Barbara Delinsky's Blog, page 11

Naming the characters in my next book

You’ve heard of Dennis Lehane, right?  Since he’s a home town boy, my local press is all over him.  So I wasn’t surprised to hear tv reports that his dog, Tessa (yup, that’s her pictured above), had disappeared on Christmas Eve and that he was offering to name a character in his next book after whoever gave him information leading to its return.

This isn’t a new concept.  I’ve often auctioned off naming rights to the highest bidder at charity auctions.  But that isn’t how I choose most of my names.

Remember back in November when I blogged about writing the proposal for my next book?  At the time, I talked about Caroline and Jamie, mother and daughter, who would be the leads in the book.  That hasn’t changed.  Why Caroline and Jamie?  First and foremost, rhythm.  Seriously.  There’s variation in syllables and sounds, yet they flow together.  Second, they’re easy to pronounce.  Ever read a book whose main character’s name you don’t know how to pronounce?  Talk about a distraction from the story.  Caroline and Jamie?  No questions here.  Moreover, Caroline has the regal sound that I wanted for this mom, who is a carpenter but a total role model and, yes, in her tank top and cut-offs, an elegant woman. Jamie has a softer, more gentle and vulnerable sound to me, which was what I wanted for this character, whose actual life has been nose-to-the-grindstone work focused.

Back in November, though, I was using Roy as the name for three pivotal male characters – as in, Roy Sr., Roy Jr., and Roy III.  Family is important to this book, and these guys are part of a multi-generational family business.  Then I started writing, and, whoa, was it cumbersome.  If it’s cumbersome to write, how in the devil can I expect you all to comfortably read it?  Still, I wanted the family connection.  It seemed like something these MacAfees would do.  So, blending their needs with yours, I made the grandfather Theodore – Theodore MacAfee – which sounds patriarchal enough.  Roy Jr. became plain old Roy, which is brief and blunt and so fits the character.  And Roy III, barely two years old?  He’s now named after his grandfather Theodore, but called Tad.  Say the names aloud.  Theodore, Roy, and Tad. Does it work for you?

Another character is named Brad and another Chip.  What do these names connote to you?  And Dean?  Oh wow, Dean.  I don’t care how old you are, you’ve surely heard of James Dean.  Then again, some of you may be thinking Dean Martin.  Sorry.  He’s not my model.

I used to keep books of babies’ names for use in picking the names of my characters.  Now I use http://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/.  The government lists popular baby names by year, meaning that if I have a thirty-year-old character, two clicks and I have a list of the names most often used in that year.  Is this important?  To me it is.  I want my characters to be age-appropriate.  Like with the pronunciation issue, this makes it easier for the reader to correctly picture the character.

Unisex names don’t work ultra-well for me, though some would argue that Jamie can go either way.  Any question in the reader’s mind should be quashed on the first page, when she steps out of her car wearing a silk blouse, pencil skirt, and heels. From the get-go, she is feminine.

Last names are a whole other issue.  The sports page?  The obituaries?  The telephone book?  Your call (no pun intended).  Here, too, I consider ease of pronunciation.  Spelling, too.  Too complex, and the pronunciation is shot.

What’s your favorite name?  What characteristics does it suggest?  Want me to use it?

Tessa’s a great name.  I’ve always loved it.  I’m debating including a dog in the new book, probably because I miss Bear (from Sweet Salt Air) so much.  Bear was, well, a bear of a dog.  What would I name this new one.

BTW, to my knowledge, Dennis Lehane doesn’t yet have his Tessa back.  Last I heard, he was told to take down all the naming-rights notices he had tacked to trees and utility poles. Apparently, they violated town by-laws.  Wise crime novelist that he is, he gave up without a fight.  Perhaps you’ve seen Tessa, though?  My guess is Dennis would still use your name in a book. 

Why I’m not a book reviewer

I’m going to be very careful here not to slam those who do review books.  I admire many of them.  They read constantly and have a wide enough repertoire to give them a grand perspective on books.

But the contents of a book review is about more than reading.  It’s about the reviewer’s personal history and how it relates to the story.  It’s about her mood at the time of the reading.  If the book review is an assignment she didn’t want, her review reflects it.  Likewise, if the author of the book-to-be-reviewed is a good friend.  And if the book reviewer is a writer herself and is reviewing the competition?  Oh boy.  There’s an invitation for partisanship.

I’m guilty of all of the above.  Whether I like a book or not has to do with my own personal history, my mood at the time of the reading, and yes, whether or not the author is a competitor or a friend.

This is reality.  I’m trying to be honest here.

Which is why I call what I do “recommendations” rather than “reviews.”  I’m not an expert in literature; I don’t put myself up to be the judge of what’s good and what isn’t.  I simply know what I like.  And I can pass on those titles to you.  As for disclosure, didn’t I tell you right off the bat, in recommending Low Pressure last week, that Sandra Brown is a friend?

In the last few months I’ve read some books that I don’t like, some that I truly hate.  And I’ve blogged about them.  Only you’ll never read those blogs, because I won’t ever post them.  I don’t want to trash other writers any more than I want them to trash me back.

So.  If you want negative reviews, you’ll have to look elsewhere.  I’m taking the high road, and feeling better for it.

LOW PRESSURE: a book recommendation

Sandra Brown and I go way back.  We started in the field of romance together, actually met at the first ever Romance Writers of America conference.  We raised our kids, saw them marry and have their own kids at roughly the same time.  Both straying from the romance genre, I entered the field of women’s fiction, while Sandra made her mark writing thrillers. Her novels are beautifully written, exquisitely plotted, and deeply sensual.

Low Pressure, her latest book, is no exception.  I had the pleasure of hunkering down this weekend to read it, and while you know that I don’t do book reviews but simply tell you what I like, I gotta say I like this one.  Where to begin?

How about the beginning.  Low Pressure grabs you on Page One and never lets go.  Just when you think you’re getting a handle on Bellamy Price or Dent Carter or one of several key secondary characters, Sandra adds a twist that has you desperate to read on to learn more.

The words.  Whether describing the sky ahead of a tornado, the panic of feeling an assailant’s blade at one’s throat, or a physical desire that approaches explosive, Sandra nails it.

The characters. Bellamy and Dent are fully-formed, rich in background and hang-ups that prevent them from getting what they most surely want — that prevent them from even seeing what they most surely want.  Ahh, but the other sees.  Where to go from there?

The dialogue.  Sandra’s ear is perfect.  The dialogue in Low Pressure is fast-paced and realistic, true to the personalities of each speaker.

The sex.  Hot.

And the ending?  Very, very satisfying.

So if you’ve never read Sandra Brown – or if you simply want something grabbing during this holiday season, try Low Pressure.  I loved it.

Dealing with the loss of my characters

Readers feel this.  You’ve been engrossed in a book for however long it takes to read it and then, suddenly, the characters are gone.  You write me asking what they’ll do now and whether they’ll ever be back. But if you miss them, think of what I’m feeling when I finish writing a book.

Take Sweet Salt Air.  I’ve been living with Charlotte and Nicole and Leo and his dog Bear for a year and a half, so finishing the writing and having to let them go is bittersweet for me, too.

Which is why I usually start thinking of the next book even before the last one is done.  It’s a defense mechanism, a protection against loss.  Am I abandoning my characters?  Absolutely not.  I’m dovetailing.  The old characters stay with me; they simply ease slowly into the shadows as, increasingly, new characters come to life.

There’s another reason why I move right into the next book.  Writing is part of my life.  It’s what I do when I’m driving around in the car or when I wake up at night or when I’m here at my computer facing a blank screen.

I also have a contract that gives a date when my next book is due to be finished and submitted. And, by contract, I have to put together an outline of the next book for approval prior to the writing.

I finished the original draft of Sweet Salt Air in June, finished the revisions my editor suggested in September.  I’ve been plotting since then, going back and forth with ideas, playing the old What If game, which is how I flesh out a plot.  What if Caroline is a TV anchor – no, an actress – no, a carpenter?  What if her boss is her own son – no, her daughter – no, her daughter who isn’t her boss but her rival?

When I get flashes of images, I write them down.  Sometimes those flashes are of an opener, sometimes a closer, sometimes a pivotal love scene – or, yum, a sex scene.

So here’s the image I’m working with.  It’s an opener.  My main character, Caroline, is sitting on the porch of her charming Victorian home (hence the picture above).  It’s a warm day, promising to be a scorcher, but the ceiling fan is whirring softly, stirring up the scent of lilacs in bloom, and she’s holding a tall glass of iced tea.  Her bare feet are on the porch railing.  She’s basking in the success of a finished project, when the daughter she adores arrives with bad news.

Where would you go from there?  Don’t have enough info yet?  No.  But I do.  I’ve been living with these characters for a while now, and not only Caroline, but her daughter Jamie and her co-worker Dean and the head of the business, Roy Sr., who is the father of the man Caroline used to be married to.  Ahh, it does get complicated.

I’ve now put together nine single-spaced pages, describing the general plot, the central characters, the story’s progression.  I’ve identified the themes, the setting, the reason why I think you all will like this book.  At this stage, my job is to sell the idea to my publisher, which I would have done in early November if Sandy hadn’t postponed that trip to New York.  We’ve rescheduled for next Monday, at which time I’ll sit down to discuss the book with my editor even before she’s seen the pages. If she has questions, I want to be able to answer them there and then.

Nope.  No title yet.  That’s a marketing tool, so I let my publisher pick it.  Right now, I only see the trees.  They’re the ones who see the forest.

I will tell you this.  The book is a mother-daughter story that deals with sensuality and creativity and love.  Sound okay?