When our group of writerly sisters met this month, Natalie had a problem. She writes speculative fiction--fantasy, to be specific--and she couldn't settle on a name for her mc (main character).
"I'm stuck," she said. "I can't write on until I have a name." She needed one suitable to both her genre and her character.
The girl no longer worked. The character was gelling in her mind, but the name eluded her. So we sat around my dining room table brainstorming names--alas, to no avail.
A couple days after our gathering, Natalie sent out a Facebook message to the sisters
that she had found the perfect name. We all celebrated her victory.
Character names are extremely important. Try to imagine
The Adventures of Clarence Finn,
Harriet Eyre,
The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Joe B. Smythe, or
Robert the Pooh. What if
Old Yeller had been named
Golden Boy or
Because of Winn-Dixie were
Because of Walmart?
Would a rose by any other name truly smell as sweet? I'm with Anne
Shirley on that one. If roses were called skunk cabbages, they couldn't
be as fragrant. (And would you want to read
Bertha of Green Gables?)
As with most words, a name carries with it connotation and denotation,
the latter being its actual meaning (which the writer can discover by
visiting baby-naming sites). The connotation is the baggage the name
carried with it, for the writer, but also for the reader. The two may be
quite different, depending on personal experience with the name. For
example, I won't name a positive character
Jackie because a boy by that name tormented me throughout my public school years.
Bonnie is out for me, too. You likely have a list of off-limit names.
Now I have my own naming quandary. I'm writing my third middle-grade novel, this one for the lower end of that readers' range. It's set in east-central Indiana in the 1930s. My mc is a ten-year-old feisty girl who dares to confront her step-father about his parental skills--or lack thereof. I'm torn between
Leora and
Tillie (short for
Matilda).
Which name do you prefer and why? Or is there one you like better than either of those? Please click "Comments" to register your input. Thanks much!
Write on!
Because of Christ,
Sharon
