What We're Writing by Lucy Burdette

LUCY BURDETTE: First, I will say our hearts go out to every single one of you in the path of Milton. So much destruction and fear...we are with you in spirit.

My Key West #15 mystery is in the repair shop. That means the manuscript I blithely sent off in early September has been returned with my fabulous developmental editor’s suggestions. Actually, I didn’t blithely send it off; I knew perfectly well there were weak spots in the plot and a few character issues too. But I also knew all this could be fixed and that’s what I’m in the middle of. Meanwhile, over those two blessed break weeks, I caught up on lots of things that had been neglected, including reading some of my favorite writing and publishing blogs and newsletters like Jane Friedman’s. In a recent edition, I noticed the name Anne Dubuisson, who had written an article about the benefits of writing a book proposal.  (Another project I was tackling!) I recognized her as an editor I’d used before I was published. I named a character after her who became Miss Gloria’s Houseboat Row neighbor and best friend, somewhere along the 14 books in the series. I wrote the real Anne D. a note, thanking her for that long-ago help and telling her about the character, (whose name I had misspelled all these years.) Here’s her reply:

It’s so good to hear from you—thank you for taking note of the blog post. I recall our work well. You were one of my first freelance clients after I made the move from NYC publishing, and when I read your manuscript, I thought, wow, this gig is going to be great, such quality writing! Since then, I’ve been lucky to collaborate with numerous fine writers (and of course, many not as skilled), but your work is still a highlight.

Where might I find my namesake? So honored!

Isn’t that a lovely note? And surely exaggerated:). I wrote her my thanks in return, and sent a snippet about her character namesake in KW #15. 

Anyway, here she is in next year's release where Miss Gloria is taking her daughters in law on a small tour of Houseboat Row:

A few minutes later, she led her relatives back onto the finger of the dock. “Next up, Annie Dubisson’s home.”

This time I did troop along behind because it had been a minute since I’d seen the inside of her best friend’s place. Mrs. Dubisson appeared delighted to show us around. We toured the larger boxy living area, with a faded red Tibetan rug, a multitude of plants, and workmanlike kitchen. I knew the ladies liked playing mahjong here because it felt more spacious and lighter than Miss Gloria’s place.

“We love living here on the water,” Mrs. Dubisson told the guests. “That little bit of wave action at night always makes me feel like I’m being rocked to sleep in my mother’s arms.” She paused. “There are surely drawbacks—it’s damp out here and everything tends to rust, and it’s more trouble to schlep back groceries and what not. This life wouldn’t be for everyone. Maybe someday we’ll retire.” She glanced at Miss Gloria—two weathered old women who would be bored silly without something to do—and they howled with laughter.

Now I must return to the repair shop. But meanwhile, how important are characters’ names to you? Do you have an early mentor in whatever path you took that you remember with gratitude?

What's in a name?

RHYS BOWEN: Tonight I was at my health club when a small boy ran into the locker room, pursued by his mother.

“Luca, come back here. Will you calm down,” she begged as he jumped on benches and generally ran amok.

“Luca, we need to get your swim trunks on. You’ll be late for your lesson, and you don’t want to upset your teacher, do you?” And so on.

I’m used to obnoxious children at my health club. Too many BMW driving helicopter parents live in Marin County. But this one hit home. I had planned to call an enigmatic and possibly romantic lead in my new book LUCA. Now this child has ruined it. Every time I see the name I’ll picture demon-Luca jumping off the benches as his mother tries to catch him.



I like the name. It’s just right for the man I want… but I’m not sure if I can use it now. So I’m curious, dear Reds and Readers: have your character names been colored by people you’ve known? Do names have negative or positive connotations based on your experiences? I know I’m really influenced that way. And I confess… I have named horrible evil characters after people I have disliked. I named a butler Huxtep, because my evil headmistress was called Miss Huxtep and I wanted to put her into the role of humble servant.

I have named mean girls in the Georgie books after mean girls of my childhood. I have also named good characters after people I have been fond of.

So what about you? Do you choose character names based on your life experience? Have you ever killed someone you detested in your books? Confession time!

HALLIE EPHRON: Yikes. This is reminding me, I named a villain in one of my novels after an old friend, and she was very put out about it. It never in a million years occurred to me that she’d be anything but flattered. Because I only name characters after people I like. And I didn’t know she’d turn out to be the villain when I started writing her.

So this has come up for me when naming my children. Names that I loved my husband had negative associations with so those names were out. Fortunately, he was very fond of his graduate school adviser whose name was Naomi, so we settled on that for one of my sweet baby girls.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: That is EXACTLY the problem! I often do auction names for charity--and the people start out as good--but then what can I do, they turn into bad. But whenever that happens, I just change the names to something totally fictional, and use the auction name elsewhere as a good guy.

As for real people as bad guys or villains,uh, no, I have never done that. I have chosen some names as secret signals only understood by me or my husband, but no one in the public would ever know. And I will never tell.

LUCY BURDETTE: I got into trouble in an early book (not the Key West series) when someone bid on his name in the book and I made the mistake of having him turn into an unsavory character. “What, he paid good money and now he’s a pedophile?” John asked. Which was really an exaggeration, but point taken.

I’ve also had the problem of wanting to give a real person a cameo as a special nod. Unfortunately, the name was Eric. So now there are three Erics in THE KEY LIME CRIME.

None of that helps you Rhys! I say use Luca, it’s a good name. If you can block the annoying people out of your mind!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: I just auctioned off a character name to benefit my church, so naming is very much on my mind. I did once give a villain a real person’s name because the real person was a real SOB. Never heard anything about it, which is not to say I’d do it again, especially nowadays, when it’s so easy to Google names in a book!

I often slip in the names of friends and family members for spear-carrier roles - people who need to have a name to keep track of or have one or two lines before they vanish off-stage. It gives me a warm feeling to see their names pop up as I’m working.

One of the things I have to check myself on when making up character names is not slapping the wrong-era name on someone. As I get older (groan) I find my conception of young people’s/ older people’s names is increasingly out of date. I started to name a young woman Heather, and then thought… wait a sec. I looked up the name’s popularity. Guess what? Most Heathers are in their early forties now. And grandmothers have names like Karen and Cathy and Joanne, not Doris and Phyllis.

JENN McKINLAY: Oh, yes, I have a very long list of people whose names are saved for my villains or victims or, in the case of my unrequited crushes, my heroes. I think naming characters can be very personal and I do use it to exorcise some demons. But I’ve noticed that my strongest stories arrive in my head with the names already locked in. My July book PARIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD IDEA, came with every single character already named - Chelsea, Colin, Jean Claude, Marcelino, Jason, Zoe, Glen, Sheri, and Annabelle. Honestly, that’s never happened before. I’m going to take it as a good sign.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Rhys, I think Luca is a wonderful name. Forget about that annoying little boy and use it anyway!

My problem is that I have a really hard time giving bad characters names that I like. Some names, however, are neutral, and can be either a good or a bad character. And sometimes characters arrive full-blown, like Jenn’s in her new book, and I CANNOT change their names!

Julia, I always look up age appropriate names, and UK appropriate, too. But you can sometimes squeeze in an older generation name as characters might be named after relatives. Also, names that seem really old-fashioned are suddenly becoming popular again. Our neighbors baby girl is named Clementine!

RHYS: Another complication now that my work is in so many languages is whether names have a good or bad feeling in that language. (Like the Chevvy NOVA in South America where no va means it won't go!) I've no way of knowing

So how about you? Are your perceptions of names colored by people you've met? Do character names present themselves, like Jenn's or do you sometimes find you've called someone by the wrong name?

What We're Writing: Deborah Crombie #AmWriting #Mystery

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Confession: Book tours wreak havoc on a writing schedule.

I was on the road promoting Kincaid/James #16, TO DWELL IN DARKNESS, from September 20th until November 1st, with just a couple of sporadic and very frantic 24 hour stops at home.  It was a fabulous experience. I met so many wonderful readers and booksellers, saw friends and new cities, and got very good at packing. But did I get much writing done?  Um... There were days I had trouble remembering what city I was in, much less the plot of my book...

But now that I've had a few days to catch up, I've put on my writing hat and I'm digging in. (This really is my hat, dog hair and all. My niece bought it for me at Universal Studios! I feel just like Castle!)  However, I'm still not quite set on the title of Kincaid/James #17, and I'm struggling with character names.

Sometimes names are easy--I just instantly know what a character should be called, and it sticks. And sometimes I try combination after combination after combination trying to find the right one. Very frustrating, as I have trouble writing a character until I know his or her name.

There are so many parameters to consider. After sixteen books, it's hard not to repeat character names. (Assuming I remember what I've named all the characters in previous books... And yes, I know I've used "Jasmine" twice, but I had complicated reasons for repeating that one.) 

It helps me to write down the names of sets of continuing characters along with the proposed names of new characters for a book. Here's the page for THE SOUND OF BROKEN GLASS from my novel journal.  If you've read the book you'll see that

some of these names didn't make the cut. 

I've never been comfortable using the names of close friends and family. That takes out a good few, and so is a tradition I won't swear to keep up. 

Then there's the fact that Britain, and London in particular, are very multi-cultural and multi-racial, so some of the characters' names need to reflect that.

And THEN there's the rule about not having characters whose names start with the same letter, or characters whose name have the same sound. For instance, you don't want all your female characters to have names that in "y" or "ie." I've obviously broken the "same letter" rule--I have Duncan, Denis, and Doug as continuing characters, for starters. Oops.

Oh, and you don't want to give a character a name that is inappropriate to their age. You wouldn't want to name a woman born in the fifties "Tiffany" or "Brittney"-- it just doesn't feel right. Baby naming web sites are a great resource for this challenge. Here's one I pulled up, as I'm trying to decide on names for two ten-year-old boys.

Add to this the fact that my books tend to have a fairly large cast, and it gets mind-boggling. I keep a notebook handy when I'm reading or watching TV to scribble down names that I think might fit. Here's a page from my jottings for the book in progress. It will be interesting to see how

many of these actual make it into the finished book.

So, fellow REDS, how do you go about naming your characters? Do you have system? Do you change names in the course of a book if they don't seem to be working?

And readers, how much attention do you pay to names?