Progress Report

I finished the first draft of a book this week. I love to be able to say that. Finishing the first draft is my favorite part. It’s a big step toward the next book and gives me a satisfying sense of accomplishment.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that I’m totally stuck on names. Again. Naming characters is getting harder because now in addition to all the other considerations I feel as though I can’t reuse names I’ve already used. At least not for main characters. Let’s talk about some of those considerations.

Names need to fit the characters. Most of the time, a name is one of the first things we learn about someone. Then as we come to know that person, their character traits become associated with that name. Characters are the reverse. First I imagine what the person is like and how he or she acts. Then when I try to assign a name, I can’t help but call to mind all the real people I’ve known with that name and how they are nothing like the character. I rule out that name because it doesn’t fit. And the next one. And the next one. Then I think of one I like and rule it out when I remember I already used it. (Except when I named someone John after I already had a Jon. Still not sure how I convinced myself that was okay.)

Age is also a factor. If I’m writing about a bunch of people in their 20s, I can give one or two of them an old-fashioned or unusual name. Not everyone names their kids from the top ten list. But if they all get names that were popular thirty years before they were born, something will feel off. I do have the social security baby name lists bookmarked.

The names need to be realistic but not too realistic. Truth is allowed more leeway than fiction. My Jr. High gym teacher’s name was Jim Schwartz. Really. I could never get away with putting that in a book. I have in real life known married couples named Chris and Chris and Daniel and Danielle. But when I named a couple Jack and Jill, more than one person criticized me for being too cutesy. Those are not terribly uncommon names. I didn’t think it was that far-fetched that they might find each other.

What about last names? There’s a balance between common and uncommon here, too. I can’t give them all names like Smith and Wilson. But they can’t all be Tecczyt or Dofsteadder either. I have read a phone book hunting first and last names. Many times. There are few things more boring than reading a phone book. Though scrolling ancestry records is close.

Now let’s talk about why there are so many characters to name this time. In my previous two series – Stories From Hartford and Coffee and Donuts – the main characters were unique to each book. The stories were tied together by the settings and a few familiar minor characters. The protagonists rarely appeared in each other’s stories and were usually unnamed when they did. This new series will be more traditional in the sense that minor characters in the first book will become main characters later in the series. That means I need to put more thought into those characters’ names than I might if they were only ever going to appear in one scene.

This is why I’m a little stuck. I need to know who is going to reappear. I need to make sure I like those names before I can edit the first book. I’m not sure I like the names. And this thing I’m referring to as the first book… I’m not trying to be secretive. I can’t call it by name because it doesn’t have one. I haven’t named the series either. There’s not even anything boring I can read for ideas.

How is writing like Four Square?

I know what you’re thinking. Not how is writing like Four Square but why is that even the topic? It’s the topic because, as usual, I ran out of ideas.

I asked my kids what I should put in a blog post this month. The one who is never out of ideas immediately said I could write about how writing a book is like Four Square. Her analogy was that the squares represent the stages. The dungeon is when you have an idea that you’re thinking about turning into a book. The jack is writing the rough draft. You’ve made it to queen when you are editing. King is finally holding a published book in your hand.

She even pointed out how sometimes it takes a long time to advance through the steps and while you can’t skip any, you can be knocked back to the beginning at any point. I was impressed by this insight. I also felt challenged by it. Given this thoroughly random topic, could I come up with something to write about? It sounds like an exercise for a creative writing class, and I could always use more exercise.

First, I made a list of what I know about Four Square. Then I tried really hard to make connections. It turns out that writing a book and playing Four Square have a lot in common, if you use your imagination.

1) Some people are better at it than others. Yeah, this is true of almost everything. But writing and Four Square are included. I get credit for finding this similarity.

2) It’s been around a long time. Four Square was a popular playground game when I was in school. My parents played it before me. Now my kids like to play. Writing has of course been around a whole lot longer. Still, neither is new.

3) You can play in different locations and with different balls. I’ve seen it played indoors and outdoors, with volleyballs, basketballs and most anything that will bounce. I think this could be described as the genres of Four Square. When the word genre is used, anything can sound like it relates to books.

4) There is a lot of arguing. In Four Square, the king gets to start each round by calling out the rules everyone has to follow. This is a little like what writers do. We invent characters and sometimes worlds and decide what happens next. In Four Square, after the king starts the round, everyone complains about the rules he or she has picked and whether or not they are being followed correctly. There are critics everywhere.

5) Story time. One of the craziest new rules I’ve seen is when the king yells, “Story time,” and all the kids gather in a circle to listen to the story. When the king says the secret word, the last kid to touch the ball is out. It may be short and completely nonsensical, but it is a story. And another check in the similarity column.

6) Sometimes I have no idea what’s happening. When the kids play Four Square at my house, the king calls out things like Pac-Man or Heartbeat or King’s Vacation and I have no idea what they’re talking about. Then the game starts, and the game I thought I knew looks like chaos. I’ve read books like that. I bet we all have.

7) It’s a long journey from the dungeon to the king square. Ask a kid who has played Four Square at recess every day for three weeks and never made it past jack if the king space is attainable. Now ask a struggling writer if the book will ever be finished. After all my brainstorming, my daughter’s initial observation is still the strongest argument that writing a book and playing Four Square are practically the same thing.

Life Imitating Art

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  My characters are not me.  I have definitely had main characters who said things I disagreed with and did things I would never do.  Recently, however, I experienced an uncanny parallel with one of my characters.  

In the book I’m currently writing, two people named Gabriel and Ruth are working together to lead a group at their church.  The group is supposed to discuss a different saint each week.  After Gabriel insists that it is Ruth’s turn to choose a saint, I wrote the following.

That was going to be difficult.  Whenever Ruth looked through the saints in these books, they all sounded interesting.  But only a little interesting.  She couldn’t seem to muster the desire to dig deeper on any of them.

Gabriel leaned back in his chair.  “We have a long time before we need to start on dinner.”

He’d obviously picked up on her reluctance to name a topic.  His patience was unfortunate.  She opened one of the books and began to read a random page.  Then she turned to another page.  It seemed that everyone she read about was born, prayed a lot, then martyred.  She was wondering where that wonderful variety was that someone had mentioned at their first meeting.  Plus, Ruth was very aware of Gabriel sitting nearby, watching and waiting for her to be inspired with an idea.  The pressure wasn’t helping.

She kept reading, skipping to more random pages.  Then she read one line that flooded her brain with too many thoughts to process.  “Oh, wow,” she said.

I had to stop there because when I wrote that part, I didn’t have the foggiest idea where I was going with it.  Oh, wow, what?  I didn’t know what Ruth’s idea was.  Ruth needed to have an idea.  That much I did know.  It’s not a secret that Gabriel is the love interest – that will be apparent in the blurb I haven’t written yet – and the hero needs desirable qualities, like an interest in the heroine’s ideas.  Therefore, the heroine needs ideas.  I was so stuck.

Like Ruth, I had some books on saints because I’d been doing research for this book.  I opened one and started reading.  If Ruth could get inspiration from something she read, maybe I could as well.  My concentration wasn’t great though.  I was skimming.  I was thinking of putting the whole project aside for a while.  Then I found something, one line, that sparked enough inspiration to finish the chapter.  I wrote out the rest of their conversation in no time.  While my own experiences do occasionally slip into my books - both intentionally and otherwise - this is the first time I remember writing something before it happened.