contain her glee.  Baron Piers of Mindelan had written to King Jonathan to say that his daughter wished to be a page." -- Tamora Pierce, First Test (Protector of the Small)

This is a somewhat unusual opening because it isn't from the protagonist's point-of-view.  It's from the pov of the protagonist of Pierce's earlier series, essentially handing the story baton to the new lady-knight-to-be.  But I think it works as an opening because in the space of two sentences, you know the entire core conflict for the next four books: a girl wants to be trained openly as a knight.

"Gordon Edgley's sudden death came as a shock to everyone -- not least himself." -- Derek Landy, Skullduggery Pleasant

Every story has a catalyst -- the event that rocks the status quo and propels the protagonist into the adventure.  Some books establish normal first and shortly after turn it upside down.  Others, like this novel, begin right away with the catalyst.  The death in this first sentence is what leads to all the events in the rest of the book.

"On the day she was to die, Liyana walked out of her family's tent to see the dawn." -- Sarah Beth Durst, Vessel

This novel also begins with the day that changes everything, the day that the protagonist has been anticipating for years, the biggest moment in her life.  I believe a novel really should be about the most meaningful thing to happen to a character -- otherwise, there's no reason to tell the story.  With this sort of opening, we're diving directly in.

4. Set the tone

"There is a certain kind of girl the goblins crave.  You could walk across a high school campus and point them out: not her, not her, her.  The pert, lovely ones with butterfly tattoos in secret places, sitting on their boyfriends' laps? Yes.  Them.  The goblins want girls who dream so hard about being pretty their yearning leaves a palpable trail, a scent goblins can follow like sharks on a soft bloom of blood.  The girls with hungry eyes who pray each night to wake up as someone else.  Urgent, unkissed, wishful girls.  Like Kizzy." -- Laini Taylor, Lips Touch Three Times

This beginning does establish a character, but more than that, it sets a tone.  We expect this story to be poetic, like the Goblin Market poem it's based on.

"If Sarah hadn't put the monkey in the bathtub, we might never have had to help the monsters get big.  But she did, so we did, which, given the way things worked out, was probably just as well for everyone on the planet -- especially the dead people." -- Bruce Coville, The Monsters of Morley Manor

This one sets the tone for a madcap adventure.  It works for me because it both makes me smile and makes me ask why.  I think it's my favorite opening line of all-time.

What are some of your favorite opening lines?

All Dreamers Welcome, Again

In September 2006, I started this blog with a post called All Dreamers Welcome.  Welcome to my dream, I said.  Please come share it with me.

THIS is my dream.  (Imagine me waving my hands expansively at my desk, the manuscript next to me, the books behind me, the stone polar bear on my desk, the stacks of cryptic Post-Its, and the vampire Mickey Mouse.)  All of this.  Being a writer.  It's what I've wanted to do since I was ten years old.  Prior to that, I wanted to be Wonder Woman or a Unicorn Princess (either a human in charge of unicorns or an actual unicorn with a tiara).

When I wrote that first blog post, I wanted this blog to be a blog about the craft of writing.  After all, it's what I do every day.  It's what I think about, obsess over, even dream about (when I'm not dreaming about tiara-wearing unicorns, of course).  But I felt self-conscious about it.  After all, in 2006, my first book wasn't even out yet.  Who was I to give writing advice to anyone?

Now, in 2013, I am doing what I've always wanted to do.  I have six books out and am under contract for five more.  And I feel that I've learned a lot over the past seven years.  So I've decided that it's okay for me to talk about what I've learned.  After all, I know there are a lot of people out there who share my dream.  (The writing dream, I mean, not the unicorn princess dream.)

So I'd like to reintroduce this blog and re-welcome you to it.  I plan to start a few different new blog series, including Stuff I've Learned, the Writer's Toolbox, and Reading About Writing.  If you dream about being a writer (or a unicorn princess) or if you're just curious, I hope you'll join me.

As one of my favorite poets says:

“If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic-bean-buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!”
-- Shel Silverstein, "Introduction" from Where the Sidewalk Ends

More to come.....