When I heard Flora was the topic for April, I didn’t think of my backyard. Instead, I thought of era-appropriate names for the women characters who populate the setting I write about—the late 1800s U.S. Flora sounds so “old-fashioned.” Surely there was a blooming of Floras, Florences, Roses, Violets, Daisys, and all those floral-type names during this era? Faced with that question, I did what I usually do when musing on the unknown: I went a-researching and geeked out a bit… My first stop was the Social Security Administration, which has a great site for researching popular baby names for any decade going back to 1880. I pulled up the ranking of names for babies born in the 1880s in the U.S. here . And then, I made a little chart of all the flower names I could identify, plus the ranking for "Inez," the name of my Silver Rush series protagonist:  Most popular name for baby girls? Mary. Out of 1,399,571 female births, 91,668 little ones were Marys. (Ida came in at ...

Please welcome fantasy author S.K. Randolph to the Blood-Red Pencil today. While in college, I was introduced to fantasy fiction for the first time. I read and reread Tolkien’s Trilogy and The Hobbit , immersed myself in Narnia, and devoured everything I could find by Ray Bradbury, Ursula Le Guin, Anne McCaffrey, Patricia McKillip, Sharon Shinn, and the list goes on. This resulted in an ever-deepening desire to create my own world, to write fantasy. In 2003, while on a sabbatical from Interlochen Center for the Arts, I began my first novel. Immediately, I encountered a stumbling block—naming my world/worlds and the characters that inhabited them. Always a lover of word games, I started playing with anagrams as means of achieving this. The puzzles, the acts of discovery, and the outcomes fascinated me. First, I selected the word of origin based upon a characteristic of the place, object, or character to be named. For example, I needed to name a tower at the center of a forest fil...

What’s in a Name? Naming Your Characters Have you ever read a book where the name of the main character was jarring to you, seemed inappropriate, or just wrong? Or have you mixed up two characters because their names were similar? Or said “Who’s that?” because suddenly the author started using a character’s nickname or first name, when previously all you knew was their last name? What you choose to name your characters can be the difference between annoying/confusing your readers and having the story flow naturally, with all the little details falling into place to make a seamless, believable story world. A few years ago, I did a critique of a novel in which the cruel, abusive father was named “Danny” and his eight-year-old abused son was named “John.” I definitely thought “Danny” sounded much more like a nice kid than a nasty adult, and why not give the young boy a more kid-like name, like “Johnny”? Switching the two would have worked fine, too. Here are some tips for naming your char...

Sometimes writers spend more time stressing over what to call a character than they did naming their own child. Authors want their character to have a name that will draw the reader as well as identify the character. It has to sound right. Maybe it implies social status, ethnicity, age, some aspect of the character's personality, or maybe his or her occupation. We all would like to come up with character names that stick in our heads or just seem perfect for the "person": Hawkeye Pierce, Magnum, Rockford, Mike Hammer, Daisy Mae, Scarlett, Hannibal Lecter, Mrs. Maxim de Winter, Atticus Finch, and on and on. Authors have multiple copies of Baby Naming books. Some have phone books from different cities. Others keep lists of names they read or overhear. Others buy books designed to help writers or to explain the origins of names. Some authors choose the protagonist and antagonist names before they ever begin writing, and that name becomes so ingrained with the character...

If you use word processing software, such as MS Word or Writer for Open Office, you may want to make use of some features that are excellent resources for writers. No matter which software you use, you should be able to use your Help file to find the following features, or something similar. Automatically typing your characters' names One of my favourite features is AutoText. AutoText matches the first three or four letters of common words, phrases, or paragraphs contained in its databank, and suggests them as you type. Pressing Enter when the word you require flashes above your insertion point will fill in the rest of that word for you. You can add to or edit the words and phrases in the AutoText databank. In Word 2003, the AutoText feature is found under the Insert menu on your Menu Bar. To turn AutoText on or off, check or uncheck the box next to "Show AutoComplete suggestions". To add words or phrases to AutoText, type them into the available box. You can a...

Not long ago, I had a surprise visit from my brother-in-law who lives in another state. He was in town to spend a few days with his brother. Since I hadn’t seen him in about a year, we did a lot of talking over coffee. I told him about my family and he told me about his. There was more to talk about with his family since he’s not only a father, he’s a grandfather and a great-grandfather! Gracious, I’m not even a grandmother yet. Problem is – and I hate to admit this – I got lost in all the kids and kids of kids. I couldn’t tell which kids belonged to which kids, let alone where everyone lives nowadays. Seemed to me, his grandkids should be adolescents, not having practically grown kids of their own. What I needed was a written family tree to look at and take notes on as he talked. I feel that way about some books I read. There are so many characters I get totally lost. I scan back through the book, trying to remember exactly who they are and how they’re “related” to the protagonist. ...

What do you advise authors when they want to know whether to use a character’s name or a pronoun in dialogue and narration? Here are a few tips I’ve amassed. 1. In one-on-one conversations, people seldom use each other’s name. So don’t litter your dialogue with characters’ names. Here’s an example. “I say, Mary. Have you noticed how cold it is outside tonight? Mary, I think I’ll light a fire.” This passage contains two Marys too many. 2. When a character is alone and we’re in her point of view, it’s safe to assume that the personal pronoun refers to her, except when she mentions someone else in her narrative. Therefore, it’s not necessary to use the viewpoint character’s name constantly. This is also a good way to make sure you’re staying in a particular character’s POV. 3. A name is more prominent than a pronoun, so reserve it for special occasions. For example, when a character begins a new activity in a scene, alert the reader to that fact by using her name rather than a...

Most of these are actually old rules, but these offenses have popped up repeatedly in documents I’ve edited, so they’re worth dusting off and revisiting. Avoid using buzzwords, especially in a way in which they were not originally intended. Examples include: impact, utilize, incentivise . Impact used to be a noun that referred to the effect of a collision; utilize means “to find a profitable or practical use for,” and incentivise just makes me shudder. Affect, use, and motivate are more reader friendly and easier to spell. Do not fill your novel (or report) with clichés. Hanging by a thread, cold as ice, dead as a doornail (whatever the hell that means) are old hat and old school. You can be more creative. Why use ing verbs when present tense verbs work harder? Sloggy: She was jogging down the sidewalk when a car suddenly started veering off the road… Crisp: She jogged down the sidewalk. Suddenly, a car veered off the road Keep verbs phases together whenever possible. Acceptable: S...

Not long ago, I picked out a book to take on a trip. I always take at least one book, sometimes more, depending on the length of the trip. The one that I planned to take, I had, in fact, already started. Then came the problem. When it came time to leave, I couldn't find it anywhere. So, I picked one up at the airport. Well-known author. Mystery/suspense. In a recent interview , I was asked if I can separate the editor in me from the reader. I said, yes. I probably should have said, most of the time. With this book, I couldn’t. I had a little trouble getting into it, primarily because there were so many characters introduced in the first few chapters that I couldn't keep them straight. As the book went along, I realized that the majority of them were important to the book. They needed to be remembered. They also needed to be kept straight. Who was who. Who did what. Who was related to whom. One character appeared briefly -- only a few sentences to introduce him -- then he ge...

Many writers are uncomfortable about starting a book without having found the right name for at least their main character. It’s easier to work with a "working title" for the book than a "working name" for a character. Once the author gets to know their characters, their names can become almost as entrenched as the writer’s own, and having to change them can be very off putting. It's worth keeping in mind, though, that any situation could force a change – from making new friends with the same name as your character, to new celebrities springing up to claim your protagonist's name and slap a stereotype on it forever. A few years ago, Paris was a boy's name, but using it for a male character now could confuse your readers completely. Bear in mind, also, that some popular names date very quickly and the book writing and publishing business often takes a number of years. You could try to predict when your book will be on the shelves, add to that the age ...