Naming Minor Characters

Once again a long gap between posts. I feel my apologies are getting repetitive.
But a belated Merry Christmas is due as well :)

Writing has been going ahead steadily over the past couple of week and I now have one chapter completed and five more on the go - not all in chronological order. I seem to be adopting the technique of writing what comes to me at the time, rather than doing all the chapters in order; but this way seems to get stuff done for me (it's the method I also adopt with schoolwork - though it doesn't always work).


The topic I've picked for today is the naming of secondary and tertiary characters; the ones who aren't as essential to the plot. These for me are those that I need to fulfil a certain role eg. the one who steps in to fill a place on a sports team or the owner of a shop.
Most of my main characters so far have been named after family and friends, just a few have been completely made up, but this - for me - is slightly harder to do with less major characters; as I like to have names that fit the people, but for the background characters I haven't really had chance to develop enough to know what names would fit. This has led to me leaving blanks for names which I really do not like, as a chapter that would otherwise have been complete now looks like bits are missing.
So far I've been fairly lucky and only had a few of these problems with names; meaning I feel I can leave them for now as they aren't piling up, but I know that the further I progress with writing the more these things will crop up.

I have therefore decided to come up with something to tackle this:
As of today I will be keeping a list of all my family and friends' names that I have not yet used. This means that if I cannot easily come up with a name myself, I simply need to flick through the list: to find one that isn't taken and that fits the person I've created so far - I can always change it later if I change my mind.
I know this approach will be far from fool-proof, but I know it will solve at least part of the problem.

Let's just hope that all these people I've pinched names from don't end up objecting later on, eh?
Well if they do... tough!
Haha!
Hope you enjoyed this xxx

Woah! Big format change!

Again apologies for the long gap (if indeed their is anyone actually reading my blog). Back to the topic at hand:

In the last week my book has undergone some pretty major changes to it's structure. I'm the type of person who goes back and edits throughout the entire process, rather than just leaving it until the end and then meticulously working through it page by page, so I think this will probably be happening fairly often.

Change 1:
Despite having finished the intro and being happy with it on first reading, I have since decided to scrap it for now. It was too generic and not all that attention grabbing; I found myself almost falling asleep on re-reading it, and I'm the one who wrote it!
Who knows? I may change my mind later on and add it back - with some editing of course - but for now it just wasn't working and so has gone.

Change 2: (this is the bigger and more important of the two)
I said before that my book would be divided between my two main characters, each of them living out their own storylines and interlinking with each other throughout. Now I've decided to have my first protagonist having her storyline as before, while my second will be taking on a more narrative role.
She will still have some small pieces of her own story but these will be set after that of the first girl, more of her looking back on what happened and in some cases providing explanations of things that will appear in the other storyline. My story is also set in a rather complicated world and so the second character will also be explaining how this world works and the rules that govern it, while the other lives in it.

I have a feeling there was something else but it seems to have slipped my mind at the moment. Maybe I'll remember it later and add it to this post.

What do you think of the new format?
Tschuss!
W-O

Your 'Writing Voice'

Again, apologies for the long gap between posts: life is not giving me much free time at the moment and I'm not one for stealing (unless from my sister).

Back to my topic of the day.
As anyone who's been looking to become a writer will know - or if you didn't you'll definitely find out some time - having your own voice is essential for keeping the reader interested and stopping them abandoning you due to boredom. This is different for every writer and it takes time to find it, lots of practising and lots of changing styles. I think, now, that I have found mine and believe me it is very different from how I first started out.

Here's a short tale of how my writing voice has developed and changed:
I started off like everyone does as a child. The usual:

One day Dave got out of bed and looked out of the window. It was raining outside.
"Well," Dave said; "I'll have to wear my coat to work today, then."

In other words truly awfully, with no personality at all.

Then I started reading more, reading real books with plots and well developed characters and I started being more descriptive in my writing:

Hannah stared blankly out of the window at the pouring rain, that was running down the glass pane from a leaking drainpipe above and showed no sign off stopping any time soon.
"I hate rain." sighed Hannah.

Not much better but a lot more interesting than Dave and his coat. However, still no real personality to it.

A few more years and books passed, and with each my writing got better. Then, finally, I read the first book in my favourite series of all time: Across The Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn (a true masterpiece of a book that should be read by everyone). Hearn's style is a very poetic one;thick on descriptions and making even the most mundane things seem poignant and beautiful. Her style really stuck with me and from then on I also tried to add a more poetic quality to my writing and started using my complex language from my very over-developed vocabulary (note that when I read this book I was only nine years old, while the book itself is rated for teens and young adults). From then on my writing became more like this:

The air was warm, but not still. A cool breeze ruffled the bushes and swept through the smooth, long grass so that it rippled like the waves out at sea. Below, a long, wide river ran through the valley, like molten silver in predawn light occasionally splashing up against the bank sending a spray of foam over the cattle grazing nearby, but they only flicked an ear. There were many other creatures too; a family of field mice stirred in the grass at the top of the valley, a lone hawk hovering above them, waiting for one to emerge. And there was the girl. (This was actually written a few years after I first read that book, but you get the idea.)

Much, much better, but still not me. It was too formal and almost cold, not as friendly and emotive as I would have liked - though at the time I though it was brilliant (ah, my poor over-sized ego).

 A few more years passed and I read more teen fiction and popular books, but as well expanded my reading to some other adult authors such as Phillipa Gregory and worked my way through some more classical novels such as Pride and Prejudice. In other words, I read just about anything I could get my hands on. It was during my perusal of teen fiction that I picked up on a more colloquial style of writing, a way of keeping things informal and light but at the same time keeping the audience emotionally involved with the story.

This was where my writing voice really started to come into being. I kept my vocab and my love of Hearn's descriptive style, but made it less formal; only using the more complex vocab where appropriate and not superfluously, as I had before. I learnt how to use different lengths of sentences and ways of phrasing things that worked for me and the story. This took several years to truly come into being, but now I feel like I have a voice that is entirely my own and what I want it to be:

I never found life to be empty; there was always something new to enjoy or to learn, something to fascinate or enthrall. It felt good to work towards my goals – to feel I was achieving something – and to do well was an undeniable pleasure.

But things change.

I changed.

Now life seems pointless. I watch other people enjoying it, revelling in it, but I can no longer join them; I envy them and long to feel the way I used to, but that isn’t possible. I barely pay attention to my daily life any more; just go through the motions, like a bored audience at a play – a play about me.

This is something I wrote only a few months ago. It is far from perfect I'm sure, but I know it is so much better than what I started with and it's sounds how I want it to: to me and hopefully to you too.

I hope you've enjoyed my little life story. The first two samples of writing were not really from when I was younger, just something I thought would give you an idea of how I was (I was probably much worse than that, but I have no evidence of it - hehe!). Please do not use either of the other samples as they are mine and I may use them later on.

See you next time.

W-O xx

The Perfect Love Interest

First of all let me start of by apologising for the long break between posts (I know it's not long by some standards but since I'm trying to update this fairly regularly I felt very guilty about it). I've been a bit caught up in my real-world happenings this week; particularly due to the fact that - according to my birth certificate anyway - I am now legally an adult and have spent the past few days celebrating that fact (surprisingly with very little input of alcohol - never really been my thing). I am now supposedly meant to be more mature and responsible, though that in no way means I plan to actually be so.

But back to my current topic of thought, which is: why are love interests in books always perfect?
Believe me I love reading a good romance as much as anyone and when the male character happens to be extremely charming, good looking, witty and always says the right thing it's all the better. I always manage to get shivers from a good bout of flirting and it's one of the things I most enjoy reading. But why does every time have to be so strikingly similar? When you think about it, how many guys do you know who have no faults whatsoever? Not every guy can be a good flirt and certainly not everyone is a complete dream to look at. It's simply reality. So why do authors always feel the need to emphasise how gorgeous all of their characters are - and not just the potentially romantic ones.

So, why is this? I know we want the readers to like the person our character falls in love with but it seems to me that we're trying too hard and it can make things a bit boring. I rather like the idea of a story where the two lovebirds hate each other to begin with but are forced together and end up liking each other in the end or manage to work through their differences, or else aren't really aware of each other until about halfway through the story, then they hit it off.

One final point: do all stories have to have a romance?
I know we all enjoy it and it adds an extra flavour to the story, but is it necessary? And is there a risk of it taking over the whole plot? I have read some books where the story turns from an adventure to just endless speculation about whether two characters will get their happy ending or not, rather than the main adventure plot with the romance as a main subplot.

I have decided in my story to leave the romance out for now and add it later if I feel the story is missing something. I still have the potential partner planned out and ready to go but I'm not necessarily going to include them yet - maybe I'll even save them for a sequel! But I'm keeping my main story main and trying not to distract from it too much.

What do you think? Can love interests become over-the-top perfect? Should the romance take precedence over the story?

Hope you enjoyed this little rant. Don't worry, it's over now.
Bye
W-O