On Twitter, I recently posted an important (not so serious) question regarding if I could get away with NOT naming my main character for my upcoming project The Sprite Child's Epic (by Migan the Hillsprite). The idea of the story came from wanting to expand on a series of books my supporting character Brodie gives to my main character Ghuli in Save the Queen. I thought it would be nice to try to actually write the books she is reading in the library.
What I did first was try to figure the name of each book in the series. They're still tentative except for the first because I named it in STQ. "Catch of the Faeriefly." I already know I have to work on these three major factors: what does this world look like, what is my main character like, and what happens when she, you know, catches the faeriefly? The first couple of paragraphs came to me easily, and I typed them out no sweat.
But when it came to typing out her name, I had nothing.
It's been awhile since I've worked extensively on a story that wasn't STQ or where I was building a world from scratch, so the idea of coming up with a new name wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. An ex once said he likes for names to not be arbitrary, but because I never believed anything he said was worth much, I feel like nothing always needs to be deep. At the same time, when writing in a world that doesn't yet exist in literature, I wanted my MC's name to be accessible, at least by me. I decided to have the story take place before any of the races of STQ's world come together, so I knew I needed to deal with a Sprityn language not yet influenced by anything else.
Still nothing.
Because I was so stuck, I decided to let it go for a little while, knowing that by some random osmosis, my MC's name would come to me. I really have no memory of what I was doing when it finally struck me, but I thought of three simple words:
"You are Lenne."
This is a line my character Cyan tells another character when they are trapped in dire straits. It was a name he thinks up off the top of his head, but now it's a name that will once again connect these two stories. It also shows a little softness to my book's resident hardass. lol It means he read fairy tales as a child in his time between becoming a watchman. So not only does my little Sprite Child have a name, but now it all comes back full-circle.
*sigh of relief*
Greetings
- Debra Renée Byrd
- Delaware, United States
- Deborah Hawkins, penned Debra Renée Byrd, began writing after a blank book project in elementary school and never stopped, fashioning stories based on her favorite TV shows and movies before creating more original works. She studied at the University of the Arts and Florida State University before settling down and graduating from Temple University. She now resides in her hometown of Dover, DE, where she spends most of her time at work or at church. She loves fantasies, superheroes, is a trekkie and a brown coat. She loves television and lives for Final Fantasy video games, having collected most of them. She has read a myriad of authors, and her favorite authors change whenever she finds a new book that changes her life... "When you can't run, you crawl. When you can't crawl...well, you know the rest." -Tracey, Firefly, "The Message"
2 comments:
That's an interesting process. I like it. I have a list of names that I refer to when I'm about to start a project. It's not very inspired. LOL.
But it's probably a huge darn time saver. lol
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