Writers And Readers Websites Wednesday - Pick The Brain

 

Pick The Brain ~ 10 Writing Tips from the Masters

Many of these are amusing, but they’re no less helpful for writers struggling with getting the story right and informative to readers as to what goes into writing that great novel you’re reading.

Name Those Characters - A Writer's Puzzle

Have you toyed with, fought with, howled at with giving names to your characters when you’re writing? Have you developed a character, followed him or her, saw them through all sorts of tight spots and just knew the name wasn’t right? Ask any parent, there are many factors that go into naming a child and those characters in your novel you write are just like your children.  

Names are important.  An obvious fact.  

Just think of a name and an instant preconception springs to mind. If the name doesn’t fit the character it’s difficult if not impossible to get/keep things moving on the written page.  Names can reflect our personalities, our background or ethnicity or faith.  Think about it. Kathryn can be very professional, Katie  very friendly and bouncy and Kate more neutral.  Then there’s Elizabeth who can be, of course, Elizabeth, Liz, Lizzy, Beth or even Betty or Bet.

Last names are equally important. Smith or Goldblum. Varella or Capra. Singleton or Brown. Well, you get it. A name can inspire not only your reader, seeing  your ‘hero’ as a dynamic, well, hero, as opposed to a mumbling, introverted nerd, it can also inspire you, the writer. 

So what to do? 

Well, there are a lot of resources available to us. Just ask any expectant parent.  There are still all those books for baby naming. The web has a lot to offer (some resources below), phone books, friends you can bedevil for suggestions, movie credits you can read (you can even pause your DVD if you like so you can read), other books where you can pluck a first name from one and last name from another. And don’t forget you can compile lists of your own when you run across a name that seems great out of context. You might well have the opportunity to put it IN context with your next writing project.  

You can try writing about a character with a ‘place holder’ name if you can’t come up with the right one when you’re first writing, but I’ll bet that will niggle at you like an annoying paper cut until you can fill in that blank. It just seems like the character can’t get it right until he or she has the right name bestowed upon  him or her.  And that translates into your writing being unbalanced, not right, until you can grab that name. 

Is there a secret formula? A magic way to pluck the name you need out of the vapors and spur your writing to new heights? Nope, but there are a few loose guidelines that can help. Things I keep in mind. 

*Don’t use several names that begin with the same letter.  In fact try not to use two names that begin with the same letter in the same novel.  Fact of the matter is after the first introduction of the character most readers don’t actually read the name, but rather identify the character by the first letter and the shape of his name as they skim down the page.  Best not to risk confusing your reader.

* Pick names that are realistic and don’t get carried away with naming after you’ve been searching for a long time and feel a bit desperate.  Especially don’t fill your story with bizarre and complicated names the reader will need a score card to figure out.  

*Think about history and geography when naming your characters. Yes, they have a bearing.  Germanic names are different than Scots. English different than Spanish. Keep it in mind.

*Watch out for gender neutral names.  Lee, Drew, Lynn, Francis (Frances), Tracy, Kelly, Jean, etc. If you use one, be sure to immediately let your reader know if the character is man, woman, boy, girl. Don’t let it hang out there for them to figure out. 

 *And don’t be afraid to change a name if you discover as you write that it just isn’t working. That’s what global replace is for.  But keep in mind that a change of name may well signal a change in character and could instigate the need for rewrite in areas prior to the change. 

If, when looking over the material you’ve written, a name change necessity arises, don’t fight it. A character with the wrong name can throw quite the ‘monkey wrench’ into a story no matter how well written to that point. Seriously, think about it.

Here are a few resources to help you along:

Social Security’s Popular Baby Names - what’s popular this year - and other years?

The Greatest Baby Name Book Ever by Carol McD. Wallace 

The Writer’s Digest Character Naming Sourcebook by Sherrilyn Kenyon -Organizes names alphabetically, by origin, and by popularity according to year. 

Want the history and etymology of first names? Behind The Name   allows searches by meaning and includes a generator.  

Going to follow in Tolkien’s footsteps? Try The Elvish Name Generator 

The Baby Name Bible 

The Baby Name Wizard  Unique baby names 

Victorian Names online  and Victorian & Steampunk

Fantasy Name Generator—Set the specifications to your needs and generate lots of name possibles. 

Now you’re all set – but don’t forget those newspapers, magazines, phone books (in any city you live or visit) and of course Google for even more possibilities.

  

Writers Writing For Pleasure

“Never write anything that does not give you great pleasure. Emotion is easily transferred from the writer to the reader.” ~ Joseph Joubert  

As a writer have you ever thought about that? Do you believe it?

Personally I do.

Over the years as a writer I’ve discovered the more emotion I put into the writing the more it connects on a very deep level with readers. Thus my general agreement with the statement above, though I’m not quite sure ‘pleasure’ is the right word for it unless referencing to the actual act of writing itself. Getting caught in the thrall of a story, fingers racing along the keyboard as it spills out onto the screen (knowing all the while there’ll be some heavy editing later).

As to the rest, the roiling, spitting, balled-up, pacifistic, loving, hateful emotions, I wouldn’t call them pleasure, but more like the intensity scale. Different emotions evoke different feelings, obviously. You aren’t going to write a gentle love scene with a backdrop of hateful and cruel emotions (at least not in most circumstances). You probably won’t have a murder backed up by the equivalent of violins and roses.

What we have to consider as writers is our life’s experiences (no doubt where the ‘write what you know’ phrase came from). From birth we experience the whole human range of emotion. As we grow we experience illness, injury, loss, love, physical and emotional pain. We absorb it and express it in a great variety of ways. The trick for the writer is to draw on that life experience that fits with the scene being written and inject it into your story for your reader to be drawn into the world you’ve created because he or she has ‘been there’.

And in that Joseph Jourbert is correct. When you dig deep, when you strike the right vein, you know it. And when a reader tells you “it was just like being there” or it was ‘stirring’ or your writing made them cry, or laugh, you’ve hit paydirt.

So from all of this we garner today’s writing tip and it’s nothing so straight forward or simple like how to edit or grammar or how to use your spell check properly. Nope, this one is a lot more heavily on you, the writer. This time I’m suggesting the need to take the time with a story; to sit back and consider what parts of yourself you can inject into the writing. What experiences you’ve had that you can pass on to your characters and breath real life into your writing. And how it needs to be written so all of those feelings, all of that experience, comes across through the written page to touch the reader’s heart and soul.

The Craft of Writing

Today, a simple list on how to develop your craft of writing, how to keep it crisp, engaging and tell your story.

Yep, just a list. Things I’ve learned in years of writing. Agree, disagree, make use or don’t. Your choice. But whatever you decide, keep on writing.

1.               Keep it simple.

2.               Don’t overwrite.

3.               Keep a light touch with your settings and descriptions, sprinkle information through your story, don’t feed it in huge lumps.

4.               Forget multitasking – focus on monotasking – give yourself uninterrupted time for your writing – put down the phone, no texting, nothing, just write.

5.               Think before you include an expletive. Does it fit the character? Does it give the situation more punch or is it just there for the sake of a bit of shock value? Some people find such words offensive – if you’re going to use them make maximum use of their punch.

6.               Use simple, declarative sentences unless absolutely necessary.

7.               Avoid the passive voice – engage your reader.

8.               Cut the crap. Really. Listen to Elmore Leonard – if it sounds like writing, rewrite it.

9.               Watch out for adjectives and adverbs. Keep them to a minimum.

10.         Never rescue your hero or heroine. They have to learn to do that for themselves.

11.         Watch your paragraph lengths. Keep them shorter unless absolutely necessary ~words as well, writing is not a vocabulary contest.

12.         Try visualizing who you’re writing for.

13.         A broom is not a long-handled kitchen cleaning implement, it’s a broom! Clear on that?

14.         Write the way that works best for you.

15.         Write first without worrying about spelling, grammar, punctuation fixes. Let your right brain run wild.

16.         Write from the heart. 

Oh, and don’t listen to too much advice, clear your own path. 

Now go write something.