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Friday, July 2, 2010

Naming Characters and Places

I think I find this to be one of the harder parts of getting started. Is the naming of the characters and places. I like to use Seventh Sanctum and Serendipity a lot for random generators on place names, they've even spit a few potential character names.

One of my problems is that my character seem to want to have there names of Celtic origin. Maybe it's just that so many of the names sound magical or mystical. And when I think of settings, my mind automatically envisions Medieval England or Ireland or Scotland, or at least some where rural if it were to be modern day but very untouched by the advances of our day. So naturally my places need to have some sort of magical, mystical, possibly Celtic sounding name(s) as well.

It's rare that I get a character that will pop into my head and tell me their name as Declan did. While I would I supposed consider myself a 'panster', I don't really plot my story per se. I have a general idea of what the story is, any ideas about plot, conflicts, characters, etc I will jot down in a note book I dedicate to the project. I can't really plot out, outline, diagram, chart, whatever...I find it holds me back and I need to be free. But writer's block aside...I find that the naming process holds me up quite a bit...I just can't write generic names till I find the right one. That would be like...well if I called my daughter "Baby" or "Hey You" until I found a suitable name for her. It's just something I need to know before I sit to write their stories.

I just wish they were all more like Declan. *SIGH*

1 comments:

April Plummer said...

I've been pretty lucky. My characters' names usually pop out at me at some point. Last time, it didn't happen right away, and I was scared. I didn't know what to call my MC! But then the name hit me, and it was perfect. I like Celtic names though. :)