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Go for the single syllable and save yourself

I don’t know about other writers, but all kinds of things make me think of stories. Songs on the radio can send my mind reeling with story ideas. An over heard conversation can set a whole scene to take shape. I try to keep track of these things – I have an actual notebook in my car dedicated to receiving important ideas or solutions to problems I’m currently trying to work through. I have a notebook app in my iPhone as well. I tell things to Siri and she notes them for me.

One thing I have a bunch of in my various notebooks is names. I love to collect names. Prospective names of heroes and heroines, horses, villains. First names. Last names.  Crazy names and thoughtful names and ones that make me laugh.

The thing about names is, they seem perfectly acceptable, even very good, until you have to type them 75 thousand times in the course of the story.

Take my current hero, Christian, for example. No really, take him now (Thank you, Mr. Youngman). Christian started out as a secondary character in my first book, Lady Belling’s Secret. Then he participated quite a bit in the second book, Miss Goldsleigh’s Secret. Book three was always envisioned as Christian’s story so that’s what I’m writing right now. The problem is I am really growing to hate his name. I never type it right the first time – I always type Christina. Also, I’ve never been that crazy about that name in the first place. I have no idea why I chose it to begin with. If I could get away with it, I’d change it but it’s a bit late now.

In a new project I’m working on I chose the name Dashielle –  a nod to one of my favorite authors, Dashielle Hammet. It’s pronounced Dash-el. My Honey vetoed the name when we were looking for one for The Bandit. I thought Dash Bright was perfectly acceptable but there was vigorous head shaking. So, instead, I get to name one of my other children Dash – and it totally fits his character.

Now, I just need to write books for Benjamin, Samuel, Finnegan, Linus and Flynn. They’ll probably all fall in love with the feisty Camille, Ettienne, Imogene, Marisol and Evangeline.

You know what though? I’ll hate those names by the forth chapter of their books anyway so it doesn’t matter.

One Response to Go for the single syllable and save yourself

  • Debby says:

    I suppose you could always just type CH or something that’s not a word otherwise, then, when you are done, you could do a “find all” for CH and “replace all” with “Christian” if you wanted to make it easy on yourself. But I do get your point. Besides, it is a good item to complain about. 😉

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