I'm Terrible With Names

I saw a post on Facebook yesterday from a writer friend looking for name suggestions for a character. She gave a few details about the character's personality, and her friends and fans filled her feed with suggestions. Sixty-eight and counting last I looked! Pretty impressive-- especially since I can't come up with sixty-eight possible names, period.

Which got me thinking about naming characters, in general. I use the ultra-scientific method of going with "what feels right." In my first book, my main character is named Zosia, which is the Polish equivalent of Sophie. It was important for her to have a Polish name (her mother was Polish), but that was my only requirement. A Polish friend of my grandmother's when I was little was named Zosia, and when I looked up the name and found out it means "wisdom" I was sold. Also, it conveniently shortened to "Zo". Again, super scientific.

My hero in that book was originally named Liam Flanagan. He was Irish and I LOVED his name. Until my editor said, "Liam seems to be a really popular name right now. I think you'd be better off changing it to something else, especially since Zosia's so unique." What??? I'd written and edited this book as Zosia and Liam's story and now I had to make it Zosia and Random Guy's story? I didn't, of course, but that's how it felt. And when Liam became Finn, the readers of my then-unpublished book were none the wiser, but it took me awhile to get on board.

Fast forward four more books and my method is pretty much the same. There are names I'll forever avoid because of various associations. (Lucy, although a lovely girl's name, is the name of my dog. She's blond, friendly, very outgoing...and a Labrador retriever.) Surnames are hard and I get a lot of inspiration on this front from Facebook. I'm very much against names that are hard to pronounce just for the sake of it, so taking a syllable or two of an existing name sometimes works. Or even borrowing a first name. 

Of course, there are authors who choose their character names carefully, looking at meaning, historical usage and popularity. I'm always super impressed when I read an interview with a writer and he/she is asked, "How did you name this character?" and their answer is well thought out. As in, they have an answer and can give reasons. (I also thank my lucky stars that I'm never asked that question.) 

Which leads me to my question for you: if you were asked, what would your answer be? Do you have a very unscientific method or are your character's names deliberate?

CHARACTER INTERVIEW: Chevonne Watson

A post by Mary Fan

Hey everyone! So apparently I was meant to post an interview today, and I completely forgot (it's
been a hectic couple of... weeks? months? years? Fine, I'm just forgetful). However, the blog schedule never specified what KIND of interview.

So here I am, interviewing a character of mine: Chevonne Watson! Chevonne is the protagonist of several shorts of mine: "The Adventure of the Silicon Beeches" (freebie on Wattpad, Barnes & Noble, and a few more online retailers... will be free for Kindle as soon as Amazon gets its act together), "The Note on the Blue Screen" (part of Crazy 8 Press's forthcoming Love, Murder, and Mayhem anthology), and "The Case of the Missing Sherlock" (part of the second Brave New Girls anthology, coming this summer!)

And without further ado, here's Chevonne!

Hi, Chevonne! Can you tell us a bit about yourself and the world you live in?

Sure, no problem. I live on Aryus, a planet in the Interstellar Confederation best known for hosting the headquarters of VH Labs, one of the galaxy's leading research and development firms. And also my employer. I'm a member of their Young Geniuses program, which means they plucked me out of school early with the promise of getting to work on real projects. I'm a biomedical engineer, and they gave me my own lab and let me work on whatever project I feel like. Basically, they put me in a sandbox hoping I'll discover or create something brilliant that the company can take credit for. That's fine with me, though it's a little weird having to go to work and pay for things and such like a real adult. But I like the freedom.

How did you meet your roommate, Sherlock?

I didn't so much meet Sherlock as stumble upon her. But let me back up. Several years before I joined VH Labs, they completed a years-long initiative called Project Sherlock, which was their attempt to create an artificial scientist. The technology to create humanoid AIs has been around for decades--and these AIs look so much like humans, you can't tell them from regular people by looking at them--but no one's quite figured out why some gain humanlike sentience while others remain mechanical. The engineers behind Project Sherlock were trying to create an mechanical being that would do science all day with the ingenuity of a human but without any pesky human traits. But they failed spectacularly... Sherlock did turn out to be a brilliant scientist, but she also ended up having a stubborn personality. She refused to obey orders and pretty much did whatever she want... sometimes with disastrous results.

So they shut her down and closed the book on the project. I accidentally stumbled into her in the Obsolete Equipment Storage Room shortly after I joined VH Labs. I felt bad for her, so I fixed her (it was really hard). And she's been my roommate ever since.

How much does your roommate have in common with the fictional detective she was named after?

Too much. Way, WAY too much. Though honestly, I think a lot of it's on purpose on Sherlock's part.

Project Sherlock was just meant to be a clever name that referenced the fact that the AI would be solving mysteries--albeit of the scientific sort. I have no idea why the people who ran the project decided to model their AI after a teenaged actress, but they did. Which is why I now live with an AI girl who looks my age but shares a name with a fictional man.

Anyway, after learning who she was named after, Sherlock decided to try her hand at being a private detective. I think it started out as a joke, but now, she's really into it. And she's really good. Unfortunately, she insists on boasting to me about this whenever she gets the chance.

Oh--and she likes to say "Elementary, my dear Watson" just to piss me off. It's not my fault I was born with the same last name as her namesake's fictional sidekick. And she keeps dragging me into her cases, though I refuse to be her sidekick. I've got my own life to deal with.

What are some cases you've been involved in?

One involved a boy with partial amnesia who came to us because his parents weren't acting like his parents anymore... Sherlock and I ended up going on a field trip to the private starship they lived on to get to the bottom of things. Oh, and once, Sherlock went missing, and I had to figure out where in space she went and why in space people started trying to kill me after she disappeared. That one was no fun at all.

Okay, maybe a little.

What do you do when you're not solving mysteries with Sherlock?

Like I said, I'm a biomedical engineer. The great thing about the Young Geniuses program is that I get to work on whatever I feel like. Lately, I've been specializing in bones... trying to figure out how to make them heal faster and such.

Anything else you'd like to tell us?

Just that I'm not as boring as Sherlock makes me seem... Unlike her, I'm actually sane. Well, most of the time.

Striving for Imperfection

I read a lot of books in 2016 (at least compared to my usual level of reading), and something started to become clear: Current fiction has a lot of ‘perfect’ characters. Most of the time the perfection is represented in appearance—piercing green or blue eyes, framed by a perfectly shaped face, topped with a mop of soft locks that are always perfectly tousled. The male protagonist has abs that could be used as a washboard, completed with that enviable ‘V’ just above the belt, and is over six feet tall. The female is dainty with kissable pouty lips, and she fits perfectly into the nook of her lead male’s arms. And she’s made even more ‘perfect’ through her obliviousness to the fact that every man wants her.

“But wait. These ‘perfects’ are humanized by their character flaws. Right?”

Umm, maybe. The thing is, many times their flaws are also pretty perfect—at least for the sake of the story. They are often assigned to the character for the sole reason of supporting the plot. There needs to be conflict, so our perfect male is too arrogant. There needs to be tension, so our perfect female is too trusting. It reminds me of that ridiculous question during job interviews. You know the one I’m talking about:

“What’s your biggest weakness?”

Of course you’re going to respond with a perfect flaw. The one that doesn’t actually make you look bad. “I’m very dedicated to my work and have difficulty shutting it off at the end of the day.” Or, “I can sometimes be a perfectionist.” I feel like that’s what we’re often getting these days with characters. It’s like we readers asked this same question and were given the sugar-coated perfect answer in return.

As a reader, I’m sort of becoming exhausted by all the perfection. Why? Well, mainly it’s predictable. One of the things I love about reading is getting lost in the story and having it take me somewhere unexpected. It’s as though the writing community has assumed the majority of readers can only care about one certain type of character so that’s what we get. My other fear is that it’s a result of writers who are so focused on churning out book after book as quick as possible they don’t take the time to let new characters develop. They just recycle the old ones—give them a new name and new hair color and no one will notice, right?

I’ve started to avoid certain books where I know there is a high probability of excessive perfection. And to be clear, I’m not just talking about romance novels where good-looking characters are practically a prerequisite. Perfection popped it’s pretty little head up across all the genres I read last year (and in both traditional and indie published). I did stumble on the occasional book where perfection was presented in some form but not dwelled upon. For example, the ‘perfect’ features weren’t mentioned every time the two primary characters saw or thought of each other. It saved the book for me a bit because it gave me the freedom to forget and picture the characters as average as I liked.

As a writer, it has me thinking. I’m not immune to wanting to write about dreamy characters. Marcus from both Kingston’s Project and Kingston’s Promise is my version of hot, hot, HOT. Although, I did try to avoid talking about it every moment his name appeared on the page (thanks to my beta readers for helping to keep me in check on this!). His primary flaw is his vulnerability to his father’s disinterest. My female protagonist from those same books, Sarah, is good looking but isn’t a knock-out. Her primary character flaw is that she holds on to guilt like it’s a life raft. I know these flaws aren’t unique, and I’ll admit they do benefit my plot to an extent. But I wasn’t thinking about the annoyance of perfection and the attractiveness of imperfection back then like I am now. And, yes, I do understand that many times it’s the flaws that actually drive the plot. I’m not saying flaw assignments should neglect the plot completely. I guess I’d just like to see more depth.

My recent frustrations have pushed me to want to do better in creating imperfect characters. I view it as a challenge in many ways. It’s sometimes easy to become invested in characters who are attractive or have predictable flaws, but I like the thrill of trying to make the reader root for the love interest who doesn’t look like he just stepped off the center pages of an underwear advertisement. I also like the challenge of representing a more diverse set of characters in my books. Humans are complex by nature. Many of our flaws are similar and predictable, but many more are unique and subtle. Some of the books I’ve enjoyed the most this past year had characters who were very average or very complex and unique.

Last week in my critique group we spent a little time talking about villains. Someone commented that the most realistic villains tend to have one redeeming quality. It was a serendipitous conversation given my recent thoughts on perfection. A perfectly evil villain can be just as annoying as a perfectly perfect hero. I don’t exactly have a villain in my current WIP, but Grandpa is pretty darn close. When I drafted out his character profile, I did give him an opposite viewpoint (I won’t call it redeeming because I’m not sure yet if he will earn redemption). My plan was to slowly reveal that side of his character later in the story but not give it away entirely. I still don’t plan to give it all away, but after last night’s discussion I realize it might be better to start introducing it sooner in the story. If I don’t, I may end up stripping him of his shot at redemption without intention because readers may not see him as realistic.

So that’s my writing challenge for this year—creating imperfect characters my readers will love better than any perfect character I could give them.

Who’s with me?

~Carrie

5 tips for getting to know your characters

Characters are essential to every good book, and the stories that really stay with you are the ones with

A post by Mary Fan

complex and well-developed casts. The more a reader cares about a character, the more eager they'll be to find out what happens to him/her. But creating characters that spring off the page and take on lives of their own isn't easy, especially when you have a lot of them (and you don't want to neglect the minor ones). Well, as the famous line goes, you can't really know someone until you crawl into their skin and walk around in it (paraphrasing here). That goes for fictional characters too.

Here are five tips to help you get to know your characters.

1. Ask them about their childhoods 

Nothing comes from nothing, and one good way to get to know your character is to figure out what made her the way she is. A person's childhood is instrumental in shaping one's personality, and whether it's a huge event (like the death of a parent) or a little nudge (such as a teacher's words of wisdom), all these factor act as hammers and chisels that carve a human being out of a previously shapeless block of life.

So for each of your characters, try scribbling a few words about their early lives as an exercise. Don't worry about getting too in-depth or detailed (unless you want to!). Just jot down a few notes, like "Devin Colt was one of those kids who was plenty smart but never did his homework, and even fancy private school teachers couldn't turn that around." You might learn something new about them!  

2. Picture what their homes look like

A person's home, whether it's a house, apartment, or pirate ship, is a reflection of who they are. An ambitious, high-achieving Ivy League graduate might have a neat, well-designed apartment even if they're still in the "penniless assistant" part of their careers, whereas a free-to-be-you-and-me artist might have clutter in every corner, despite having been born to hedge fund managers and having plenty of money for a housekeeper.

Jane says her favorite
make-up is eyeliner

Even if it's never a setting in your book, it's helpful to picture what your character's dwelling looks like (for instance, "Riley Winkelpleck spends his life on the computer and barely notices the rest of his apartment exists, so he's got sparse furnishings and candy wrappers all over the floor."). It'll give you further insight into who they are.

3. List a few of their favorite things

What kind of music does your character listen to? What's her favorite book/movie/holodrama/virtu-game? What's her favorite color? What kind of outfits does she favor? Does she like animals, and if so, what kind? These are all pieces of your character's unique personality, and it taking a moment to answer these questions from her perspective is a great way to walk around in her skin. You don't have to mention them all in your final novel (in fact, you probably shouldn't), but once you have the answers, little pieces here and there will trickle in and give your character added dimension. 

4. Imagine the in-between moments

Every book has time jumps. Most go unnoticed because they're little in-between moments that you wouldn't want to read about anyway (for instance, your character's trip to the grocery store... unless she runs into an axe murderer there or something, no one cares about that). And sometimes, as a writer, you'll need to skip over parts that are boring in order to keep up your pacing, even if they're significant enough to get mentioned later (for instance, no one wants to read the snooze-fest of details about how Agent Adesina made her way back to the secret base after the space battle - all that matters is that she made it).

But imagining what happens during those in-between moments, which can also be considered preemptively deleted scenes, can tell you something new about your character (Adesina was upset about losing a team member in the battle and was forced to re-think her methods). Though these are things that would bog down your pacing if you included them in your book, they're good for you as a writer to know about.

5. Psycho-analyze them

You don't need an official psychology degree to psycho-analyze your characters. The University of Wikipedia will do just fine for getting-to-know-your-character purposes. Pretend you're a pop shrink and ask your characters how they feel, then try to get to the root of why they feel this way. Or try figuring out their personality types based on things like the Myers-Brigg chart (here's the test).

Speaking of which, I may have gotten a little carried away with mine...

Which character from the Jane Colt trilogy are you? Click here for character descriptions :-)

A game world for my fictional characters? Yes, please!

A couple weeks ago my daughter asked me if she could get the game Sims FreePlay. While I usually unwind at the end of the night by spending some time on one of the Candy Crush Saga games, I’m not what you’d call a gamer. I had never played any of the Sims games, but from the advertisements I’ve seen it seemed a bit too mature for my almost nine-year-old. She thought differently so she had me look it up in the App Store (on her Kindle --UPDATE: see reply in second comment below for more information), and the information told me it was rated “for all ages”. Still—I wasn’t convinced and I told her I had to think about it.

Later that same week my daughter and husband left for their annual Daddy/Daughter trip to King’s Island. I figured that was the perfect opportunity for me to download the game and check it out without my daughter knowing that I had it on my phone. Because once she knew it was on my phone, then I’d get nothing but a constant, “Can I play? Can I play?”

It started off all innocent enough. While I figured she might get frustrated with the time it took to complete tasks, I thought she would enjoy making her own people, building houses, planting food, etc. I was cruising along in my Sims world, completing my tasks, and all seemed OK for my daughter.

Until it was time to WooHoo.

After two Sims are romantic enough times (hugging, chatting, kissing), their relationship elevates to the next level. Once that happens, you're given a task to have the two Sims WooHoo. Yep, WooHooing is exactly what you’re thinking it is. The two Sims did this amazing hover spin which made their clothes disappear (except their underwear), and then they went in for an embrace and a large pixilated circle covered them up. (Note: my Sims now WooHoo in the bed, under the blanket, with little dancing hearts all around them... unless other Sims are already in the bed then they just WooHoo wherever they are. I know this because I was curious enough to find out!)

Two of my Sims WooHooing in the kitchen...

Ummm... I’m not ready to answer the questions my almost nine-year-old would ask about WooHooing, so it’s a big fat NO on her playing the game. My time is coming (soon I expect), but I don’t exactly want to have the conversation based on Sims gameplay action. (Don't worry though, I think I can make up for it by finally giving her Minecraft.)

However, I’m having a blast in my new Sims world because it’s become my literary world!

When I had to create my first Sim, a gender and name was suggested. Ironically, it was a female with a last name of Mitchell. Well, the protagonist in Kingston’s Project is Sarah Mitchell. And that’s how it started. My Sims world now has Sarah, Elijah Kingston, Marcus Kingston, Miles Morgan, Tina Morgan, and Brandon (Van) Vanderlink from Kingston’s Promise.

It has been a blast trying to make the personalities of my fictional characters come alive and have them interact with each other. For example, one of my recent tasks was to send one of my Sims to a neighboring Sims town and have them WooHoo with a Sim there. Well, Van being the player that he is was perfect for the task! Now he’s busy trying to set someone’s oven on fire. Yep, sounds like Van alright! Although Sarah has a secret past with a grill she won’t discuss, so maybe I should have sent her instead...

I love to get notifications that tell me things like, “Elijah Kingston has finished cooking!” It’s a great way to keep these characters that I love close to me at all times.

Elijah Kingston distracting a mummy in the park. Quite the change of pace from his CEO life in Kingston's Project!

I recently unlocked a mysterious island. I might have to move in some characters from a different book to live there... I think Angel would love an ocean view home!

Well, it looks like Sarah and Tina are done with their fashion designs (I’m trying to earn some long hair this week), so I’m off to the next task!

Which literary characters would you move into your Sims town? Would you try to keep to their original story plot (who they marry, what they do, how they look, etc.) or put your own spin on it? Would you be in it, maybe WooHooing with your favorite book boy/girlfriend? (wink, wink)

~Carrie