Naming Characters | Like A Writer

Hey Guys x

Welcome to 'Like A Writer' - I haven't done one of these in a while, but basically this series is just different pieces of advice and my own opinions about writing a novel.

Today, I want to talk about naming characters - particularly the characters whose names are going to be mentioned a lot.

Now, for me, my favourite thing about writing anything fiction based, is creating my own characters. And the best part about creating characters, I think, it giving them names.

Lots of people do this differently - Author Giovanna Fletcher said that she sometimes takes the names of friends and changes them slightly. Carrie Hope Fletcher gave her characters in her debut novel 'On The Other Side' surnames relating to seasons - everyone does things differently.

For me, I spend days before even planning anything searching baby naming websites. Normally I have a small idea about the character, maybe one or two details, and choose a name based on this - however, this rarely works for me!

I've heard of authors saying that their character chooses their own name - their personality, traits and features/looks make their name instantly obvious to the author.

For me however, my name chooses my character. I give them a name before mapping them out, and that name helps me to work out who the characters are - so the name is important!

Some advice, from both me and other books that I've read (books about writing a novel, not fiction books!) is:

Don't make the name hard to pronounce! If you have a novel where the names are really unique, fair enough, but someone pointed out to me that a book is less likely to be translated to an audio book if the person reading can't pronounce the main characters name!

Don't have too many similar names! This is advice that I read. If you have names that are way too similar, it's going to be hard for the reader to keep up - and they may begin to confuse people, which could be bad for your book!

Make names realistic for the time period! If you're writing a novel about 18th century London, there are some names that just aren't going to make sense for this time. Do the research before committing to a name.

Don't name characters (particularly villains) after real people! Again, this is something that I hadn't thought about, but if you have a murderer character, and you name them after someone well known, and your book becomes a bestseller, that person has free reign to sue you for deformation of character, and that's something that you definitely don't want or need!

Have fun with it! Choosing character names doesn't have to be the most serious thing in the world, it's your book, so there's a lot to play with - everything is your choice, don't worry about what other people will think!

Thank you for reading!

Comment below how you name characters!

Keep Smiling - Lou xx