Saturday World Building - Names

How often do we, as authors, struggle with naming our characters, or the places we're writing about? I know that I have trouble with names. So what do we do about it?

One of the ways I name people and places is by sound. I put sounds together until I find one that I like. Then I figure out how to spell it. That's how I came up with Sindla. Another thing I'll do is take the names of key players and mash them together to form the name of a place. That's how I came up with Erondahl.

Then there's the names of people. How do you name all your characters? Sometimes I just put random letters together to see what I get (Tuleesi). Other times, like with country names, I put sounds together until I get something I like (Tinandril). Then there's the most common way I'll find names - baby name sites and books. In my current novel Marked (formerly Only A Name), I'm using a lot of Irish names because I settled on that naming convention for the country of Lytharia. Two of the name sites I use are here and here.

A word of advice on names: if you don't know how to pronounce your names, neither will your audience. If you want to use something obscure, learn how to pronounce it. Or find something different.

Titles. Those tricky little things that we have to come up with in order to put our story out there. A lot of mine end up with working titles like "Anne and Edward" or "Psionics". Eventually I come up with a title I like that fits the theme of the book, like Marked, Cracked World, and Burning Dreams. Those titles may change when I head to publication, but for now that's what they are.

If you're having problems with a title, pick one word that describes your story and use that. Or use a character's name and say, "Today I'm working on __________'s story." Pick a sentence you particularly like and turn that into the title. Or figure out what the central theme in your story is and use that as a title. Working titles are just fine. A lot of times the original title doesn't make it past the writing of the story.

Saturday World Building - Character Sheets

I know, I know. Everyone and their aunt has character sheets they use. But I'm one of those who never used to use them. I made things up as I went along and thought that was the best way to go. Then I discovered I was doing something that I find to be very annoying when some of my favorite writers do it - I was screwing up my own timeline and my characters.

I would have characters talk about things that they did that I never planned for them to do, and when I'd go back and read I'd find that I came up with a reason early on in the book why they couldn't have done it. I'd forget what they looked like. I'd give them character traits that went against what I'd initially had in mind for them. In short, I was messing up my own characters and with nothing to help me keep them straight it was a royal pain.

So I've devised my own version of a character sheet and I thought I'd share that with you. It's just some basic information about the characters. You can, of course, make them as detailed as you want. But I found this is what works best for me.

The first section is vital statistics. How tall are they? How much do they weigh? What color are their hair and eyes? What's their skin tone? These are basic things you need to know how your character looks. If they have tattoos or scars, this would be the best place to put those notes.

The second section is family. Where did they come from? Do they have any siblings? What about aunts and uncles? Grandparents? You don't have to go that far back in their timeline, especially if you don't expect to bring any of those family members in or the family members don't play an important part in the character's life. Even if their only purpose is to die to give your character drive to move forward with the adventure, put them on the character sketch. You don't have to give them names. I do, but I'm weird like that.

The third section is special characteristics. What makes your character so special? Are they hyper intelligent? Faster than everyone? Stronger than the strongest people in their village? Can they fly? Even if discovering this special characteristic is part of the story arc, make sure you write it down so you remember to put in the appropriate cues leading up to it. Another good thing to put here is their flaws. What makes them less than perfect? What are they afraid of? What is their attitude towards people?

The fourth section is the biography. This is where you get more detailed about where they came from. What is their history? What made them who they are now? Who were they before they became part of the story?

The fifth section is optional, and even I don't use it all the time. If you want, you can add some notes to the character sketch about how your character is going to evolve and change along the story arc. If you're like me and still don't know exactly how they're going to change, then obviously you wouldn't want to put in this section.

If any of this is useful to you, please feel free to adapt it to your own needs. I've adapted my method from reviewing several different character sketch outlines.