Top Ten Character Names I Love

As I'm getting deeper into editing and writing and reading again, I'm finding a lot of the readerly blog memes to be a lot of fun and a nice break from "work"! In fact, there are two separate Tuesday memes/features I especially enjoy -- Top Ten Tuesdays, and Teaser Tuesdays. The first of those requires making decisions, however, and I tend to have a hard time doing that (for some reason... is this a writer thing?). So, while I will participate in Top Ten Tuesdays on occasion, I think the one I'm going to do more often is Teaser Tuesdays. (First one coming up next week!)

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at
 The Broke and the Bookish. 

This week's Top Ten Tuesday is:

Top Ten Character Names I Love

1) Viola: I love the name Viola, and not just because She's the Man is one of my favorite movies.* I actually first found this as a book character name from is Viola in Reel Life by Adriana Trigiani.

2) Azalea: If you've followed my blog long enough, you know that my upcoming book, IF I SPEAK TRUE, was first called FLORA (I've since titled it "The Flora Series"). There are a few reasons for this, the most obvious being many characters are named after flowers and trees. So of *course* I like flower names, and I haven't heard of Azalea much, plus I really enjoyed Entwined (which is where this particular name comes from), so there you go.

3) Lennie: Four words: The Sky is Everywhere. That's really all I have to say. I love the name because I love the story and I love Jandy Nelson's voice as Lennie, so therefore I love Lennie, too. (Not to mention, it's not a typical girl name, so that's another reason I like it.)

4) Rowan: This reason is two-fold. IF I SPEAK TRUE has a Rowan (he's a good guy) and Hafsah's Unbreathable has a Rowan (not so good). Maybe it's the name. I don't know. All I know is, if I had a boy I'd name him Rowan right this very moment and never ever regret it. ;)

5) Will: Lately, it seems like every other guy character name in YA is Will. For two years, my David (sorry, IF I SPEAK TRUE on the brain right now, guys) was a Will, too, and as I continued to write and read, I realized just how popular Will is. Wills are just naturally charismatic and nice with big smiles and great eyes and the perfect hair and sometimes have an English accent, too. I don't care what book you're reading, if there's a Will, you're going to fall for him. So yeah. I love Will.

6) Jonah, Jonas, Joel: I've read the three of these multiple times (and have a Jonas myself in PITY ISN'T AN OPTION). Apparently I really like guy names that start with J. **

7) Warner: If ya'll have read any of Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me series, you will recognize this name. I just like it. It's different, but not too much. I'm finding I'm really enjoying names that should be last names as first names as long as they're not too "out there". Warner just works. 

8) Malcom: My Malcom pick comes from Suzanne Selfors' Coffeehouse Angel. I just loved him and it made me love this name. (I've seen it somewhere else but can't remember where... and not just as the creepy, tarantula-loving guy on She's the Man!***)

9) West: First time I saw this was in L.M. Augustine's Click to Subscribe. Love it. (I obviously have a thing for W names, too! Ha ha) ****

10) Emerson: Ah, back to last names for first names again. This comes from Myra McEntire's Hourglass series. I just love this as a first name for a girl!

And there you have it!***** How about you? What are some of your favorite character names?

Pssst! I'm throwing a #JLBBirthdayBash for my birthday week and giving away books, book swag, t-shirts, and the good folks at Rafflecopter have thrown in a free month! You can check it out, HERE.

* Fun fact: She's the Man is actually based on William Shakespeare's The Twelfth Night. Which I haven't read. But the main characters' names are true to Shakespeare's play. 

** If you're into zombies, Carrie Ryan's (very) short enovella, What Once We Feared, has a Jonah in it that I totally would have loved to get to know better! (grumble grumble) If you're not into zombies but like a good novel that weaves tons of elements into the story and at the end makes you go WHOA, read On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta to find another Jonah. :)

*** Pardon all of the She's the Man references. It's like one of our favorite movies (along with Stick It) so we tend to quote it a lot around here.

**** Also, West is a character's last name in the Shatter Me series. (Had to make that connection for ya'll.) And as I am a huge fan of The Princess Bride movie and saw this mentioned somewhere else, I have to add that Westely is a pretty darn cool name, too. Okay. I am done now.

***** Remember how I said I can never make up my mind? Well I can't. And had to add that I've been seeing Thomas around a lot, too, and I just *love* the name Thomas. And Cam (from Neal Shusterman's UnWholly). So I kinda shared, technically, fourteen favorite names. But it could have been worse. And for some reason most of these are guy names. I don't know why. Still, I think I did pretty well. *pats self on the back*

Pity Isn't An Option's character inspiration photos and well, happy weekend!

After a bit of thought, I've decided to go ahead and share my character inspiration photos for Pity Isn't An Option. This is one of those iffy things where there's a potential to change the reader's visual either for the better or for the worse, which was why I've held back from sharing since starting PIAO over three years ago. I didn't want to push anyone into the "for the worse" category; but now that it's out in the world, I really want to share because I think it will give readers a new connection.

I would love to be able to share these photos here on the blog, but I think the copyright issues aren't as big (yet) on Pinterest, so that's where I'm doing it. If you would like to see how I saw Jonas and Hattie and Heath and Gran and Lucy and everyone else from the very beginning, head on over to my board by clicking this link. I'd love to hear what you guys think!

Quick reminder: The Goodreads PIAO giveaway ends SUNDAY. If you haven't entered and would like to, look right over there at the sidebar --- > and click the Enter to Win link.

Have a blessed weekend, everybody! 

Jessica

Stuck on you like super glue

I had this long post scheduled for today, but I decided to delete it. Why? Because I have a tendency, when trying to get my point across, to go way overboard. So here's the shortened version:

I love feeling so close to a character that it feels as though I'm stuck on them like glue.

The end.

(Maybe I should write shorter posts more often.)

Currently inspired by -- Grace Potter & The Nocturnals -- Paris (Ooh La La)

Milk Eggs Vodka (or, Inspirations for Your Characters)

A few months ago I was watching Jimmy Kimmel, and the guest, Bill Keaggy, was promoting his unusual book, Milk Eggs Vodka. (Warning - if you're going to check out the link, you've been forewarned that not everything on there is child appropriate.)

Milk Eggs Vodka is a compilation of grocery lists found by Mr. Bill Keaggy, himself, over a span of many years. Here's how the story goes: One day Mr. Keaggy found a grocery list, and after finding it a little interesting, he decided to keep it. Then he found another interesting one, and another, and so on. A few years later, the collection had grown to a whopping amount of almost five hundred lists. (I plan to get this book, eventually, because the lists he shared on the show really did make me giggle.)

Anyway. Characters with unusual quirks can make your story more interesting. Being the writerly person that I am, Mr. Keaggy gave me an idea about how to up the quirkiness with one of the characters in my women's fiction WiP. (No, she doesn't collect any kind of list.) And then I thought, I wonder what odd things have inspired other writers out there to do something different with their characters?

So today's question is:

What inspired you to write your characters the way you did?

I'd love to hear your stories!

The funniest thing happened on the way to my WiP...

So, first of all, as of the day I'm writing this, which is Monday evening, I'm about to reach the 45,000 word count on Flora, my YA WiP. Hopefully I'll even be past that by the time this posts. Honestly though, I will say, I'm shocked. Three quarters of the way done! That's a humacious *woot woot*, in my book. =) (Get it? Book? Hee hee)  

Anyway. I've been working on Flora for a while now, obviously, and as of last week, I still hadn't been able to decide on the MC's mother's name. She's a nervous woman who's been through a lot, is always worrying about the family, wringing her hands, crying about little things. 

Then finally, a few nights ago when I was trying to fall asleep, her name came to me. I realize I am saying this often, that things keep coming to me when I'm trying to sleep, but it's true! (And even though this happened when I was working on ILYU, it's happened much more with Flora, which I have found excitingly odd, as a lot of the book has to do with her dreams. Coincidence, my dear readers? I think not! Okay, maybe.) So, usually I'm at least thinking about things already, but this was different. It was a sudden, out of the blue sort of thing. I was going over the plot, trying to connect things in my head the way I always do to make my mind stop working, not even thinking about the mom, and then BOOM! The name hit me.  

I wrote her name smack dab in the middle of my journal in big letters (the journal I keep under my pillow for just that kind of occasion), and within a few minutes, I was fast asleep.

Fast forward two days. I'm sitting by the pool Saturday afternoon, working on info, adding little tidbits to the family tree as the girls were swimming. There are so many hidden meanings in Flora, things most people probably won't even notice, but they mean a lot to me. So I was going over names again, scrolling down page after page on a website, when the funniest thing happened.

I'd like to point out here that I wasn't paying attention to the names. The names were in the column on the far left on my screen, and I was looking at the meanings on the far right. When I came across this one meaning, it jumped off my cell phone screen, practically slapped me in the face.  

"That's it!" I thought, "It may even be better than the one I thought of! I wonder what the name is!"

And guess what? It was the exact same name I'd thought of two days earlier.  

Isn't that the craziest thing?

Avoiding Loopholes

Loopholes. Who doesn't love a good, old-fashioned loophole when it comes to getting a job done just a teeny bit faster? My kids sure do. If I tell them to deal with the trash, they'll empty the trash can but the trash strewn across the bedroom floor will remain untouched. (Or the other way around.) When I say, "Put the milk away.", I hear "I didn't use it last!" and "She got it out first!" *insert fingers pointing around the table here* instead of "Okay Mom!" (an ongoing issue in our house). If there's a way for the three of them to get out of something, to prove I didn't tell them specifically what to do (in order to get out of punishment), they"ll find it. (Hmmm. Maybe Lovemuffin and I should be saving up for law school...)

When it comes to writing, loopholes are a slippery slope - especially for young writers. (I should know. I definitely fall into the "young writer" category.) It's easy to read a book or two by a New York Times best-selling author and think, "See! They didn't follow that rule!" or "Well so-and-so didn't bother writing a hook in the opening scene so why should I? I can get around that rule somehow..." But the thing is, as many people out there in the literary world say, until you're an established writer, it's necessary to follow the rules. (I could share tons of links regarding this very topic, but to save everyone some time I'll just share this one for now, which was actually written by guest blogger, editor Victoria Mixon on Nathan Bransford's blog back in July of 2009. Victoria lists some great points regarding the plot, scene and exposition.)

For those of you who read my "I Have No Idea What I'm Doing" blog on Wednesday, this was supposed to be last Wednesday's post. Then it was going to be Friday's, but I had a bit of inspiration once Robert Downey Jr.'s voice *swoon* entered my ear canals the other night, so this post was moved to today.

Today I'm going to share five basic writing rules that I'm still trying to put into use - rules most of us already know, yet important ones nonetheless.

1.) Write for the reader. We already know the backstory, the reason each character behaves the way they do, the time of year the story begins (or ends). But the readers don't. Those facts need to be explained in your story, without boring the reader or taking away from the overall story line. Don't assume your readers know everything. Instead, assume they know nothing at all. (I think some people would debate this point, because we're also not supposed to treat our readers as though they're clueless. But there's a fine line between setting up your story line with necessary details and going over the top with too much information.)

2.) Make it worth reading. (This could actually be part of #1, but I wanted to go into more detail.) One of the worst things we can do is make our readers wonder why they're reading what we've written. Tie everything together. Each piece of the puzzle needs to fit by the end of your story, down to the smallest of details. (I've been called out on this one myself.) Does the fact that your main character wears only red socks have a bigger part in the overall story? If so, tie in it throughout - explain the reason behind his/her obsession with red socks. If not, maybe that part should be cut.

3.) Consistency is key. Is your character scared of being in a crowd? Then why is she dancing her feet off at a club two pages after freaking out that people were looking at her in the grocery store? Stay consistent to keep your readers hooked. Things that don't make sense or conflict with a part you wrote earlier will turn the reader off. You want them to keep turning pages, not close the book and set it down somewhere, never to be opened again.

4.) Pay attention to the flow. It's important to keep your flow nice and interesting, not so much because otherwise it's boring otherwise, but because nothing is worse than making a reader go back; and, not understanding or remembering what they just read, have to read it again because the sentence is so wordy that they already forgot what the heck you were talking about, don't you think? Long, confusing sentences or paragraphs are my pet peeve. I can't tell you how many times I've had to turn back a page and start a paragraph over, or read a passage more than once because the flow just isn't there. Make sure not to trip up your readers - getting confused during an important part of the story is an event they won't soon forget.

5.) Stay true to yourself. Don't let the stress of following rules stifle your writing voice. Regardless of the many guidelines we need to follow, our stories should still sound like us. We leave a little thumbprint on everything we write, a signature on our work that tells people "I wrote this - this is my style, my point of view, the way I chose to share my story." The story you tell gives the reader a glimpse of who you are - that's what makes you different from everyone else out there.

I'll leave you with a true, yet comical version of common rules for writing. I'm sure some of you have seen this before, but I wanted to share it anyway.

26 Golden Rules for Writing Well

Happy Monday, my readers!

Your Character's Voice: Is it deep? Scratchy? Maybe a little sultry?

I was sitting at my computer last night, messing around on the ol' facebook, when a man's voice blared from the bedroom.

"Who is that?" I yelled to Lovemuffin. "I love his voice!"

It was Robert Downey Jr., one of my favorite actors. No wonder I loved the voice! (I'm not sure what it is, but there's something about a man's deep voice that makes me swoon. I've been that way since high school, about *mumble* *cough* *cough* years ago.)

Hearing Robert Downey Jr. on the television in the other room made me wonder. What exactly was my main character's voice? I'd never thought much about it. It's one of those things I take for granted, I suppose - I write as her mainly, so I automatically hear her voice as my own. (For those of you yet to hear me, I have no clue what to tell you 'bout that one. Anyone wanna help me out with that?)

The men are a totally different story, however. I hear their voices all of the time. My protagonist's husband sounds like a mix between Bruce Willis

and

Gerard Butler. (His American accent, not his actual one. Though I do love me some European accents... but all of my characters are from the US, so that won't work this time around, at least!)

Another male character who takes up a decent amount of pages on his own in I'll Love You Until sounds pretty close to Ryan Gosling.

I'll save a few of my female characters for another post sometime in the near future - one of them being the town gossip! (I bet everyone has a specific voice come to mind for that one!)

So who do your protagonists or antagonists sound like? Are they voices of famous people? Relatives? Your neighbors when you were a kid? How do you hear them as you write dialogue or what's going through their heads?

Voice 101

I had this plan in my head to try and blog Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  I didn't follow the plan very diligently during the weeks leading up to Christmas because I figured, oh well - it's the holidays - people won't be reading blogs too much anyway.

But here it is, the week after Christmas, and a Wednesday, and try as I might, I've got nothin'.  There isn't a single topic rattling around in my head begging to be typed onto this computer screen.

I could sit here and bring up writing again, acting as though I completely know what I'm talking about, and offer advice to people out there in my same position, new authors, working on their craft, forging their way into new and unchartered territory.  But do I really know what I'm talking about?  I'm not sure yet.  Who knows if I do.  I know I love to write.  I know it's enjoyable and frustrating, time consuming and a wonderful distraction, delicious, yet it can leave a terrible taste in your mouth when you've hit a writing block and feel like your brain is stuck on permanent "duh" mode.  But other than that, I can't really claim to know that much, from a technical standpoint.  Yet even as I sit here and say that I don't know much, I already know that in a short time I'll probably pass on some more advice (when I finally think of something to share), hoping there's someone out there who didn't already know it.

So today, and possibly for the next few Wednesdays, since my kids are out of school and I'm taking every opportunity to read like crazy before the school routine resumes and my brain turns to back to mush, my topic isn't going to be about writing - it's going to be about reading - more specifically, voices that leave a lasting impression on the reader.  

I recently finished reading a book that, to be honest, I probably wouldn't recommend to half of the people I know.  Not because it was bad writing (in fact, I thought it was great), but the author wrote in first person, from a male's point of view - so it pretty much said everything the protagonist was thinking, in full detail.  And though I'd never write anything like that, it had me sucked in - feeling sorry for the main character, anxious to hear what happened next, anticipating just how everything was going to come together (or not) in the end.  

I wondered if I will do my readers the same justice - if what I have to say will be entertaining, even during the "down" moments of the plot. Which brings me to today's topic - the voice - from a reader's POV.  I'd love to hear what has sucked you in, my readers - the kind of characters you get into - those that make you forget about time and the dirty dishes sitting in the sink and the laundry piling up next to the washing machine.  

You can name a specific book, describe a protagonist or antagonist's character traits, if you prefer to read from a male or female's point of view.  Anything goes.  I'm going to call this Voice 101.  Share whatever you enjoy or appreciate about your favorite books - what makes you devote a part of your day to the joy of reading.  And thanks in advance for my first lesson!

 

Hey! They stole my line!

Have you ever felt as though someone stole an idea from you, even though you'd never said a word about it?  My fellow mothers out there know exactly what I'm talking about - we've all been caught saying "Hey - that's what I was going to name MY baby!"  or "Wow, I like that name, I think I'll use that!"  *hangs head in shame for the second one*

I’ve been working on a new WiP for a little over a week now, and maybe I’ve been under a rock the past few months or something (I'm willing to admit I probably have been), but when I came up with the name Collin as a character in my new WiP, I was pretty darn proud of myself.  I didn’t know any Collins personally. I wasn’t able to recall hearing the name Collin at all in recent years, and I spent days researching names online until I’d found the *perfect* one for my character.  I was happy as a clam, sitting at my computer for hours on end, writing “Colling this” and “Collin that”, in an inspired writing frenzy.

Then Lovemuffin and I watched The Ugly Truth.  And what is the main male character’s name in The Ugly Truth?  (Those of you who’ve seen it, please feel free to say it with me…)  Collin!  Suddenly I was seeing and hearing Collin all over the place  - especially in TV shows and magazines.  Oh, and Made of Honor?  I've seen it at least five times.  Can you guess what Kevin McKidd's character's name is?  Colin!  (So I had heard the name, even though I didn't realize it.)  I was like WHAT?  Who do these people think they are?  They stole my name!  

 It didn’t help that a week before I’d realized Collin was the new “Andrew” (or whatever the popular name is at the moment – like I said, I’ve been under a rock I guess, so I have no clue what “the” popular name is at the moment) almost an entire scene I’d thought up (and was quite proud of) was played out right in front of my eyes on  a TV show.  And about a month and a half ago I was watching a rather popular movie – a love story mind you, written by a very famous author (which had been adapted into a movie), when halfway through the movie I realized the main male character’s name was the same as one of my mine in I’ll Love You Until!

I pondered over that last dilemma for over a week, worried it would look as though I’d copied that particular story.  But do you know what I finally decided?   After much contemplation I said to myself, “Oh well!  This movie may be a few years old, but I’d never read the book, I just barely watched the movie – no one ever told me the plot – and I’m NOT changing my character’s name!”   Good for me, right? 

One reason the same story lines and names appear quite often, in my opinion, is the fact that we are constantly inundated with media, especially those of us who frequent the internet. We can go youtube, twitter, myspace, facebook, and so on and so forth, in a matter of seconds.  Videos, stories, comics, interviews and pretty much anything we can think of are constantly flashing before of our eyes.  TV shows are debuting and being cancelled faster than I can say “Hey, I think I’m starting to get into this show.”, and movies are accessible more than ever before, thanks to redbox, Netflix, itunes and other convenient services.  And so, with all of those ideas and stories appearing before our eyes and soaking into our subconscious, how can we not be influenced by it all? That has to be how Collin got into my head.  (The other two issues though, they must have just happened to be coincidences.)  

The whole situation got me thinking, so here are my questions for this week -  How many other writers have dealt with this same issue?  What was your reaction when you saw a key scene in your writing show up on a weekly sitcom, for example, or when a particular setting you’d thought as original ended up being already written by someone else?  Did you revise, and change it?  Or stand firm with your decision?  

I’d love to hear your thoughts!