Friday, May 25, 2012

What's in a Name?

Characters, especially series characters, both on TV and in our reading tend to affect the way we react to other stories and shows.  Take today for instance.  I read this first sentence to a short story - "Cash was missing." - and immediately flashed on the character Cash Laramie from David Cranmer's short story series.  And my first reaction was, oh no, what happened?

Funny how popular characters can do that.  I knew it wasn't a Cash Laramie story, but the word still drew that gut reaction from me.  It's also one of the reasons that I always google my story character's name.  If you're writing a hard-hitting story, you don't want your character to have a name that implies sunshine and rainbows.  You also don't want to use a famous person's name.  I once discovered that a character of mine shared a name with a famous sports figure.  Yeah, I don't follow sports, so I found myself changing the name through the entire story.  Now, I google first instead of when I'm done.

Names are important and they can make or break a story.  They can convey character traits, like Whiskey Joe, or body size and work ethic like Cannon.  Names bring a lot to a story, so think carefully before you give your character a name.  Consider how you want readers to perceive them.  And unless you're writing a humorous story you certainly wouldn't want your six foot tall, three hundred pound bad guy to be stuck with a name like Cuddles. 

8 comments:

Brian Lindenmuth said...

I once was reading a novel and one of the chapters midway through had a sex scene with 2 women and 1 man. All fine and good right? Part way through the sex scene one of the women was given a name. And it was the same as my daughter who was probably 7 at the time.

Needless to say I was done with the book at that point through no fault of its own.

sandra seamans said...

Really spoils all your fun, doesn't it? :)

Ron Scheer said...

As I recall, Grace Metalious got into trouble for using a character name in PEYTON PLACE that happened to belong to an actual person. The novel had not yet been published, and she met the guy at some social function. He didn't object--until after the novel came out.

sandra seamans said...

Yep, you can get into all kinds of trouble using a real person's name, Ron.

David Cranmer said...

"Cash Was Missing." Hmm.

Gideon Miles knew it was unlike Cash to leave without saying something to him or Devon Penn. Now a week later as he saddled Smoke the question was where to look for the man known as the outlaw marshal.

sandra seamans said...

Yes, David, my thoughts exactly - So when are we going to get to read this one :)

David Cranmer said...

As soon as you finish it, Sandra! :)

sandra seamans said...

Funny boy :)