Never know what a Name will do

Over the years, I realized that you never know exactly what effect a character’s name will have on others lives. Let me offer a few examples.

I know a married couple who liked the writings of C. S. Friedman. When they got married, they changed their last name to that from one of Friedman’s books. Even after knowing them for years, I still have to remind myself not to look for his old last name but the character name.

Growing up, my real first name was rare. In three counties, I knew of two people with the name, including myself. Of those two people, we each had a unique spelling. While I enjoyed being unique, I sought out others of my name, just so I knew that my name didn’t come from the ether. During my junior year of high school, I heard of this guy starting for the Green Bay Packers American Football team. Maybe you’ve heard of him by now, Brett Favre. The National Hockey League produced two more Brett’s, Lindros and Hull. It created a blink, but a comedian and actress became popular around this time too. Brett Butler. With those four, suddenly I found an explosion of people with my name, though we never came near the numbers of John, Michael, or Matthew.

To make things even more interesting, I find two friends who added an interesting twist to this. One friend married a Brett. Another named her child Brett. (Her sister was none too happy, from what I’m told.)

How does this relate to my writing, you may ask? Here’s how:

We seek unique names for our characters. We’d like for the names to jump off the page and allow the reader to identify with the character, maybe just based on the name. However, we run into problems. Sometimes the name doesn’t align with the character. It feels wrong in the context that we’ve created. At times, our names are too close and even we as writers have difficulty distinguishing between two characters.
Each character should have a unique name, for the ease of identification. However, realize what the area might consider unique, as well. One region might have many people referred to as Mike or Bruce, but another may have only two.

If you’re using the real world as the basis of your writing, choosing unique names is easier than other worlds. We have lists of common names from the census bureau and other companies. Our local surroundings show us our region’s common names. As an example, my job that pays the bills has four men named William in two different departments, plus an upper-level manager who’s also a William.

When you branch to a fantasy world of your creation, how unique a name is really depends on your imagination. Does your world base its names on regular naming conventions like the real world? Does naming all base itself on the Egyptian Pantheon of Gods and Goddesses? Part of your world building might require considering these concepts as you create the common and not so common for the world around the character.

Something to throw out there in thought - does the character move with the local society or against it? Sometimes, a name that flows with the rest of society might be exactly what the character doesn’t need. For instance, a political standout may not want to John Smith as a name. He’d want to stand out as an Aldus or Darien.

Also of consideration, you need to take into account in which era your story is concentrated. If you’ve chosen a period of history where revivals are frequent, children might be more prone to names of the religion. Times like the late sixties and early seventies drew names like Flower, Germaine, and Joy, names that reflected the time. A little research regarding the era will reveal the proper direction to consider. A modern name like Chrysanthemum won’t work during an era known for its Helen’s and Gertrude’s.

While it might be fun, messing with a reader’s mind might not work well. Perhaps, you always have a character with the same name in each town that the protagonist visits. Life becomes easier for you! It’s a brilliant idea. Unless this is a plotted point as the character is followed, it’s not going to go over well with reader or editor.

As you work, consider the name of your character and what effect it might have on the world around it.

The Readers Know What’s Out There

Every adult knows that Neverland doesn’t exist. No fairy dust exists that allows one to fly. In fact, unless we chose to believe otherwise, we can even claim that fairies don’t exist. With all that said, we adults have this thing called the Suspension of Disbelief that allows us to read things about fairies, trolls, vampires, and all the other magical creatures that "exist." If we didn’t, most genre writing wouldn’t be published.

Okay, all this is great, but what does it have to do with your writing? Plenty.

As writers, we must establish many things in our stories to allow the reader to suspend their belief. This means we can’t just throw a scene into a story where a character does something, without adding reasoning to the story earlier that explains the character’s actions during that scene. As an example, if the writer establishes George Hero as a sword-swinging he-man with no fears, having him go out of his way to avoid fording a river makes no sense. Now, if somewhere in the early part of the story, the writer shows George Hero remembering nearly drowning while bathing as a child, his desire to avoid gathered water makes more sense.

In order for our stories to ring true to our readers, we need to research our facts to guarantee that what we write is plausible. Otherwise, we lose our reader.

Let me come at this from a different angle. Most people look at writers and think we have the easiest job. Hollywood’s portrayal of our work ethic doesn’t help this. However, most people place one hat on their head for their job. As a writer, we must wear a hat that contains all the other hats. We need to know the basics of the chemist, the biologist, the engineer, the computer technician, the police detective, the plumber, the electrician, and the list goes on for several pages. Since each story is different, different hats exist beneath that of our writer’s hat.

Two big fields that I feel we, as writers, need to really pay attention to are psychology and sociology. We need to know that the reaction to rape is not the same as Stockholm Syndrome for a kidnap victim. Our research should bring into account the reactions found in a group as well as the individual. Scream ‘Free Food’ on a college campus, what happens? Scream ‘Bomb’ in an airport, what happens (besides security tackling you and dragging you away for a complete cavity search)?

If we can’t write things so that it resonates correctly with how people react, our readers will object, won’t be able to suspend their disbelief. It won’t matter how good the story idea.

I'm sure you've come across stories that didn't resonate with you. Tell me what you've managed to find.