Yesterday, in response to
Black Opal Books’ question on FB as to how we name characters, I told how I
remember the names of my characters as I write. Today, how do we help our readers remember which character is
which?
I don’t know how Alistair
Maclean ever remembered the names of his characters himself. I certainly
couldn’t tell one from another. He named them all alike. The men were always
Henderson, Peterson, Swanson, Johnson, et al son. Maclean was a fabulous
story-teller, especially his WWII novels, like The Guns of Navarone and Where
Eagles Dare. I could never keep the guys straight, though, unless I read
Maclean in German, like Angst ist Der
Schlussel, which I did to try to improve my German. I was so busy
struggling with the Deutsch that I didn’t care which son was which. Mein
Deutsch is sehr schrelich.
Maclean’s women were even
worse. He named every one of them, in every book, Mary. [In all fairness, I do
think he had a Marian once.] In one book he even named a Mary and a Mary 2, and
blamed it on the characters. According to Maclean, since they were both Mary, Nelson
and Henderson and Johnson and Gunderson dubbed them Mary and Mary 2, as though
Maclean had nothing to do with naming them both Mary in the first place.
The key to helping the
reader is to identify each character, regularly, by something other than name
alone. That’s especially true if a character has not showed up for a few pages.
Rather than just Chuck Shaw, or Shaw, say: “County Sheriff Shaw,” or “Sheriff
Shaw,” or just “The Sheriff.” His position, profession, tells the reader more
than his name does, especially if he is “fifth business.” [1]
Sometimes physical
description helps the reader. “Beulah, the woman with three eyes,” or just “the
woman with three eyes” reminds the reader quickly just who you’re talking
about.
Tomorrow, making the name
fit the character, so that the reader has a better chance of identifying the
character even without a job category or physical description.
John
Robert McFarland
1] A phrase used mostly in
play writing. There is the hero, the sidekick, the woman, and her best friend.
Everyone else is “fifth business.”
Daughter
Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in
America will be published by J. K. Rowling’s publisher, Bloomsbury Press,
in 2016.
Author
guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog
must be “high concept.” I have no idea what that means, but just forget about
JUST WORDS being an author blog and consider it ‘high concept.”
My
novel, VETS, about four handicapped
and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, will
be published by Black Opal Books in 2015.
I tweet as yooper1721.
I also write Christ in
Winter: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/
MY OTHER BOOKS:
NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life
and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel & HarperAudio, with Czech and
Japanese translations] Paul K. Hamilton, MD, the co-founder of CanSurmount,
called it “The best book for cancer patients, by a cancer patient, ever.”
AN ORDINARY MAN
[HarperPaperbacks] Randall MacLane just wanted to be an ordinary man. But sent
with a message for Custer, he became a drifting lawman with a knack for
killing, and a deep well of loneliness. Then a twist of fate brought him full
circle…
THE STRANGE CALLING: Stories of Ministry [Smyth&Helwys] I didn’t want to be a preacher,
but I made a deal with God to save my sister’s life. Was that really a “call,”
though? I said, “I’ll try t for 50 years, and if I still don’t know, I’ll do
something else.” These are stories of what happened in those years of
questioning the call.
WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL and Other Stories of
Christmas [lulu.com] ISBN
978-1-300-38566-0
If you like baseball
poetry, take a look at “Frosty & the Babe” http://www.baseball-almanac.com/poetry/frosty_and_the_babe.shtml
No comments:
Post a Comment