Romeo by any other name would still be a little bitch

I’ve never realized just how bad I am at thinking of names. It’s quickly becoming the biggest hindrance to my writing after my own laziness.

I don’t know what it is about naming characters that scares me so much. I know everything to know about the characters I create, but not their names. I know +it seems kind of foolish to say that I know everything about my characters seems, but after reading so many Vonnegut novels I find myself thinking up elaborate back stories for the most insignificant characters even though I know I’ll never actually write most of it. I guess I’m glad of the habit because it helps me figure out how characters would react to certain situations.

So how is it that by the time I actually come to write about a character their names cripple me. I’m always afraid that my names will come of as being too generic (especially when the genre dictates weird names, such as fantasy or steampunk) or too ridiculous. On the side of ridiculousness I’m not afraid of being unique in names, but rather ridiculous in the cliched sense in which characters are named based on their characteristics or place in the story.

I think that the bigger problem might be that I don’t like boxing my characters into existence (if that makes any sense) by naming them. The more I reveal about a character in the story, the less I can play with their back story in my mind. This a problem that I must solve going forward, as writing while fearing character development is counter intuitive to say the least.

I’m hoping that as I get used to naming and introducing character it will become easier. Any ideas for names for throwaway characters would be appreciated.

~ by willdanceforideas on July 2, 2008.