Monday, August 20, 2012

Celebrating Dr. Calvin Miller's Life

Yesterday, the Lord's Day, 19 August 2012, Dr. Calvin Miller passed from this life into the Presence of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are blessed to have his great body of work remaining to continue his legacy. 

I am most familiar with his poetic works, The Singer trilogy. When I was classroom teaching, I often read it aloud to my high school English students and saw it touch their lives. 

Dr. Miller was to be the keynote speaker at the 2012 Indianapolis Christian Writers' Conference, held the first weekend of November at the world headquarters of the Wesleyan Church. I was looking forward to hearing him speak and hopefully meeting him. Alas, I'll have to wait for Heaven. 

Do you have memories of Dr. Miller? Which of his works especially affected your life? Please leave a comment.

Write on!
Because of Christ,
Sharon

Monday, August 13, 2012

WriteOnCon Begins

Today is "gear up" day for the 2012 WriteOnCon. It begins officially tomorrow. This is my first year to participate in this FREE online conference for writers of MG, 'Tween, and YA. Can you tell I'm excited?

Write on!

Because of Christ,
Sharon

Saturday, August 4, 2012

The Name Game


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