There are generally two things I struggle with on the micro level of my writing: character names and titles. I find these two things to be some of the most difficult aspects of the literary/verbal creation process. Most of the time I end up with something simple like 'DreamTime' or 'The Watchers' which are not bad titles at all, but... Well they're just kind of obvious, aren't they?
And as for character names? I find I'm far more comfortable randomly assigning a character a name like "Bill" or "Amy" or "Tim" than really thinking about what to name a character. A lot of times I don't even bother coming up with a last name for them unless it's absolutely necessary.
I wonder if it's because titles and names don't really concern me in a certain sense. Now that I'm thinking about it for this blog post, part of my mind is saying: "If you're relating to the character and enjoying his/her story, then what does it matter what his/her name is?" That is to say, the name isn't as important as the substance of the character.
It'd be nice if I could communicate entire stories in such a fashion. But I'm not Cormac McCarthy.
Current Soundtrack:
"Casino Royale" by David Arnold
One time someone handed me a book that had a character named Youngblood, I couldn't stop laughing.
ReplyDeleteI came across a real person whose name was 'Ramses Danger', which I thought was the coolest worst name I'd ever heard. I've been so tempted to use it...
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