Another name rant!

I love a good name rant, so I eagerly clicked on a Twitter link to this Gigi's Closet post about real-life baby-naming WTFery. Of course it got my head spinning, so please permit me a fresh curmudgeoning on the topic of character monickers.

I've been reading the voicetastical Kristan Higgins' Too Good To Be True, and the name of its [rowwwrrrr] hero is Callahan O'Shea. For realz?! But although normally such a name would propel my arm to launch the book clear across the room, this time it didn't. This is solely because of the heroine's reaction to the name—she's as agog at its over-the-topness as I am, as the reader. It also works because the heroine has a troublesome habit of inventing boyfriends, and giving the hero a fake-boyfriendworthy name like Callahan O'Shea completely reinforces that theme.

Pulling off a wacky or cutesy or über manful character name is all in the believability. Higgins did this again in All I Ever Wanted, when she named her heroine Calliope, of all gaggably adorable things. But Higgins is good—the wackadoo name and its reference make sense when you meet the heroine's parents.

As I've said before, the first place I turn when I need to figure out my characters' names (which I do very early on—the name for me often comes before the personality, even) is this site, where you can view the top 1,000 [American] baby names by decade. I head to the decade my character was born and pick from the top 200.

I know, I know…it sounds so boring, so willfully, joylessly realistic. It's my book! I could make up any name I like! But that's not my scene. My characters, and my heroes in particular, tend to skew a bit, well, nuts. They're weird enough on their own. A special name would be overkill. Plus I get the specialness fix by writing foreign heroes on occasion—Maxence, Rasul, Rory, Didier, Ian, Reece. All fairly common names in their respective cultures, but I still get to indulge my inner writerly impulse to extra-specialify my characters. I've also done the same with surnames-as-nicknames. Flynn, Pike, Mac, Daisey, Ty… Atypical names work best (in my noisy opinion, anyhow) when they're made believable in the face of their oddness.

In my evil conjoined erotica-writing twin's latest manuscript, the heroine ended up with a weird name, which was not my intention. She's a pretty quiet, conservative character (despite the fact that the story centers around her deciding to lose her virginity to a Parisian male prostitute) and I'd expected to name her something like, I don't know…Anne, maybe. A safe, simple name for a cautious, no-frills character. But she ended up getting named Caroly. The name fell right off my fingertips without me really thinking about it, because sometimes names just present themselves. And in the end it worked, because the next words that plopped onto the page told me why:

“Good evening. You’re Carolyn?”

I managed to say, “I am.” My name is in fact Caroly, a misspelling on my grandmother’s prospective baby name list that my mother found exceedingly fetching; no sympathy for her daughter, doomed to be addressed as Carol or Carolyn for the rest of her days. And because of how Caroline is pronounced in France—Caroleen—nobody here ever gets my name right when I introduce myself. But that’s fair, considering how badly I mangle their entire language every time I open my mouth.

So I'm not immune to the weird-ass character name impulse, as harshly as I judge it. And from the Higgins examples above, I'll admit I'm not a true stone-cold bitch about it in others' work. But there's got to be an reason for a weird name. Fine, christen your thirty-year-old contemporary hero Greyson or Rayvyn or Chance McO'FitzFlannahan, but you better clue me in to what in the heck his parents were thinking. Or smoking.

To reiterate what I've said before—your characters are special enough on their own. Or in other words, tossing glitter on a perfectly delicious cupcake doesn't actually improve the thing.

Character Interview Questions

Hey, all!

I wanted to share a customized version of one of my favorite writing tools—the character interview. I'm sure you've all heard of this technique from countless resources, but these are the one hundred questions I personally find the most useful when I'm looking to get to the bottom of a new character. Sometimes I print the pages out and fill the answers in old-skool-style, other times I simply consult the list and type the answers into a new doc, a sort of biographical dossier. Either way, I find it very useful to respond in the character's voice.

In my opinion, these questions are best answered after you've spent a chapter or two with your new characters. Doing them at the outset to create a new character is problematic—there's a temptation to address each and every one profoundly, which can lead to attribute overload! Some of them simply won't apply. Instead I like to fill this out when I think I know a new hero or heroine. I have a handle on their personality after a few scenes, especially if they've been interacting with the other character(s). That's when it's time to ask some deeper questions and figure out what life experiences and attitudes shaped their values, humor, goals, fears, temperament, and so forth. Some of these questions include:

• How deeply does your job / social role define you as a person?
• What are you the most hopeless at?
• Whom would you contact first to share good news?
• Have you undergone any dramatic physical transformations in your life?
• What would you never do, no matter the price?
• Who has hurt you the worst in your life, and how? Have you forgiven them?
• What has the hero/heroine changed your mind about since you met?
• What secret would you feel the most vulnerable sharing with anyone?
• Why should the reader care about your story?

And so on. Anyhow, enjoy! It's an exhaustive list, but I always come away from this exercise with a better understanding of the people living in my head. I hope you will too.

Click here to view or download the PDF.

That's My Name, Don't Wear It Out

I've been thinking about a book I have coming out soon, The Reluctant Nude. At the final stage of proofing, my [brilliant and attractive] editor from Samhain sent me a PDF of the "finished" e-book. Just like the real deal you'd upload to your e-reader, it featured an excerpt from another romance to entice you at the end. Oddly enough, though, the hero in the excerpt had the same name as my wackadoo French hero from The Reluctant Nude—Max. I mean, how often do we really meet Maxes in our lives, ones who weren't born in the last five to ten years? Granted mine is a Maxence, but still. This happens a lot in romance.

Cornelius?

Contemporary romance character names are a pet peeve of mine. Don't worry, this isn't another rant-post about soap opera monickers like Rock and Stone and Lucian. What I want is for character names merely to be period realistic—period in this case meaning the seventies, when most heroes in current books would have been born. I have a sneaking suspicion that authors are choosing names from current baby name books. Have you really ever met a man in his thirties named Cayden or Brayden or Jaden or Jace? I promise I'm not picking on any author specifically—I've seen all of those multiple times. The worst is Aiden (Aidan, Aden). I'm sure someone will contradict me, but aside from Aidan Quinn, are there really all that many American men born before 1998 with that name? I blame Sex and the City.

Aside: while I was in art school in the late nineties and early oughts, I worked at a kids' furniture store, where I spent my days inhaling enamel paint fumes and decorating toy boxes and such with designs. We personalized just about everything with the kids' names, and since I worked there for four years, I got a first-hand education in the then-current baby naming trends and patterns. Hands-down, Aiden was the most overused boys' name. No wonder I get so irked by it now. Also popular: Jackson, Madeline, Cole, Sophie, and yes, Max. And all the Caydens and Braydens and Jadens. Properly posh names. Names people simply weren't given in the decades our heroes were born. Names aren't static—they're as fickle as fashion. Hugh is now a popular boys' name in the States, thanks largely to Hugh Jackman, I suspect. You may know a few babies named Hugh, but really, did you go to an American high school with any? (Actually I did, but he was the III.)

When I'm naming a character (bear in mind I write contemporary) the first thing I do is head to this website, which lists the 1,000 most popular American baby names by decade. Please note, Aiden's not even in the top thousand in the 1970s. Ditto Cayden, Jayden, and Jace. "Braden" comes 917th, right between "Dereck" and "Lon". There are other sites out there that even offer a year-specific list. Some readers are history buffs and can't stand when the place settings or the petticoats are wrong. Well that's me with names. I know, I know—it's fiction, authors can use whatever name they want, it's their right. Well it's my right to roll my eyes.

Doris?

When creating my own characters, I usually limit myself to the top 200 from that aforementioned site and try to pick the one that resonates best. It means my heroes typically end up with names like Michael and Russ and Brian, instead of Colter or Avery or Chase, but I sort of like that. All of this goes for heroines as well. No heroines born in the late seventies christened Madison or Kaylee, please. I mean, you wouldn't likely name her Gertrude, since it's period inappropriate, right? That instinct should go for the too-trendy as well as the too-old-timey. I think only one of my female leads has an odd name, and that's Fallon from The Reluctant Nude. I stole her name from a twenty-something character on The Archers BBC radio soap opera, because dammit, it just fit her.

I guess what I'd like to say in closing is this: authors, your characters are already special. Don't name them as you would your baby, from fear of saddling them with a boring, forgettable name, and making them boring, forgettable characters. You don't dress them in fluorescent clothes to make them stand out, do you? Let them stand out in their words and actions. Think about who their mother was, and what she would name them, in what year. I honestly won't read another romance starring a hero named Aiden…unless perhaps it's historical (I'm a history know-nothing, so I'm not fussy about naming accuracy) or possibly set in the UK. For those exceptions, I might quit my huffing and come along for the ride. Otherwise, trust me. Save the posh baby names for your hero and heroine's firstborn.