This month, I’ve been deeply focused on the novel I’m working on. I’ve burst out of the muddle in the middle and am feeling the draw of the crescendo pulling me toward the final chapters. As a result, when I realized I needed to write this post, I was drained of ideas. All creative thoughts had gone into the book. So, I went to my Facebook group and asked them what they would like to know. What should I write about in today’s blog?
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And wow. I got a lot of suggestions and questions. If you happen to be a member there, I promise I will answer all of them, but the one I chose for today is a topic I’ve shared in the past. Still, it’s a fun one.
Donna Alber asked: What’s your inspiration for places and character names?
For starters, let me say names drive me crazy. It’s a writing “rule” that two characters should not share the same first initial. And I understand. Readers devour pages at such a pace that their brain only registers part of the letters. So having a Susan and a Sharon on the same page can be confusing. I don’t want the reader to have to stop and ask, “What? Who?” But it happens. For one thing, even when I keep track of first initials, there are also last names and town names. Somehow, I managed to miss the fact that I have Wayne Baronick who works in Brunswick.
I was determined to keep this from happening in the Detective Honeywell series. Well, that determination went down the tubes when Eric, a character from the first book who wasn’t supposed to ever show up again, decided to come to town in the second book and now we have Emma and Eric in Erie.
Basically, I give up. I mean, I try, but there are only so many letters in the alphabet. When you see a character with the name Quinn or Ulysses, you know I’m desperate.
But none of this really answers the question.
Inspiration. Let’s start with my Zoe Chambers series. Pete Adams is named Pete after the man who was our local police chief and a good friend of my dad’s when I was a kid. Adams is the last name of friends of my family. Zoe (don’t tell her) was the name of a cute little dog I once knew, and Chambers is the family name of one of my nieces. Monongahela County doesn’t exist, but the Monongahela River does. It’s also the name of a nearby town. A lot of the fictional locations have some obscure meaning to me, if to no one else.
In the Detective Honeywell series, I’m more blatant with my character names. Ancestry.com is a rabbit hole I get sucked into from time to time. At one point, I was tracing my maternal grandmother’s lineage and came across my five-times great grandfather, Matthias Honeywell. He fought in the Revolutionary War in New York. All well and good, but all I could think was what a fabulous name!
In the same series, we have Emma Anderson, who was my maternal grandmother. Emma Nelena Anderson Miller, to be exact. My grandfather lovingly called her Nellie, and most of her friends called her Nell. So, I got two character names from one family member. Emma and her sister, Nell.
The locations in the Honeywell series are largely real, so inspiration comes from taking a trip to Erie, PA, and driving around the area. A lot of the businesses, especially those where crimes take place, are figments of my imagination. But many are real. Emma lives at Sara’s Campground (real--click the link for a virtual driving tour of the grounds--and I must thank the owners for allowing me to use it) but her campsite is fictional.
The whole portion of the campground where she lives is made up, so don’t trespass and try to find it. It’s not there. Presque Isle State Park is real. So is the Bicentennial Tower and all of the street names. The Blue Pike Restaurant is fictional (although I wish it was real…in my mind, the food there is amazing). The warehouses mentioned and any businesses I placed in them are fictional. The area used to have warehouses there, but they’ve been razed.
I’m passing the question on to you writers. Where do you get your inspiration for character names and locations? And to you readers, do locations in the books you read make you want to go there?
And the big one,
how much are you really bothered by names that have the same initials?
Great post. Driving tours of the Laurel Highlands and historical events from Buffalo are my go-to (although like you, I fictionalize a lot of business, especially if I plan to commit murder there). Obituaries are my name source - as is the Name Generator tool in Scrivener.
ReplyDeleteTwo of the same initial? Not a problem. Half a dozen? That's annoying.
Liz, you and I have had this conversation soooo many times. :-)
DeleteI get easily confused by similar names in a story, so I appreciate it when authors make an effort to differentiate them. Sometime, though, names are similar for a good reason--twins, say, or to join them together in the reader's mind (Nick and Nora. Tommy and Tuppence.)
ReplyDeleteFor a fictional place, I look at the area and try to use a similar name. My Jesse Damon series is set in a fictional town where many in the area have "burg" or "town" in their names. Emmitsburg, Gettysburg, Taneytown Hagerstown, etc. So the fictional town is called Rothsburg.
There is a Monongahela County, but it's in West Virginia, not Pennsylvania.
KM, that's actually Monongalia County in WV. And you're very right about Nick and Nora and Tommy and Tuppence. The alliteration works brilliantly in those cases. Also, Rothsburg is a great name for a town. It definitely sounds real.
DeleteOnce I was a BETA reader for a local writer and I mentioned the beginning initial character problem. She thanked me, but she didn't make many changes to those women whose names started with E. She must have loved them so much. Thanks for thinking of us readers who are easily confused, Annette!
ReplyDeleteBeth, we try. We really try.
DeleteI'm honored that you used my question. I've always wonder where names and places come from in all books I read. Thank you for a fantastic answer to my question.
ReplyDeleteThanks for asking it, Donna!
DeleteDepends. Some are favorite names, others are from history, obituaries, or census names by year. With history and obituaries, I never take full names. Instead, I’ll pick a first name from the obit of a character I’d have liked to meet in life and team it with a surname that fits. I keep charts so I don’t have a lot of Bills, Barrys, Bens, and Benjamins in the same book.
ReplyDeleteI’m in the process of re-editing the Catherine Swope books. They were the first two books I self-published. I’ve discovered that a lot of the Swope last names show up as first names in the Hayden Kent mysteries – go figure!
I'm not surprised, Kait. I find myself using (or wanting to use) the same first names from one series to another.
DeleteFor my first book - Illegal Maneuvers - I used my hometown - Berwick, PA - but called it Schuylerton. I keep cities their original name, but substitute an alias. For streets, I used aliases too, but tried to keep the first letter the same. So Poplar Street became Powell. I did the same with some businesses. With characters, I have lists of names I draw from, pairing first and last that have a certain 'rhythm' to them.
ReplyDeleteI love how we all have our own method to the naming madness.
DeleteI use real places (NOLA, London, Sarlat, France) and fictionalize the street names or for small towns, fictionalize the whole town based on actual facts about it. For characters, none of them have first names that start with the same letter, I strive for diversity based on location (Cincinnati has many German surnames), and I consult lists of popular baby names for a specific birth year. My WIP has many Ukrainian names. I found a similar list of common names for a specific year.
ReplyDeleteAh, yes. I use those list of baby names by birth years all the time.
DeleteStranger than fiction, when I first started working at my current job I was introduced to two Judys, a June, two Joannes, and a Julie.
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine has four children who have the same first initial as their parents (just coincidentally they are also all j’s)
In the past, we have had three Brians working at the same time, all with different spellings.
Right now I almost share the same name as a male co-worker except my name ends with an a and his ends with an o. Unless they are carefully pronounced there can and has been confusion as to who the correct person being addressed or referred to is.
Sometimes we just write something and end it with initials. This has also presented problems since we have a number of departments and locations and many people in them share the same initials.
Old fashion names are coming back and perhaps can be drawn upon for more unique options.
I personally like a listing of the cast of characters and their relevance to the story. I find it very helpful in differentiating who’s who.
I know of several authors who include casts of characters.
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