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What’s In A Name?

Call me Ishmael. (Don’t actually. That was just for dramatic effect.)

Names are such important things. We take our own very seriously, and I’ve yet to meet a writer who takes their character names less seriously than that. Nonetheless, a character name is an altogether different thing. Most of us, like and use the name we were given. The most choice we had in the matter was whether to use a nickname. For example, I was Chris for many years until I realized that there are way too many Chris…s (Chrisii? Chrises?).

Character names, on the other hand, we have to choose. (Word of advice: Never leave a character name up to chance.) The issue, then, is how to make that choice. Many writers will tell you that they select names of significance either to the story or to them personally. Others go for referential names that allude to parallel events, secret origins, myths, legends, or jokes.

Regardless of the option you choose, what matters most—at least in my mind—is ensuring that the character name makes sense for the universe in which it will be used. To paraphrase the fine folks of How Did This Get Made?, the name must fit the setting. Tyrion, Tywin, Cersei, and…Kevan? Feels a little odd. Having a character born and raised in ancient China named Nigel, would also be frowned upon. If Gandalf’s true name happened to be Bob, we would call foul. It’s not that Kevan, Hank, and Bob are bad names in general. They simply do not fit the universe in which we’re using them.

One of the best parts of writing is the absolute control we wield over our worlds. The power is ours to create and destroy, dub and redub. I call that out because you CAN name your book’s Gandalf “Bob,” if you want. Just have a reason for it. In universe, not merely in your head. If the pronunciation is more like “boba” and follows the etymology of a forgotten native tongue of the fae, awesome. Just make sure the reader knows that.

It’s far too easy to get wrapped up in being clever and forget that you’re actually not explaining anything to anyone.

A final note on fantasy/science fiction character naming. In my opinion, these are the most fun names to conceive as they can, by all rights, be insane, quirky, or clever without fault. That said, beware of your name quirk. I’ve found that many writers have certain types of names or name sounds that they really enjoy, thus they use them often. I know I have a name quirk like this (and no, I won’t tell you what it is—though you’re welcome to guess). Because fantasy and sci-fi allow us to move beyond “normal” names with impunity, it can be very easy to feed your name quirk.

I had an early novel concept whose character names were all oddly similar until I realized I was doing this. Pro tip: don’t make everyone’s names include the same vowel sound.

What do you do when you’re coming up with character names? What other tips or tricks would you like to share? What name quirks do you know you have bubbling deep inside? Let me know in the comments below, and thanks for reading!

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Don’t Go Undrafted, Part 2

And we’re back! I guess that’s a royal “we,” since there’s only me typing here. Last week I shared a few quick thoughts on single and sandwich drafting. Today, I want to dive into two others: multi and confetti. I know what you’re probably thinking: “Who is this guy?” That question is better answered on the main page or in the “Introductions…” post. If you’re wondering what confetti drafting is, good. It’s weird. We’ll talk about it in a bit. But first:

Multi Drafting

On the other side of the spectrum from single drafters, we have those who generally craft several drafts of a thing before they consider it ready for editing. For these folks, the growth of ideas, flow, and structure often develop through each subsequent draft rather than before drafting begins. I consider this practice just as venerable as single drafting, though it does have its own flaw. If single drafting can facilitate people who want to skip steps and just throw their “final” writing out into the world, multi drafting does the opposite. For those prone to procrastination or perfectionism, multi drafting can become an Escher Vault of endless versions that never culminate in an outside editorial because it’s “not quite right.”

At some point, if your goal is to share your writing with others, you have to share it with others. Even if you feel it isn’t perfect. I’ve known a few multi drafters that would cycle endlessly, lost in self-doubt that the work isn’t good enough. Honestly, even if it really isn’t, sometimes it takes an outside perspective to help you see what’s missing. Endlessly iterating on the same thing forever isn’t a good plan. That way lies madness.

TL;DR – Multi drafting involves building ideas, concepts, and styles through iterative drafts of the same content. It is not an excuse, however, to avoid showing your work to anyone else because it “isn’t there yet.”

Confetti Drafting

Finally, the much alluded to confetti drafting. I’ve only met one person that did this, and I cannot attest to its effectiveness in any way shape or form. Evidently, this type of drafter writes independent sentences, paragraphs, or ideas without any order or form. They just plop it onto the page as it occurs to them. Once they feel that they’ve written enough of those, they simply drag and drop them into an order, adding transitions where necessary. It seems akin to an index card outlining methodology if one applied a little extra chaos to it.

I don’t get this one at all. It is anathema to my single drafter brain. I have no idea how it would work well, and I can definitely see places where it would get weird. That said, I am sure that it works for some people. I just am not one of them!

If you do this, please tell me about your process. I really, really want to know. Like really. This is a mystery to me.

Tl;DR – ?????????

Conclusion

There are many more forms of drafting than the 4 I’ve discussed in the last two posts. Honestly, I believe they all can work when executed well and all can fail when executed poorly. I recommend finding others that draft like you to learn from their habits and best practices. Then, find folks who draft differently and learn from theirs. Your goal shouldn’t be to draft like everyone else, but to fine tune your practices until they are as refined as your manuscripts/papers/poems/messages in a bottle.

The only bad kind of drafter is one who refuses to learn.

In the comments, let me know what kind of drafter you are, what styles you’ve run into aside from the above, or if you like Warehouse 13. That last one is just because I like talking to people about that awesome show. Or tweet that stuff at me.

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Thanks for reading!

 

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Don’t Go Undrafted, Part 1

Single, Multi, Sandwich, Confetti. Each of these terms is used to describe a style of drafting, and I wanted to talk a little about them. Side note: if you haven’t heard of the last two, it’s because I coined them. In my time as the research director and managing editor for an international team of professional writers, I quickly learned that nothing guarantees people stick to the 2 most common drafting forms.

I want to start by discussing two of these styles this week (single and sandwich) with the other two (multi and confetti) coming next week!

Single Drafting

I will be upfront and announce that I am a single drafter. I do most of the legwork in writing before I put finger to key (or pen to paper (or will to thought interface)), and the rest is handled as I type each word. Initial revisions get made as I’m still drafting, and I’ll often iterate on an idea for a bit before I’m satisfied and move on. Once that draft is complete, I consider it ready for thorough editorial and revision.

Stop, please, and reread that last sentence. In my experience, people too often write off (Puns! Woo!) single drafters as folk who do not edit. I blame sub par single drafters for tainting an otherwise venerable practice. There are single drafters, and I recall many from my days as a master tutor of reading and writing, who believe that once they’ve completed that draft, they are done. Excerpt of real conversations I’ve had:

Student: “Christopher, here’s the paper I wrote for English 305.”

Christopher: “Great, let’s read through it and discuss revisions.”

Frustrating Student: “No, it’s done.”

Frustrated Christopher: “What? You went through and revised it with someone else?”

Irritating Student: “No. I’m a single drafter. I don’t need to edit.”

Irritated Christopher: “That is not how that works.”

Baffling Student: “Sure it is. I only write one draft. It doesn’t need edits.”

Baffled Christopher: “THEN WHY DID YOU BRING IT TO A WRITING TUTOR?!”

Student Comically Missing the Point: “Teacher told me to.”

Christopher:

That was a dramatic reenactment of far too many real life conversations I’ve had. To all you single drafters out there, your single draft is exactly that. A draft. It is not a final product or deliverable. It is not a polished manuscript. Once you’re satisfied with a draft, it’s time to edit and revise yourself, followed by editing and review by others with experience. Writing is an art of refinement and calling yourself a “single drafter” doesn’t get you out of that.

/endsoapbox

TL;DR – Single drafting involves refinement of vision and concepts pre-drafting, but IS NOT an excuse for skipping editing and revisions. Essentially, single drafters do a lot of the logistical prep for writing before they ever sit down to write.

Sandwich Drafting

So now we get into one of the weird ones that I coined because I needed terminology to make sense of them. Sandwich drafting refers to the practice of drafting the content first, and only writing the introduction and conclusion once the content is complete. Essentially, these folks put together the meat, cheese, veggies, condiments, and then slap a piece of bread on either side.

Sandwich drafting is odd to me. I see no issues with it if it’s done well, but I feel like drafting the intro and conclusion last can lead to some oddities in the flow of a chapter, paper, etc. I can also see it running into the potential issue of procrastination (which I’ll talk about in a little more detail next week with multi drafting). If you don’t write the beginning or end until you’ve finished the middle, and you’re the kind of person who’s prone to insecurity, you may find yourself endlessly rewriting the body without addressing the head or feet. At some point–unless you’re writing only for yourself–your words have to get out in front of readers. Anxiety can make that transition difficult, and I can see how this writing style could facilitate such nervous procrastination.

TL;DR – Sandwich drafters finish the middle before writing the beginning and end. It can work, but it can also lead to odd disconnects in flow or endlessly cycling through content without completing the rest.

Intermission

Those are the two forms I wanted to talk about this week. Come back next week to read about multi drafting and the odd practice I’ve dubbed confetti drafting! The most important thing to remember: THE ONLY TRULY WRONG WAY TO DRAFT IS TO NOT DRAFT AT ALL. As long as you approach your style openly and remain honest in your efforts to refine yourself and your skills, most anything can work.

If you use one of these (or any other style), tell me what you think on Twitter or in the comments below!

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A Good Place to Start

Naturally, since I’m a writer and you’re here reading my writings about writing, I think it makes sense to provide you with a little peek into my approach. Right?

This will sound absolutely insane but here we go:

I create a world, put characters in it, and watch things unfold.

In case you weren’t sure, I was being sarcastic about the “sound insane” thing.

In all honesty, though, I think this approach is far less common than it should be. It’s incredibly easy as a writer—especially in the brainstorming stage of a creative project—to get wrapped up in an idea. Often, that idea is the kernel of the plot: tormented man fights giant whale, family gets trapped on an island and must learn to survive, halfling destroys incredibly powerful ring of doom, etc. Inevitably, finding this idea gets the writer excited, and they launch into drafting or taking notes, shaping characters and details around it.

None of that is inherently bad or wrong. The problem is when the plot becomes an absolute ruler to which all other facets of the writing—world, characters, contrivances, outcomes—must bow. The stories that come out of this approach often “work.” They make more or less sense, move from point to point effectively, and achieve whatever end state they had in mind to some effect.

The issue is that they aren’t believable. Your life isn’t driven by a plot. You, a real person with history and experiences guiding you, make decisions based on the stimuli generated by the world and other people around you. Stories arise out of this all the time, definitely. But at no point does your world abruptly stop and shift to serve a plot point. The world inside a good story shouldn’t either.

More than almost anything else, plot-focused writing will knock me out of fully enjoying a movie, TV show, book, or video game. I do have a tolerance for it if I’m having enough fun with whatever’s happening, but I will question mystifying character actions later.

All of that said, when I approach writing a story of any kind, about anything, I start with that same kernel of an idea that anyone does, but then I build around that a full world with rules and fundamental laws. I mean things like gravity, physics, average familial relation; not “don’t steal” or something of that sort.

From there, I develop characters that live within that world and obey the laws and rules I’ve set out. Often those two types of development mesh, with each inspiring the other. At the end of the process, though, my goal is to have a world full of stimuli that drive and motivate characters as actors within whatever they face.

Once I’ve moved beyond brainstorming and into full drafting, I sit down at the computer (or at the location in which I can notebook successfully) and pick up the characters wherever they are in their lives and document them as they move forward. Inevitably, this can lead to very unexpected developments in my stories, where the plot takes a turn I—as the author!—didn’t expect.

And that’s just fun for me. I think it’s fun for readers, too.

As Ernest Hemingway so wonderfully said: “When writing a novel, a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”