"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island." - Walt Disney

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

IWSG: Titles, or names?

It’s time for another group posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Time to release our fears to the world – or offer encouragement to those who are feeling neurotic. If you’d like to join us, click on the tab above and sign up. We post the first Wednesday of every month. Your words might be the encouragement someone needs. You can also join us on twitter using the hashtag #IWSG, or on the Facebook page.

Now, IWSG hosts have changed up the format in an effort to make it more fun and interactive.Every month, they will announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG Day post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say. 

Don’t forget to visit others that day to see their answers. Want to join, or learn more? Visit our - Sign-up List.

JUNE QUESTION: What's harder for you to come up with, book titles or character names?

MY ANSWER: I have a harder time with character names than titles. To me, writing a title is mostly easy. I simply base it on the topic (maybe I've written too many essays, research papers, and thesis) and that carries over to my fiction writing as well. However, character names cause me no end of issues. After being a teacher for so many years, nearly each name reminds me of a specific student and my fictional characters then become irritating, lovable, demanding, full of folly, etc. as I am subconsciously thinking of at least one student with that name. There have been several instances when I, or a beta reader, have been editing and caught glaring character personality changes due to this. The old adage "Careful, or you'll end up in my book" is extremely true for educators.

4 comments:

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

I imagine you have heard a lot of names over the years. maybe it would be easier with fantasy or science fiction. I'm sure you've never had a student named Zonk.

Cherie Reich said...

I do think using a name of someone you know for a character could get weird.

Chrys Fey said...

I'm the same. I find coming up with titles is fun and naming characters is stressful. I can see the struggle you'd have as a teacher dealing with so many students' names each year.

Tyrean Martinson said...

I try not to use student names, but once I have once or twice. Ironically, I used the name of my daughters' first youth director for an elderly gentleman in one of my books and my daughters had a tough time with that because the Jordan they knew was young. I hadn't consciously associated the name with the youth director. I had just liked it for that character and they did have some similar characteristics despite having different ages.

Happy Writing in June!