Most of my fiction begins with an image of a man or woman engaged in some act, caught in a freeze-frame of intent and purpose. I can see him or her, usually her, moving forward, the goal just out of view but I know it's there. This person's identity is only partly unknown. I don't have a name or full view of family and friends but I can see how she or he behaves.
I spend time thinking about the names for my characters. Only once, after writing most of my first novel, in college, I had the bizarre idea that the main character's name was wrong for him, and decided to change it. The student who was typing my handwritten drafts was surprisingly upset. She said the story just didn't feel the same. And she was right. I took the lesson to heart.
The name for any character may come as a sudden inspiration or after several minutes—or days—thinking about it. The name for my first series character, Chief of Police Joe Silva of the Mellingham series, reflects the Portuguese heritage of the area, as well as his approachability. Silva is a common Portuguese name in the towns and cities around Boston, and Joe, from Jose, underscores his basic amiability and implies all that he brings, from the Hebrew meaning "God will add." It also sounded very familiar, as typical of the Portuguese I encountered growing up.
In the second series, featuring Indian-American photographer Anita Ray, I wanted a name that could be both Indian and American, as well as having the lightness and cleanness of sound that most Indian names have. (This is just my bias.) I wanted the last name to also sound both Indian and American Irish, and gave considerable thought to both. When a friend casually remarked that another writer had once said her name was perfect for a character, I knew I was on the right track, and Anita Ray was born. Auntie Meena, who in India would be addressed as Meena Auntie, came easily after hearing a child call out.
The main character in Below the Tree Line, the beginning of a new series, had to express her Irish heritage but also her particular heritage of the female line, as a healer. The women in her family tree carried names that are mostly forgotten today—Justice, Charity, Faith—but I wanted one that expressed her character. Felicity O'Brien inherited the family farm, and practices her healing gift among friends.
In a short story that first appeared in AHMM ("How Do You Know What You Want"), a social worker in child welfare delivers a teenager to a new foster family. It's a walk-on part but I knew who she was and her name just popped into my head. I didn't expect to deal with her again, but she has shown up in two more stories and is now the protagonist in a novel I'm working on. Ginny Means is forty, unmarried, and devoted to her work, but she has a secret that she carries uneasily, but someone else wants it exposed. In an online discussion I mentioned her and another participant said, "That's a good name for a social worker."
When I struggle with naming a character, I think of Dickens, who was brilliant at this along with just about everything else in composing stories. Capturing the right name, one that doesn't feel "wrong" or "ill-suited" two months or two years later, takes time and effort. It doesn't have to be unusual or startling, like Sarah Strohmeyer's Bubbles Yablonsky or Atticus Finch in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. But it should be like the name Nurse Ratched in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, able to tell you about the character on some level. The right name lifts the story and carries the personality.
That's where my thoughts are now as I ponder naming the minor characters in my current WIP, beginning with the various villains (and there are several) and the townspeople who encounter them.
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