Greetings, Harold

My written exams are over. My Chemistry practical exam is complete. My Biology practical (ISA) is tomorrow and the written part of the practical element on January the 29th. However, my ISA preparations are going well, so I still have time to blog today. Most of the prep is in lesson time anyway.

Tomorrow I am going to start on The Magician's Tattoo properly again. In the latter part of 2012 I essentially deleted everything and started again. Three chapters have been written so far, and I hope to get chapter four completed this month and at least one chapter a month.

Image from maxfarquar.com

A few days into 2013, I started thinking about my characters. One thing that I couldn't get passed was Kwaad's name. As the novel isn't very long at the moment anyone who has read it won't notice the issue with his name, but I do. After all, I have done world building for the novel and so I'd hope I'd spot discrepancies within the world I created.

Every magician in the The Magician's Tattoo has a normal name. There is a little bit of comedy in the opening chapter when it is revealed the eccentric 'magic man' in the purple dressing gown is called Brian. However, despite this comedy, normal names are common in the magical world. They have different cultures to normal people (which will be developed later in the novel) but not so drastic that names are different. The normal people and magician populations developed along side each other. The only major difference is that magician's are magic and so have developed a religion (or religions on the world wide scale) based on how they get magic. But because they developed together their naming conventions aren't going to be too different.

The Name Game

Name (n) – A word that you use to identify a person, place or thing.
The names you give to your characters will stick with them right up until the story is finished. By that logic it should be one of the most important things to think about before writing your story. The main characters name will be eternally connected to your piece of fiction and if chosen quickly and without reason, you may well regret picking it.
So, what should you think about when choosing a name?
1. Ease of pronunciation:
Your story is set in a foreign country and you obviously want to make the names as authentic as possible. A reader would probably not be able to read ‘Yudhisthir’ without stopping to work out the pronunciation. If you want an Indian name, perhaps going with something like ‘Gafur’ would be better. My reasoning behind those two names will become clear in my next point, but here they serve the purpose of showing how picking an easy name is better.
2. Etymology of the name:
This is what the name means. Both examples in my above point have some meaning of war behind them. The former name means ‘Firm in Battle’ and the latter name means ‘Invincible’. These names would be perfect for a Hindu warrior. The reader may not look up your name, but for those eager eyed readers it is nice to give them something to find.
3. Length of name:
This is similar to the first point, but more directed to the writer than the reader. Every time your character’s name is used, you have to type it. Which would you rather type: ‘Yashodhan’, or ‘Yash’? They both mean ‘Fame’ but one is nine letters and the other is four.
4. Purpose of Character
This links in nicely to point two and in some ways could’ve come before that point. Your character may be a fun, easy-going, party loving woman. In this case a name like ‘Prudence’ or ‘Camilla’. I’m not saying people with these names can’t have the above traits, but your reader will have stereotypes for those kinds of names. Similarly if you are trying to portray a really ugly character, perhaps names like ‘Brad’, ‘Hank’ and ‘Mr. Depp’ would be the wrong way to go simply because women supposedly find certain famous people with those names good-looking.
Of course, these rules are not set in stone. Breaking convention is fantastic to shock the reader or to add comic effect. For example (here we go!) in The Magician’s Tattoo I gave the eccentric magician a really normal name, Brian. I did so because I thought it would be funny to have this magician who is completely stark-raving-mad have such a normal, human, name. I also picked it because it is one of Dumbledore’s middle names.
But, what about the concept of not naming your character? Is that allowed? Would the reader feel cheated? The answers are yes, yes and no. Not giving the main character a name works really well in first person horror/dark stories. I did it in Positive Thoughts. By not naming the character, every time the reader reads ‘I’ the only person it could mean is them. They become part of the story which exponentially increases tension and suspense.
If you would like to have a look at some ‘normal’, ‘generic’ names, their meanings and also how to create normal names, visit my experiment- The Normal Name Experiment
Hope this helps,
MattAB16