Technique

Picking the perfect name for your character

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What’s in a name? Well, as it turns out, it can be quite a bit. I recently read a couple contemporary works where the heroine, in her 30s, was named Madison. Madison is an adorable name—in fact, a little too adorable. It was the 538th most popular first name for girls in the 1980s. It climbed to the top 100 in the 1990s and has since soared to the top ten from 1997 to 2013, the most recent data available now.

So what, you ask? Well, those statistics mean that the vast majority of girls named Madison is fifteen or younger right now. When I read these, I couldn’t help but thinking of the curly-haired toddler down the street. Although a strong, androgynous girls’ name is awesome and Madison hits all the right notes with parents and authors alike today, that’s exactly what makes it all wrong when naming a character who’s supposed to be an adult today.

Personally, I love naming characters. I’ve spent considerable time searching for just the right name for each character, making sure their names fit their ages, backgrounds, and characteristics. Here are a few of my favorite resources for finding the perfect name. (Note: some of these resources are US-centric, but I’m sure that you can find similar data for other countries.)

Character Naming Books

The links to books are affiliate links

The Baby Name Wizard by Laura Wattenberg. I picked this up while pregnant with my oldest, even though my husband and I had the names of our first four children already picked out (three down, one to go).

Why I like this: It give little profiles outlining why and when each name was popular, as well as assigning names to groups according to style and popularity, and lists similar names. (That’s especially good when you have a name you really like but it happens to be your brother-in-law’s name.)

The New Baby Name Survey Book by Bruce Lansky and Barry Sinrod. The authors of this book surveyed >100,000 parents about 1400 popular names to see what perceptions and connotations the names carried. I picked this up (again, while pregnant) at a thrift store for $2, and I was a little hesitant at first to spend that much (no, seriously), but it’s definitely paid off. In fact, it’s paid off so much that several years later when I found the above-listed new edition, I sprang for it.

Why I like this: Seriously, where else will you find someone to tell you that a female Jerry calls to mind “a friendly, fun-loving brunette who enjoys being the life of the party” while some see the male Jerry as “likely to wear flashy gold chains and may come on a bit too strong.” Those are from the previous edition, which brings me to the drawback: The 1992 Baby Name Personality Survey, with Barry Sinrod, is a little out of date (I mean, seriously, were you naming your character Jerry?). And it’s a penny for the 1992 OR the 2007 version (used on Amazon)—so why not?

Character Naming Websites

BabyNames.com. I use this to look up name origins and meanings. Why I like this: I like to be able to search by meaning and/or culture of origin. Um, duh.

US baby name popularity from 1880 from Social Security records. You can look at the popularity of a name over time, or popular name lists by birth year. Why I like this: This is the best way to find age-appropriate (American) names for characters.

Nymbler from The Baby Name Wizard website. Like the book, this helps to find similar names. Why I like this: It makes it easy to find names by “style,” including origins, popular time period and the more subjective “feel.” I do still prefer the book version, but the website is also fun to play with.

The Baby Name Wizard’s Name Voyager, which generates graphs of name popularity over time. The data is based on the SSA. Why I like this: It’s a visual representation of popular names over time, which is a little more accessible than just the lists from the SSA. (The blog also talks about naming trends.)

The US Census Surname Distribution to find last names, and to check if the sometimes crazy last names I want to use are really last names. (Real names include Police, Outlaw, Saint, Notice, Justice and Riddle. Only one of which I’ve actually used.) Why I like this: when I’m stumped on a last name, reading through the list or using a random number generator can help me finish my character’s name.

Real life, of course!

I seldom name characters after people I know—it’s kinda weird for me—but the people around us every day are a great source for character names. In fact, one of my writing friends actually keeps a name data bank—whenever she meets someone with an interesting name, she makes a note of it and puts it in her data banks on her computer. She also collects names from newspaper articles, especially foreign names—and she stores those by nationality (and surname/given name). When this friend uses names from her list, she marks them with different colors for passing mentions, minor characters (both recyclable) and major characters (one-time use).

And of course, there’s the old standby: the phone book! (Whatever will we do when they stop printing them?)

And always double check

I always Google a character’s name before I settle on using it, just to make sure there isn’t a famous person I’ve forgotten/have no reason to know about with the same last name. On the other hand, if there are a lot of (moderately) famous people with that name, I figure it’s fine to use it again, right?

Of course, Google isn’t a foolproof measure against choosing a bad name. If you’ve ever given your characters a supremely bad name—and despite all the resources I have, let me assure you you’re not alone!

How do you find your characters’ names? What are your favorite or least favorite character names? Would you comment on a character’s name in critique?

Photo credits: Name tag—Henk L; Jim—Deon Staffelbach

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Mechanics, Technique

Fix-It Friday: watch those prepositional phrases

Prepositional phrases can be tricky. I’ve found a few ways they can really trip up writers and change the meaning of otherwise fine sentences. One of those ways: the simple order of prepositional phrases. When they become misplaced modifiers, prepositional phrases throw a money wrench in your sentence’s meaning. fif

What’s wrong with these sentences?

Why would she share the secret he’d confided in her in the hall with her parents?

He remembered the dog he’d found as he was walking in the apartment across the street.

One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas.

A man was bitten by a bat walking down the street on his thumb.

She couldn’t believe he was standing there after their conversation yesterday on the sidewalk.

Notice that often the problem is using multiple modifiers or more than one prepositional phrase. As we stack the phrases, we have to be sure the meaning doesn’t get lost, or we’ll leave our readers like these characters from Clue:

So how would you fix them? Next week!

Photo credits: tools—HomeSpot HQ

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Writing Life

Becoming a better writer: find a critique group

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I know, it’s easier said than done, but truly, one of the best things you can do to improve your writing is to create or join a critique group. Having a network of writing friends helps to keep you sane, but more than that, a good critique group gives you hands-on help that no writing conference or craft book can touch.

Finding critique partners

This is truly the hard part. There are often critique partner matches going on ad hoc in the comments of popular blog posts, but you can also look to the forums of sites like Absolute Write and (I believe) CPseek.

Writers conferences can be another great place to meet potential critique partners. My critique group formed at a (kinda awkward) writers’ meeting. Another plus: we live close enough to meet in-person!

Poet and photographe, version toile

Finding GOOD critique partners

Just finding other writers isn’t the tricky part. You critique partners don’t have to write in the same genre, but you should at least be familiar with the conventions of one another’s genres. More than that, however, effective critique partners understand the mechanics of storytelling, characterization, and good writing. It can be very difficult to balance widely divergent skill levels, but this can be a personal preference.

For an effective critique group, you’ll probably need three to seven or so members. More than that and it gets unwieldy; less, and you’re only getting one additional set of eyes. Also important—although this can take a little time—you have to be able to talk freely and trust one another’s feedback. Critique partners should also know how to give useful, helpful feedback without tearing you down. Even the best advice in the world isn’t helpful if it cripples your ability to write.

Scheduling

At the officeFor a longstanding critique group, as Josi S. Kilpack says, a set meeting schedule really helps to keep your group from petering out, especially if your group is online only. My critique group usually meets in-person twice a month, but during busy times we’ve met via Skype or just sent feedback in Word docs.

Format

Typically, a critique group has each member submit one chapter per meeting, then all chapters are read and discussed in a roundtable manner. But that’s not the only workable format for a critique group.

In my critique group, for example, we have one person submit their entire novel, a quarter at a time. We typically look at higher level problems of plot, pacing, character arc and characterization. It’s hard to dig too deep into word-level issues, but more than that, when we read the novel this quickly and in these large chunks, we’re able to see these high-level gaps more easily than if we’d read the first chapter six months ago, with six others’ chapters.

When is my book ready for a critique group?

This may also depend on how your critique group works. Some people use critique groups for a final polish, others bring rough ideas or outlines to work on the basic direction of the story.

I use my critique group as my first or second round of readers. If they’re my second round, my first round gets my book as soon as I’ve smoothed out the gaps I left in the first draft, just to see if the story works overall. Then my critique group breaks it down by quarters, focusing more on the storytelling particulars.

Another plus of this: because some of the changes we have to make are large, no one has wasted too much time nitpicking text that might change or be cut altogether.

After I go back through and make the changes from critique notes and work on the copy editing, if I’ve made big changes, my group will (kindly) take another look, either before or after a round of beta readers. Then it goes off to my editor!

What do you think? How does your critique group work? How did you find your critique partners?

Photo credits: Poet and photographe, version toile—Julie Kertesz; At the office—C/N N/G

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News & Contests

Fireworks in July Facebook event today! Add some sweet sizzle to your summer!

Today I’m co-hosting a Fireworks in July Facebook event with ten other awesome authors!

Fireworks-in-July-promo

I believe all of our books are “sweet” (PG-13 or less), and all of them feature the “sizzle” of romance! Come join the Facebook event for fun giveaways all day long (starting at 10 AM EDT), PLUS a $100 Lindt chocolate gift basket!

In honor of the party, I’ve lowered the price of Spy Noon to 99¢ TODAY here on my site and on Amazon! (On my site, the coupon will automatically apply in the shopping cart.)

What do you have to do?
Just go to the Facebook event and follow the instructions of the host for that hour to enter the giveaway. One lucky participant will also win the grand prize!

News & Contests

June accountability, July goals

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Last month, I was a little worried about my goals because I had some other big plans. So, how did it go?

GoalsJune accountability

  • Start editing the newest novella. Hoping to make it through the first quarter or third.—DONE. I got through the first quarter of the paper edit and entered about 2/3s of that onto the manuscript, and sent it off to my critique partners. Unfortunately, my paper edit included one note “add an entire new chapter here.” Which I have yet to do. Bet my crit partners loved that part.
  • Read through Tomorrow We Spy again and apply latest round of critique notes; send to beta readers—I had to push the readthrough back to the end of the month, after the beta round, but I did incorporate my critique partners’ notes and sent it off to beta readers! So DONE!
  • READ. A lot. DONE! My husband and I left our kids with my mom and took our tenth anniversary trip, cruising to Juneau and Skagway, Alaska, then driving (and riding a train) through the Yukon, then visiting Fairbanks, Alaska, and Denali National Park before ending in Anchorage. It was fantastic! But more later—when I have pictures. For now, I’ll just say, because of all the driving and flying, I read eight books. Woot!
  • Think about website and marketing stuff even more. There was definite thinking.
  • Get beta reader feedback and incorporate, getting the novel ready to go to my editor—beta reader feedback is trickling in, and I’ve finished the readthrough. Notes are incorporated and I’m about to click send!!

Woot!

July goals

I spent almost half of last month preparing, traveling and recovering. This month, I’ll get to spend a couple weeks with my family visiting. I’m super excited—but I’ve still got to fit the work in!

  • Get a cover. The fun part!
  • Edit the next half of the rebelliovella and send to critique partners.
  • Get back edits, incorporate, and proof.
  • Format and typeset.
  • Read two books on marketing.
  • Keep thinking about website stuff. Seriously. Maybe even think about doing something, eh?

What’s up for you this month?

Photo by Celestine Chua

Technique, Works

Why Character Sympathy

heart COVER 300I began researching character sympathy years ago when I struggled with it myself. A shocking number of writers and resources suggested “fixes” and sources of character sympathy that are little more than gimmicks. The effective advice I found was piecemeal at best: a chapter here, a section of a book there, an Internet article. There was NO comprehensive resource on the why and especially the how of creating character sympathy.

Five years ago, as I was first studying the topic, many people gave advice like “give the character a tragic backstory—abusive parents!” or “make the character painfully shy” or “make sure the character is likeable” or even “make the character resemble the reader.” But any or even a combination of all of those isn’t enough to create true reader sympathy.

As I studied the topic at the time, I came up with a theory (and made up the alliterative phrase I used to describe it): that character sympathy is based on both strength and struggles. Characters must have both to generate true sympathy instead of merely creating pity or worse, turning the reader off the character altogether.

After five years, there was still no writing craft books focused on this topic. When I decided to publish nonfiction on writing craft—a subject I blog about, teach, and love—I knew I needed to address this gap in technique teaching. As with Character Arcs, I had to pull together many concepts and lessons that were highly disparate, even tangential (and a couple even contradictory). Even a phrase, otherwise unrelated, could inspire insight on the subject.

As I assembled my previous writing on the subject, I realized that one more aspect I’ve blogged about before was also crucial to getting readers on your side: the noble goal. While James N. Frey’s books first taught me that lesson, through the years I’ve applied, analyzed and reanalyzed it. I drilled down into the inherent reason why a noble goal helps generate sympathy. At its heart, I think it’s because the noble goal embodies sacrifice, the third crucial tenet of my theory of character sympathy.

Like all theories, mine is built upon the efforts of previous thinkers. Einstein built upon Ricci-Curbastro’s work, who built upon Newton, who built upon Euclid. Without the efforts of those who’ve gone before, we’d have to start over in each generation for math or physics or literary analysis. I’m not Einstein, but I built upon what I’d read before, just like Frey built upon the works of Lajos Egri

To give the reader as many tools as possible, I even distilled one or two of the more helpful models of creating character sympathy I’d found. However, these models only comprised short articles or at most a chapter in a longer work studying a number of topics. Until I wrote this book, there was no full-length resource available that focused solely on the subject of character sympathy. Obviously was also the first place my personal thesis, that characters gain reader sympathy through a balance of strengths, struggles and sacrifice, was published.

Sharing my personal thesis on character sympathy and giving readers a resource that fully addressed the topic, focusing solely on the why and more importantly the how of effectively evoking character sympathy, is why I had to publish Character Sympathy.

What do you think? What do you want to learn about character sympathy?

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Reading

Great reads on sale!

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Indulge me a minute—I have to gush. In honor of her newest release, my friend Kierstin Marquet’s AWESOME novel is on sale this week! I highly recommend both of her books, filled with fresh writing, thrilling action and real characters. They’re both great reads and great deals. 😀

ThreeReluctantPromises4_850Three Reluctant Promises, book one of the Mason Jar Series, is on sale through July 2—99¢!

Whoever heard of a kidnapper with a sense of honor?

Illegal immigrant Tommy Ramirez takes odd jobs to make ends meet after a car crash leaves him and his sisters orphaned. A bad day becomes a nightmare, when he discovers kidnapped girls in the back of his semi-truck. A victim’s mother enlists his help to free the girls, and she is mortally wounded in the attempt. Bound by honor, Tommy makes three promises to her. Dodging death, deportation, and dyslexia, Tommy knows he can’t keep his word by himself. When he makes a desperate grab for help—literally—Ashten Mason, a cop’s spitfire daughter, doesn’t come willingly.

And introducing . . .

perf5.000x8.000.inddThree Stupid Lies, book two of the Mason Jar Series—$2.99!
How could trying to do the right thing turn out so wrong?

In Three Reluctant Promises’ stunning sequel, Ashten Mason is determined to help her magazine-cover-handsome kidnapper. Tommy Ramirez might’ve risked his life to save hers, but lying to her police officer father and the FBI about their relationship turns out to be the stupidest thing Ashten has ever done. Now, the FBI think she’s his accomplice, the hit men see her as bait for Tommy, and her dad thinks she has Stockholm Syndrome. If her dad finds out her secrets—including how deep her feelings for the felon really are—Tommy might be safer seeking sanctuary with the hit men trying to kill him.

Staying alive is a minute-by-minute challenge Tommy is seconds away from losing. Not sure if a raging flood or hit men working for a powerful criminal syndicate will take him out, Tommy must dig deep to find the strength to survive. Crawling through hell to accomplish that and keeping the promises he made to a dying woman turns out to be easy compared to protecting the cop’s daughter he can’t get out of his mind.

Check them out today!