[stylist] Naming characters

Wed Jan 4 01:12:32 UTC 2017

If writing about an actual experience, like training, why fictionalize it?
Why not write narrative nonfiction?

Bridgit

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Vejas
Vasiliauskas via stylist
Sent: Tuesday, January 03, 2017 5:31 PM
To: Writers' Division Mailing List <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Vejas Vasiliauskas <alpineimagination at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [stylist] Naming characters

That's a good thing to think about.  In a story I was working on about 2
friends at a blindness training center, I thought to put a couple of
characters in to represent myself and the 3 main friends that I hung out
with/talked to, just to see how they would fit into the story.  But that's a
good point, they could easily know.
Vejas

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Tessa via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Tue, 03 Jan 2017 17:22:24 -0500
Subject: Re: [stylist] Naming characters

Hi Vejas,
I don't think I've ever done that.  I have borrowed someone's name and maybe
the resulting character is a little like that person but I tend not to use
real people as characters.  I write fiction and I don't want my friends or
family offended because they think one of my characters is modeled after
them and is doing something totally inappropriate or illegal.
Tessa

----- Original Message -----
From: Vejas Vasiliauskas via stylist  <stylist at nfbnet.org
To: Writers' Division Mailing List  <stylist at nfbnet.org
Date: Tuesday, January 3, 2017 3:45 pm
Subject: Re: [stylist] Naming characters

 Tessa,
 What have you or anyone else done about a character whom you want  to base
on someone you know in real life? Do you usually have  that character start
with the same letter as the person you know?
 Vejas

  ----- Original Message -----
 From: Tessa via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org
 To: stylist at nfbnet.org
 Date sent: Tue, 03 Jan 2017 14:47:08 -0500
 Subject: Re: [stylist] Naming characters

 Thanks, yes that's about the way I do it, names come and they're  usually
appropriate, but I tend to spend a lot of quality time in  my head with my
characters before they get on the computer.
 Kenyan apparently spends time and research on character names but  she also
has quotes in her book from writer's who don't.
 I often pick up names from books, or from just listening to stuff  locally,
we have a large Finnish population so we get names like  Toivo and Helgi,
male and Aija saija and kaija female the j is  pronounced like a you.  Of
course parents are also being very  creative and inventing names I remember
reading something that  said the name Wendy hadn't been used before until jm
barrie used  it in peter pan.
 I've read where an author will go through the phone book picking  out
appropriate names or name ideas, not necessarily practical  for us but now
many of the baby naming books are being made  available in alternate
formats.
 Oddly enough one of my characters is named Martin, he's an  assassin among
other things, Martin is not a name I would have  considered for that
particular life style, but it's stuck for  some reason and it works.
 Names are definitely interesting.
 Tessa

 ----- Original Message -----
 From: Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter via stylist <stylist at nfbnet.org
 To: his'Writers' Division Mailing List'"  <stylist at nfbnet.org
 Date: Tuesday, January 3, 2017 12:43 pm
 Subject: [stylist] Naming characters

  Tessa,

  First, happy New Year.

  Second, I really like the name Tessa, grin.

  Third, I usually use whatever name pops in my head when writing.
 Of course,
  I mostly write nonfiction, so that's a horse of another color,  smile, but
  when I do write fiction, which I did just start a new story, I  do a lot
of
  thinking in my head before I even begin writing anything down,  and often
  names will just come.  Usually the first name I come up with is  what
sticks.

  Not a lot of thought goes into the naming of my characters,  smile.

  Bridgit

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