The Reek of Wrong Titles and Character Names

Q: How do you come up with titles and character names? Do they change during the writing process?

- from Susan

CAPTAIN AHAB’S GREAT ADVENTURE

THE WHALE AND THE SEA CAPTAIN

ISHMAEL’S STORY

ONCE UPON A WHITE WHALE

A: Titles are tough for me. When forced to submit one I think is lame and that surely my publisher can improve, I’m rattled when they say, “Oh, I like that.” I admire authors who come up with good ones, time and time again. But nobody does it for me, alas, so I struggle. If anyone out there wants to chime in when the next book is close to submission, I will be absurdly grateful.

Names are another thing. They matter so much to me as a writer, to the book’s credibility, to the reader’s satisfaction as being believable. Because my lazy brain tends to sample and re-sample typical Anglo-Saxon options, I have taken to looking at online resources: names from a specific year – unpopular as well as popular – , surnames from other countries that may help readers see my characters as coming from a particular culture, and the occasional need for a name that starts with a letter not already used by one of my characters.

Emma

Mrs. Poliver

Jane

Precious

Gwendolyn

Bianca

Right now, I’m struggling because the protagonist’s name I settled on after two other choices starts with the same letter as her surname, which I love and don’t want to alter, and her fiancé’s, which I will change. I wasn’t crazy about it anyway. He is Anglo-Saxon and from a prominent New York family, and of another time, so there’s more research ahead of me. From Charles to…? (No, not Percival or Peregrine. I’m not trying for humor.)

I recently read a book I liked quite a lot, except that the protagonist’s name grated on me every time the author used it. To me, it seemed absolutely wrong for who she was, her age and her background, and my bias kept me at a distance from the story as a result. That’s an entirely subjective reaction. I don’t for a minute blame the author, whose own history, nostalgic recollections, or family names might have given her a completely different reaction to the name when she tried it out. No names will please everyone all the time. Late at night, scrolling down lists on Google, I remind myself of that. And I thank the Word programmers for the search-and-replace function, which makes the change of name after a ‘eureka’ moment so easy.

So, names matter. Title matter. And if I knew exactly how any why they matter to readers and editors, I’d share it with you. But I bet you know perfectly well when an author hits the mark: The Reek of Red Herrings, anyone?

On the Road Again 🎶🎵

What I’m Reading.
From Jim

I just returned from a week in Texas, where I spent time with great friends (and Mark Pryor, too), met a couple of new booksellers, and signed some books. And I drove. I drove a lot. Texas is as big as...well, as big as Texas. Knowing I was going to be on the road for several days, I decided to download some audiobooks to fill the time. And my week turned out to be very productive reading-wise. I managed to listen to five books in five days.

First up was William Kent Krueger’s latest, Sulphur Springs. Cork O’Connor and his new wife, Rainy, head for Arizona in search of her grown son, who left a frightening message on her voicemail. Scary dudes, drug and human trafficking, and nobody to trust. This is the seventeenth installment in Kent’s wildly popular, deeply spiritual, New York Times bestselling series. Great stuff! And a finalist for Best Mystery at this year’s Left Coast Crime along with our own Terry Shames’s An Unsettling Crime for Samuel Craddock.

I shifted gears (and nearly hit a truck on Interstate 35 between Austin and Houston), and let myself be transported to Thailand in the capable hands of Tim Hallinan. Fools’ River is the eighth Poke Rafferty novel. Expats are turning up dead in the filthy canals of Bangkok after their bank accounts have been drained and their credit cards maxed out. Oh, and for some unknown reason, all of the victims have their legs in casts... Brilliant work from a wonderfully versatile and talented writer. Also, be sure to check out Hallinan’s Junior Bender series if you’re partial to humor in your crime novels.

All Shall Be Well, the second of Deborah Crombie’s seventeen!!! Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James novels, proves that this beloved series was topnotch from the very start. If you enjoy Scotland Yard murder investigations and prose so smooth and persuasive that you’re instantly seduced into a forget-to-come-up-for-air reading experience, please read Deborah Crombie. Charming, authentic, and addictive, these books are my first choice for a new BBC TV series. I am a HUGE fan.

For some reason, I had never gotten around to reading Laura Lippman’s first Tess Monaghan mystery, Baltimore Blues. I’m glad I did. Lippmann is a giant of our genre, of course, and I can see the beginnings of her long and distinguished journey. Filled with wit and self-deprecation, Baltimore Blues is a paean to her hometown, even if it was a little down on its luck when this book was originally published. I’ve got a major crush on Tess. Great read!

Finally, I queued up Elizabeth Little’s Dear Daughter, and was rewarded with a novel that not only told a rich story with maddening characters and a compelling mystery, but also some of the finest wordsmithing and linguistic vertuosity that I’ve seen in a long while. (Or at least since reading Hallinan’s Fools’ River two days earlier!) Liz Little toys with words the way a cat might with her prey before delivering the coup de grâce. But there are no mice entrails left behind here. Just a brutally funny, creative, and unexpected narrative about a different kind of heroine.




And now, as I have some deadlines looming and a new Ellie Stone mystery to write, I may not get to read/listen to as many books as I’d like in the coming months. Until the next road trip, that is.

My To-Be-Read list

Terry Shames here. This week I get to talk about one of my favorite subjects: what’s in my reading pile.

Since the pile is somewhere around 500 books deep, I’ll have to cherry-pick. To start with, I’ll mention the books I brought with me on my book tour. I had picked up a copy of a book that was popular a few years ago, Norwegian By Night, by Derek B. Miller, and am halfway through it. It’s a very different read: philosophical, at times funny, at times poignant, and occasionally thrilling. I’m hoping to finish it before I leave Texas, so I can pass it on to my sister. I also brought Jeffrey Siger’s Sons of Sparta, which has been on my TBR pile too long. And I violated my rule not to travel with hardcover books and brought News of the World, which every person I know who has read it says is a must read.

                                                     

I was at BookPeople in Austin and although my suitcase can’t handle any more books, and I’ll have to carry these on board by hand, I couldn’t resist getting a copy of Mark Pryor’s latest, Dominic, a sequel to his amazing The Hollow Man, which features one of the creepiest protagonists I’ve read in years. I also had to buy Daughters of Bad Men, a debut novel by Laura Oles, which is getting huge buzz, including an Agatha nomination for Best Debut Mystery. While I was there I also met a writer by the name of Billy Kring, and was assured that his Outlaw Road was fantastic. Boom. Another purchase.

 

While I was at BookPeople I sold a couple of books as well—one by Rachell Howzell Hall, whom I discovered last year, and whose book City of Saviors is on the top of my TBR pile back home. I also touted books by Timothy Hallinan, and stood by while a reader wrote down his name. Shannon Baker was in the mix. I haven’t read the second installment in her new Kate Fox Mystery series, Dark Signal, but I told a reader about the terrific opener, Stripped Bare.

                     

I have some catching up to do on a few series. Two C.J. Box books are on my shelves, and I fell behind on reading Robert Crais, whose books I always enjoy. The Wanted is not only on my TBR list, but is sitting on a table in my entry hall. Two different people have recommended Alafair Burke’s new book, The Wife, to me, so it’s now on my TBB list—to be bought. Sometimes I put off reading a book because I’m saving it for when I need a book I know I will love, and Catriona McPherson’s books are in that category. House.Tree.Person. is calling to me from the shelf. For the same reason, I’ve put off reading the latest Lady Georgie caper from Rhys Bowen, although I usually fall on those in a greedy frenzy as soon as they come out.

     

When I’m on panels at conferences, I try to read books from each of the panelists. Happily, I’ve read the latest from James Ziskin (Cast the First Stone) and Matt Coyle (Blood Truth).

  

Although I’ve read plenty of William Kent Krueger, I haven’t read Sulfur Springs. And on my Thursday panel I’m eager to read the latest from Cathy Ace, Ellen Kirschman, Pat Stoltey and Heather Young—all must-reads, since I’ll be moderating that panel.

So many books….too little time!

A Hard Day's Write

How do you set real life aside and connect with the imaginary worlds you create? And how long do you write each day/week?

by Paul D. Marks

I’ll answer the second question first: Not enough. Especially these days. And I have no idea where the time goes, but it does. I have the luxury of not having a day job and working at home and I still don’t know where the time goes. I’m pretty disciplined, but life happens and keeps me from doing as much writing as I might like to do or have done in the past. I spend a fair amount of time with the dogs, both hanging with them and walking them. Sometimes I find them more interesting than humans and they often have some pretty good ideas for the stories I’m working on, so at least I can count it as productive time 😊.

Now to the first question: Sometimes it is hard not to let real life intrude. But you have to find a way to get into that headspace – the Zone – for writing. There’s so many temptations to keep you from getting there, listening to music, reading, researching, the dogs. Watching movies. Facebooking. Friends. On the other hand, these things – real life – while, distracting me, also often give me ideas for stories so it’s a 50-50 proposition. Sometimes it’s hard to get in the Zone, but listening to music can get me into the mood for a certain type of story. For example, if I’m writing something set in the 1940s I’ll listen to swing. If I just want background music I often listen to baroque. Something dark, the Doors or Leonard Cohen. And sometimes silence is the best. I used to always (try to) write in silence. But sometimes you need something to block out the world. Music does that, and so much the better if it helps with the mood of the story.

And while researching can be a distraction ’cause I enjoy it so much I also get a lot of information for my stories. I recently finished a mystery set on the homefront during World War II. I love history, I love American history and I love World War II history. So I was a pig in you-know-what doing the research for that novel (for which I would very much like to get an agent…). I spent a lot of hours on various aspects of the research. I used the internet, books, maps. But my best go-to source for how Los Angeles was in the forties was my mom and her friends. They could tell me things that weren’t in books. So back to the point, the research kept me away from the writing, away from the Zone. But it also gave me things to put in the story when I did finally get back to the Zone. There are a lot of distractions, but some of them pay dividends.

I usually work in my home office where I have a nice view. But the office itself is a nightmare-mess. My desk is a mess – but you know what Einstein said about a messy desk: “If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?” There’s also lots of stuff all around, posters and lobby cards from everything from In a Lonely Place to Pulp Fiction to album covers of the Beatles and a poster of Siouxsie and the Banshees. My picture of Dennis Hopper flipping the bird. Boxes of things, books, papers, the kitchen sink. So I have be able to put on blinders, get tunnel vision and just see the computer screen. Sometimes that’s easier than other times. And the way for me to do it is just to sit in the chair and stare at the screen and start typing away.

When that doesn’t work, I can just stare at Edward Hopper prints for inspiration. If anyone can be considered a “noir” painter he’s the one. In the pilot movie for the old TV show Night Gallery, if I remember it correctly, someone would look at a picture and be transported into that scene and a story would develop from there. That’s how I feel about Hopper paintings. They just bring so many stories to mind.

I’ve probably said this before, but when I was younger I had these romantic visions of being a writer on the Left Bank sipping absinthe or drinking Tom Collinses at Joe Allen’s, and when I lived in West LA I would go there. But when I would drink I wouldn’t want to write, I wanted to play, to party – I never got in the Zone that way. So that phase didn’t last long.

There’s so many distractions these days, TV, internet, radio, streaming, walking the dogs. The net. Envy the bucolic writer of the 19th century who had peace and quiet, but also no running water or toilets. So you just have to shut it all out as best you can. Clear your head. Sometimes I’m better at it than other times. But always the key is just to sit down and do it, sooner or later you’re in the Zone without even knowing you crossed the line.

Changing the subject ever so slightly: Earlier in the week, RM gave a nod to the Beatles and their song Paperback Writer. And since today is the anniversary of their first appearance on Ed Sullivan (February 9, 1964), I thought I’d give them a nod too, apropos of nothing:

VIDEO REMOVED

----

And now we turn you over to our usual BSP section:

Mind Blowing News: My story “Windward” from Coast to Coast: Privates Eyes from Sea to Shining Sea (edited by Andrew McAleer and Me, published by Down & Out Books) has been selected for The Best American Mystery Stories 2018 edited by Louise Penny & Otto Penzler. It will be out in the fall. To say I’m blown away is an understatement. – Also selected for Best American Mysteries from this collection is John Floyd’s “Gun Work,” and Art Taylor’s “A Necessary Ingredient” has been nominated for an Agatha. Not a bad batting average for one book 😁 .

Check out my website: www.PaulDMarks.com

Click here to: Subscribe to my Newsletter

Take one vulture . . .

How do you set real life aside and connect with the imaginary worlds you create? And how long do you write each day/week?

by Catriona

I've been scraping round the dusty corners of my brain trying to work this out for the last ten minutes - gazing out the window at a bit of dead wood sticking up, that looks like a perching vulture. Or maybe a small hawk. But I'm a crimewriter, so vulture. Which would be a terrible way to find a corpse in your garden, wouldn't it? You're admiring a bird, wondering why it's sitting there so patiently . . . How many vultures would have to assemble before you went to see what had drawn them to that spot?

In short, that might be the wrong question. The puzzler is "How do you set aside the imaginary worlds you create and connect with real life?" And it's a problem teachers started suggesting I work on when I was five. "Dozy Daisy Dreamboat" what what Miss Shaughnessy called me. Fair comment.

But trying again to address the topic: I think a sharp division with no blurring is key for me. I need my emerging fictional world to be all mine, with no input from anyone in the real world. That way, no one outside my head uses the book title and/or character names, or chats about any of the events. So I can step from my real life to the rooms, streets and clifftops of my work in progress without having to pack anything. And I can step back again without bringing souvenirs. 

I'd hate to have to remember what someone (real) said over coffee about my character's motives, or report on progress in the fictional world when I was done with it for the day. Brrrrr. Gives me the willies just thinking about it.

The weird moment comes when the book's done and I do let other people in. Every time, I get a kind of vertigo when my agent says "What I loved about Gloria-" or "Why did Lowell-" as if she's read my mind. 

By the time the book's out, I'm over it and I'm happy for any reader to have any opinion on anything. I'm no longer the boss of that world. Most readers of The Day She Died disagree pretty fundamentally with me about a certain plot point and it's never bothered me. 

Oh wait, though: a recent reader of Come To Harm asked me for a detail I didn't put in the book and I didn't know. I asked her what she thought and she came up with such a perfect, elegant, lighter-than-air detail that I wished I'd known in time to write it in. 

I don't know if I've just re-invented beta-readers or if that incident supports my furtive control-freakery. I mean, maybe it's only because I protect the world so much while I'm making it that it feels this real once I've made it. It's a complete world, with an answer for every question whether I know the answer or not. 

And how long do you write each day/week?

Much easier question! No gazing at stump-vultures required. Officially* I work from nine-ish till six-ish Monday to Friday, with some Post Office runs and a bit of travel time, if I'm headed for a coffee-shop. Of that probably half is actual writing. "Actual writing" means everything that happens before someone else sees the book. (Blimey, that really is the continental divide for me - I didn't realise before today.) So producing the first draft, researching the stuff I made up to put in it, adding the research, editing it down, re-reading the second draft, adding corrections, producing a third draft . . . Everything that happens after I hit "send" for the first time - structural edits, copy edits, line edits, proofs - is not "actual writing". 

*Unofficially, once a first draft has got some thermals under it and is floating free, I usually end up writing every day and can get my 2K words down in about three hours. I'm not there with this book yet. Here comes five hours of plodding.

Murderous nocturnal activities by Cathy Ace

How do you set real life aside and connect with the imaginary worlds you create? And how long do you write each day/week?

Setting aside real life to be able to connect with the worlds I have created, and am creating, is something that I – like most other writers – grapple with, and manage, in several different ways. For example, if I have a deadline looming I seem to feel the urge to clean something in the house, IMMEDIATELY! I have no idea why I’m happy for the light fitting in the bathroom to gather fluff for a few months, then to find it in urgent need of attention just a few days before a manuscript is due to be turned in, but that's what happens. It’s a form of procrastination I have become familiar with over the years, and I still find it soothing to shift the stress I’m feeling about a book onto something else.

At present, I’m working on a first draft that has no deadline attached to it, something that’s totally new for me. I’m actively creating the people, places, and situations, which will (hopefully) engage readers…such fun! But, even though I’m not seeking out distractions from that activity, I still have to focus on other tasks, because life demands that I do. I’m no different than most other people…I have to do things like writing this blog post, for example, or supporting my dozen books in the marketplace, or doing my daily work as Chair of Crime Writers of Canada. My two lovely chocolate Labs, who are my constant companions, need attention, as do the normal things in life…like family time, shopping, cooking, cleaning, laundry, working in the garden etc. 

 

Gabby, Poppy, and the garden - need attention at all times of the year

The result is that my “true” writing hours run from about 9.30pm to around 1am or 2am…when everyone is in bed, it’s dark outside, and it’s just me and my keyboard. I – personally – need peace when I am writing…no music, nothing to disturb me. I cannot write in coffee shops etc., for example. Well, maybe I could if I had to, but I’m lucky that I live in a rural area, with no neighbors, so peace is available to me. The nearest street light is one mile away, so I have real darkness outside the house at night, and the only noise is the occasional lowing of the cattle on the next property – that suits me just fine. All of that allows me to focus on what I am creating, rather than the reality of my dining room table, which is where I am writing this book (and this blog post).

Pretty much what I see from my writing table at night!

As for "how long do I write each day or week?"…that depends on where I am in the writing process. If we’re talking about writing my books (as opposed to writing things like this blog) then I don’t write every day, unless I am actively working on a first draft, when I write for about five hours every day. I don’t do daily word counts, because sometimes I write faster, sometimes more slowly, and sometimes my self-editing means I write negative numbers of words, because I delete chunks as I go along. Nope, word counts would drive me crazy. For me it’s about allowing the story to flow, and trying to get it right as it does so – sometimes my fingers can’t keep up with my brain, other times it’s the other way around, but I try to not let that bother me. Then there will be weeks and weeks when I am researching, outlining, checking plot shapes, and – of course – editing, when I am not “writing” at all…though all those other activities are essential parts of the authorial process (oh, that sounds very grand!). 

Every author has a different writing process; as I read this blog to myself it sounds as though I sit in the dark and tap away to write my books, while my days are used for other purposes. I suspect that’s pretty close to the truth. Indeed, as I finish up writing this, and look at my “To Do” list for the rest of the day, I happily admit I’m looking forward to everyone going to sleep tonight so I can “get back to” my fictitious world and characters, and spend some quality time with them.

Cathy Ace is the Bony Blithe Award-winning author of The Cait Morgan Mysteries and The WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries.  You can find out more about Cathy, her work and her characters at her website, where you can also sign up for her newsletter with news, updates and special offers: http://cathyace.com/