Loading ...I was flipping through channels like a man either Friday or Saturday night and ran across an old Burt Reynolds, Kris Kristofferson movie. I paused only long enough to listen to half of a conversation, during which a name was mentioned and I knew if fit my guy. His first name, anyway. The last one I’m having more trouble with, and though I can see his first scene, I can’t write it until his name is right. Other authors need titles, or to know their black moment, or their ending. For me, it’s names.
So yesterday, with game after game on the telly while we assembled the Christmas tree and while #2 daughter sneezed and drizzled her germs everywhere *g*, I read the backs of football jerseys. We’ve got Polamalu and Ochocinco and Favre (with the most riDICulous pronunciation ever, bugs the crap out of me every time I hear it; there is NO “FAR” anywhere in the word, only “FAV”), but there are also a lot of nice normal names to fit heroes or anti-heroes.
I do the same with news stories. Have been known to do the same with phone books, or did when I actually had one. I don’t use the names of people I know, or have worked with. It’s too easy to then make the association between the two while writing.
I’ve got a list of several, and I sound them out with the first name, trying them on for size, thinking how it will read (yes, I am this obsessive). It’s funny, because I had absolutely no trouble with my hero or heroine. The first names that rolled off my tongue, fit. I think this one is giving me trouble because of what I plan to do with this character. I need him to be uber sexy, but also uber scary and psychologically threatening. Honestly, I can’t wait to write him.
What about you guys? Are characters names as important to you? What aspect of a story must you know before writing it?
