CHARACTER NAMING

A long time ago (relatively speaking, since I've only been writing for a relatively short time), author Jeremiah Healy gave a workshop for newbies. One of his points was naming characters. He said to be careful about too many characters with names that sounded (or looked) alike. He went so far as to suggest that you take the initials of your protagonist(s) and not use them for any other characters in the book.

In Hidden Fire, I did some name changing when I was trying to write a scene with Lalone, Laughlin and Langley sitting around a table. If I can't keep them straight, would I expect a reader to?

Or the throwaway name for a character's wife who never appeared on the page in person in Finding Sarah – Janie. It seemed fine, until she reappeared as a supporting player in Hidden Fire, and since I'd already established Sarah's employee as Jennifer in the first book, I had to deal with scenes where Jennifer and Janie were both on the same page.

Heck, my critique partner called me on cars – I had an Escalade and an Escape. The cars seemed 'right' for the characters, but the names were too similar, even though they didn't appear in the same chapters.

Now, once you start writing series, you end up with recurring characters, and it could get difficult to keep things straight. I, for one, dislike having to come up with character names. I use a simple Excel spreadsheet with the alphabet in two separate columns, one for first names and one for last. As I name a character, I add it to the column. It becomes easy to see that I'm heavy on "R" names, or "M" names, or whatever.

I'll do some minor color coding, so I can remember which are the initials I should try to avoid at all cost, and which are merely walk-ons who appear only once or twice.

This is the very basic system. Once I realized I was going to write connected books, I became a little more careful about noting important characteristics, but for simple 'what do I call this guy?', my first spreadsheet is down and dirty easy.

I tend to be a visual person, so I "see" the name rather than "hear" it. Thus, I'm easily confused when an author has characters named Mark, Mick, and Mack. I just finished a book where the author had two characters, Cruz and Cohn. Now, it helped that they were both "bad guys" (although one was a man, the other a woman), but they're still rather close together. And since they often went their separate ways on the page, I'd have to keep reminding myself who was who.

And there seemed to be a preponderance of "L" names in this book – most of them belonging to recurring characters, so it would have been impossible to change them. But there was Lucas, Lily, Letty, and Lindy.

Not nearly as bad as the author who named two characters "Charles."

Another hint I picked up from another workshop. Your characters should sound like their parent named them, not like the author did. There are plenty of sites you can Google with the most popular names of the decades to help you choose. I tend to 'borrow' names from family and acquaintances; I just don't use their first and last names together. And, having worked as the membership coordinator for a 2000 member organization, I've been known to open the database to find names, especially if I want one with origins in another country.

My current WIP is set in a small town, and it revolves around three major characters, including a police chief. It's hardly realistic to have a one-person police force, so I'm stuck trying to figure out names for all the officers he's going to need to help solve the crime. Then there are the other two POV characters, and their friends and family.

Lee Child spoke at a recent conference, and he said he also has trouble naming characters, and loves auctioning off names. He says it's one less he has to come up with. He also told us how he was in the grocery store with his wife, and an elderly woman approached and asked if he'd get something down from a top shelf. He complied, and she said maybe he could get a job as a "reacher." And so, Jack Reacher was born.

Even worse for me than character names, though, are book titles. I wonder if that has something to do with why I called one of my books, "What's in a Name?"

Terry and Nancy at the RT Booklovers Convention in Orlando, FL

THANK YOU, Terry, for sharing your expertise!