 Your Guide to a Successful Writing Career
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by Desmond Lindo
And let's say you have already decided upon the following biographical details about the young man: born on the island of Ibiza, he is the love-child of a beautiful Irish-born film star notorious for her tempestuous love affairs with a series of South American military dictators, one of which, a ruthless and depraved scoundrel now living in exile in Libya, is the young man's father. Suspected of having links to assorted terrorist groups, your heroine's lover is under surveillance by Interpol, and is wanted for questioning by the FBI in connection with a spot of industrial espionage he might have engaged in. Besides English, he is fluent in Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Armenian, and Farsi. And needless to say, he is as handsome as the devil. You have imagined him so clearly you are half in love with him yourself. But you have a problem: you can't decide upon a name for the rogue. No ordinary average-Joe moniker will do; he's just not a Tom or a Dick or a Harry, even though it will turn out that he is a decent and sensitive (if misunderstood) young man who wants nothing more than to marry a sensible girl like your heroine and settle down to quiet domesticity in Moose Jaw. You really wanted to call him Lance, but this heroic (and clearly phallic) cognomen has been rendered dull (and limp) by overuse in romance fiction. Your sister-in-law's suggestion, Sarsfield, a good Irish name, did not appeal to you, even when coupled with O'Donohue, your current choice for surname. Sarsfield O'Donohue? Nah, you don't like it. So what are you going to call him? And what about his father, the ex-dictator, who will play a villainous role in your story? Indeed, what is your heroine's name? Shirley? Jane? Vanessa? What names are you going to attach to all these delightful characters? Your choices are vital; they could determine whether your creations live on, like close friends or loved ones, in the memory of the reader, or slip quietly into some back chamber of her mind, lost among the host of nameless but vaguely familiar heroes and heroines from other stories she has read. If you do not have a knack for devising interesting and unusual names, there are a number of exercises you can undertake to develop this faculty. A fun way to start is to make a list of all the characters in fiction you have read or know about whose names you can recall instantly. It will take a bit of time and effort to fish all these names from the depths of your memory, but before long you will notice a number of interesting things about the entries on your list. The first is that a majority of these are made-up names, names not often found in the 'real' world. (How many Ebenezer Scrooges or Hester Prynnes or Humbert Humberts will you find in the New York City telephone directory, for example?) The next thing you will notice is the number of characters from works by Charles Dickens that turns up on your list. Dickens is the acknowledged master in this area, and you would do well to read him. The key to his skill lies in his thorough knowledge and understanding of the fundamentals of English, his intuitive grasp of the way language works, and his sheer love of language. All these can be developed to a high degree in the average writer. Here are some other useful exercises to get you on the right track to imaginative and colorful naming:
On the other hand you should try to avoid the following:
Now, about a handle for your heroine's lover. You know what? I'm beginning to like Sarsfield O'Donohue. If you don't use it, I will.
This article may not be reprinted without the author's written permission. After many years of writing jokes and speeches for his co-workers, plus helping friends develop comic characters and routines, Desmond Lindo took early retirement to become a freelance writer. He has published mostly satires and short humor articles in magazines in Canada, but has recently happened upon the market for inspirational pieces -- a great reprint market. The characters in his fiction often begin with only a name, and by some process Desmond does not fully understand, start asserting themselves, demanding that he tell their stories. Sometimes they bug him for years until he gives in and writes about them. |
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