I’m several pages into my new manuscript–*wiggle*. I have a basic outline of the first two chapters, and several of the later, bigger scenes sketched out, and I just now realized my heroine doesn’t have a name.
That’s not good.
I hate naming characters. While my guys let me know right away who they are, I usually don’t settle on the heroine’s name until at least 3/4 of the way through. So I slap ‘Sarah’ in there until they tell me their names. (Why Sarah? Who knows.)
The hero of Roadtrip was probably the first guy who had trouble settling on a name. Originally it was Ian, and it stayed Ian until I was almost done. Then he said, “Hey, moron, try Ethan.”
So I did the Find & Replace thing. Of course I did it at midnight, so I forgot to check the ‘match case’ and ‘whole words only’ buttons. Words like librarEthan abounded.
I also have a very small pool of names. I use them over and over and over again. I was working on my Brava novella when I realized that three of the names were already used in my SIM, including the hero’s. One of them weaseled its way into Roadtrip, but I caught it. And a few of the names in that SIM were used in a Silhouette Romance that was rejected a couple of years back. (*whew* I dodged that bullet–I realized even before the rejection came that if they bought it I’d be writing books with NO SEX!)
Time to hit the baby-naming sites.
Comment
4 Comments:
Breezy said…
Briana is a VERY nice name, Shannon!
9:25 PM
AngieW said…
Why, so is Brianna. *snort*
But I’m also partial to Angela, Angel, Angelica, Anja (some fantasy writer actually did use this name but who or what book escapes me)…umm…also feel free to take liberties with Angie (the book, not me).
9:56 PM
Mel said…
oh… here we go
Olivia, Alexandria, Jasmine, Kendra, Caitlyn, Zeeanna, Viveca, Tori, Leigh, Melani *snort*, Darla, Cassidy….
Anything, anything?
Email me, sweets. I’ve got “the” baby book, remember?
Mel
10:37 PM
Shannon said…
:p
Or I could name her Briana, and have my overbearing Alpha vamp call her Angel.
Zeeanna, Mel? I’m from New Hampshire, hon. You know, where we name all the girls…Sarah! *g*
I kind of like Olivia. The majority of the other names in the book are of Spanish origin, so I don’t want anything too fancy so one gets exhausted just trying to keep up with who’s who. Whom. Who. Forget it.
12:18 AM