This week Kathryn poses the interesting question, when does a character or place earn a name in our stories? If you name a character, does he have to reappear in the story numerous times? What about places? We discuss and clear away confusion—ours anyway!
VIDEO
AUDIO
SHOW NOTES
At what point does a character or place earn a name? How do naming and significance relate? And how do you keep nameless characters descriptors from becoming boring or repetitive? And what about real world places? Is there such thing as a short cut? And finally we commiserate about the difficulty of naming characters. We all just want them to sound awesome!
What we talked about:
At what point does a character earn a name? (0:46)
What happens if you feel your descriptor is getting tedious or repetitive? (4:45)
How naming creates importance. (7:39)
No name does not mean a boring or cardboard character. (8:14)
When does a place earn a name? (9:20)
How naming things can reveal things about characterization. (11:14)
What about naming real world place names? (12:17)
What about naming objects? (14:26)
Writer beware – naming real world places that people may not understand or know. (17:20)
How you can use naming as an exercise to find your significance. (21:22)
The difficulty of naming our characters – we want the perfect name! (22:25)
LINKS
Things we mentioned:
Jack Reacher by Lee Child
Delicatessen
Firefly
Galaxy Quest