Favorite Character Names: "Getting A Handle On Naming Characters"

"Gettting A Handle on Naming Characters" is the title of an interesting bit posted on The Guardian newspaper blog by Ben Meyers recently. He talks about the importance of the right name for a fictional character and the idea of a character 'growing' into a name.

This got me thinking about the more successful character names. What works for you as a character name? I suppose for everyone it's a bit different. I have been known, I confess, to stop reading a series of books because the main character's name was just such a turn-off. Won't say what, won't say who and won't say why - it's my secret to keep. (And yet I KNOW the books are very good and I'm probably missing out. One of these days I'll have to get over this.)

So with my penchant for lists alive and well and ready, at any moment, to spring into action, I thought I'd list some 20 or so character names I've always liked.

• Odd Thomas named by Dean Koontz.
• Hondo named by Louis L'Amour
• Jack Reacher named by Lee Child
• Atticus Finch named by Harper Lee
• Marianne Dashwood named by Jane Austen
• Elvis Cole and Joe Pike named by Robert Crais
• Flavia de Luce named by Alan Bradley
• Captain Hook named by J.M. Barrie
• Spenser named by Robert Parker
• Armand Gamache named by Louise Perry
• Dodsworth named by Sinclair Lewis
• Hercule Poirot named by Agatha Christie
• Jane Marple named by Agatha Christie
• Achille Poirot named by Agatha Christie
• Peter Blood named by Rafael Sabatini
• Scaramouche named by Rafael Sabatini
• Arkady Renko named by Martin Cruz Smith
• Elizabeth Bennett named by Jane Austen
• Fitzwilliam Darcy named by Jane Austen
• Jack Twist named by Annie Proulx
• Jane Eyre named by Charlotte Bronte
• Sam Spade named by Dashiell Hammett
• Chet and Bernie named by Spencer Quinn
• Ben Quick named by William Faulkner
• Dido Twite named by Joan Aiken
• Richard Jury named by Martha Grimes (though I've always hated the name of his best friend Melrose Plant - I mean, really.)
• Amelia Peabody named by Elizabeth Peters
• Samuel Grapearbor named by Jordan Ellenberg
• Harry Potter named by J.K. Rowling
• The Great Gildersleeve named by I don't know who.
• Sherlock Holmes named by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Mycroft Holmes named by Arthur Conan Doyle
• Sebastian Flyte named by Evelyn Waugh
• Winnie the Pooh named by A.A. Milne

Well, I'd better stop for now. But it occurs to me looking at this list that I like both colorful, flavorful names and names that are short, tough and sound good spoken aloud. AND that most of these are male names. Hmmm. Well, I do seem to prefer male protagonists, no question.

Of course the names must have something to do with the character - don't you think? A good name will, thereafter, invoke the character instantly and form a picture in the imagination. I suppose, a good character name is a sort of 'brand.' It's not easy to trifle with brands. Most of them are permanent.

Off the top of your head, can you think of character names you've liked and remembered over the years?

The Perfect Sentence.

Once in a great while but very rarely, I'm afraid, I will come across a sentence that just knocks me for a loop. A sentence that makes me stop, look around for support (even if there's no one else in the room except my dog), point to the sentence and say: "Will you look at this? Pay attention, now." Then I read it aloud. (My dog pretends to listen.) This moment is often accompanied by the urge to run to the window and demand the world's attention. A perfect sentence is nothing to sneeze at.

Luckily for me, I've never given in to this urge.

But I've decided I need a place to post perfect sentences of my acquaintance whenever - if ever - I come across one. This blog is my way, I suppose, of running to the window and demanding the world's attention.

A perfect sentence is a funny thing. I believe it doesn't, necessarily, have to have anything to do with its surroundings. Oh, it helps if it blends in. But occasionally, I've fallen in love with sentences that are living la vida loca by themselves. Just existing in their own little universe at the beginning, middle or end of a book. The rest of the manuscript can be mediocre OR wowza! Doesn't much matter. (Though of course, wowza! is much to be preferred.)

The string of words which may capture your eye, your imagination and your understanding of perfection can exist on its own, independent of what else is going on around it. I truly believe that. Sometimes you come across a sentence like this and if you sound it out, you will hear music. In that case it is the sound of the words rubbing together to make some sort of agreeable noise.

Or sometimes, it's the combo of sound and word selection. There are some words which are exceptionally pretty to view and say aloud. Then there are the words which in and of themselves are gently innocuous but when placed side by side with just exactly the right companions, they are transformed into shooting stars.

So, okay, indulge me. I'm going to give over a little section of my blog to perfection. Not quotes, although of course, they will be quotes since the sentence will be taken from the pages of books I may be reading. But they will not be chosen so much for meaning in the context of the story, as for meaning you might make of them on their own, separate from the story. Perfect sentences that can exist just for the sheer joy of perfection. Can words be beautiful on their own apart from contextual meaning?

I think so.

Of course, if none of this makes any sense to you, then oh well, I did my best to explain . Move along, move along, there's nothing more for you to see. Ha!

I'll begin with just one sentence posted on here for now. One - until I'm lucky enough to come across another piece of perfection. Of course, that may be: never. Or next week. One never knows.

I'm going to begin - not with Shakespeare which is rather the more obvious choice - with a sentence I found in a Jordan Ellenberg's exceptional debut novel THE GRASSHOPPER KING. (His only novel, I'm afraid. Ellenberg told me, by email, that he wasn't going to be writing any more fiction for awhile. He wanted to focus more fully on his mathematical pursuits. I believe he's a math professor.) Well, I suppose having once made such a brilliant debut he can rest on his laurels. Having written the most gorgeously perfect sentence within that debut doesn't hurt either. No matter if he never writes another book, I'll have that sentence.

But I have to tell you, this one of my all time favorite novels - a book I honestly cherish. When I read it I kept thinking, wow. Wow. Wow. All the way through. It's THAT kind of thing. The book is basically a fiendishly clever (and often hilarious) take on fate, irony, myth, marriage, the perils of university life, tenure and, oh yes, bad poetry. Doesn't sound very appetizing, does it? But I can't describe it any differently. This is a book that you either clasp to your bosom from the first few sentences or you don't. I did.

Occasionally if it reminded me of anything, it reminded me of Pulitzer Prize winning author Richard Russo's take on university life, STRAIGHT MAN. (Another book I recommend if you like the university setting as a background for mildly bizzaro doings.)

Well, okay, this is not really meant as a review of THE GRASSHOPPER KING which I will not review fully for fear of not being able to reveal its exquisiteness to you in a way that will make you run right out and get a copy for your very own. There are books I just love too, too much to risk you not liking them. It's a personal thing. I couldn't bear it if you told me, well Yvette, I just don't know what you see in this boring old thing. Nope. Don't want to go there.

Herewith, that perfect sentence lifted from Jordan Ellenberg's book:

My father, a mild man, dedicated to prudent consistency, demurred.

A sentence that sings to me of all sorts of things. Said aloud it is music to my ears. Looked at, it is beautiful. Dissected, it could have several meanings. The word 'demurred' purrs.

What next? I hope to be adding to The Perfect Sentence every now and then as I run across something that strikes me as exceptional.

To those of you who may have understood this odd little post of mine, I say: prepare to share any perfect sentence you may come across in your day to day reading. Keep your own aesthetic eye on the look-out.

And, by the way, I'm not going to be going through the books on my shelves in search of perfection. No, I am just going to begin keeping my eye out, from this day forward, not forcing the issue, depending on happenstance. (If I wanted to, obviously, I could just sit here and pick through Shakespeare or the English poets and come up with perfection by the bucketful. But that would be too easy. Easy is not what this is about. It's more of an on-going treasure hunt.

Sunday Salon: Advice to writers...

Coming as we are, nearer to the February 14th deadline of our Short Story Challenge, (Hopefully you all haven't forgotten about it!) I thought a bit of useful writing advice might be welcomed for those of us stumped on a sentence or blinded by the glaring white of a blank page. (Figuratively speaking.) For more on the Short Story Challenge.

ADVICE TO WRITERS A Compendium of Quotes, Anecdotes, and Writerly Wisdom From a Dazzling Array of Literary Lights Compiled and Edited by Jon Winokur seems just the thing to snap us out of our possible literary doldrums on this cold winter day.

(The book was published in 1999.) From the editor's Introduction: This book will not teach you how to write. Whether you use a fountain pen or a word processor, writing is finally sitting alone in a room and wrenching it out of yourself, and nobody can teach you that.

But here's some good advice anyway, since Jon Winokur maintains that ...you can still learn, because writing is self-generating...

On Characters:

Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created - nothing.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Nothing is as important as a likable narrator. Nothing holds a story together better.
Ethan Canin

The character that lasts is an ordinary guy with some extraordinary qualities.
Raymond Chandler

The characters have their own lives and their own logic, and you have to act accordingly.
Isaac Bashevis Singer

A character, to be acceptable as more than a chess piece, has to be ignorant of the future, unsure about the past, and not at all sure of what he's supposed to be doing.
Anthony Burgess

On Critics and Criticism:

The artists who want to be writers, read the reviews; the artists who want to write, don't.
William Faulkner

Listen carefully to first criticisms of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.
Jean Cocteau

On Dialogue:

Dialogue has to show not only something about the speaker that is its own revelation, but also maybe something about the speaker that he doesn't know but the other character does know.
Eudora Welty

A man or woman who does not write good dialogue is not a first-rate writer.
George V. Higgins

Remember that you should be able to identify each character by what he or she says. Each one must sound different from the others. And they should not all sound like you.
Annie Lamott

On Discouragement:

It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.
Julian Barnes

On Encouragement:

Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Proceed with confidence, generating it, if necessary, by pure willpower. Writing is an act of ego and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.
William Zinsser

Writing a book is like driving a car at night. You only see as far as your headlights go, but you can make the whole trip that way.
E.L. Doctorow

Be in love with yr life
Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
Blow as deep as you want to blow
Write what you want bottomless from the bottom of the mind
Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
Jack Kerouac

As a writer you are free. You are about the freest person that ever was. Your freedom is what you have bought with your solitude.
Ursula K. LeGuin

Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Butler

On Genres:

A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.
Edgar Allan Poe

Reporting the extreme things as if they were the average things will start you on the art of fiction.
F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fiction is a lie, and good fiction is the truth inside the lie.
Stephen King

The mystery's very much the modern morality play. You have an almost ritual killing and a victim, you have a murderer who in some sense represents the forces of evil, you have your detective coming in - very likely to avenge the death - who represents justice, retribution. And in the end you restore order out of disorder.
P.D. James

Anybody who shifts gears when he writes for children is likely to wind up stripping his gears.
E.B. White

On Material:

Write what makes you happy.
O. Henry

There are only two things to write about: life and death.
Edward Albee

Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to your imagination than your memory.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

On Qualifications and Requirements:

I know everything. One has to, to write decently.
Henry James

An essential element for good writing is a good ear: One must listen to the sound of one's prose.
Barbara Tuchman

Real seriousness is regard to writing is one of the two absolute necessities. The other, unfortunately, is talent.
Ernest Hemingway

You have to be a little patient if you're an artist: people don't always get you the first time.
Kate Millett

If you have enough talent. you can get by after a fashion without guts, you can also get by after a fashion again, without talent. But you certainly can't get by without either.
Raymond Chandler

On Rules and Commandments:

Either it sounds right or it doesn't sound right.
Isaac Asimov

Resist much, obey little.
Walt Whitman

Do not pay any attention to the rules other people make...They make them for their own protection, and to hell with them.
William Saroyan

On Style:

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Samuel Johnson

A good style should show no sign of effort. what is written should seem a happy accident.
Somerset Maugham

Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn.
Gore Vidal

On Technique:

Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder.
Raymond Chandler

On Tricks of the Trade:

Read over your compositions and, when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Samuel Johnson

I don't know anything about fingerprinting or ballistics or any of that stuff, and if you're any good you can fake most of that.
Robert B. Parker

When the plot flags, bring in a man with a gun.
Raymond Chandler

The trick is leaving out everything but the essential.
David Mamet

Don't say the old lady screamed - bring her on and let her scream.
Mark Twain

On Words:

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a the lightning bug.
Mark Twain

Don't use words too big for the subject. Don't say 'infinitely' when you mean 'very'; otherwise you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.
C.S. Lewis

On The Secret:

The secret of good writing is to say an old thing in a new way or to say a new thing in an old way.
Richard Harding Davis

When you sit down to write, tell the truth from one moment to the next and see where it takes you.
David Mamet

Learn to write by doing it. Read widely and wisely. Increase your word power. Find your own individual voice through practicing constantly. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and learn to express that experience in words.
P. D. James

Make it new.
Ezra Pound

The shorter and the plainer the better.
Beatrix Potter

There isn't any secret. You sit down and you start and that's it.
Elmore Leonard