Category: Random

Selecting the right character name is essential. “Wilber Noodle” and “Mason Stonewall” suggest two different people, two types of dress, employment, lifestyle, etc. So it’s important to pick wisely for the type of character you’re trying to portray.

I won’t lie – choosing character names is cool for me, but it can also be frustrating when I can’t find the exact match I’m looking for. I’m also a creature of habit, so if I name a character “Clay” and later need to change it to “Derek” it’s like reprogramming my mind because in my head, in those pages, he’s still “Clay.” So for me, it’s more important I pick the names I want first and stick to them.

How does one find character names?

• The Internet (God Bless Technology!) has many sites with baby names for every year, decade, cultural background. I love being able to find out which 10 names were the most popular during a certain year for a certain place.
• Dig up those high school and college yearbooks! They’re not just paperweights anymore! Mix and match, look through and see what you find.
• Use location-specific resources if you’re writing about a specific lineage. My work in progress has Irish themes and characters, so I’ve found websites and friends who know about cultural areas, myths and legends, etc.
• Don’t be too stereotypical when naming a character. “Paddy O’Daniel” or “Sean O’Malley” might be authentic, but try to be a bit more original. Although, as I type this, I knew a Sean and Colleen O’Malley growing up. They used to ruin my homemade mud pies, so no, I didn’t select their names for my Irish characters!

What works when creating your characters, especially if you are writing historical or paranormal? How do you choose?

Thanks everyone for being patient! I will return to regular blogging shortly!

Elaine

Isn’t it funny when we are in the midst of reading something, and we see examples of things we read in real life?

I’m currently reading Robert McKee’s Story (excellent book for any writer). He mentions the inciting incident – that thing which sets the action, emotions, and plot in motion – needs to be carefully timed. Do it too soon, and the audience is confused or not bonded to the characters. Do it too late, and the audience is bored.

The recently released movie Shoot Em Up is a perfect example of the inciting incident which occured too soon. The first fifteen minutes of the movie had action-packed adventure, incidents, and flashy stunts–but I wasn’t invested in the characters (other than liking Clive Owen as an actor and realizing he was trying to stop some bad guys). The movie waited until the second hour to offer the explanation WHY he was having to chase the bad guys (and even then, the reasoning wasn’t a great premise).

However, inciting incident timing aside – sometimes great stunts do have their place. And Shoot Em Up had some INCREDIBLE stunts.

Hope everyone had a happy Labor Day as we move into fall.

Today’s blog entry is about the fascinating villains in fiction. The best fiction has both good and evil characters with goals and motivations of their own. If someone is evil for the sake of being evil, but has no reason why, they don’t make full characters and the audience can’t relate.

For those of you who haven’t yet seen “3:10 to Yuma” starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale (it started this weekend) – I highly recommend it. Personally, I don’t like Westerns, so I wasn’t sure how I would feel about the movie. At best, it would be a 2-hour action adventure, at worst, staring at Christian Bale and Russell Crowe on screen for 2 hours. Either way, it was worth the price of admission to find out.

I wasn’t disappointed, and left the theatre pondering how much I enjoyed seeing the dynamic between the protagonist (Christian Bale) and antagonist (Russell Crowe) and how each was not 100% good or evil – they were both.

Crowe plays a thief, a killer and he often has no conscience – – but he sketches people and animals with charcoal when he’s alone. He performs all these evil deeds, yet he respects his pursuers and even bonds with them. This made watching his character and this movie WONDERFUL.

Other antagonists I’ve enjoyed…

1. Ben Kingsley in “You Kill Me” (http://imdb.com/title/tt0796375/) – He plays a hitman for the mob but he keeps messing up the deaths because he’s an alcoholic. So he goes into AA and tries becoming sober so he can go out and become a successful hitman again.

Normally we wouldn’t cheer on someone who was a killer, but he plays this with the same charm as John Cusack did in “Grosse Pointe Blank” and we can’t help but like him.

2. Alan Rickman in “Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves.” – The critics even said he stole the show because of his dynamic portrayal of the Sheriff of Nottingham. He brought enthusiasm to the part, and I love watching him play these characters.

3. Hugh Laurie in “House” – the TV series. One of my favorite shows of all time. He plays a doctor who’s insensitive, a jerk, and he’s often cruel for sport. But we’re fascinated by him because deep down, he does have something we see as decent, and he’s great at what he does. Even Laurie gave an interview, saying he was surprised audiences love to watch a doctor who is a jerk – but it works. Can’t wait for the fall season opener!

Tell me about some of your favorite bad guys, and why!

If you belong to a writer’s group or research fiction writing online, you know there are some basic rules to writing fiction. Characters need to be believable, stay true to their thoughts/actions, etc.

My favorite storytelling rule is if you’re going to have a gun set on a mantel in Act 1 and Act 2, it had better go off in Act 3. By the same token, if a gun on the mantel goes off in Act 3, it had better be in sight during the first 2 acts. Don’t give the reader (or viewer) all the clues, but don’t withhold key items they need to be engaged in your story.

Movies and books occasionally break the storytelling rules. On occasion, it works. Other times, the writer isn’t true to his/her characters – and then it leaves the audience feeling cheated.

After getting several pages of my second manuscript edited this morning, I went to see the movie “War.” (Okay, I confess – it was mainly because I’ve seen almost everything else playing and I wanted to stare at Jason Statham for awhile!)

I won’t give away the ending for those of you who wish to see it, but I found some interesting aspects to this movie which reinforce how to write better fiction.

• A novel needs conflict and hardships all the way through, not in the last chapter only. I found the first hour or so of “War” quite basic: Triads killing each other. Nothing new in terms of action/adventure plot. But I was on the edge of my seat in the last 30 minutes of the movie, when it finally had some things at stake. This isn’t the way books work. Editors and agents only give a manuscript so much time before deciding whether they wish to read on.
• While surprise plot twists intrigue me (and I must admit I didn’t see a few of them coming in the movie)–it’s also possible to go overboard. Too much twist becomes unbelievable.
• Characters shouldn’t act differently in the last chapter (or 15 minutes of the movie) than they have for the preceding 1-1.5 hours. Not believable, which was my issue with “War.”

What are your thoughts? How do you feel when storytellers break the rules?

Elaine