Naming Characters.

There are many ways of naming characters while writing. I've used baby names books, websites with stats for popular names for a particular era, sites of names from particular cultures, sites with names and their meanings. But sometimes I like to get quirky, and sometimes I write in a genre and era where those resources aren't that helpful.

NaNoWriMo 2011 is a sci fi. With spaceships and aliens. What are the chances of an alien being called Doris? Possible, I suppose, but slim to non-existent. So I have to get creative! This year I have two sources for Alien names. I take any name that catches my eye from my spam folder. I love my spam folder. Then I also use scrabble. Yes, scrabble, and another word game on facebook. First open up a game and start playing, it's excellent procrastination. Then, when stuck for an alien sounding word, shuffle the letters you have and see if they make something that might be a word. It doesn't have to be the whole row of letters, it can be part of them, or some of them if there was a D, or something. It's an inspiration, not chains.

Nahso the engineer in this snippet was a scrabble name, as is the Martian that you haven't met yet, Ignaian.

[image error]Meeth turned to Sage with a grin. "Hang in there. There's a solution on the way, I hope." She closed the graphic for the medics and opened another that looked a little like a cogged wheel. Again she waited, leaning forward and agitated, wanting a response immediately and frustrated when there was a delay.

When the wheel changed, Sage's eyes widened. The blue skinned head was domed, hairless and smooth with three protruding eyes above long mobile protrusion that Sage assumed was a nose. There was no apparent mouth but when it spoke the "nose" moved at the tip, so she revised her initial impression and mentally called it a trunk, or perhaps it was an extended muzzle? A pair of flexible arms sprouted from a body that seemed to have no shoulders and the head just emerged from that too, with no apparent neck. Each arm ended in a mass of short tentacles.

"Wow." Sage whispered. Meeth didn't appear to hear her.

"Nahso."

"Meeth, what have you broken now?" The tentacles jerked as if exasperated and the trunk flipped from one side to the other.

"Nothing. How would you like to be able to play with one of Earth's combustion engines? Still think you can fit Rift Tech to one?" Meeth asked, Sage hung on every word. A car? With weird add ons? Cool.

Nahso squealed and Sage grinned at the obvious excitement.

"Yes!" The blue alien bounced.

"There'll be one on the way in a couple of hours, but before it arrives there's a job I have for you that needs to be a priority."

"Is it a Mini? Please let it be a Mini, I love those. A red one."

Fellow NaNo participants, I hope your words are flowing and any stumbles are just temporary setbacks. We've crossed the half way mark and hopefully you're at around 25,000 words, or more. Keep going, even if you're behind, you can still do it, you can still win!

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