Love and Inspiration

Author Sharla Rae, a dear friend and former critique partner, has written a post on her site at Writers In The Storm Blog, When Life (And Your Writing) Takes A Detour. It's a very personal story about the journey she has traveled this past year with her son in his battle with cancer.

Sharla Rae

Please stop by and give it a read.  I know she would appreciate it.





http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/when-life-takes-a-detour/





Thanks, Carra

Naming Characters/Tips For Writers

I don’t know about you but I love naming my characters. Names come to me easily and usually when I least expect it. My current wip, titled Freefall, is set in the small Texas town of Bennington. Recently, in the process of describing the town, I needed the name of a local older business man who owns a large part of the town and plays an integral part in the lives of it’s residents. While writing the scene describing his businesses, Harlan Garrity popped into my head and I felt I’d known him all my life.

On the other hand, sometimes I come up with names I love, but there is no way I can get away with using them. Like the name for the ceo of a struggling airline company, Southern Star Airlines. I fell in love with the name Oren Thatcher. It was pointed out that the name too closely resembles that of Senator Orin Hatch. Yikes! Needless to say his name has been changed to protect the famous.

Tonight, while searching for a subject to blog about, I came across this post concerning character names. I was immediately intrigued. The list of tips made sense to me and then I came to Tip #6 – Overused Names. The name, Jack, was precisely mentioned. Well… wait for it…you guessed it. That’s my hero’s name. I don’t think I’ll rush to change his name, I like it too much, but I will give it much thought.

Thank you for joining me. I’ve included the complete post here, along with the link to Baby Names. I hope you’ll find it interesting and as helpful as I have.

Please leave a comment sharing your character naming process. I’d love to hear from you!
Carra

Tips For Writers
There are many literary and movie characters that become everlasting brands in our culture—Atticus Finch, 'Ratso' Rizzo, Holden Caulfield and Scarlett O'Hara, for example. If you name your character right, you will choose a name that is unique to your character and memorable to your story. The names you choose should reveal something about your characters: who they are, where they come from or where they are going. Here are several tips we compiled for writers of stories, novels, tv and movies to help you choose the perfect name for your characters.

Tip 1: Make the name age-appropriate

The biggest mistake we see writers make is choosing a character name that is not age-appropriate. Many authors make the mistake of choosing a name that is popular now for an adult character--a name that would have rarely been used around the time of that character's birth. Decide the age of your character and then calculate the year your character was born. If your character was born in the U.S., browse the Social Security Name Popularity List for that year. You will also want to take into account the character's ethnic background and the ethnic background of his/her parents.

Tip 2: Choose a name by meaning

Many writers give their characters names that have significance in the story. It could reflect major personality traits, or the character's role in the story. You may want to use our advanced search to search by literal meaning, or think of ways to incorporate other meanings into your character's name. For example, if your character is a botanist, you may not want to name her Flower (too literal), but you may want to consider the names Linnea or Sage. Even if you choose not to name a character by meaning, you should look up the meaning of all your characters' names—there may be something that inspires you or, on the other hand, conflicts with your message.

Tip 3: Exotic romance names are out

Thirty, forty years ago, you would pick up a romance novel and the characters would have ridiculously exotic names like "Crystal Remington" or "Rod Delaware." Same with daytime soap operas. However we're seeing a shift in the past decade or so: romance and soap writers have modernized their character names so readers can relate to them. Naming a romance character should be no different than naming any other fictional character. If you use all the other good character naming tips, you'll create a genuine player to whom your readers can relate.

Tip 4: Science fiction names don't have to sound alien

It's difficult to predict what names will be popular in the year 3000, however you don't have to make your science fiction characters sound like they are from Mars (unless they are). When a person reads (or watches) your story, you don't want them to stumble over a name. The name Zyxnrid, for example, would be difficult to read or listen to every time the character is referenced—and may detract from your overall story. If you do choose to create your sci-fi name, you may want to:

• Combine two common names to make a less common, but pronounceable name. Example: Donica (Donna and Veronica).
  
• Use ancient mythological names, or combine two of them. Example: Ceres or Evadne.
  
• Make it easy to pronounce and spell. Example: Bilbo Baggins from Lord of the Rings.

Tip 5: Terms of Endearment

When writing your story, be aware that people who are close rarely use each other's full names. Couples will use nicknames, terms of endearment (honey, dear, boo). What nickname have your characters come up with for each other? Also, parents rarely call their children by their full names--unless they are admonishing them for bad behavior or testifying in court. If you have loving parent characters that are addressing their kids, use a nick name or term of endearment (sweetie, baby, D.J.). An exception to this would be if you want to show the parent character being cold and distant to their child.

Tip 6: Overused Names

For some reason, every writer loves to name his hero JACK. I know it's a tough-sounding, honest-working name, but naming your hero Jack is like naming your son AIDAN. It's overdone. Be a little more creative, so your reader will remember your particular protagonist as opposed to the umpteen-million other books they've read about Jack. Also, do not give your protagonist the initials J.C. as an allusion to Jesus Christ. That tactic was overused in 60's/70's fiction and is almost laughable by today's standards.

Tip 7: Loaded Names

Watch out for what we call "loaded" names--names that have a popular association. These could be names associated with celebrities, historical or infamous people like Adolf, Oprah, or Kobe. They could also be names of famous literary, tv, or movie characters: Hannibal, Scarlett, Romeo, Bart. If you do choose to use "loaded" names, then you really should make it part of the story, part of the character. Your character's mother was obsessed with Gone With the Wind, so she was named Scarlett--how has it affected her throughout her life? How does it affect her in the story?

Tip 8: Have Fun With Names

Have fun with naming your characters and take time to see what "fits." What was your character's childhood nickname? Is that an embarrassment when his parents address him in front of his friends? Did your character change his name at any point in his/her life? If so, why? Does your female character want to change her surname when she gets married? Why or why not? Names are such an important part of one's identity, don't take it lightly with your story!
http://www.babynames.com/character-names.php

Links To My Favorite Sites

We are two weeks into the kitchen remodel, for those of you who don't know, and it's going very well. Still chaotic, mind you, my apple cart's still upset, but it's like we're on a camping trip! Such an adventure... and we still get to sleep in our own bed!

I thought for this post I would share links to my favorite author blogs. Take a look at each one and see if you agree. They are as follows:

 Margie Lawson - http://www.margielawson.com/
Kristen Lamb - http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/
Katie Ganshert - http://katieganshert.com/
Susan Mallery - http://www.susanmallery.com/
Julie Ortolon - http://www.julieortolon.com/
Jennifer Crusie - http://www.jennycrusie.com/
Caroline Clemmons - http://carolineclemmons.blogspot.com/
Lyn Horner - http://texasdruids.blogspot.com/

I hope you will visit one, two or all. Leave a comment on their site if you are so inclined and, if you do, mention where you found the link! Or..leave a comment here, I'd be thrilled!

Thanks for visiting, I appreciate your valuable time, Carra

SOCIAL MEDIA - HOW DO WE USE IT?

This is a good time to be involved in social media. Isn't it? I'm a newbie and don't mind saying so. I finally made a commitment to myself this past year to work steadily on my WIP until it's finished. Great you say and I agree. Well to reinforce my commitment, I first chose a pseudonym to enable me to be more free to express myself (Is that cowardly?). Next, I added a Facebook Author Page. That rocked along for a few weeks and I thought - Blog. Yes that's what I needed to do next. I pondered that and took the time to tackle setting that up with the help of my pioneering author friend and critique partner, Lyn Horner, http://texasdruids.blogspot.com. In my estimation the woman is fearless in her endeavor to epublish and self-promote.

So, blog up and running on Blogspot, I start thinking - Wordpress. How hard can that be right? Holy-moly, that just about ate my lunch! That one's been in the creation phase for about six weeks and I'm still not happy or confident that it's ready to really be out there.

OK, so that covers Facebook, Blogspot and Wordpress and I start thinking - Twitter. My good friend and former critique partner, Sharla Rae, blogging at, http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com, said I should really do that to get my name out there. Great! It's done, yea! So easy, and I already have forty-two followers. It's all so exciting and yet so confusing at the same time. I ask you, what the heck is a hashtag? And how do I use them?? What's the etiquette, the dos and don'ts? I sincerely don't know, but I can tell you one thing, I'm in need of someone who knows what they're doing.

Thank the heavens for Kristen Lamb! I found her blog through a post she had this past week on Writers in the Storm Blog, Http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com, The Doctor is in the House - Novel Diagnostics by Kristen Lamb. This post was wonderful in it's own right, but finding her website and blog was even more helpful. Her blog titled, 10 Ways to Improve Your "Likability Quotient", is great in that she tell us how to interact with the social medias; the dos and don'ts. The following is an excerpt from that post with a hyperlink to visit and read the entire article. It's excellent, enjoy!

10 Ways to Improve Your "Likability Quotient" by Kristen Lamb
A couple weeks ago, I had a post about how to sell fiction. We explored the WHY behind the BUY. The same tools that will sell car insurance or bank accounts won’t work for selling books. Fiction is emotional, and often we will purchase based off feelings. This is why likability on social media is so crucial to marketing. We are no longer selling stories…we are selling ourselves, which just confirms for me that writers really are the oldest profession in the world. But that’s another topic entirely .

Often we will judge a book by its cover author. If interacting with the author is a pleasant experience, we feel better about purchasing their books and even promoting them to our network of connections. Conversely, if an author is self-centered, self-promotes non-stop, spams everyone in sight, takes without giving in return and acts like an equestrian derriere, we would sooner suck nails through a straw than part with .99 that would benefit the jerk writer. A few of you were concerned, however, about how to be “liked.” No need to panic. Today’s post is here to help. Connecting with others is so simple that we frequently make it harder than it needs to be. Being likable doesn’t mean we need to be phoney.
There are a lot of different ways to do social media. My WANA... http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/

Included in the post are the Top 10 Ways to raise your L.Q.  They give us a road map, if you will, as to how we should communicate with all the folks out there who can help us by way of us helping them.

Well, that about does it for today. In no time, we should all feel like Sally Field. I hope. You like me, don't you? That said, I really need to go write - after I check Facebook, stats on blogs, Twitter, email...

Reach: Kristen Lamb - http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com
            Sharla Rae      - http://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com
            Lyn Horner     - http://texasdruids.blogspot.com