I thought I’d share my own method for choosing character names today, just for a bit of fun.
I went on a training course recently, where I learnt visualisation, a brilliant skill which worked, (I’ll share that sometime) but not today.
Today, I’m mentioning this, because they used actors on this course and then were joking about how it’s hard picking random names for characters. I’d declared myself a writer and so they looked at me and said “You know what I mean?” and I thought, yes I do.
It’s always quite funny trying to pick names. You might think the lead male names in my first two books when they are published were Twilight inspired, Edward, and then Robert. They were not Twilight inspired honestly, the first drafts were written way before the first I heard of Twilight. Actually when I did hear of Twilight I thought, darn, she's used my name.
First names I find the hardest because I’ve found nowhere to look them up effectively, hence I mostly pick family names. Jane Austen, did this too. Nice to know I am well acquainted – laugh – if you visit Stoneleigh Abbey in the UK you can find out all about her family history but I mention it in more detail in my history blog.
I have a feeling some of my family may be a little horrified when my second book is published as I’ve borrowed a couple of their names and one of my nephews is a baddy, he doesn’t know, he might not like it, (ha ha). I’ve used my father’s name as a love interest for a secondary character, a little weird perhaps, but it’s only his name, the character I have thought of is not at all like him, sorry Dad. My grandfather is also a baddy. Now you see how random it is using family names. Not sure how they are going to react, they haven’t a clue. Can’t wait to reveal and experience the horror.
The other thing about picking first names for historical fiction, is in reality there was this trend of reusing first names for the first born boy and girl, and then grandparents names, etc, etc, they liked keeping names in the family, and I like being authentic, so seeing as the Marlow Intrigues I've been writing are a family series I've had to be quite imaginative to enable this. The first books started off with abbreviations of names spoken by friends and then I had to remove them as I wanted them later for children. One of my favourite stories from history is a medieval tale about King William II, when he asked everyone to leave the dining hall who was called William, there were still about fifty people left.
Anyway now I’m running out of family names, so I need another inspiration. Right time to start picking friends’ names then – watch out.
My debut novel is due to be published 2nd May 2013 Sapphire Star Publishing are the publisher. If you want to find out more got to http://www.janelark.co.uk/ like me on Facebook or follow me on twitter @janelark
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