What's in a name

Names. Like naming children, naming our characters can be a daunting prospect. Get it right and our characters and their names are a seamless whole,the words tripping off the tongue and sticking in people’s minds – Harry Potter, Voldemort, Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, Verruca Salt, Lyra Belacqua and Thursday Next. A good name fits the character like a glove, suits them and can provide an additional clue to who they are or be an extra riddle to challenge the reader.

Sometimes characters turn up with their names already attached. The result of a sort of writer’s intuition, that name is often the best choice. Trust your instincts. However sometimes I find when naming multiple characters in a longer piece of fiction that I have subconsciously made many of the names start with the same letter and changes are necessary to avoid confusion. A book of baby names (or two) is a good resource. If you are writing historical fiction, try the internet. I also check out Births, Deaths and Marriages columns for names and also sit through movie credits with pen and paper at the ready. Movie credits can be a fantastic place to find interesting and unusual names and I’m not just talking about the actors. Sometimes the foley artists, the special effects guys and the grips have the best names. It is a good idea if you are getting into this writing gig for the long haul to collect names that you like or that have a strong connection for you. Like screenwriters who write scripts with particular actors in mind I have several names I am keen to write stories around. However liking a name is not always enough on its own to make the name right for your character. It still has to fit with who they are, how they behave and when and where they lived.

Names must suit the tone and setting of your story. Names are era, socio-economically and of course gender sensitive. For example, think of the names Nigel, Rupert, Bruce and Matt. Or Charlotte and Tiffany, Kylie and Lisa. What about Mabel or Myrtle and Agnes or Jeremiah. Paddy and Duncan could have a Scottish background while Marcelle and Dominique are most likely French. And what about Inga, Olga and Hans? It can be tempting to use unusual names and this can work really well, but it can also fail miserably. Standing out is not always the right thing for your character. If you are writing for children, everyday names can make it easier for the reader to connect with your character. Of course while unusual names can be a curse in a novel or short story they can be the whole point in a picture book, for example Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton Trent, Mog, or Hairy McLairy and Bottomley Potts. In picture books, rhythmic and rhyming qualities may be the deciding factor. In my picture book The Were-Nana, while rhyming wasn’t an issue, choosing the name Simon for the brother gave me the opportunity to echo the Simon Say’s children’s game in several places. This name also helped with the rhythm of the story. The name Nana Lupin from the same book is a play on the root word for wolf.

Phew – there is a lot to take into consideration when naming your character. It can be one of the hardest decisions but ultimately you want it to look like it was no trouble at all. And like naming your own children, if your character makes it in to print the book will have to live with that name for the rest of its life. If you think the names will stand this test then you’ve done your job.

Good luck with your writing

Melinda

Your first rule for writing - there are no rules

Hello faithful readers (and writers). I thought I'd get the ball rolling with some writing advice that I think every writer should know before they read any other writing advice. This is one of my most important writing tips - there is NOT one proper way to write. Yes, it does help to follow all the usual rules of grammar about verbs and nouns and adjectives and sentence structure and all the usual rules of punctuation about fullstops and commas etc...but otherwise you should just follow those bits of advice that work best for you and DON'T WORRY about the rest.

The following article about this very topic was written by the very experienced writer Nicola Morgan and appeared on her blog http://helpineedapublisher.blogspot.com/ which is full of great advice, inspiration and other sensible stuff that will most likely help you enormously.

There are no rules for writing – just results

You want to know how to write? Well, I cannot tell you. Yes, I have written more than half a million words on this blog; yes, I've had a large number of books published; and yes, I am writing a book called Write To be Published. And yes, aspiring writers ask me and other writers things such as, do you plan? Do you talk to your characters? Do you outline? Keep spreadsheets of characters? Know the end before you get there? Use Moleskine notebooks? Talk to yourself? Drink lots of coffee? And I have answers to these questions but the answers and the questions are entirely irrelevant to you.

Entirely. Irrelevant. To. You. And. To. Everyone. Except. Me.

This is because how a writer writes is entirely irrelevant to anyone but the writer. All that matters is the result: what you write, what the words sound like when you've written them, what readers think of them, whether they work.

The method, the route you take, matters zilchly. No one cares whether you plan or whether you fly by the seat of your pants. No one cares whether you interviewed your characters or spent the night dreaming of them. Well, OK, they might care, but only out of weird reader interest. If you are asking these questions in order to find out how to write yourself, you are barking up the wrong tree.

Please. Just write your book in whatever way works for you, even if that means hanging from a chandelier naked. It will be judged only on the result. Don't get hung up on method, or at least on other people's methods. You will find what works for you and that's all that matters.

Fair enough; sometimes another writer's method is worth trying, to see if it might work better for you than the one you use, and for that reason the questions are not entirely pointless. But only as long as you never get hung up on the answers, and never worry if you are doing it differently from others.

Just write, eh?

When you look gorgeous, I do not need to know how you got dressed.

Merry christmas and happy holidays everyone - take care and see you next year - Melinda

FaBo Story is over ... or is it?

We promised it would be a wild ride! Eighteen hairy chapters later and the first FaBo Story was complete - thanks to you.

If you haven't read it yet, go and find out about the heroes of our story - Remy and Lewis - alien gorillas, exploding cupcakes, intergalactic police ... oh yeah, I shouldn't give it all away. Go here and read it for yourself. Make sure you read the winning students' chapters down the right-hand side.

Thanks to all the kids and teachers who took part in FaBo Story, whether you read it, wrote for it, or helped to keep your kids motivated to follow it. There are some brilliant young writers out there.

BUT WE HAVEN'T FINISHED YET.

FaBo Story will continue. The whistle will blow for the new story - FaBo Story 2 - in term two of 2011. Angus Smith, the 13 year-old student who won the final prize this year, will kick off the first chapter. But in the meantime, we're going to share writing tips, showcase great examples of writing, publish photos of the people who took part in FaBo Story, and YOU can share what YOU know.

Remember the story's not over till the mad lady swings. Off you go, Mrs Jones!

Illustration by Jenny Cooper featured in FaBo Story chapter 8.