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There may be four Michaels in your acquaintance, but
they’re all different – even if each one prefers to be called Mike. Prefer – that’s the thing. If one
Michael opts for Mick, fine, that’s his choice. If Patricia elects to be called
Pat, that’s fine too.
This is in the real world.
However, in the world of fiction, it’s recommended
that you don’t use the same name or variants, unless there’s a very valid plot reason. Because similar
names have the potential to confuse the reader. Just because you can cope with
four Michaels in your life, it’s not necessarily so easy for your readers, as
they haven’t got your history of friendship and acquaintance and visual clues
to fall back on to avoid confusion.
So, my plea to writers is, make life easy for the
reader: one Michael, please. Or John. Or Jane. Or Alice… I’ve read a book with
three Toms in its pages, all unrelated.
I know it isn’t easy, believe me. When I started
writing short stories, if I was writing about an old chap, he was always called
Alfred. (Maybe subconsciously I was thinking of Bruce Wayne’s butler). I
quickly realised and changed it; certain names spring to mind at once, and
there you go, you’ve got your character christened. Maybe sometimes it would be
wise to rethink. Is the name appropriate?
Some names are hard-sounding, and therefore
preferable for a villain – or a bold hero. If you’ve got a tough heroine, then
try to settle on a name that conveys that toughness too. For example, Rapunzel
doesn’t quite do it – indeed, no long name does. One of my heroines is called
Tana Standish – so her first name is short, quite hard, and her surname is old
and suggestive of high nautical rank. It’s a perception thing, and it may be
misguided, but that’s how it works. There's nothing to stop you writing against perceptions, of
course, but at least be wary of their existence.
Another name issue to avoid is beginning character
names with the same letter. Some names can be so different even though
beginning with an ‘S’, for example, that they’ll never be confused by the
reader. Fine. But why invite confusion? It isn’t as if there aren’t plenty of
alternatives in the world. I’ve got a book of First Names, but recourse to the
Internet will produce countless examples, in virtually any nationality. Researching
your character’s name can bring up interesting meanings, too.
‘I’ll never understand why Tolkien settled on two
villains with the names Sauron and Saruman!’ – Write a Western in 30 Days (p89).
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The final name issue is those names ending in ‘s’ – Jones, Landers etc. Nothing wrong with that, of course. So long as you’re comfortable with the possessive apostrophe.
Modern writing seems to allow Jones’ – that is, with no subsequent apostrophe ‘s’; although it’s preferable to write Jones’s. To some extent it may depend on the publishing house rules. The final arbiter can be Fowler or Strunk and White, of course.
Purists will insist that only Jesus is entitled to
not have a possessive ‘s’ – Jesus’
sandals are leather, for example. (See p56, Lynne Truss’ book Eats, Shoots & Leaves (2003)
Then there’s the plural, where there’s more than one
in the family – keeping up with the
Joneses; no apostrophe, because there’s simply more of them, that’s all. It
could be keeping up with the Barnets; same applies.
I maintain a spread-sheet for my Leon Cazador
stories (Spanish Eye has 22 of them).
To date, that lists 98 different names used in those tales; I try to avoid
using the same first letter for characters in the same story, and it enables me to
keep track of who appeared when and where, in case any, such as relatives or
villains, crop up again.
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