Amanda Meuwissen's Blog - Posts Tagged "character-names"

I’m going to detail out how one of my current new characters has developed to give some insight into my process at the start of a story.

My upcoming vampire novel, currently titled Life as a Teenage Vampire, was always going to have the vampire teen as the protagonist, though despite him speaking to readers in 1st person for his sections, it is arguable whether or not his love interest and best friend shares his role as protagonist with 3rd person-owned sections. I knew I had to find some sensible balance between both characters’ perspectives to tell everything I wanted in the right light.

But first I had a vague sense of the characters and story I wanted to tell. This was what came to me naturally, before I gave things much thought. Two 18 year old seniors in a small town (something I can write about with authority), one becomes a vampire, one is gay while the other is straight (later realizes he is bisexual), the gay friend is in love with the other, and by bonding more deeply over the first becoming a vampire, their friendship grows into something more.

A story of change and survival with an undercurrent of love, my favorite.

Next I named them. I won’t lie, when I’m stuck on names, I go over to babynames.com and type in words under meaning in the search that relate to the character’s personality. It’s fun, and often leads me to good names, or at least in the right direction.

But this time I didn’t need to do that. Emery is a character name I have loved and wanted to use for a long time, and since I had already planned to give the character the last name of Mavus—one of my husband’s nicknames from Meuwissen—Emery Mavus was born without much struggle.

I knew he had dark hair and hazel eyes, that he was sturdy having played football, but had switched to theater, and therefore had a bit of pudge from less physical activity. I didn’t sit down and decide any of this, I just knew it based around little reveals the character would give me as I wrote him. His athleticism but also his ability to act well, as would be seen in having to hide his nature from most people after becoming a vampire.

Something still felt off about him though until I decided to search areas around the world where Mavus was a common surname, and discovered that the largest population of people with that name live in Turkey.

Suddenly, I understood why Emery was always darker skinned in my mind. His father was of Turkish descent, though born in the US, and it only recently dawned on me that after Emery’s grandfather passed away, his grandmother, who had immigrated to the US with her husband in the 50s, moved home to Turkey, giving me an opportunity to have her visit and introduce some Turkish culture where fitting.

I never sit down and tell myself, I’m going to create a gay character. I’m going to create a person of color. I want to include this or that particular heritage. As I tell the story, these things are revealed to me, and I simply choose not to fight them.

Now, I don’t know if all other authors go through something like this process, where some things you just know, and other things you discover through research and the writing process, but I definitely find that letting it be organic like this makes for fuller, more realistic characters that readers can identify with and love.

How did your last character come to be?

*Photo from HERE.