Since I’m doing a sub-series on Character and Anna Furtado had written an article about naming your character that I think is outstanding, I received Anna’s permission to post it here. Thank you, Anna!

But first, a passing thought from G.C. Lichtenberg (1742-1799) “Notebook E,” aph. 65, Aphorisms:

“Do we write books so that they shall merely be read? Don’t we also write them for employment in the household? For one that is read from start to finish, thousands are leafed through, other thousands lie motionless, others are jammed against mouseholes, thrown at rats, others are stood on, sat on, drummed on, have gingerbread baked on them or are used to light pipes.”

Try doing that with an ebook!

What do you do when you’re stumped for creative character names—when you’re looking for something different, something other than Kathy, Samantha, or any of list of gender-neutral names that have already been used? Look around you. Names can be found everywhere, even in places you might not think to look.

While driving down that busy interstate, take a look at the trucks you pass. They tout things like Barrington Foods, Castleberry Delivery Services, MacTarnahan’s Scottish Ale. Great last names, aren’t they? Sometimes, the truck cabs advertise the point of origin of the driver. I’ve seen places like Felicity, Eljabel, and Ladonia and thought what great first names they would make for characters. When you see such place names, try them out. They might just fit a character for your novel or short story. Along those same lines, I recently came across an advertisement in a local PBS listings guide for a program that would be featuring a young pianist. Her first name is Vienna. “What an interesting character name,” I thought.

Ideas are everywhere, even on billboards and company phone lists. The phone book is a big distraction for me. I take little neighborhood detours when my fingers do the walking through the yellow pages. I find myself playing with the names of people, businesses, towns I see advertised — so many potentially wonderful character names. It’s no wonder that it takes me a long time to look up a phone number!

One day not too long ago, spam e-mail proved to be another source of interesting names. The message in my inbox peddled a book-promotion site. The company offers to work as a publicist for subscribers. Curiosity got the best of me. I had to find out what authors were listed, whether gay or straight. None were recognizable, of course, but I got some great ideas for character names. Someone by the name of Uslander was listed. It sounded to me like a last name that someone in a sci-fi novel might have. Then I came across the name Naomi Rose. Instantly, I pictured a gum-snapping, hip-tilting, “kiss my grits” kind of woman. She’d be a great character in any type of novel — detective or romance particularly come to mind.

Street and highway signs are another great source. I’ve even seen some great ideas on vanity license plates, believe it or not! Business signs, those flyers stuck to your front windshield, anything with words on them all have potential to yield a prize character name.

Or how about screen credits that run after every movie and every TV program? Pay attention not just to the actors, but also to the auxiliary people who contributed to the finished product. The diversity of names is enriched further by movies that are filmed in foreign countries.

In addition, I have a few favorite websites that I like to use when searching for character names. They’ve been especially helpful in finding names that are not contemporary or those with particular ethnic origins. Sometimes the meaning of the name evokes a whole character study — or these sites help in finding a name that fits an already conceived character. One of my favorites is:

http://www.20000-names.com

This site lists first names by topics, such as African, Anglo-Saxon, Aurthurian legend, through Yiddish. Once you’ve selected a topical heading, you may select “girls’ names” or “boys’ names” or you can go directly to a particular name using the site search engine. Click on the “surnames” link, and you’ll be taken to:

http://www.surnameweb.org/

Clicking on a letter of the alphabet takes you to a list of last names with links to genealogy. Most of those links go to subscription sites, but the list page itself can be very useful in finding a last name for your character.

Another favorite names website is:

http://www.popularbabynames.com

From this site’s front page, you can select the “Baby Names” tab and go right to lists of both male and female names in alphabetical order. They also include the origin of the name and a meaning. You can opt for just female or just male names by using the search feature halfway down the front page and selecting “girl” or “boy.”

One useful feature of this site is that you can create your own “shortlist” of names — names that you select that are of interest to you — and you can refer to the list you create again and again.

As an aside, here is another useful website:

http://www.usacitiesonline.com/

This is a list of U.S. cities from every state. If you click on a city of interest, you get a synopsis of the city stats and a link to the city history. This has great potential for novel locations and for character names, too.

Hopefully, these ideas will get you started when you’re stumped for a character name — or they may help you create a list of potential character names that you can refer to whenever you need one.
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Anna Furtado is the author of The Briarcrest Chronicles: The Heart’s Desire, The Heart’s Strength, and The Heart’s Longing, novels set in the Renaissance about women who just can’t seem to keep from getting in trouble with Church and local authorities. She currently reviews lesbian fiction for Lambda Literary Review. Anna’s website is www.annafurtado.com

I chose to write about “ing disease” because it’s a weakness that seems to be increasing like the plague. We see it so often that I suspect most readers accept it without question, and I’m beginning to believe that many writers aren’t aware they’re doing it.

Here’s an example:

She grabbed the envelope, ripping it open and finding a message made of six words cut from a magazine. She read it quickly, staring at the contents, disbelieving what was right before her eyes, and shaking in horror.

Ripping, finding, staring, disbelieving, and shaking in the example are participles that introduce their respective phrases. Use of such participial phrases isn’t wrong, but their overuse produces weak writing that all writers should work to avoid.

Most of them can be fixed without a lot of effort. The example above could be rewritten in this way:

She grabbed the envelope, ripped it open, and found a message made of six words cut from a magazine. She read it quickly. Staring at the contents, she could hardly believe what was right before her eyes. The note made her shake in horror.

When I was new to fiction editing, I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to participial phrases. But as time went on, I saw more and more of them, not only in the books I edited, but also in books I was reading. It has become so pervasive that now I think of it as roly-poly writing — it seems to tumble along rather than stand on strong legs. Maybe I’m one of the few editors who tries to coach her writers to choose strength rather than ease. I’d like to see more writers do it for themselves.

I feel that all authors should strive to become stronger writers. Look through your writing. Check all the “ing” words that introduce participial phrases. If you’re using more than two or three per page, revise some of them. Again, they aren’t grammatically wrong, but instead of tumbling along, your writing will have greater impact on your readers. Don’t we all want that result?

Hi Folks,

I’ve had a hectic week. I’m currently having trouble keeping up with this blog, so this post is a bit later than planned. In order to present regular posts, I welcome guest submissions.

As noted in the sidebar, I’m open to posting guest articles here, as long as they stick to the subject of writing. But they don’t have to be objective; feel free to talk about your own personal experiences with writing – published or not – good or not – something readers might be interested in reading. Even rants are acceptable if they’re courteously written and not against specific books or writers. If you decide to send something, please remember to put JAW in the subject line so I don’t overlook it. Signature boxes of five lines or less will be posted with your article. I will acknowledge all emails.

Creating Your Character – 1

Many writers believe that before they start a story, they need to know their main character as well as they know themselves. Some gurus even recommend this.

As a pantser, I admit I’ve rarely gathered much information ahead of time. I tend to propose and reject a number of characters in my mind over a period of time until I get a feel for a character’s attitude and personality, her age and looks, and what motivates her actions. Once my character “clicks” in my mind, I’m anxious to start her story. As I write, I create other facets of her backstory as the situation warrants. The character develops as the story progresses.

But I can understand that other writers might choose to fill out their characters ahead of time. One way to accomplish this is to use a character chart. In researching the topic of “character,” I’ve checked out several online charts. One of the most thorough I found is “The Free Character Chart from Charlotte Dillon,” found at http://www.charlottedillon.com/CharacterChart.html.

Dillon covers about every facet of a character’s past that would bear on their beliefs, motivations, actions-reactions, etc., in your story. Of course, you don’t have to fill in every single slot if you don’t want to; just pick the ones you think will come into play in your story. You can always fill in an omitted one later, if you feel it’s necessary. You can, of course, use this chart for other characters in the story, too.

In my opinion, the most important part of all this is to wind up with a main character whom you’re anxious to write about and/or who will be strong enough to carry the story. How you get there is up to you.

In the last post, I spoke about several ways to find a plot. One of those was to visit the Internet Movie Database at http://www.imdb.com/chart/top, choose a movie, and try to use that plot for your own by changing some parts of it. This week, I’ll focus on doing that.

I went to IMDb and chose Roman Holiday.

The website says this about Roman Holiday, which seems pretty much like theme to me:

A bored and sheltered princess escapes her guardians and falls in love with an American newsman in Rome.

Farther down the Roman Holiday page is the Storyline, which gives some more information:

Princess Anne embarks on a highly publicized tour of European capitals. When she and her royal entourage arrive in Rome, she begins to rebel against her restricted, regimented schedule. One night Anne sneaks out of her room, hops into the back of a delivery truck and escapes her luxurious confinement. However, a sedative she was forced to take earlier starts to take effect, and the princess is soon fast asleep on a public bench. She is found by Joe Bradley, an American newspaper reporter stationed in Rome. He takes her back to his apartment. The next morning Joe dashes off to cover the Princess Anne press conference, unaware that she is sleeping on his couch! Once he realizes his good fortune, Joe promises his editor an exclusive interview with the princess.

I think that’s much more than is needed to spark some creativity, but if you want more, click on the Synopsis link below the Storyline info. The synopsis gives the whole story.

 Make It Totally Original

Spurred by those ideas, let’s see what we can come up with that would be totally original. Remember to change the character names.

Suppose Jan’s a high-powered executive from Atlanta, Georgia, on a train with several fellow executives headed to New York for a top-level meeting. The meeting has been planned by the owner of the company Jan works for. When the owner called personally to invite Jan to the meeting, he admitted the company was in financial trouble and stressed that her input was vitally important and could be pivotal in what direction he would decide to take the company. What (or who?) Jan knows that makes her so important can be settled on later. (This could be worked into a subplot. But it doesn’t have to be. You can make those decisions as the plot unfolds in your mind. Or while fashioning your outline.)

Ask Yourself, What Next?

Knowing she has some extra time before the meeting is convened, and somewhat confounded by the multitude of thoughts streaming through her head, Jan makes the uncharacteristic decision to sneak away from all her responsibilities for a while to clear her mind. Unannounced, she leaves the train early in the morning as it stops in Philadelphia. Walking out of the train station, she literally bumps into Pat, a reporter on vacation. They hit it off, and when Pat learns it’s Jan’s first trip to Philadelphia, Pat suggests she visit some of the city’s historical sites that are so important in our country’s birth. They spend the day doing just that as Pat introduces her to the seat of freedom and liberty. (Something Jan sees on this tour could foreshadow what she decides to present to her boss to help the company. For instance, maybe the answer is as simple as the boss is too demanding and employees need more freedom in their workplace to come up with innovative strategies.)

And What Next?  

Meanwhile, when the members of Jan’s entourage, still on the train, discover she’s missing, they raise an outcry about it. Because of the critical knowledge Jan possesses, the company leaders immediately suspect she has been kidnapped. They try to keep the “kidnapping” a secret, but against their wishes, the authorities are notified and Jan’s disappearance is picked up by area TV stations. Her picture is shown, her importance to her company is reported, and the company offers a reward for information leading to her “return.”

Don’t Forget to Ask, What if?

What if Pat sees the TV announcement and Jan doesn’t? Will Pat turn her in for the reward? Will Pat tell her about it? Or will Pat realize Jan’s need for privacy and take her to a hotel where they can “hide out” until Pat figures out what’s going on? Or…

What if Jan sees the TV announcement and realizes she has to return? Will she kiss off Pat with a “Thanks, it’s been a great day, goodbye”? That could happen, but it kind of squelches the plot—unless you want to have Pat (a reporter, remember) follow her to get the full story of why Jan got off the train in Philly and that gives them time for a romance to develop. Or…

What if some gangsters saw Jan with Pat and thought they could make a profit way beyond the reward, if they actually did kidnap her? What would happen to Pat?

Voila! An Original Plot

Okay, I think that’s enough to give us a basis for a plot after some reworking. The IMDb site has a variety of plots available – romance, adventure, drama, thriller, mystery, horror, scifi, western – almost anything you can think of. It took me about half an hour to find a movie that “spoke” to me, and I spent slightly more than an hour mulling over and writing down the ideas that the movie sparked. I kept some and discarded others.

I’m positive more ideas would have occurred to me if I spent more time and more brainpower on it. But after less than two hours, I could already see great possibilities for the plot suggestions that the movie generated. I also became aware that those suggestions could have gone off on different tangents. One borrowed plot could give rise to many others.

Note that I didn’t closely follow the story of Roman Holiday. I could have, but that wasn’t my intention. I wanted a jumping-off point to come up with an original plot. Maybe I’ll write that story. Or maybe you want to. Just skew my ideas around a bit and come up with your own. Or go to IMDb just as I did and follow your instincts.

I admit that coming up with a viable plot in such a short time surprised me. And it was fun! Give it a try. Next week I’ll post some thoughts on finding a character.

Did you try this method and have it work for you? Care to share it?
Or maybe you can share a different way of deciding on your plots
that might work for the rest of us.

I’ve edited a lot of fiction for the past ten years, and I’ve noted many recurring mistakes. I’ll cover a number of these in future blog posts. But today I’d like to concentrate on a single area. I see this over and over in book submissions from experienced as well as amateur writers: Too many authors suffer from wordiness; that is, they salt their text with unnecessary words. After a single page of reading, an editor can tell the author overdoes her words and the book often gets rejected.

Wordiness can show up in different ways.

1. Adding unnecessary words and phrases throughout the story.
2. Spelling out every single detail that a character goes through in performance of her actions.
3. Descriptions of persons, places, and scenes that don’t matter to the story.

Today, let’s address the first way.

Adding Unnecessary Words and Phrases

Let’s make it clear right now, upfront, that I’m not talking about first drafts. Use as many words as you want when writing the early forms of your work. Harness those thoughts before they get away!

But when you’ve finished your first draft, make at least one pass through it to weed out extraneous words. Ferret out the easy ones such as: both, oh, just, now, only, so, that, very, well, most “-ly” words (adverbs)—and any words you might have unconsciously settled on as your favorites. Delete the words and make a list of them for reference when writing new manuscripts.

Weak Combinations of Words Can Be Deleted by Revision

“It is, it was, there is,” and “there was” introduce weak sentence structure. Sometimes such constructions fit the mood you intend, but when you have no strong reason to keep them, reword them where you can. Often you can turn the sentence around. Other times, you need to stretch your brain.

Example:

1. There was no excuse for her actions.

Possible revisions:

a. Her actions had no excuse.
b. She had no excuse for her actions.
c. Nothing could excuse her actions.
d. Her actions were inexcusable.

Example:

1. It was the middle of summer.

Possible revisions:
a. The middle of summer was upon us.
b. The middle of summer had arrived.
c. Summer had reached its midpoint.
d. Half of summer had sped by.

The Editor’s Favorite Delete Victim

Adverbs (also called “-ly” words) present a notable excision opportunity. Most adverbs can be killed off by strengthening the verb you’re trying to pump up.

Example:

1. Sally walked quickly to the door.

Possible revisions:

a. Sally strode to the door.
b. Sally hurried to the door.
c. Sally rushed to the door.

Example:

1. Jack easily lifted the box to his shoulder.

Possible revision:

a. Jack swung the box to his shoulder.
b. Jack hoisted the box to his shoulder.
c. Jack shouldered the box.
d. Or, of course: Jack lifted the box to his shoulder. But the other verbs are less ordinary and therefore stronger.

This search for stronger verbs is an ideal situation for the use of a thesaurus. I use the MS Word thesaurus, but if you can’t find a synonym that satisfies you, a good online source is http://thesaurus.com/. You’ll find it a good site that offers more than just synonyms. Just beware of the fun distractions it offers!

Another good choice when you have a long word in mind but would rather choose a shorter one is http://www.thsrs.com.

An alternate to thesaurus.com, but not nearly as much fun, is www.easydefine.com.

Run through several chapters of your story and pay strict attention to each word and each phrase. Notice what words or phrases you tend to use that you can cut without changing the meaning of the sentence. Do a “Find” for each one and clear them from the whole manuscript. Don’t do it globally; occasionally the word might be useful, or deleting it might change the meaning of the sentence.

An even deeper exercise will find whole sentences, paragraphs, scenes, and even chapters that can be deleted without hurting the story. But that’s fodder for a later post.

Be heartless in deleting useless words. Your story will gain strength and readability.

Do you have pet words that you know have to be cut out of your stories? Have you made a list you’d like to share with us? Do stories stuffed with unnecessary words annoy you?