Nanowrimo: Finding character names in cemeteries, and taking advice from the dead

Counteract the Nanowrimo crunch with a trip to the graveyard. 

WHAT, you say.  I'M DEPRESSED ENOUGH TRYING TO NAME MY CHARACTERS AND WRITE MY STORY WITHOUT A TRIP TO THE GRAVEYARD.  I ALREADY FEEL LIKE THIS NOVEL MIGHT KILL ME.

I know.  Day after day! This task is too big!  We're just mortals!  We'll soon be dead!  Probably sooner rather than later, thanks to these novels! 

If you're worried about your word count this month, or this week, or this day, or this hour, consider an expedition to a place those measures of time no longer matter.  Cemeteries are real great for putting things in perspective.  A disclaimer: I have no one buried here.  My grandfather's ashes were scattered in the mountains; grandma wants to follow suit, so I don't know if our family will ever have stones to visit, or plots of grass.  These aren't my dead.  They're simply the dead, and the words they always whisper are these:

This too shall pass. 

The people buried here saw plagues and famines in their lifetimes, crop failures and bankruptcy, marriage and heartache and loss.  Whenever I get too caught up in myself- in an encroaching deadline, a dead-end plot thread, a whole scene thrown away, a whole chapter, a whole novel- I come here to realize how small those worries are in the scope of an entire life.  And how small an entire life is in the scope of the world. 

Also, I come to steal names. 

Rule #1 for stealing names from graveyards: Don't ever use the first names and last names together.    
Rule #2: Don't let anybody catch you sitting on their dead uncle.
Rule #3: Enjoy the soft grass.  

Cemeteries are extraordinary places.  Memory, and permanence, designed to outlast lifetimes.  Plus the cemetery caretakers do such a lovely nice job of mowing and putting out benches.  And cemeteries are quiet.  I like the older sections, with the crumbling mossy headstones.  If the dates are all from the 1800's, chances are not many people visit any more.  No one will find you scribbling away beside their relative.   
    Cemeteries are wonderful places to write.  
    I don't think the dead mind; I don't sit on their headstones.  I keep them company, and they repeat their slow reminder that grows more soothing the more frazzled you are: 
    "Whatever you're worried about, small young mortal thing, it's really quite fleeting, and not so scary at all.  We saw worse, in our lifetimes.  We survived.  At least until we didn't.  This too shall pass."
    The sun will set; the sun will rise.  Winter fades.  Spring returns.  
 

Happy writing.

-mlj

Nanowrimo: how much is 50,000 words? Looking up book word counts with perma-bound.com

So, how much is 50,000 words?  And how long are the novels on your shelf?

If you're just dying to see how your work-in-progress measures up to your favorite novels, or you're in the depths of despair because it might be longer than any feasible book ever written, or you're mortified it may be too short, or if you're just looking for another way to procrastinate instead of actually writing...

Look up book word counts at perma-bound.com. 

Perma-bound lists word counts for almost all the books they sell, except some very new ones that probably haven't been counted yet.  Go to perma-bound.com; search for your book; click it, and then click 'Reading Information.'  (I've heard Renaissance Learning lists word count too.)  Perma-bound is splendid.  I've come here dozens of times, usually wondering how long YA Fantasy tends to be (shorter than mine), how long debut novels tend to be (much shorter than mine), and how often a debut author has published a first book as long as mine (not very.)  Eventually, I stop procrastinating and get back to trying to cut words. 

If you're in the throes of Nanowrimo (Happy November!  Happy Novel Writing Month!) and you're wondering just what 50,000 words looks like, here are a few shortish novels followed by others in increasing size: 

Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt: 27,848

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho: 39,242

The Giver, Lois Lowry: 43,617

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams: 46,333

Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson: 46,591

The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner: 68,519

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, J.K. Rowling: 77,508

Cinder, Marissa Meyer: 87,661

Redwall, Brian Jacques: 101,289

The Scorpio Races, Maggie Stiefvater: 110,085

Seraphina, Rachel Hartman: 112,929

Graceling, Kristin Cashore: 115,109

The Name of the Wind, Patrick Rothfuss: 255,986

Happy writing, regardless of word count. 

-mlj

Nanowrimo: Naming your characters! A variety of methods.

(Naming assistant)

Firstly, if you're in the midst of Nanowrimo and you're in a breathless hurry, here's the simplest and quickest and most efficient name site I've found:

behindthename.com 

I've browsed online name sites for years and somehow never managed to reach behindthename in a search, so I'm reposting it here.  It's thorough, it gives ethnicity and meaning, and it displays in a nice long list to scroll through so you don't waste have your writing time clicking next and waiting for the screen to load.  And, best of all, it lets you easily search by top letter in the top bar. 

Step 1: choose a different first letter for all your characters. 

Step 2: Pick your favorite by sound, spelling, meaning, or cultural origin (preferably all 4) 

Now, must you have different first letters for all characters?  This is common writing advice (a la Orson Scott Card and many others).  At first I was skeptical, but I started paying attention.  As a reader, did I really find it confusing when two main characters had same-letter first names?  Was it really that much easier to read fast when all I had to identify was the first letter?  Actually... yes.  In a few recent books, where multiple characters' names began with A or D, and they were not only in the same scene but having rapid-fire conversations, the sort of banter you want to read quickly without mistaking names... yes.  It slowed me down a little.  Not much, but those first letters made it just a little more difficult to read, and if you want your readers to have an easy time, why bog them down with such an easy fix?  Burn your difficulty points elsewhere. 

The easier your book is to read, the more people will read it. 

So!  Now I make alphabet lists, with names by first letter, and when naming a new character, choose a letter not yet taken. 

This only matters if characters' names will apper side by side in the text.  No need to fuss if they're in alternating points of view from Sri Lanka and Siberia. 

While you're analyzing names:

• Vary the length and number of syllables between characters. Sam, Rachel, Jackalope, and Al-Faridi just look better and more interesting together than Sam, Ray, Jack, and Al.  (Or, far worse, Sam, Sal, Sarge, and Seth.) 

• The literal appearance of the name on paper is the first visual readers will have of your character.  Bob seems solid; Valinesse seems ornate and slippery.  Probably a villain.  Probably why so many villain names include the snake-hiss-sneaky sounds of the letters S, V, and Z. 

•  The ethnic background of a name will form our picture of a character more clearly than any description you give.  Choose wisely.  This is tricky, especially in American families, where our lineages are thoroughly scrambled.  We are mutts.  But for sheer ease of readers visualizing a character: if his last name is O'Malley and you describe him once as Hispanic (entirely possible, if his Mom's Venezuelan and his Dad's Irish, and he's got his Dad's last name), then repeat the name O'Malley dozens of times throughout the book… maybe we'll remember he was Hispanic.  But that O' in front of the last name is so traditionally Irish, that we also might forget.  If you name him Rodriguez, problem solved.  Sometimes all we see of side characters is what their name looks like on the page.  So if you want us to picture a team of professionals or staff of teachers as racially diverse, choose racially diverse last names, and readers see it with no further description. 

Anyway!  Where else can you find names?

1) Ethnic registries.  If you know your character comes from a certain culture, search it: 'Traditional Pakistani Surnames', or 'Common South Korean first names for girls in 1980', if you know when and where your character was born. 

2) Mythology, if you want to add history to a character.  The middle name 'Medusa' is bound to foreshadow something about a character's dangerous hair, or dangerous eyes, or turning some life form to stone. 

3) A Latin dictionary (or other obscure language), if you want to invent your own name from root words.  The Latin for poison is 'venenum'; the meaning could lend a foreboding clue to the means of murder preferred by a villain named V.E. Nenum. 

4) And, my personal favorite, because this is also one of my favorite places to write: cemeteries.  (to be cont'd.)

Happy writing.

-mlj