Writing Discussion

[meridian_rose]

There's a great entry by layla, Writing Your Best Ideas - it's short but thought provoking, go read it!

It got me thinking about how I do this, the holding back of certain character names or plot points – more and discussion topics under the cut.


In my comment to the aforementioned entry I said that

I strongly identify with this. Although sometimes I think it's justified - no use using a great name on a throwaway 'extra' in a scene when it might be a great primary character in a later work. Names have to be right for me which often stymies me (and makes fanfic easier to work with! I might hate the names but they're there, and that's all there is to it) so if I do love one, I might hold it 'in reserve'.
But sometimes, yes, I hoard things, worried that I'll only get to use them once

(a) have you ever done this? Held back on an idea or a name because it seemed 'too good to waste'?
If so, was it the right decision or not?
If you've never held back on using something, have you later regretted it?

(b) names. This is tough one for me, and finding the right name is a challenge. Fanfic can be easier because as I said above, even if I hate the names, they're there and have to be used (slight alterations for AU's aside).
How important is finding the right name when you create an OC for any type of fiction?
If they're a throwaway OC in a fanfic, do you spend less time choosing the name then if the character is a protagonist in an original work?

(c) names, part two. Suppose you're writing a fanfic* that's gone completely AU and you realise this would work better as an original fic since you'd have complete freedom to ignore aspects of canon and alter the characters to your liking.
How would this change the naming process? Would you try to keep the names similar in style or meaning, or try hard to make them very different?
Would the fact that in tv/movie fandoms you have a particular actor associated with the character make it easier or hard (eg I want to call him Richard but he doesn't look like a Richard to me ; I can't image her being anything but Xena).
*If you don't write fanfic/write it often, maybe you nonetheless have actors in mind when you create a character, so you probably still have insight here.

(d) themes. If we think about ideas that you hold back on, is it because you don't want to write the same thing over and over?
Is it okay for an author to revisit favourite themes? Under what circumstances? (For example most of my heroines are never going to end up in conventional marriages or have children, but given that almost Every. Single. Female Character. in mainstream media ends up Wife and Mother, I don't feel bad for repeating this characterisation.)
Is it possible to re-use ideas in new ways? (I'm leaning yes, because tropes evolve for a reason, and there's a difference between a trope and a cliché)

Discuss away, I'd love to hear any ideas, tips, or get links to other articles of interest around any of these themes!

Comments

[pristineungift.livejournal.com]

Home sick with strep throat, so doing this instead of any of the 29387429832 other things I should be doing. XD

Anyway, as always, really interesting discussion.

I don't think I've ever held anything back in this way. My approach to writing is kind of "Whatever, whatever, I do what I want." The only time I've specifically held back a plotline for a different story is if I've already got so much going on in the story I'm writing that it would be ridiculous to add it, and/or I just don't have enough time to write it in. For example, in Castle in the Air, through the writing it became clear to me that I really wanted to explore a Jennsen/Walter romance. But I didn't want to do it in that story because it would derail the Jennsen/Dahlia dynamic I had already set up. So I didn't do the Jennsen/Watler storyline that had occurred to me until over a year later, in Waiting for Tomorrow.

Likewise, all the plotlines present in Dragon Blood were originally supposed to be in Son of Blood because it was going to be the ONLY sequel to Blood from a Stone, but the story grew and got more complicated in the telling, until it had become a trilogy when I wasn't looking.

Currently plotlines I'm sitting on are ones that didn't make it into Invictus or The Old Commandments Stand purely because I was on a deadline when I did those and ran out of writing time.

Anyway tl;dr, I never sit on plotlines because I'm saving them for something better. It's more a matter of not being able to fit it in to what I'm currently writing, and sometimes I feel like the idea needs to simmer a bit. For example, I had the idea for For All That We Have and Are about a year and a half before I wrote it, but I wouldn't take back the waiting because if I had written it at any other time than when I did, it would have been a very different story.

As for names, I name everyone, even extras, very deliberately, according to name meanings and symbolism. If I already know a characters arc, then I choose a name that suits them and gives hints at their ultimate destiny. If I don't already know who they are, then I say names out loud until I find one that feels right, and look up the meaning. More often than not, the meaning of their name informs who they are.

My philosophy on it is I can always change it later if I don't like it, and that every character, even minor ones, have a story, and a personality, and a background. It might not be showcased in the story I'm writing, but it still exists. So if they appear enough in the story I'm writing that I need to know what their name is, then I need to know what their story is too - sometimes their name tells me their story, and sometimes their story tells me their name.

And of course, sometimes I just name characters as a cameo appearance for a friend.

About descriptions and actors and so on: I always pick a real person to model characters on. I find having an actual reference helps me keep descriptions consistent. Sometimes I take personality elements as well, but I find characters eventually blossom into their own life, so that by the end they bear little resemblance to the actor or model I stole their looks from.

Obvs with fanfiction the actor is already picked for me, but here are some examples of OCs:

In Silenced by her Smile adult!Renn is based on Simon Woods.

In Blood from a Stone Human!Hali is based on Jaime Ray Newman.

The Blood Trilogy's Freya Kate started out as my friend Kate, but as her character developed I started using Zooey Deschanel as a reference.

I have a reference for almost every OC I've ever written, but I won't bore you with them. :3

So yeah. There you go. THE PRIS FORMULA.

[meridian_rose]

Sorry you're not feeling well. Thanks for the input though, much appreciated. You always such interesting points to make :D

Also I LOVE Jaime Ray Newman. One of my characters is actually based on her too. I first noticed her in 'Eastwick' but I watch so many shows and whenever she gueststars I squee! The pic links aren't working (bloody IMDB and its preciousness over its photos) but if anyone reading wants an image:


Saying names out loud...maybe I'll try that! I have a male character and actor reference and the name ought to be vaguely Celtic or at a push uncommon English, and I'm having So Much trouble finding the perfect name. Also it can't begin with R. Or H or O. Because I have too many characters already in the novel with those initials. I did using Seventh Sanctum and restricting for those filters and came up with a few names none of which still 'felt' right. Sigh. I also think I need MOAR name books but from abroad, because you only get a handful of French names in most books available here, and French Canadian characters have more scope than that - and I find websites are only so helpful. I also have the Reader's Digest Book of Character Names (names by culture/language) which is great but again, only so helpful.

[pristineungift.livejournal.com]

Eeeeeeeeee on you having a character based on her too. Now I kind of want to draw Hali and your character complimenting each other on their hair. But then maybe your character is offended because Hali is blind.... XD

And yes I think that is the exact picture I used for Hali! If not, it's very similar. So much of her personality came out of that slightly crooked smile... :3

I picked up the saying things out loud trick from reading K.A. Applegate's (author of Animorphs) blog. She says she names alien races and gives aliens their names by just saying random sounds out loud until she finds something that feels like a word.

I've got a book of 'exotic' baby names. I find it to be helpful. I also ask myself what a character would actually be called by their friends. For example, in the novel I'm trying to get published right now, the main character is Princess Aleta, but only her mother and people who don't know her very well call her Aleta. To all her friends, she's Leti.

[pristineungift.livejournal.com]

Oh and also, sometimes I find it helps to say things out loud as if I am the person talking to them. When naming Aleta's brothers, I would pretend to be Aleta and say something I think she would say, like "No, BROTHER'S NAME, I'm coming too!" And I'd slot in different names until I found one that felt like her brother's name to Aleta.

And eventually out of that, a theme arose. I discovered in the royal family of this particular kingdom, the men's names always start with 'G'. Similar things have happened in other made up kingdoms of mine. :)

[meridian_rose]

On what people call them? Oh, yes. Seventh Sanctum named my Jaime character Gloriana Katerina. She's High Queen with a load of official names and titles. But her friends just call her Kat :D (ironically the name of Jaime's character in Eastwick).

Seventh Sanctum also named one of the characters Honor - usually a purely female name and often with a 'u' even in the USA, but for Reasons it fits the male character and now I can't imagine him being anything else. So sometimes a random suggestion from a list can stick. Other times not.

I could discuss names all day long! Then again, I think most writers could :D

What sort of criteria makes a name exotic? Uncommon, I'm guessing, but cultures foreign to English speakers? Mythological names? Creative spellings? Completely made up names? /iz curious

[dorothydeath.livejournal.com]

Yay! for discussion!! :D Sorry I'm so late. It's an eventful week for me all of a sudden. O_O

(a) I don't think I ever held a name back... But that's mostly because I don't write all that much... I only have 4 finished fanfics, 3 unfinished ones, and 1 unfinished original story so far... So I don't get to invent names very often.

(b) Finding a right name is a Challenge. But when I finally find it I can't imagine it being anything else. When it's a random OC that we only see like five minutes of, I usually go for a common popular name that can fit many types of personalities and that feels right in a dialog.
Choosing names for protagonists takes MUCH more time because it's the name you'll have to use often and it HAS to be the right one. I spend hours and hours googling for names and meanings. But when it's a protagonist I usually have an idea how the name has to feel so it's easier to know when you've finally found it.

(c) If it's fanfic turned original (as it is in my case)... well... At first I call characters by their old names in my head (as you know Maelog was Darken. And btw Morgan was Severus Snape... but never Alan Rickman).
As I go deeper into the story I see more and more differences between my version of the characters and the characters they are based upon, and that's when I choose a different name for them. Because they are no longer who they used to be I don't try to find a similar name for them. It's like they are a completely new personality. And again I just choose what feels right.

(d) To be honest I have a feeling like I'm writing the same story over and over and over again. But each time from a different angle somehow... With more knowledge and experience... maybe. I don't think it's wrong to write about things you enjoy and/or support. It's the very reason for writing imho. To tell about things you want to tell about. And no two stories, however similar, are never 100% alike. So I don't think themes are bad. On the contrary. :D

Well... that's my fifty cents. :D

[meridian_rose]

Thank you for commenting :D I felt sure you'd have some insights!

I'm relieved you think it's okay to retell stories because that is something I worry about.
Done well, I think it's okay. However I used to read Jack Higgins's books and devoured a ton of them. The style was brisk and action orientated and very easy to read, and there were some great characters. But the later ones just seemed to be the exact same plots and overall characters, just with different names, in the exact same style, so I stopped reading them. Maybe that's what is behind my fear of 'overdoing' a particular them!

Definitely once the names feel right I can't imagine them being anything else. Other times I can maybe change them completely or slightly. And sometimes the character develops and I may or may not change the name too. I don't envision Honor's appearance the same way and he's not as harsh as the very first fic he appeared in, but the name and several aspects of his personality stuck fast.

So glad you stopped by - I have a lot more writers on my flist at both journals and hoped for a better response - and thanks for sharing your thoughts. I will probably have more to discuss later :D

[hrhrionastar.livejournal.com]

Ooh, interesting topic :) I'm late, but I'll answer anyway ;)

a) I think everyone struggles with this - holding back ideas because they're too good, too complicated, too epic, etc. I can't think of a particular example, but I'm sure I've done it.

The other side of the problem would be leaving everything in, making the plot much too complex and convoluted because suddenly we have to know the entire life story of a minor character, and that brings in this new plot wrinkle, and so on.

That second one is a problem for me a lot, actually. There are several whole plotlines I had to cut from The Confessor Diaries, for example.

b) Names! I'm not sure I have a set strategy for names. Sometimes, OC or major character, the name just comes to me, and then I'm done; others I have to go through and discard dozens, listening to how they sound and writing them down and everything. I recommend Behind the Name. I often go there and just click the Random Renamer over and over until I see something I like.

c) I'm sort of in the middle or near the end of doing this, actually, and I think it depends on the character. Sometimes I want the name to sound similar, but I certainly might change the meaning, since now I'm probably changing the character's backstory too.

I actually don't often see my original characters as actors. I have sort of blurry images of them in my mind, enough to fit them in a particular physical type but not necessarily to say, 'oh, that's So-and-So!'

Back to the name thing briefly: when I first started watching LotS I knew someone named Cara, only she pronounced it Cair-a, as in Care Bear (or a less weird reference...) and it sort of colored my reaction to Cara at first, until she took over the name in my head. That's one reason I like unusual names, actually. If you know a Richard who's a real jerk, it could make it harder to like Richard the fictional character.

d) I honestly don't think you'll find a writer anywhere who's never revisited the same theme. Most likely your particular topics will always be with you, because they're why you write in the first place. I like the spiral theory: that as you learn more, you go back to the same topics but with new insight. (Or, in one of my favorite lines from Memory, by Lois McMaster Bujold: "The questions stay the same, but the answers change." Not that every answer changes, of course, but still.)

I wonder if the difference between a trope and a cliché is how often it gets used. People still like clichés sometimes, after all. 'It was a dark and stormy night' evokes something for the reader.

And back to rewriting the same story: didn't someone claim there are only 7 plots? Or something? Whatever it is, it's a finite number, so we're bound to repeat ourselves ;)

[meridian_rose]

Never too late to join the discussion, glad you stopped by :D

Between Seventh Sanctum and Behind The Name I can sometimes find a random name that works, but sometimes it doesn't work and I have to struggle to find Just The Right Name. Which is frustrating! Once the name is right, I can't imagine them being anything else though :D

Hm, yes, Ciara can be prounced more like that, as Cara is a similar/variant Irish name, but I'd usually think of Cara as in LotS while Ciara can be Care-a or Kee-ra I think. It does make a difference when you hear a name compared to reading it, especially with Celtic type names which often sound nothing like they are spelt!
Also yes, once you've seen one (or more) unlikeable people bearing a name if does tend to taint it!

Oh, I love the idea of a spiral! Like the never ending labyrinth, going around but each time with a new understanding. I'm not sure on the difference between trope and cliche; I think cliches are overused and obvious specific things whereas tropes are 'building blocks' and not always overused, sometimes subverted ideas. But it's a fine line.
Thinking on the Seven plots, yes, there are only so many stories, the difference is the telling!
I think Goodkind's making Darken Richard's father was supposed to evoke the archetype of son replacing father, but comes across as cliche, though others would disagree. Making Darken Richard's brother gives us a much richer, less explored relationship, especially when we bring in Michael and Jensenn to compare them with.

Thanks for your insight :D

[hrhrionastar.livejournal.com]

I love Celtic names, but so many of them are hard to pronounce. The spelling looks like one thing, the pronunciation sounds completely different...

I prefer Darken and Richard as brothers. As you say, it's a richer and less often explored relationship. I feel like stories and popular media often focus on parent-child or romantic partners relationships, rather than friends or siblings. My theory is that those (parent-child, lovers) are either simpler, or else people think they are.

That's one reason I love that Richard has so many Sibling Issues ;)

[xfirefly9x.livejournal.com]

Held back on an idea or a name because it seemed 'too good to waste'?

Nope. To me, if an idea is that good, it'd be a waste to NOT write it.

[meridian_rose]

Well, perhaps not to never use it, but not to use it, say, for an OC in a piece of fanfic (that will be 'published' ie posted) but to keep it back for that awesome original novel (that may not ever be finished let alone published!). I suppose it depends on how you feel about reusing names in various forms of writing.

But yes, I see how that's a useful mindset to have! Thanks for commenting, I appreciate it :D

[pristineungift.livejournal.com]

For some reason I thought I replied to this comment. I must have just THOUGHT about replying to it >_>

Anyway, in my book, it counts as 'exotic' basically if it doesn't have an English root or if it does, it hasn't been on a 'top 100' census list in several years.